So, I once again find myself with a bit of time to kill and realize it would be as good a time as any to slap something on here as it’s been nearly a month since that last rant (although I doubt this one will be quite so long, nor as diverse in its subject matter).

The easiest thing to get to first would be what I’m currently reading– and by “currently” I mean the last book I set down out of all the books I’m more than ten pages into (which, quick count here, is about… twelve books strong, and that’s being generous and not counting the ones I set aside more than three months ago). Anyway, it’s a book that’s quite appropriate to this post: On Writing by Stephen King.

On Writing is a book that has been recommended to aspiring authors by more professionals than I can list, chief among them (for me, anyway) Michael A. Stackpole. It’s a book about the craft and the approach writers should have, set against the backdrop of Stephen King’s life (the first 100 pages constitute a rough autobiography). I’ve never been a big fan of Stephen King, but that’s mostly due having never read his work. I’m simply not big on horror and that’s what the guy is best known for. But, I admit, I’m interested in the seven-book Dark Tower series and The Stand, at the very least. If On Writing is any indication, I’ll be very comfortable with his style.

Sitting here, less than 24 hours since first cracking the spine on the book, I’m already through half of it. The book makes me feel the way I did when I first started listening to Stackpole’s The Secrets podcast– which, coincidentally, is also about becoming a better writer– about two years back. It’s a feeling that you can sit down and crank out a book like it’s nothing. It’s like being a kid on Christmas morning, being given all these new toys, and wanting to do nothing but try each and every one of them out (no matter how disjointed that might make the story). Despite my anxiousness to do that, I’m just as anxious to actually finish the book– because having twenty toys to try is better than five. I mean, duh.

I’ll be giving it a serious go this summer. I’ve got at least three story ideas that are ready to go, two of which can easily be combined into one larger story, with no specified length in mind. It could be a short story, a novella, or a full fledged novel. I don’t know. I lean towards novella, but we’ll see. My goal is to have the first draft of it done by August, giving me roughly three months to crank this beast out. It’ll mark the first time I’ve tried anything larger than a short story in about eight years, so I’m raring to go. And it’ll be the first time I’ll be able to really put the advice from The Secrets (and, now, On Writing) to use. I’ll try to keep some sort of progress update running on here.

Competing for my time during all of this, though, is that damn attractive pile of unread books. It doesn’t help that I just went out and bought even more of the things to add to that high stack (On Writing being one of them, matter of fact). In addition to Jim Butcher, Star Wars books, and Brandon Sanderson (whose Mistborn trilogy is fantastic reading), I’ve also got Gaiman to get to, Heroes Die and Caine Black Knife by Matthew Woodring Stover, The New World by Michael A. Stackpole, several Timothy Zahn books (including a just-released tie-in to the new Terminator movie), Book of Lies by Brad Meltzer, Kingmaker, Kingbreaker by Karen Miller, and… oh, yeah.

 I’ll have to add The Legend of Sigurd & Gudrún by J.R.R. Tolkien to the list. That comes out in a mere two days and I know I’ll be there to pick it up. Sadly, however, since finishing The Silmarillion, I’ve been pretty bad about attending to the works of the master. I have yet to finish The Children of Húrin, which came out two years ago. And I keep forgetting that I also picked up Tales from the Perilous Realm last winter, which collects five of Tolkien’s lesser works, plus his essay “On Fairy-Stories” (somewhat disappointed that one of them is Roverandom, which I already have and read, but, oh well). I’ll repeat that. I forgot that I had it. I think it’s buried under a pile of books. But, by golly, I’ll add yet another piece of Tolkien literature to the stack, because that’s how I roll. 😉 Heh.

So what do I go out and buy? Why, a stack of non-fiction, of course. The Real George Washington from the National Center for Constitutional Studies. A book thick enough to give Robert Jordan a run for his money. American Lion by Jon Meacham, a biography of Andrew Jackson’s time in the White House caught my eye. So much of what we know about these guys are passing anecdotes, really getting into the meat of their lives and accomplishments is something I’m interested in doing. When you pair that with Jackson’s increasing importance to Presidential politics, it should be a fascinating read. Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose, because it’s always worth reading the book when you’re watching the series (more on that at a later date).

Then there’s Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell, the story of a Navy SEAL unit in Afghanistan that became embroiled in one the deadliest firefights in history, from which only Luttrell walked away. The book is about the friends he lost that day and the price they paid. I offset this one as its own paragraph simply to bring attention to the brutal killing of this man’s dog by punks out for laughs one night. Every one of those guys needs to be thrown in jail and then we need to conveniently lose the key. Since first hearing about this tragic event, I decided Marcus Luttrell’s story was one I wanted to hear, so when I saw the book, into the stack it went.

And, y’know? That’s just the top of the pile right now. If I went any deeper, we’d wind up with a post longer than all of the previous ones combined. That, however, is a pretty good overview of where my reading path is likely to take me over the next several months– if not years.