No time for my own stuff, but the power went out today so I couldn't get much w-f-h stuff done either. I read a bit of a book a writer friend lent me, and actually learned something from it. What I learned is that I'm not being neurotically obsessive and self-sabotaging in my rewrite of the swordfighting ms, because in the book I started reading, the same thing was wrong. The story started out and captured my interest, but then it went off on a pre-determined storyline. Once the predetermined storyline set in, the book went dead. As a doornail. Nothing wrong with the writing, nothing wrong with the storyline, either. It all made sense and was readable. But the heart dropped out of it. I've never seen a book do that--or if I have, I haven't been in a position to notice it before.

No, scratch that--I've seen books do it at the ending. But endings are hard, and that's a different ball of wax. This was sort of near the front. It was a brain-born plot, and it left everything that tugged at me behind, and suddenly I. Did. Not. Care.

Usually if I get bored with a book, I get annoyed and frustrated, but this time I was like, "Oh, cool," and a light went on.