One of my favourite all-time literary characters is Robin Hobb’s Fool, from her Tawny Man series (and the Farseer books, and he also makes an appearance in Liveship Traders).  And yet, I nearly didn’t read the first book.

I had not read the Farseer (Assassin) books at the time. I got Fool’s Errand out of the library on one of those sweeps that I do when I am looking for something—anything—to read. Pick up a book; yes, it’s a fantasy; no, I haven’t read it; yes, it’s standalone or the first in a series.  I read the first few pages, thought, “Ho hum, just another introspective story about some guy who has powers. Boring,” and put it down again.

Calder is more forgiving with books. She picked it up too and actually read far enough into the book to meet the Fool.

“You have to read the Fool,” she said, and I trusted her taste to read enough of the story to become interested. 

So after she finished the book I picked it up again, skimming the first bit until Fool came into it, and I read it avidly from there.

I have read these three books probably a dozen times since (and I read the start now, too). They rate highly in my all-time list of favourite novels.

What makes these books so good? The relationship between the two main characters, Fitz and the Fool. And not just these two, but every other major character in the book is fantastic. There are lots of characters to love—not too many to hate, and I like that in a book—really decent, well-rounded characters with a lot of depth.

It helps that there’s an interesting plot behind this, not to mention a well-crafted world, but it’s still the characters that drag me in. It’s the characters that pull me back to the story time and time again.

And to think that I nearly didn’t read the novels to begin with.

Nothing quite stops my creative juices like a house full of visitors. Particularly at our house, where the office is open to the rest of our house.

I love our open office. It’s a separate room in the centre of the building, with two doorways but no doors. You can’t close it off.  It’s also the only room with computers, and the only one with internet access.

At this time of the year our house is an open house, with lots of friends and family passing through. I love that, but it makes it easy to procrastinate about writing. There’s always someone wanting to use the internet, or playing games. If you sit down to write there’s always a child or two peering over your shoulder to see what you are doing. Sometimes I wish I could just shut the door.

Instead, I am using it as an excuse not to write.

Before Christmas I had a lot of work deadlines. November and December were total write-offs as far as novel, and even blog, writing was concerned. That’s understandable. The work that pays the bills always takes precedence.

Now, however, I’m just putting it off. I need to get back into the habit, and I’m finding excuses—like visitors—not to do so.

I don’t have to write on the PC. I can write longhand in a notebook if I have to. I have done this often enough when the writing is flowing.

Writing this blog post is a start. Let’s see if I can push myself back into it from here.

I bought a book the other day. I found it by flipping through the fantasy shelves at te local bookshop and bought it because the voice and style were similar to Potion.

It looked to be an easy read.

I don’t know what made me think it was like Potion. Sentence structure and choice of words were part of it, I think.

I started reading. Thirty pages on I was so bored I was almost falling asleep—and I still couldn’t get over how similar this writer’s sentence construction and choice of words was to ours.  I flipped the pages. It didn’t get any better.

I went back to Potion. Was our story really as bland as this one?

I don’t think so.

So what was the difference between this writer’s story and ours?

I am honestly not sure. I liked our characters better, but that’s a personal preference. It’s almost impossible to write a novel, and then to continually re-write it, if you don’t like your own characters. I didn’t care enough about the characters in the other book, and couldn’t get interested in them enough to become emotionally attached to them.

I also felt our story had a more interesting plot. The other story was a more traditional fantasy. The plotline could almost have come out of a ‘how to write fantasy’ tome. It also had a lot of info dumps. Large chunks of information dropped into the middle of the story.

Even so, put the two novels side by side and you might almost say they were written by the same person.

I’m starting to get worried.