Vicky Burkholder's Blog

I’m reading a book by an author I love – wait, let me amend that – I love her books, her…not so much. I have met her. She comes off as a snob and I’ve seen her snub fans in person, including young teens who really don’t need that kind of attitude from an idol. And no, I won’t tell you her name – not setting myself up for a lawsuit. But while I may not personally like her, I do like her writing. And like many others of my favorites, I find myself putting off things that need done just to read one more chapter.

One more chapter and I’ll go take care of the dishes. One more chapter and I’ll make dinner. One more chapter and I’ll get to my own writing. Just one more chapter…

That’s the kind of book I want to find more of. Ones that draw you in and won’t let you go. Even now, I’m sitting here with the book next to me, about a hundred pages left to read, and all I want to do is finish it. And yes, it wouldn’t take me that long to read a hundred pages, but I have things that have to be done. Things I’ve been putting off just to read one more chapter. And no, it’s not the dishes or dinner – I can put those off. I’m leading a writing workshop on Saturday morning on editing and I need to get my notes together for the class. And I do have an actual job that I occasionally go to – one where I earn a paycheck. Things I need to do.

But just one more chapter…

How much does the cover of a book draw you? At the small bookstore where I work, we front out books that have interesting (to us) covers. When I'm looking for a book, I know certain covers draw me in while others make me skip right over the book. That's a shame, I realize, because I may be missing a perfectly good read. However, when I see badly drawn cartoonish covers or ones that were obviously photoshopped with someone of less than adequate ability, I tend to think the book may be of lower quality as well.

And yet, I have read really good books that had horrible covers. I've also read horrible books that had really good covers. What should matter is the writing - and it does. But still, I'm drawn in first by a good cover. Awful to admit, but there it is.

So what about you? Do you pick up a book based on the cover?

Yesterday was a good writing day although if you go by statistics it doesn't look like I did anything. I am in the process of rewriting a finished manuscript. The first chapters needed a lot of help. I ended up deleting almost seven pages of writing, but then I also added in almost the same amount of new work so in the end, my word count was barely changed. I believe writing is one of the few professions where you can spend hours of intensive work and have it look like you've made no progress at all. But it's all good - the new work is much better than the old and the story will be all that much better for my having changed it.