Progress. Real Progress.

I've set a new goal of 495 words/day. That was 2 days ago. So far, I've got 534 and 583 for those 2 days. It took me about an hour to do each of those (9 words per minute), and I'm getting the feeling like Tom Morello did when he was practicing guitar.

At first, I was practicing about an hour a day. Eventually, after I graduated from college, I was practicing about 8 hours a day. By practicing regularly, rather than playing six hours on the weekend and letting the guitar sit all week, I saw a steady growth and developement in my playing from that persistence. Once I recognized that was happening at an hour a day, then I kicked it up to 2 hours a day, and then to four hours a day. It was to the point where it was really obsessive. I would not play one hour and 56 minutes a day, I would play two hours a day. Come hell or high water, if I had a 103 degree fever, I would play two hours a day. If I had a big exam the next morning, and it was 2:00 in the morning, I would play until 4:00 in the morning, without exception.

So, I don't really like realistic books

I started reading Cast of Shadows by Kevin Guilfoile. It's very well written (and set in Chicago!) and I want to like it, but it's just too realistic. It was creeping me out. Well, not really creeping me out, I guess, but just making me uncomfortable. Which I'm sure it's supposed to do. But I had the same kind of experience with The Bone Collector (which is surely not even on the same level), and though I ended being okay with that book, I didn't get over the uncomfortable feeling of it being too realistic. I don't want to be worried every time I get in a cab that the cabbie is going to kidnap me. And, for now at least, I don't want to think about the horrible thought of cloning an unidentified killer, and letting him grow up in society, just to see what he looks like.

So, now I'm trying to decide between three "first of a series" books: Pawn of Prophecy, The Scions of Shannara, and A Game of Thrones. I'm leaning towards the first because I know that the series is only 5 somewhat shorter volumes, as opposed to the Heritage of Shannara, which is 4 slightly longer books (though the total probably isn't that much longer than the Belgariad), and The Fire and Ice series which starts with an 800+ page book, and has at least 4 books.