Reading along with Mark

I’ve been enjoying the hell out of my own books lately, thanks to Mark of Mark Reads/Watches/Does Stuff. I mentioned before that he’s been doing a read of the Inheritance Trilogy lately, and I’ve been following along. He’s at the penultimate chapter of the first book now, and… well, hell, just watch him:

For bonus points, count the number of times he says, “FUCK!” or “THIS BOOK!”

Let me tell you guys: it’s an unbelievable thrill for me as an author to watch someone react to my work like this. A good chunk of writing is trying to manipulate your reader’s emotions — yeah, I said it — and seeing if it worked is better feedback than even the best writing group or critique can offer. It’s also so gratifying to know that someone noticed a turn of phrase or line I was especially pleased with, and it’s awe-inspiring to know that someone finds my words, my little words, profound. Even though I wrote The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms years ago, watching this is doing wonders for my writing now, because it’s helping me refine and better-understand just how hard to hit something, or whether a delicate glancing blow would be more effective. Mark, if you’re reading this, thank you. And fellow authors, if Mark decides to do a reading of your work, brace yourself, because you’re in for an amazing ride.

To that end, I have just commissioned 10 videos for the last few chapters and end-material for The Kingdom of Gods. I feel a little weird commissioning readings of my own work, though, so to make myself feel better I’m going to throw down a challenge gauntlet and rope you into the fun too. :) Most of The Broken Kingdoms and The Kingdom of Gods have not been claimed thus far. So if you’re enjoying these videos too, then please commission a chapter yourself — it’s only $25, though please note the rules on length — and I will match your commission, up to $250. So if just 10 of you commission a video, I’ll do 10 more, and between us we could get most of the trilogy covered!

But even if you can’t commission anything right now, please spread the word about Mark’s awesome Reads. Seriously, these deserve to be seen far and wide.

9 thoughts on “Reading along with Mark”

  1. Heya,

    I’ve put up $50.00 for more chapters. Thank you for doing this! I’ve been hoping to get more chapters commissioned. It’d be great for this to be as completist as possible with this. :D

    Woo hoo!

  2. Besides being an amazing author, you are a beautiful and wonderful person for doing this and writing such lovely, perspective-changing books. I found your work through Mark and I cannot get enough of it. I’m looking forward to working my way through it in the coming weeks. Thanks!!

  3. I’ve only read HTK, but Mark doing this has given me the motivation to do the rest (that’s nothing to do with your writing, which is amazing; I was just worried that books two and three would be nothing but darkness and depression after seeing how far you were already willing to go). I just bought two chapters.

  4. He makes me want to re-read this book!

    I love how transparent his reading is. I can only imagine what a high it would be to hear him react to your own work…..

  5. I contributed $50 to Mark for 2 chapters in Broken Kingdoms (including the final one).

    It makes me so happy that authors enjoy what Mark does, too! His site is a great thing in my life. Plus, I’m SUPER excited to see you at Arisia 2015, in Boston!!!

  6. Though I would have bought them anyway eventually, Mark has convinced me that I need to own the whole trilogy NOW so I can read along with him. Can’t wait till they arrive this is so fun YAY!

  7. I had a few questions from reading some of your blog posts about your characters, if you don’t mind.

    You mention in the character study on Itempas that he is younger than Nahadoth and Enefa. But I would swear I’d read that Enefa was born last, and that that was one of the sources of the conflict: that it had been just Itempas and Nahadoth by themselves for a very long time before she showed up. I donated my books so I don’t have them in front of me to check.

    You also mention on your entry about Darr that Yeine deliberately lost the combat in her womanhood rite. Man, I must’ve seriously overlooked something because I thought the whole problem had been that she actually had lost, but couldn’t bring herself to submit to being raped, so she decided to kill him even though the fight was officially over and done. I thought her motivation was that she didn’t believe she would be accepted as the ennu if she “permitted” herself to be raped. I can’t believe how badly I totally misconstrued that entire scenario.

    I just finished reading Killing Moon recently. Can’t wait to pick up the second book next month.

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