| Time and books |
[May. 4th, 2012|04:01 pm] |
It’s lovely to go on vacation and loll around reading—I don’t get to do it often enough, meaning I don’t get to devote four hours a day to it normally. Obviously, I read every day. Here are some of the books I enjoyed recently:
Believing the Lie by Elizabeth George—Lynley and Havers—what more could you want? If you love mysteries, this is the one series you have to read.
Deaf Sentence by David Lodge—He hits the proverbial nail on the head when he writes that blindness is tragedy, while deafness is comedy (“Smoke Gets in Your Ears” anyone?), although really, it’s no less heart breaking. It’s a wonderful book to savor, and you will understand what it is really like to become hard of hearing. Lucky Jim grown up.
Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler, illustrations by Maira Kalman—I didn’t want to break up with these characters. I demand a sequel. Pretty please? This is the kind of book that makes me not want to start reading another book, because it probably won’t live up to this one. I know I will, but still.
I need to choose a book to read for my next Book Club season. Any literary suggestions? The other members kind of object to 900 page novels, although I’ve done it before. |
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| Hoarding knowledge (and books) |
[Apr. 26th, 2012|03:22 pm] |
I was reading this article in O Magazine’s March issue, and was dismayed to recognize myself. Yes, dear reader, it appears I am a book hoarder. In Walsh’s terms, that makes me a knowledge hoarder.
If I had an e-reader, it wouldn’t be as obvious that I have an overflowing bookshelves problem, I suppose. I could still collect books, just in a teeny tiny format. But they wouldn’t add to the R-value of my walls. Books work as insulation, don’t they?
But they do take up a lot of room in my suitcase, as I am recently back from vacation. While I was away, I read Elizabeth George’s latest Lynley and Havers novel (Believing the Lie). Her novel could be used as an actual door stopper, not that I would ever ill-use a book so. I think I have seen the light—the actual lightening up—of bringing along an e-reader when traveling.
Also, carry-ons have shrunk, which makes me think I should shrink my traveling books. |
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| Noodling around |
[Apr. 4th, 2012|12:58 pm] |
When you are noodling around, trying to come up with an idea for a new writing project, you get a lot done at home. I am frequently the Mistress of Disorganization, but not this week. Here are some of the things I got accomplished. Go, me!
Recycling—Magazines, begone! Catalogs, begone! And I even removed all the staples with the stapler eater. However, I think I now might have carpal thumb syndrome.
Catalog Choice—I got added to many mailing lists when I subscribed to magazines when I redeemed expiring airline miles. Also, my late mother, who did not have a computer or really understand what everyone was doing on the internet, received every catalog known to womankind. Because I forwarded her mail, now they all come to my house. Anyway, Catalog Choice is a wonderful site that will take you off mailing lists. So, farewell Appleseed’s and your old lady clothes, Auf Wiedersehen Brookstone, bye bye Chasing Fireflies, goodnight Garnet Hill (you should make clothing in tall sizes), don’t darken my doorstep anymore Norm Thompson and your old lady clothes, and aloha Title Nine (you should also make clothing in tall sizes).
Cleaned my house—La la, I hired a cleaning gentleman to do it for me.
Found the top of my desk—After much excavation and filing, it appeared. It would be nice if the universe would arrange a book deal for me, so that I can donate the successive drafts taking up space in my filing cabinet. |
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| When revision goes bad |
[Mar. 15th, 2012|07:35 am] |
Me: “I don’t want to work on this book anymore. I’ve gone through 10 chapters.”
Conscience (aka ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=91.7) janni):“You have 45 minutes until your meeting. Just do 10 more pages.”
Me: “But I printed them single-spaced!”
janni: “Okay, do five pages.”
[Not feeling it…thinking about a cookie instead, except secret writers and illustrators hangout has stopped carrying snickerdoodles... for which they suck... because I could totally have done five more pages if they had my favorite cookie...]
Me: “I know—I can blog!” |
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| Tucson Festival of Books |
[Mar. 12th, 2012|12:00 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | adam rex, chris van dusen, guy porfirio, jack gantos, janni lee simner, jennifer j. stewart, joan sandin, jon scieszka, kadir nelson, karen lynn williams, larry dane brimner, lynne avril, mac barnett, megan mcdonald, peter lerangis, phil bildner, r.l. stine, susan lowell, t.a. barron, tucson, tucson boys chorus, tucson festival of books | ] |
Well, you had to be there! I was, for the fourth year in a row, not a presenter this go round, but a VERY enthusiastic attendee. Plus, I got to moderate the presentation by Mac Barnett and Adam Rex about their picture book, Chloe and the Lion, so how lucky am I? Except, they did not do anything to cause me to blow my incredibly loud referee's whistle... Okay, I am a little disappointed about that.
I came home with books autographed by Mac Barnett, Phil Bildner, Jack Gantos (yes, with a shiny Newbery sticker!), Kadir Nelson, Adam Rex, and Cynthia Leitich Smith. Somehow Megan McDonald and Larry Dane Brimner managed to escape me. Well, I know where Larry D.B. lives.
P.S. Before the festival began, I completed my second unfinished novel, and pushed SEND to my secret agent to get her thoughts, which earned me gelato, courtesy of Janni Lee Simner. Today is catch up day, and mulling over what to write next. |
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| Why do these things happen to me? |
[Feb. 27th, 2012|03:14 pm] |
On Saturday, I got up at 4:45 in the morning, and headed for Casa Grande. I was to give the keynote speech at the Arizona Young Authors Conference, and then lead three groups of schoolchildren in a writing workshop on description. My fellow presenters were Lynne Avril, Sigmund Boloz, Rhody Cohon, Marianne Mitchell, and Conrad Storad.
I had obsessed over my speech, and even written out note cards to go along with each of my PowerPoint slides, but when it came down to it, I didn’t even look at them. It appears that I am like one of those dolls, that when you pull the string in her back, she starts talking. So that was fine.
Then came the workshops. To really get into writing description, I had come prepared with seashells, three bags full, which my small and medium-sized relatives had collected for me on the beach. My sister-in-law had warned me I should wash them, and give them a bit of a bleach bath. Probably I should have done this when I first got them. But I let them sit on my backyard picnic table for seven weeks until Friday morning, when I thought, oh, I guess I should wash them. Only, it turns out, that when you wash seashells, and then you close them up in bags, perhaps not being completely dried out, that when you open those bags, there is a truly horrible smell.
Yes, dear reader, I reconstituted the stink. I found myself apologizing to the kids and their educator-handlers, but then I said, you know, this will make your descriptions even better. I got words and phrases like this: smelly, stinky, smells like feet, smells like shrimp on ice at the Fish Market. So the stink was not all bad.
Well, okay, it was *really* bad.
I also showed the kids this quotation from Oscar Wilde: “I am a ship without a rudder in a night without a star.” Once they had guessed what Oscar W. was getting at, I challenged them to come up with something similar, but they couldn’t use the word “lost,” anything to do with boats, or the nighttime. Not easy for some of them at first, but I got lots of interesting metaphors, and one girl came up with “I am a book without a reader.”
Perfect.
I really hope the kids remember to set their shells outside, and don’t leave them sealed in their backpacks. |
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| Gushing over Downton Abbey, Novels, and Picture Books |
[Feb. 21st, 2012|11:30 am] |
Now that Season 2 of Downton Abbey is over, I suspect I will have more time to read, and perhaps less time to obsess over the fate of Lady Mary and Matthew. Although I still have a novel to finish, I’m happy to report that I may have fixed the plot-holes yesterday afternoon. It required ingesting lots of fudge that my husband made me for Valentine’s Day, because chocolate helps my neurons fire. Or so I tell myself. My plot-hole patches aren’t neat-looking, so that’s what comes next, to smooth them out. So I suspect that the novel and the keynote speech I need to write for the Arizona Young Authors Conference in Casa Grande on Saturday, on going to duke it out this afternoon.
Here’s what I have been reading lately:
Chloe and the Lion by Mac Barnett, illustrations by Adam Rex—Yes, it isn’t out yet, but I have connections, and this is my favorite book of the year (and not just because Adam dedicated it to me). It is so funny and you have to read it. I will reveal no more, except that I think that this author and illustrator could team up to write Solar Bear: The Polar Bear Who Wanted a Tan and make it work.
Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett, illustrations by Jon Klassen—From the first line, you know it’s going to be good, and it stays that way right up until the perfect ending.
To Be Sung Underwater by Tom McNeal—I found this (grown-up) novel through my book club. It’s a rare male author who manages to depict a teenage girl and a grown woman (the same character) without anything ringing false, but McNeal does it. And it’s a fantastic love story as well.
Wonder Struck by Brian Selznick—Quieter and not as flashy as The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Selnick’s best known book, but amazing on its own and no less intricate. As soon as I finished it, I began reading it again from the beginning, because I didn’t want it to end. |
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| This entry rated PG-13 |
[Feb. 15th, 2012|09:58 am] |
No, it has nothing to do with Valentine's Day being yesterday.
In between all the revising, rewriting, and general tearing out my hair I've been doing, all to get my novel ready to be seen, I've been reading. And just one of my favorite laugh out loud moments comes from Stephen Fry's The Fry Chronicles: An Autobiography. I had read his earlier volume, Moab Is My Washpot, which covers his childhood and extended adolescence, so I was eager to get my hands on this one.
Here's the passage, which is found on page 248:
I worried that I was going to have to be primarily a writer. Why worry, you ask? Well, although it is true that one feels fantastic when one has finished a writing task, it is mostly horrible while one is doing it. You will see therefore that writing, ghastly at the time but great afterwards, is exactly the opposite of sex. All that keeps one going is the knowledge that one will feel good when it's over.
There is something very Oscar Wilde and very true about that quote. |
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| A Tuesday indulgence |
[Jan. 24th, 2012|08:40 am] |
No, it isn't a medieval one. I'm having lunch with a writing friend today, and afterwards, perusing the shelves of the bookstore. I have a feeling I'll come home with a book or two or three...
Add some writing, and that's pretty much a perfect day for me, actually. What's yours? |
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| Arithmophobia |
[Jan. 18th, 2012|02:29 pm] |
Okay, it only feels like I'm going to die when I do my taxes. You would think that someone who has an MBA would not sweat the small stuff--the transaction privilege tax form for the state of Arizona--but I do. However, thanks to my beloved husband of many years, I have a spreadsheet, which conjures all the numbers for me to plug into the form (yes, I say "conjures," because it feels like magic). Said beloved husband also watched over my shoulder as I inked in all the figures.
And so I am done! And it didn't take all afternoon, either. Hurray! |
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