No spoilers, I promise, just my first reaction after I turned the last page.
41 comments
Magazines are bad for you
Fingers in ears, eyes squeezed shut
So we saw The Movie last night and I loved it (particularly the most dramatic scene which I think plays out better onscreen than in the text), and I am going to a party Friday night and might stay up reading The Book.
But I want to be surprised so I am hereby boycotting news and blogs until Saturday. Shhh! Don’t tell me. I want to find out for myself!
In other news, I thought I’d point out that I am a real estate genius. (They should give me an infomercial, I swear.) I have lived in two of the recently designated top small towns to live in: #15 – Horsham, PA and #17 – Olney, MD. I hereby predict that Mexico, NY will soon rocket to the top.
Back to work.
Summertime
We have waves of kids coming and going at our house; home from college, breezing through town, happy to crash on a couch, always hungry, full of giggles. It’s awesome. It’s summer.
This makes the writing a little harder to sneak in, but I get in a couple of hours most mornings before anyone wakes up. I am in the earliest stages of finding a new story, so I can’t talk about it yet. Muses are forest creatures. They startle easily and run away if you make too much noise. So shhhhhh…….
We went to the Sterling Renaissance Festival on Sunday, all garbed out and loving life. Will probably go again this weekend. I wish they would hold sleepovers there. I know this is a totally ridiculous idea, but I wish I really could step through a portal into those past worlds. But I am not fond of head lice or tuberculosis or the Black Death, so I want my fantasy world to come with antibiotics and soap. And popcorn; I don’t go much longer than 48 hours without popcorn.
We go to Ren Faires every year, but we have never traveled far afield to do it. We’ve been to the one in Sterling (BH and I went to that one for the first time 27 years ago!), and the one in Pennsylvania, and a long time ago, I went to the one in Maryland. Have you been to any others? Should we plan a vacation around one that is beyond fantastical?
Maybe I like to drift off into pretend versions of the past because the present is so awful and scary.
Here is my nephew, Ryan. (Wave to Ryan, everyone.) He went to Iraq last week. That is a really hard thing to come to terms with.
Grab bag
I am about a week late with this, but check out the trailer for Holly Black’s Spiderwick Chronicle movie.
CJ Bott is an expert in dealing with bullying and harrasment issues – one of the best in the country. She is a former English teacher who now consults with school districts on how they can use literature to bring these issues to light and help students find empathy and develop respect for their classmates. CJ has a website that you probably want to take a peek at.
One of my favorite parts about summer? Strawberries and blueberries for breakfast.
Today’s grand excitement?
Mailing off the manuscript copies.