this is on the front page of my WIP to remind me of the core of the story i’m trying to write:
“It’s the lack,
the gap, the absence
and the silence
that fills me
now.
How can so little
take up so much
space
inside of me?
Month: January 2013
popular
i have an issue with expectations and keeping them at a reasonable level, which puts me either way ahead or way behind on the “what’s popular” curve, as i try to get in on things before i have ridiculous expectations or after i’ve given them time to diminish.
what have i done recently to incite such a post? i joined the iphone cult AND the nora roberts fan club.
for the past 2+ years, i’ve been a devoted droid user (sorry brother G). the time came to upgrade and i was insistent on sticking with droid because i liked the user interface and had spent time with the apple user interface on my ipad and found i liked the droid better. i researched phones and found the samsung galaxy III was getting a love of rave reviews.
done.
but then i went into the store to check it out and HOLY SCHNIKEYS. that phone is huge. it’s a man phone, if you can even call it a phone at all. there’s no way i wanted to cart around something bigger than my hand, and none of the other phones appealed to me, so back to square one i went.
over the christmas break, i spent time with people from all areas of my life (family, high school friends, college friends, neighbors) and they ALL had iphones. (well, not brother G.) in the middle of my friend’s engagement party, it hit me. if i had an iphone, i could text with all these people on imessage therefore cutting my text messaging usage by 80%.
much to everyone’s surprise (mine included) i joined the cult when i (with some birthday $ from the folks) purchased the iphone 5 the day before 2013 began. (sorry brother G).
another popular item i hadn’t put much stock into was nora roberts. i’ve read a fair amount of that brand of extraordinarily prolific authors and haven’t been much impressed, so i assumed nora roberts was just like them. i mean, when you’re putting out multiple books a year for decades, how good can they be?
OH, SO GOOD.
my first indoctrination was the audiobook of THE WITNESS and it’s still my favorite of hers, but every other one i’ve read (THREE FATES) or listened to (CHASING FIRE) has blown away my expectations. her characters are so richly developed, her settings are vivid, her plots are fast paced and intriguing, and her writing just plain sucks you in.
she also writes the IN DEATH series under the pen name jd robb and if my book hungry gals are to be believed, i’m in for a treat when i start up with those. i should be annoyed with myself for holding out, but this just means there are so many more books available for my reading pleasure.
have you done anything popular or unpopular (lately) and lived to tell the tale? DO SO NOW. or, feel free to lead me into the land of popularity and tell me what else i need to be doing/reading/eating. DO SO NOW.
BOOK HUNGRY: life happens
who says you have to be crowded into the living room, kitchen, and/or dining room to hold a book club? we are ladies of the 21st century. we don’t need no stinkin’ couches. so pull up a blog and join in the conversation.
the members of the BOOK HUNGRY are (alphabetically): patty blount, kelly breakey, karla nellenbach, and myself. we pick a book to read. we discuss via email/phone. we post a review on our individual blogs the 3rd thursday of the month OR, well, we used to all post reviews. now, i think, it’s just patty and me. but anyways, go for it. click on their names above and if they have a review up, it’ll take you to there. enjoy.
this month’s BOOK HUNGRY selection is:
LIFE HAPPENS by sandra steffen
what it’s about from amazon:
She’s Hiding Something…
Well, everyone is hiding something—but Mya Donohue’s secret is knocking on the front door, in no uncertain terms. Mya is about to answer to the daughter she’d given birth to nineteen years ago, and Elle has news for her biological mother. Mya is not only a mom, but a grandmother, too. And Elle isn’t sticking around for long. She can’t.
Offering Mya their assistance are her best friends—the only ones who will dare tell her the truth in unmitigated terms; her mother—a woman still sowing her own share of wild oats; and Elle’s father—a man of few words, but usually memorable ones, at that.
my opinion:
i liked it. i didn’t love it. the characters were interesting enough, the writing smooth enough, the reheated romance hot enough, the overall story compelling enough, but i don’t feel the need to re-read it, which kind of bums me out because i have my own shiny copy courtesy of kelly. yes, she was kind enough to send us all a digital copy of this book, which meant no long waits at the library! woohoo!! yay kelly!!! you rock!!!!
ahem, back to the book.
for some reason, my new thing with books is the ending and if the ending (whether it’s loud or slow or quiet or fast or cliff-hanger-y or wraps things up) remains true to the character, i dig it. i can think of three books (off the top of my head) that did this and it made me love those books all the more.
what books? GONE GIRL by gillian flynn, TEMPTING THE BILLIONAIRE by jessica lemmon and I HUNT KILLERS by barry lyga.
those endings weren’t necessarily tidy, but they were fearless. they made me either pump my fist, applaud, or hug the book close and with the exception of TEMPTING THE BILLIONAIRE, they’re not happy endings and i’m a HEA kind of girl, so this new method i have of deciding which books i like has caught me off guard.
my point? LIFE HAPPENS had a nice ending. a tidy ending. it was way too happily ever after. no, i don’t want people to die and no it’s not that i’m thinking misery loves company (though it does), it’s just that this ending felt like it was what the author wanted, not what the characters needed. again, i don’t mean the characters wanted doom and gloom, but i don’t think they wanted their lives tied up with a bow either. especially not elle. she’s not a pink ribbon kind of a girl and this, to me, was a pink ribbon kind of ending.
that said, i don’t think it was a waste of time to read this book. in fact, it’s helped me to articulate what’s going on in my brain re: endings and it just may help me better formulate the ending to my own MS, as i’ve just jumped back into it.
thank you for this lesson, kelly!
random things
odd occurrences. unusual findings. funny cards. new websites. thoughts to live by.
(1) shopping for NOT YOUR DAUGHTER’S JEANS brand of jeans with your mother. you both get a pair.
(2) if you’re not a professional egg breaker and a bit of shell gets into the egg you just broke, use the remaining shell to scoop out that extraneous piece. it’s a virtual magnet for the broken bit whereas if you use a spoon or fork or anything other than the shell, you’ll be chasing it around the bowl/dish/pan for hours.
(3) to all my siblings:
(4) society 6
(5) yeah, this.
grandpa’s greatest hits
as i read through old blog posts and comments and emails, it was startling to me how obvious you were and how blind i was.
thank you, grandpa for your unwavering belief in me and for your quiet, but sturdy love.
when he shared his memories of his earlier years, i could see how much he’d changed, but also, where my dad came from and why he expresses himself the way he does. because of grandpa’s self-reflection, i learned not only about him, but about myself, my family (immediate and extended), and my ancestors as well.
i never saw that coming.
but that was the beauty of grandpa’s educational style of late. he spoke about himself and his experiences as he passed along advice wrapped up with love. sometimes you could only hear his story and sometimes you could only see the advice and sometimes you could only feel the love, but once in awhile, you experienced it all as he intended and you were enriched because of it.
guest post #1 (plus, see comments section)
guest post #2
guest post #3
guest post #4
guest post #5
history lesson (see comments section)
belief in me
science lesson (see comments section)
happy 88th birthday
january 11, 1925 – january 16, 2013
Abigail Mumford 