If you’re so sick of turkey sandwiches that you start cutting them up and serving them on fancy sushi platters instead of regular old round plates, you know it’s time to throw out the leftover turkey.
I’m doing a guest post over at the Brummets’ Consciousness Discussions blog, so you can find me there. Also I had the privilege of being interviewed on Seth’s blog “Roose the Muse.” Click here to read that interview.
It’s still me, just different plates.
Another random library shelf selection! Another success!
Set-up: This story takes place almost one year after an asteroid hits the moon, knocking it closer to earth, which causes all kinds of messes: earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and a layer of ash that blocks the sun from view. Miranda’s family is just getting by, living in the sunroom of their home, with barely-there sustenance in the form of canned goods doled out by a city official.
Main character’s goals: Miranda’s biggest wish is for everything to go back to the way it was before the asteroid hit the moon. She wants a normal life. If she can’t have that, she at least relishes privacy whenever she can get it.
My reaction: I liked this book, although I wasn’t entirely happy with the ending. That’s more of a personal preference thing rather than a failing in the writing. I wanted something a little more concrete. Without giving anything more away, I will say that the ending fit well with the setting – the future is an uncertain place, especially in the world Miranda lives in.
I was totally into the raids they make on abandoned houses, scavenging for food, medicine, and toilet paper. Maybe because I’m always curious about what’s inside all the houses I pass on the street, maybe because I’m a scavenger by nature. Who knows. But it was fun to vicariously break in along with Miranda.
Also, I’m a little disappointed to find that post-apocalyptic fiction for young adults seems to be the new trend, now that sparkly vampires have fallen out of favor. That said, I really like post-apocalyptic stories, and I’ve liked them ever since reading George Stewart’s Earth Abides. So I guess I’m in luck with the wealth of post-apocalyptic fiction. Except that’s the genre I’m writing in right now, and I’d rather be creating a trend than trying to publish in an already-established one. But that is a rant for another time.
Of interest to writers: The diary format isn’t something I’ve seen in awhile…I haven’t even read an epistolary novel in a long time. Pfeffer does a good job of catching Miranda’s voice and making the diary believable.
I got total creepy vibes from one of the new additions to the family, and I felt Pfeffer could have developed that tension and conflict a little more than she did. This would have taken the story in a completely different direction, which is probably why she didn’t expand on that. If it had been my story….
Bottom line: This World We Live In is the third book in a series. (One of the downsides to random library selections is you sometimes jump into the middle – or end – of things.) I have already requested the first book from the library, because I want more from this author! I especially want to see how she handles the “beginning” of the end of the world.
Authors Dave and Lillian Brummet
Lillian graciously offered to write a guest blog for me today, so I would have a chance to hang out with my family this week and not worry about blogging. When she asked about topics, I thought “Time Management” would be appropriate, since I always struggle with that, and I know many of you do as well. So, take it away, Lillian!
Time management is a real biggie for me. There is always so much to do. Someone wants a banner ad, another radio show needs a promo ad, there’s guests to book on the radio show and outlines for their interviews to create… writing articles for newsletters or blogs… emails popping in every few minutes with an interview or networking opportunity. Keeping records of all of this and making sure that everyone has been followed up on, while finding new contacts, and new opportunities to reach an audience that has not yet heard of our work can eat up a lot of time.
Record keeping is the best thing that ever happened to me. Whenever I have queried a media contact, for instance, I’ll head over to the Excel file where I’ll record brief information on name of the media, the contact, the email/web address and then brief notes to myself in the Notes column. I use color-coding for easy referral – blue means I need to follow up, pink means something is booked but not yet published, purple means it was published, and so on. Every 3 months or so I go through this file and eliminate all the rows that have no colors and do any follow-ups that have not been completed yet – I want to see everything pink or purple at the end of the year.
Research is key for my writing process. If I know something is coming up, I will make a point of researching it and make a brief plan of action well ahead of time. Glean the best from it, add your own personal twist and then tweak it to suit the audience the project is intended for.
It sounds complicated, but the whole thing takes just a little effort; the outline and record-keeping aspects of a writer’s career can make all the difference. I would also advise spreading the various activities out so that you can handle them at a comfortable pace, and make a list each week of your priorities so that the most important things get done first.
~ Written by Lillian Brummet; co-author of Trash Talk, author of Towards Understanding and co-author of Purple Snowflake Marketing (a book promotion guide); host of the Conscious Discussions talk radio show and owner of the Brummet’s Conscious Blog: www.brummet.ca
I’m afraid I can put it off no longer.
It’s time to start typing.
Typing is really fun, actually. I’m going to confess some uber-dorky behavior and admit that I sometimes have little movies of words typing around in my head, or I move my fingers on an imaginary keyboard (I do this with both kinds of keyboards – musical and computer). I’ve discovered some cool things this way (did you know that the words “sleigh” and “eighty” are…I don’t have a word for it. But if you use correct form while typing, and type those out, they make a sort of pattern with the keys and the fingers you use to type them. I’ve already wasted too much time on this. If you don’t get it, sorry).
If I were just going to type up what I’ve written for The Black City, word for word, it would be easy. I might even enjoy finding out what my final word count is, and how far off the mark my estimate.
But I’m going to revise as I go, which promises a painful century of staring at tiny little words on a glaring background, pain in my neck and shoulders, and frantic emails fired around the planet to my favorite critique partners. Then I’ll sit in front of my email inbox, waiting for their responses. And I won’t get anything done.
And I don’t have time to get nothing done.
Wow, is this my paper diary? Because it’s sure starting to sound like it. Sorry to ruin any imaginings you may have about my top secret paper diary. It’s basically this: obsessing about writing. Or the ten pounds I want to lose. When I was young and melodramatic (as opposed to what I am now, which is old and melodramatic), I thought my diaries would be published like Sylvia Plath’s. I think I even embellished things a little on purpose, and sometimes edited other things out, because Someday A Bunch Of People Might Read This.
They won’t. They’re probably not even reading this because it is too long and too rambly, and now that I know I don’t have an audience because I’ve driven the three of you away, I shall make an announcement:
At this moment, I really should be working on The Black City manuscript instead of writing about it and all other things unrelated.
And on that note, I won’t be updating my website next week. I’m taking it off so that I can work on the manuscript as much as possible. Oh yeah, and hang out with my family occasionally, for the Thanksgiving holiday. On Friday we’ll have a guest post by author Lillian Brummet. Other than that, I’ll see you next Monday, the 29th. Happy Thanksgiving!
Love to you all (and I think it’s just you left, Mom). Have a great weekend!
I don’t know what moron installed our shower. This is a good thing, because if I knew who that person was, I would make that person scrub the shower.
I actually don’t mind cleaning the bathrooms. It isn’t a chore I embrace, naturally, but I’d rather scrub the shower once a week than wash the dishes every damn day. (Fine, I’ll confess. I don’t scrub the shower once a week. We’re lucky if I do it every other week. But it’s only because the dishes will not go away!)
But this shower? This shower is stupid.
Now, I normally would not have such crude graphics, but at least this beats photographs of the real thing (ewww). Plus, our computer crashed (every precious word I ever typed on it was backed up, so no worries other than the $300 bill for fixing it). I’m at this moment using an ancient lap top that doesn’t have an SD drive ?! and don’t have a scanner hooked up to it either. So bear with me.
The Stupid Shower Viewed From the Side
This little dip between the shower floor and the drain reminds me of a moat dividing a castle from surrounding lands. But because the water just sits there, we end up with lots of yuckiness:
Nasty soap scum in stupid shower
Like a moat, there could be dragons in it. (Wait, do moats have dragons? Or monsters? Or something else entirely?)
Monster living in shower moat
So periodically (not once a week, mind you) I have to go into the bathroom armed with a rag, scrub brush, and Scrub Free, which is the cleaner that came with the house, and smells sort of like a combination of car exhaust and moat-dwelling dragon farts.
And when I’m done scrubbing, the shower looks pretty much the same.
Also, our house seems to be collapsing around our heads, and we’re feeling very discouraged. I would catalog our recent misfortunes, but I’ve used up my hourly allotment of complaints. Until next time.
Oh, and I actually am kinda proud of my Paint graphics. They’re not up to Hyperbole & a Half standards, but I like them so be gentle.
Beth Hull 