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Monday, March 26, 2012

Slow Books

     I absolutely adore this idea! A slow book movement! Wouldn't it be wonderful if we all started celebrating TV-less Monday, just like Meatless Monday. Just as it is too hard for most of us to give up meat everyday, it is simple and easy to get behind giving it up one day a week, and still so much good can come from it. Let's do it!

     http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/03/a-slow-books-manifesto/254884/ 

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Reflecting

      Eight years old, but still relevant; Toni Morrison talks about her motivation for The Bluest Eye.



http://youtu.be/_8Zgu2hrs2k


A Good Week

     This was a really good week, considering that I got very little writing accomplished, had a couple of deadlines diddled with, and earned embarrassingly little. There were a couple of accomplishments that made all of that worthwhile.
      First, in the aftermath of the recent horrible tragedy of the Afghan shooting rampage by a US soldier, I realized that my manuscript Holy Buckets, which is a novel about a soldier with untreated PTSD, should go out this week. So often book deals seem to hinge on timing. So on Monday morning I sent an excerpt to the press that I would most like to see publish it, and was thrilled that the very same day an editor wrote back and asked me to send the whole thing. I realize that probably means nothing at all, yet it was the most encouraging letter from a publisher I have ever received. I spent about ten hours making final edits and sent it off. Here's hoping...
     Also, spent a few hours preparing my first (I think my one and only) comedy routine. I performed as Sasha Shatner at a local fundraiser called Shatner Beat Night, delivering a version of All The Single Ladies in the style of William Shatner. This was the third year that this event took place in my community, and though I was interested in participating before I had always chickened out. I decided not to allow myself to do that again, and made myself enter the very male-dominated competition. Though I was as fierce as I could be, I only took second place, and that was not publicly acknowledged. It was still quite rewarding to go where no woman had gone before, most of all, me.