Celebrate the Small Things 3-12-21

It's the end of the week, so it's time to Celebrate the Small things...

What am I celebrating this week?

Weekend!

A friend lent me a water blaster to de-scum the deck before I stain it, so that's what my weekend has in store.  I did some after work yesterday and it's surprisingly fun.  Not to mention effective.  Unfortunately the forecast is for rain all weekend, so I don't imagine I'm going to get the staining done until next weekend at the earliest.  What is it with bad weather all weekend?  I feel like it's been weeks since it was fine over the weekend.  I have a pile of new canvasses and paints I want to play with too, and the weather is not cooperating.

My surgery has been postponed so I won't be going under the knife on Monday.  Not sure when it will be now.  Probably into next year, which is something of a pain.  I was hoping to get it over with this side of Christmas.  But them's the breaks, right?

What are you celebrating this week?

Cheers,

Kate

Insecure Writer's Support group

 

It's the beginning of December so it's time for the Insecure Writer's Support Group!

The awesome co-hosts for the December 1 posting of the IWSG arePJ Colando, Diane Burton, Louise – Fundy Blue, Natalie Aguirre, and Jacqui Murray!

And this month's question is a doozy!

 In your writing, what stresses you the most? What delights you?

I think answering what delights me is easier than what stresses me, so I'm going to answer that one first.  I am delighted when I sit down to write and the words are just there and writing is easy.  There's nothing more satisfying than one of those days when the words just seem to be waiting to flow onto the page in the right order, with the right emotions and the story seems to almost be telling itself.

Another delight is going back to something I wrote some time ago and discovering it's actually good.  So often I've built these things up in my mind as something terrible that's going to need a ton of work to get right, so it's a delight to discover that, while not perfect, there are things to absolutely love about that piece.

I am also always delighted to hear from readers who truly get my work and love the stories and the characters as much as I do.  It makes the more difficult times so worthwhile and I cling to those moments whenever things get tough.

Writing stresses come in many forms.  Deadlines can be stressful, especially when they're tight and come at a time that's already busy with work and life.  But I've learned that most deadlines aren't as hard as you might and rather than get stressed about it, it's better to reach out to whoever the deadline is with early and let them know you might struggle to meet it.  Most of the time, deadlines can be moved, but you have to ask.

Getting stuck somewhere in a story can also be stressful.  That moment where you know something needs to happen, but you can't figure out what that thing is, what happens next.  I find that getting past this can involve something as simple as just leaving a not in the MS that there's something missing, and then moving on to another place in the story where I do know what needs to happen.  Often through writing beyond the sticky spot, I find exactly what needs to happen there. Sometimes though, I need to leave that project behind for a while, work on something else, maybe even something not writing-related, and that will help me un-stick myself.

Stress can also come from royalty reports - somehow I've never sold as many books as I'd like to have sold.

I'm sure that's just a handful of the things that stress and delight me about writing. It's something that gives me great joy and also makes me very miserable. One day I'll figure out how to make the joys the larger part of the process, but I'm not there yet.

What are the things about writing that delight or stress you out?

Weekly Goals 29-11-21

 It's Monday again, so here goes with my weekly goals.

It's going to be a busy week at work because I'm having a little surgery next Monday which means I'll need a few days off to recover.  So I need to cram a lot of work into this week to make sure things won't fall apart while I'm away next week.  Plus we have an all-day workshop on Friday which means I actually only have a four-day week in the office to get all that stuff done.

I have my fingers crossed that the weather will be okay next weekend so I can get the deck stained and do some more artwork.  I have a pile of canvasses arriving this week that I ordered online, and a bunch of new paint colors I'm itching to try out.  Not to mention some new techniques I'd like to try too.

And that's about it for goals this week.  Not very exciting, I know...

What are your goals for the week?

Celebrate the Small Things 26-11-21

 

It's the end of the week, so it's time to Celebrate the Small things...

What am I celebrating this week?

It's Friday!

And it has been a very busy week at work so I am looking forward to the weekend.  The weather doesn't look like it's going to be fantastic, unfortunately, so once again I'm probably not going to be able to paint or stain the deck.  Beginning to wonder if I'm ever going to get that deck stained...

I managed to get a few quite big pieces of work off my plate this week which is good because the end of the year is looming and these things need to be done before we hit the Christmas break.  I think I have four more time-sensitive things I need to achieve before the end of the year, and a couple of things I really want to complete, but it's not the end of the world if I don't get through them.

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've Read: The Wonder Test

 

I read this over the weekend, in between films and household chores and really enjoyed it.

It's set in a small California town near San Francisco where everyone seems to be extraordinarily affluent.  Lina and her son Rory move there from New York following the death of Lina's husband and father.  Ostensibly there to clean out her father's house, Lina is actually trying to escape both her grief and her guilt over a mistake she made in her work as an FBI agent.

Everything seems idyllic at first.  The house is gorgeous, the neighbourhood quiet and safe and Rory's new school top-notch.  Although Lina does think it's odd how involved the community is with the school and fact the students are expected to do one single, all encompassing test - the Wonder Test.  Nothing about this test and the devotion of the community to it seems quite right to Lina and her well-honed investigative skills start prickling.

It's not long before Lina discovers that a student at the school went missing last year, only to be returned mysteriously just after test week.  Further investigation reveals that a similar thing happened the year before.  So when Rory's new girlfriend disappears, Lina recognises the link and dives headfirst into an investigation that will take her on a journey through the values of Silicone Valley's elite, the real estate market and the secret world of pony fetishists.

The details about Lina's work were fascinating and felt authentic although never having been an FBI agent, I don't know for sure.  The things she knew and did felt right though, even if that is because I've watched too many spy movies over the years...

This is a pacey read with enough twists and turns to keep you turning the pages to find out what happens next.  I enjoyed the social commentary about these elite people and the way they live through the achievements of their children, not to mention the relationship between high test scores and increased real estate value.  Sometimes I have to wonder about peoples' priorities!

If you like a good thriller with authentic details and a bit of scathing social commentary, I'd recommend this one.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb: 

A widowed FBI agent grows suspicious of her son's new school in this thriller by the New York Times bestselling author of The Marriage Pact.


Lina is on leave from her job in New York at the FBI in order to clean out her father's home in Silicon Valley. As though letting go of her father isn't hard enough, Lina has also recently lost her husband in a freak traffic accident. Still reeling, she and her teenage son Rory must make their way through this strange new town and the high school around which it all seems to revolve. Rory soon starts coming home with reports of the upcoming "Wonder Test," a general aptitude assessment that appears increasingly inane, and Lina is shaken out of her grief by a sense that something is amiss in Hillsborough.

When she discovers that a student disappeared last year and was found weeks later walking on a beach, shaved and traumatized, Lina can't help but be sucked into an impromptu investigation. Another kidnapping hits closer to home and reveals a sinister link between the Wonder Test and the rampant wealth of Silicon Valley's elite. A searing view of a culture that puts the wellbeing of children at risk for advancement and prestige, and a captivating story of the lengths a mother will go for her son, this is The Wonder Test.

Weekly Goals 22-11-21

 The film festival officially finished last night so that excitement is over for another year.  It was a good one, for sure.

I saw a bunch of great stuff over the weekend, starting with Shivababy which has to be one of the most anxiety inducing films I've seen in a long time.  It's a very simple premise - a young woman, just about to finish college, goes to a shiva with her parents.  It's full of old family friends and acquaintances, including her ex-girlfriend who her mother tells her not to talk to, the guy she's been banging for money on the side, his wife and daughter (who she didn't know existed until the moment they arrived) and various older women who want to either set her up with a future husband or someone who can give her a job.   Mainly with the very people she wants to avoid the most!

I also saw a documentary about the friendship between Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams, all told in their own words through interviews and letters and diary entries.  Such talented writers!  And a fascinating and complicated friendship.

I also saw The Eyes of Tammy-Faye which is about tele-evangelists Jim and Tammy Bakker.  Stunning performance from Jessica Chastain.  She's barely recognizable at times.  But what a horrible story.  Such greed.

Yesterday was a triple-header starting off with a classic 50's melodrama in the form of Douglas Sirk's Written on the Wind.  I've seen it before, but it was just as good as I remembered.  Rock Hudson being manly, Lauren Bacall being gorgeous and acerbic and lots of people with too much money behaving badly.

One Second was a beautiful Chinese film about film.  Set in the '60s it was about a man who escaped a forced about camp after receiving a letter telling him his daughter appears in a newsreel.  The lengths he goes to to see her in said newsreel are extraordinary and bring him into contact with a raft of fascinating characters.  Definitely one of my favorites!

Finally, I saw Titane which won the Palme d'or at this year's Cannes Film Festival.  What an audacious film! Part body horror, part commentary on the objectification of women and all twisted.  I can't claim to understand everything going on in there, but you have to give points for consistently making brave filmmaking choices.  I just wish I'd understood any one of the characters' motivations...

And that's it for another year.  Noe I need to focus on getting through to the end of the year at work and preparing for Christmas.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 19-11-21

 

It's the end of the week, so it's time to Celebrate the Small things...

What am I celebrating this week?

I'm still celebrating the film festival and enjoying immersing myself in the experience.

This week I've seen a very charming Belgian film called Playground.  It was about a six-year-old girl starting school and discovering the older brother she'd always idolised was not quite the hero she believed he was.  It is very cleverly shot so everything is seen through this child's eyes.  Adults are not seen above mid-chest height unless they are sitting or bent over to speak directly to a child.  Anything that is not relevant to this child is a blur in the background.  It's very clever and immersive and I enjoyed it very much.

The other film I've seen so far this week is called My Salinger Year and it's kind of literary Devil Wears Prada.  A young woman moves to New York to pursue a career as a writer and is hired as an assistant to a literary agent who represents J D Salinger.  The agent isn't nearly as scary or overbearing as the editor in the Devil Wears Prada - she's more stuck in the past and unwilling to move with the times.  She's played by Sigourney Weaver and manages to be both steely and vulnerable at the same time.  I didn't think this was a great film - it meandered a bit and lost focus on the core story often - but it was very charming and had some wonderful laugh-out-loud moments.  The main character was almost exactly the same age as i would have been in its 1995 setting, so I totally identified with her and the journey she was on.  God, she could have been me!

I have six more films to see over the weekend, so will report back on those on Monday.  Very much looking forward to re-seeing one of Douglas Sirk's sumptuous 1950s melodramas on Sunday morning!

What are you celebrating this week?