Celebrate the Small Things 10-4-26

 

It's the end of the week, so what am I celebrating?

It's the weekend!

I have some writing stuff to do, so I'm glad I'm not away or otherwise occupied this weekend.  I signed up for a writing challenge where you have to write a short story of up to 2500 words for each song on an album.  As someone who has been quite obsessive about music since I was young, this was a challenge I couldn't pass up!  It closes at the end of June, so I have just over 2 months to write my stories - 14, because the record I chose has 14 songs - which is both a very short time and quite a long one when you consider that I usually write a 1000 word story every day.

I have a theme for my stories, and after listening to the record again yesterday, I think I have some ideas for the stories in this loosely connected collection.  I'm setting it n a psychiatric hospital and while I initially thought I might write some horror or supernatural stories in that space, the ideas that have come to me are all characters, so I think we're probably looking at a collection of stories about different people in that space.  

But, it's early days yet, so that may change as I write.

It means the new novel I was planning to start is kind of on the back burner, but I don't think that's a bad thing because it hasn't really started coming together in my head very well yet.  Maybe by the time I finish this other project I will have a better idea.

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've Read: The Last to Let Go

I really enjoyed a previous book by Amber Smith, so when I saw this on the shelf at the library, I jumped.  And I was not disappointed.

Brooke feels like her life is about to begin for real.  She's been accepted at a great school for her last two years of high school and feels like she is finally on track to live her dream: get a college scholarship and get out of town.  She has the grades and the drive and nothing is going to stop her.

Then her mother is arrested after murdering her father.  

It's a shock.  Her dad has always been abusive, but Brooke never thought her mother would do anything but forgive him and make excuses the way she has for years.  No one knows exactly what happened, even Brooke's younger sister who saw the whole thing happen.

Suddenly, Brooke's world is in turmoil and rather than getting through her summer reading list, she's staying with her mother's best friend she never knew existed, picking her sister up from a therapist's office and meeting a grandmother she's long assumed to be dead.  Plus, dealing with her older brother who fled the house a few years earlier to move in with his girlfriend rather than face their father's continual abuse.

I thought this book was very realistic in the way it portrays the long-term effects f living in an abusive home.  Brooke has always hated her family's dynamic, yet is the most unable of her siblings to give up on keeping the family together as best she can.  When she forces her brother to move back into their apartment and act as guardian to her and her sister, I knew it was not going to work out.

Alongside the family struggles, Brooke's clumsy attempts at first love and finding friends at her new school plays out in a very realistic way.  As someone who has been keeping their home life struggles a secret her whole life, Brooke's inability to open up to the girl she likes is wholly realistic.  And as the secrets pile up, her increasingly desperate attempts at holding what's left of her family together have a devastating effect on not just her, but everyone around her.

It's not an easy read.  It's actually quite harrowing in places, but that's what makes it so strikingly realistic.  Brooke is so stubbornly a teenager, despite all the responsibility she takes, and her inability to foresee the consequences of her actions is very realistic.

So, I'd recommend this one if, like me, you enjoy gritty, realistic stories about characters going through traumatic things.

But don't just listen to me.

Here's the blurb:

How do you let go of something you’ve never had?

Junior year for Brooke Winters is supposed to be about change. She’s transferring schools, starting fresh, and making plans for college so she can finally leave her hometown, her family, and her past behind.

But all of her dreams are shattered one hot summer afternoon when her mother is arrested for killing Brooke’s abusive father. No one really knows what happened that day, if it was premeditated or self-defense, whether it was right or wrong. And now Brooke and her siblings are on their own.

In a year of firsts—the first year without parents, first love, first heartbreak, and her first taste of freedom—Brooke must confront the shadow of her family’s violence and dysfunction, as she struggles to embrace her identity, finds her true place in the world, and learns how to let go.

Weekly Goals 6-4-26

 It's a concert week this week, so it's going to be busy at work.  Especially with the short week.  Plus, I'm teaching an extra class at a different gym as well.

As a result, I'm nt going to put a lot of pressure on myself with goals.  I planted a whole bunch of new stuff out the front of my house, so my goal is to keep it alive if I can.   I haven't had a great track record in that particular part of the garden and picked plants that I think will be hardy enough to survive the winter, but they will need watering and maybe some fertilizing to keep them healthy.

I haven't started writing the new book yet.  Unusually for me, I know how it starts, but everything beyond that is a little vague and I feel like I need to know more about what happens after the start to be able to keep going.  So, I'm sitting on it.  I'll write that first part soon, but I know there's a second character who's important to the story and I'm beginning to think she may need to be a POV character too to make this story work.  I think maybe having the whole this in the MC's voice might be too much.  So, I need this other character to introduce herself more fully so I know her deal.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 3-4-26

 

It's the end of the week, so what am I celebrating?

It's the weekend!  And it's a long one!  Four days because of Easter.

I have a few things I need to do over the long weekend.  When my house got painted, the painters wrecked my garden with their ladders so I had to pull everything out.  This weekend I'm going to get some new plants and get them in the ground.  I also have a screenplay to read for a friend and give notes on.  Plus, a monthly flash fiction challenge to write and maybe start the new book that's beginning to clamor for attention. 

I won't be bored.

I saw a new film, The Drama, which I enjoyed.  I love a good character study and this film was a great example of exploring why and how people do things in specific circumstances.

What are you celebrating this week?

IWSG: April

 It's 1 April so it's time for the Insecure Writers Support Group!

The awesome co-hosts for this  posting of the IWSG are Melissa Maygrove, Cathrina Constantine, Kate Larkindale, and Rebecca Douglass!

This month's question is an interesting one:

If you have a playlist (or could put one together) that either gets you in the groove to write or fits with one of your books, what is it? What type of music or what songs?

I usually don't listen to music while I'm writing, and if I do, I listen to music without lyrics or with lyrics in a language I don't understand.  I also don't find I have a particular playlist for a specific book most of the time.  With a few very important exceptions.

The Sidewalk's Regrets had a soundtrack, but it's a book about music and falling in love with music.  The specific album I thrashed while writing that one was Teenage Snuff Film by Rowland S. Howard.

Guide Us also had a soundtrack, but a very different one.  That book was fueled by musical theater songs.

The rest of my books don't really have specific songs associated with them, although I guess you could say Standing Too Close was partially inspired by the Police song Don't Stand Too Close to Me. The title anyway.  And the fact there's an inappropriate teacher-student relationship in there.

Mostly, if I listen to music while writing, I listen to a playlist of classical music I call Classical Music for Metalheads.  It has all the really bombastic classical music moments, the ones that show the clear line between classical and metal.  It's great for amping up the energy.

Or, I listen to Arabic music which is achingly beautiful even though I can't understand the words at all.

And, I love Elgar's cello concertos.  They're amazing to write to.  So many different textures and emotions in there,

I have a new book brewing in my head right now.  I'm not sure if I'm a good enough writer to tackle it because the main character is going to be a huge challenge to write.  I need a little more time for him to settle (why do all my main characters at the moment seem to be boys?) in my brain, and there are some other characters that haven't fully revealed themselves yet.  I wonder if this book will have a playlist. and if so, what it might be...

What kind of music do you like to listen to when you write?   Do your books have playlists?

Weekly Goals 30-3-26

 After working for a big chunk of the weekend, I'm not entirely sure I'm ready to go back to work today.  But, there's going to be stuff that needs doing and fallout from the weekend that needs cleaning up.  If I can get through most of the stuff that needs doing quickly, I might take Thursday off - give myself a Nic long weekend because it's Easter.

If I do manage to take Thursday off, I think I'll go and write, see if I can figure out the voice for this new story that's nibbling.  Once I find the character voice, the story will come through.  There are a few scenes I know I need, so I can write those and wait for the rest.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 27-3-26

 

It's the end of the week, so what am I celebrating?

It's the weekend!

Well, except it isn't really for me.  I have to work this weekend because the orchestra is going to Christchurch and I'm going with them.  I haven't been to Christchurch for many, many years - more than 20, I think.  Definitely not since the earthquakes.  So, that should be interesting.  One of my colleagues from the Film Commission has moved down there recently, so I'm going to catch up with her in the afternoon, before I have to go to the venue.

I finally had an idea for a new book.  It's a little like A Stranger to Kindness in that I'm not sure I'm a good enough writer to pull off the character that's coming into focus, but I'm willing to give it a shot.  Weirdly, I'm also thinking this one needs to be in third person present tense which I've never attempted before.  It's not one I particularly like reading so it's weird that this story feels like it has to be written that way.

But, I've done this enough times now to know not to argue when my brain starts putting things out there.  I just have to go with it and see how things turn out.

What are you celebrating this week?