Books I've read: Scripted

This is one of those books that could have been just a good, fun story, but was a little too heavy on the message to be as much fun as it should have been.  I hate being preached at in books and this one felt way too much like a self-help book to be wholly enjoyable as a novel.

Jade is a nice woman who is kind of stuck in a rut.  She's not happy with her partner, but is so used to having him around, she can't bring herself to kick him out.  Her boss treats her like a lackey and constantly asks her to do things that make her uncomfortable.  Her sister takes advantage of her and her father never fails to remind her she's living in a property he owns - even though she pays the full rent.  Her mother drinks to much and has never managed to get over her divorce, despite it being 20 years ago.

Something needs to change, but Jade doesn't know how to do it.

She finds a script while out running one day and is dumbfounded when the characters appear to be herself and her partner.  And when the conversation she read on the page actually happens not long after, she is incredulous.  

The scripts keep coming and the more she reads them ahead of time, the more she hates the way she never stands up for herself.  Yet any attempt she makes to change the scripts fails and she finds herself being taken advantage of again.  And with her sister's wedding coming up, there are a bunch of difficult situations she's going to need to face and conversations she needs to have to make sure her future is the one she actually wants for herself.

I really liked the premise of this book, but the writing and the way the story unfolded felt very preachy to me, like it was trying to teach the reader something.  I get that it was doing this, but there was no subtlety to it and the message felt bigger than the story or the characters.  I love it when a book teaches me something, but I don't like it being so signposted and obvious.

So while the message in this one is good - and god knows I could do with learning how to say no more often - I didn't really enjoy it as much as I could have if the message wasn't hammered into my head every few lines.

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

Jade Shaw has lost control of her life.

Pushed around by her warring family, and taken for granted by a boyfriend who's more interested in his "brand" than their relationship, she knows that somewhere along the path to being an adult she's lost her way. And she can't seem to find it again.

The last place she expects to discover answers is on the floor outside her flat. But there it is: a script. Containing her name, and her boyfriend Adam's - and depicting another huge argument in which Jade fails to stand up for herself. The weird thing is: this argument hasn't happened yet.

The row becomes reality. Jade tries and fails to find her voice. Then more scripts appear, predicting infuriating scenarios in which Jade's boss, mum, and bridezilla sister walk all over her. Whoever is leaving these scripts knows Jade inside-out. But who is writing them? How are they able to predict her future so accurately?

And what can Jade do to re-write the script?

Weekly goals 16-9-24

 I had a weird writing weekend this weekend.  I wrote a bunch on Saturday which was pretty terrible, then realised I really needed to go back and fix some stuff earlier in the book before moving on, and had a great writing day on Sunday.  Moral... I need to trust my gut when it tells me I need to fix something.  The writing was a dream as I added to that earlier scene.  A complete contrast to Saturday's session where I knew what I was writing was garbage.

So my goal this week is to try and keep it up and to write more.  I'm feeling quite inspired and I'm determined to finish at least a first draft of this book before the end of the year.

I also have to practice-teach my first class this week, so I want to do well at that.  I have a pretty good script worked out for the first track because there's a lot of set up and stuff to talk about, but after that, I'm going to have to wing it because I don't have much prescribed stuff to say.  A bit nervous about that, to be honest, but I'm sure I'll figure something out.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 13-9-24

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

What am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend!

And a long-running, very stressful situation I've been dealing with since April has (fingers crossed - I haven't got the paperwork yet) finally been resolved.  And in my favour, for once!  So that is a huge relief.

I have nothing planned for my weekend, which is nice.  I have a bunch of stuff to learn for my spin teaching, so I suspect I'll be busy with that and I'm hoping to get some writing done too.  I'm back with some of the old critique partners and having them read my chapters again is amazing!  I just now need to decide if I keep writing forward or if I go back and try to fix some of the stuff I know is wonky further back so I can put those chapters up for critique.

I suspect writing forward is the way to go - things that happen going forward are likely to impact stuff further back, so if I go back to change stuff now, I'll need to do it again later.  But the temptation is there...  It's always there.

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've Read: Final Girls

 

This one was more like a novella than a full novel, so it was a very quick and easy read.

The book starts with a journalist, Esther, heading to a state-of-the art facility to interview a scientist who has supposedly developed a revolutionary VR therapy that uses horror movie scenarios to heal deep-seated psychological wounds.  Esther is skeptical.  Her father's life was ruined by another popular psych theory and she's determined to debunk this one as being phoney.

After watching what seems to be a miraculous healing of a fractured sisterly bond, Esther agrees to undergo the therapy herself, allowing a cocktail of drugs to be injected into her veins while the doctor oversees the building of a specific scenario designed to fulfil her own purpose.

As Esther navigates through her fabricated nightmare, things begin to go awry as outsiders, desperate to get control of the technology for their own purposes, take over the facility.

This was an intriguing story that was somewhat let down by a rather weak and predictable ending.  I very much liked the way the horror movie scenarios played out, but couldn't help being as skeptical as Esther about its ability to actually help.  It all felt very manipulative, especially when the doctor inserted herself into Esther's scenario purely to get her to think favourably about the product.

But, there were definitely things I found intriguing about this idea, and because it was such a quick read, it didn't bother me too much that there were aspects I didn't like.

So if you're a fan of sci-fi and horror, you'd probably quite enjoy this mash-up.

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

What if you could fix the worst parts of yourself by confronting your worst fears?

Dr. Jennifer Webb has invented proprietary virtual reality technology that purports to heal psychological wounds by running clients through scenarios straight out of horror movies and nightmares. In a carefully controlled environment, with a medical cocktail running through their veins, sisters might develop a bond they’ve been missing their whole lives—while running from the bogeyman through a simulated forest. But…can real change come so easily?

Esther Hoffman doubts it. Esther has spent her entire journalism career debunking pseudoscience, after phony regression therapy ruined her father’s life. She’s determined to unearth the truth about Dr. Webb’s budding company. Dr. Webb’s willing to let her, of course, for reasons of her own. What better advertisement could she get than that of a convinced skeptic? But Esther’s not the only one curious about how this technology works. Enter real-world threats just as frightening as those created in the lab. Dr. Webb and Esther are at odds, but they may also be each other’s only hope of survival.

Celebrate the Small Things 6-9-24

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

What am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend!

I don't have much planned at this stage, so I'm hoping to get some good writing time in there.  An old critique partner reached out to me this week about re-starting a critique group we had going about 10 years ago and I'm excited about getting feedback on the early part of the book which I feel is in pretty good shape.  It's only once I get to chapter 5 or 6 that I feel like things start happening in the wrong order and that I'm not quite getting things right.  

Having a good critique group is so valuable and I always write more when I know people are waiting to read the next chapter, so I'm hoping this new (old) group might kickstart my writing energy a bit more.

Other than that, I hope to get some reading done - I have a pile of fresh library books waiting for me - and there's a classic movie at mt local cinema on Sunday that I'd like to go to.  Johnny Guitar, one of the campiest westerns ever made, starring Joan Crawford.  I saw it in a festival years ago, and remember loving it, so I'm looking forward to seeing it again.

What are you celebrating this week?

IWSG - September 2024

 

It's the first Wednesday of the month so it's time for the Insecure Writer's Support Group!

The awesome co-hosts for the September 4 posting of the IWSG are Beth Camp, Jean Davis, Yvonne Ventresca, and PJ Colando!

This month's question is a goodie!

Since it's back to school time, let's talk English class. What's a writing rule you learned in school that messed you up as a writer?

There are two things I was taught at school that messed me up as a writer.

The first is that you should never use contractions in writing. So no can't, don't, wouldn't. It took me a long time to get over that which left a lot of my writing feeling wooden and formal, especially dialogue. People just don't say, "I would not go there." or "I cannot do that."

Once I realized that using contractions in fiction writing is completely okay, I really found my voice as an author and I haven't gone back.

The other thing I learned in school that hampered my writing for a long time was being encouraged to use adverbs. At school I was told to use them liberally (see what I did there) and my early writing is full of colorful adverbs to describe the way characters move and talk. I do still like to toss in the odd one, but very judicially these days and to make a point in most cases. I prefer to lean on good, strong verbs these days instead.

I'm sure there are other things I learned at school that screwed me up, but those are the things that sprang to mind when I saw the question.

What did you learn at school that hasn't helped you as a writer?

Weekly Goals 2-9-24

 I got a little bit of writing done over the weekend, which was good.  I feel like I'm back into Harley's headspace, so will be able to continue on with this in the next few weeks.  I enjoyed the writing too, which is always good.  I definitely feel like there is a lot I need to change in what I've already written, but I'm going to forge on to the end first, because it's easier to change stuff earlier on once I know how things play out in the rest of the book.

So, my goal this week is to write more this week.  I hope to be able to take a day off next week to write, but need to see what I have on before I can commit to that.

I have my first real training for being a spin instructor on Wednesday morning, so I have that to work towards too.  Must go through the tracks I've learned again before then so I can make sure I know what I'm doing.  When I showed the tutor that I'd learned the choreo on Saturday, I missed one section in the first track because I thought I was one chorus further ahead than I actually was.  D'oh!

And that's about it for goals this week.  What do you hope to achieve?

Celebrate the Small Things 30-8-24

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

What am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend!

Unfortunately it's looking like it's going to be a pretty busy one, but I'm hoping to get a little time to write.  Maybe... 

My bestie is here for the weekend, so I'm hoping to get some time with her.  It's been too long since we had any real time to spend together.  Living is separate cities makes it difficult.  But that's definitely something to celebrate.

I've had a great week of theatre-going this week.  I went to a musical on Wednesday night and a locally-written play last night and enjoyed both.  I did feel a little like the musical should have been performed in a bigger space - the songs were big and the women performing them had amazingly big voices and the whole thing was a bit overwhelming in such a small theatre.

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've Read: The Arc

 

This was a fun, quick read and exactly what I needed this weekend.  Sometimes you just need a dash of romance to lift your spirits and this one did just that.

Based around the idea that scientific and psychological analysis of individuals can create perfect matches between partners, the book follows Ursula and Gabe, two people heading into middle age without having married yet.  They have both had relationships, but nothing that's stuck, and both find using dating apps to try and find love frustrating.

So the Arc.  An top of the line (and at $50,000 it should be) matchmaking service that guarantees you will find the perfect partner after subjecting yourself to a week of testing and meditation in their exclusive, luxury headquarters.

When Ursula and Gabe are matched, the relationship feels right from the moment they first lay eyes on each other. And the connection just gets deeper as they get to know each other.  It seems like the Arc is exactly as good as it promised to be.

But when a single argument becomes something the Arc focuses on in one of their regular check-ins, the certainty both partners felt about their relationship falters. Are they truly destined to be together forever, or was the happiness they initially felt merely the flush of excitement that comes with first love?

There were so many things about this book I enjoyed despite them all being faintly ridiculous - I feel like a lot of this book was poking fun at the worlds inhabited by wealthy people who haven't really done much to deserve that wealth.  From the silly ad campaigns Ursula is responsible for at her agency, to the ludicrously over the top women only gym/spa/wellness centre she and her best friend frequent, there was a lot to laugh at in Ursula's world.

But at the same time, the book has a lot to say about feminism, the gender pay gap and the way women get treated in worlds that traditionally belong to men.

So I'd recommend this one.  It's a little silly, but sometimes you need something a little OTT to make you smile.

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

35-year-old Ursula Byrne, VP of Strategic Audacity at a branding agency in Manhattan, is successful, witty, whip-smart, and single. She's tried all the dating apps, and let's just say: she's underwhelmed by her options. You'd think that by now someone would have come up with something more bespoke; a way for users to be more tailored about who and what they want in a life partner--how hard could that be?

Enter The Arc: a highly secretive, super-sophisticated matchmaking service that uses a complex series of emotional, psychological and physiological assessments to architect partnerships that will go the distance. The price tag is high, the promise ambitious--a level of lifelong compatibility that would otherwise be unattainable. In other words, The Arc will find your ideal mate.

Ursula is paired with 42-year-old lawyer Rafael Banks. From moment one, this feels like the electric, lasting love they've each been seeking their whole adult lives. But as their relationship unfolds in unanticipated ways, the two begin to realize that true love is never a sure thing. And the arc of a relationship is never predictable...even when it's fully optimized.

Weekly Goals 26-8-24

 I have to confess to not actually doing any writing over the weekend....  Somehow I just ran out of time.  I did do some reading though, and the weather was so nice on Saturday, I even sat outside on my deck in the sun to read for a bit.  It was delightful!

So my goal this week is to ACTUALLY get some writing done.  I have a lot on, but I'm sure I can scrape a few hours over the weekend to try and get back into it.  I was on such a roll with it, it's a huge pain to have lost the momentum.

What are your goals this week? 

Celebrate the Small Things 23-8-24

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

What am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend!

And I have virtually nothing on, which is a miracle!  Looking forward to getting some writing done and maybe even reading a book!  Unheard of!  It's been a busy week at work, so some downtime will be very welcomed.  I might even get a sleep in!

I don't have anything in particular to celebrate this week. I'm so ready for winter to be over...  The weather is really starting to get me down and I'm looking forward to spring.

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've read: Not Like Other Girls

 

Part mystery and part survivor story, I really enjoyed this book.  I never quite knew where it was going, and I like that in a book.  The protagonist's voice was also very authentic and I enjoyed spending the length of the book with her.

Jo-Lynn is a bad girl.  Everyone tells her so, from her mother to the boys she's best friends (and sometimes more) with.  She expects trouble and is not surprised when it comes her way.  

When her former best friend reaches out to her, it's so out of character that Jo-Lynn actually goes to meet her in the designated place.  But Maddie never shows up.  And by the next day, it becomes clear that Maddie is missing.

While evidence points to her having run away, Jo-Lynn doesn't believe it.  Even though they haven't been close since their friendship blew apart in middle school, Jo-Lynn still knows Maddie as well as anyone.

So she decides to dig a bit deeper and the only person who can help is Hudson, an old fling who has his own reasons for wanting to know what happened to Maddie.  They agree to fake a new relationship to get Jo-Lynn back into the clique she was dumped from after a photo scandal.

But being back in the clique means being close to the toxic people Jo-Lynn has tried to escape, and facing up to memories she's long tried to suppress.  As she and Hudson grow closer to the truth about Maddie, Jo-Lynn has to face some difficult truths of her own.

I enjoyed this one.  The lead characters are distinct and layered and act in wholly realistic ways.  Despite her bolshie exterior, Jo-Lynn is a likable protagonist with a snarky voice that only highlights the intelligence and emotional depth beneath it.  And most importantly, mystery of what happened to Maddie is not easily solved and keeps you guessing right up until the end.

So I'd recommend this one.

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

A girl risks everything to find her former best friend in this powerful debut mystery about trauma, girlhood, and what we deserve.

When Jo-Lynn Kirby's former best friend—pretty, nice Maddie Price—comes to her claiming to be in trouble, Jo assumes it's some kind of joke. After all, Jo has been an outcast ever since her nude photos were leaked—and since everyone decided she deserved it. There’s no way Maddie would actually come to her for help.

But then Maddie is gone.

Everyone is quick to write off Maddie as a runaway, but Jo can’t shake the feeling there's more to the story. To find out the truth, Jo needs to get back in with the people who left her behind—and the only way back in is through Hudson Harper-Moore. An old fling of Jo’s with his own reasons for wanting to find Maddie, Hudson hatches a fake dating scheme to get Jo back into their clique. But being back on the inside means Jo must confront everything she’d rather forget: the boys who betrayed her, the whispers that she had it coming, and the secrets that tore her and Maddie apart. As Jo digs deeper into Maddie’s disappearance, she’s left to wonder who she’s really searching for: Maddie, or the girl she used to be.

Not Like Other Girls is a stunning debut that takes a hard look at how we treat young women and their trauma, through the lens of a missing girl and a girl trying to find herself again.

Weekly goals 19-8-24

 I didn't manage to get any writing done over the weekend after all, which is annoying.  I just ran out of time and energy.

So my goal this week is to definitely get back into that book.  I may even take a day off to ensure I do.  I'll see how my workload is looking as we head into the end of the week.

I also start my formal training to be a spin instructor this week, so my goal is to be awesome at that.  I've learned one class, but I wouldn't be 100% confident in actually teaching it yet.  At least not to any strangers.   My friends might be more forgiving...

And that's about it for goals this week.  Trying to stay dry seems like an important one too.  We've had super heavy rain since around midday yesterday and it doesn't look like it's letting up any time soon.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 16-8-24

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

What am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend!

I have a few things on, but not too much, so I'm hoping to dive back into A Stranger to Kindness.  At least for a few hours.

It's been a busy week.  On Monday I went to the 30th anniversary screening of Heavenly Creatures.  I was at the premiere at the Embassy in 1994 (I worked for the Film Festival then and it was the opening night film) so it was fun to be back there, 30 years later, to see it again.  Peter Jackson was there and spoke before the film, then ended up sitting right in front of me.  It was almost as much fun watching him watch the film as it was watching the film!

One of my colleagues in in a local production of We Will Rock You, so a bunch of us went to see the preview on Wednesday night.  Seriously, what a dumb show!  Great music, but the story makes no sense.  But I guess it's hard to make sense when you're writing a story to fit a bunch of well known songs into.  The performers were great and it was awesome to see Hannah in all her different wigs and costumes, singing and dancing her heart out.  It didn;t emotionally move me at all, but I did laugh a few times and it was super high energy.

And last night I went to the orchestra to hear a Russian violinist play one of Sibelus' violin concertos.  Quite wonderful.

So it has been a busy week!  We also went on sale with the Jazz Festival and farewelled two colleagues at work.  Our team is getting very small again....

I got one more rejection for Guide Us this week.  I really don't know what is up with this one.  I haven't had a single request, yet I've had the queryand opening pages critiqued by professional editors and agents three times now, and they all assure me they are great.  But... crickets.  I've never had such a terrible response rate from queries.  I mean, I know it's been a few years since I last queried, but this is seriously worrying.

My younger son is in a play this weekend and I'm going to get to go and see him act for the first time.  He's been doing drama all the way through high school, but none of his productions have been open to the public before because of COVID restrictions.  So finally, in his last year, we're going to get to see him.

I start my official training to be a spin instructor next week, so I'm going to need to spend a bit of time this weekend learning the last couple of tracks so I can run through a whole class (if needed - I think I'm probably only going to need to do the first two or three in my training session).

And that's about me... I've had a busy week - been out almost every night, so looking forward to having a bit of downtime.

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've Read: Invisible Boys

 

Set in Western Australia in a small town out of Perth, this book follows three very different boys who all share a secret: they're gay.  And being gay in this particular town, and especially at the Catholic school they all go to, is definitely not something you want people to know.

But somehow, over the course of the school year, all three are outed in different ways and have to deal with the fallout of this.

Charlie is a rocker and knows he's gay.  He doesn't advertise it, but wears his outsider status like a badge of pride.  Zeke, on the other hand, prefers to hide, always in the shadow of his popular, outgoing older brother.  And Hammer, the school footy star wears his masculinity as proudly as Charlie wears his difference.  He's certain his homosexuality is a phase he'll outgrow.  But is it?

This is a heavy book that confronts the bigotry of small town life, the ways boys are brought up to think about themselves as men and many other important topics.  The characters are so well drawn it's easy to understand them and the way they act and react in the different situations they find themselves in/

The world they live in is equally well drawn.  I can practically feel the heat rising from the pavement as the boys move through town on summer days, smell the melting tar on the road, the scent of barbecued sausages lingering in the air.

So I'd recommend this one.  It's not an easy read in some ways - it deals with suicide among other heavy topics - but I can't help thinking that if a book like this had existed when I was growing up, it would have helped a whole lot of boys I knew.

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

In a small town, everyone thinks they know you: Charlie is a hardcore rocker, who's not as tough as he looks. Hammer is a footy jock with big AFL dreams, and an even bigger ego. Zeke is a shy over-achiever, never macho enough for his family. But all three boys hide who they really are. When the truth is revealed, will it set them free or blow them apart?

Invisible Boys is a raw, confronting YA novel, tackling homosexuality, masculinity, anger and suicide with a nuanced and unique perspective. Set in regional Western Australia, the novel follows three sixteen-year-old boys in the throes of coming to terms with their homosexuality in a town where it is invisible – and so are they. Invisible Boys depicts the complexities and trauma of rural gay identity with painful honesty, devastating consequence and, ultimately, hope.

Weekly Goals 12-8-24

 As predicted, I didn't get any writing done this weekend.  I did see five films though...

Kneecap, a fast-paced, very creatively put together documentary about an Irish hip-hop group called Kneecap.  They sing in Irish, which I learned from the film, was not officially recognized as an official language in Northern Ireland until 2022.  Very political, but also a huge amount of fun, I enjoyed this one very much.

Armand is a Norwegian film and wins the prize for being the most confounding film of the Festival for me.  I'm still not sure I liked it or not.  It's about the parents of two kids being called into school to discuss something that happened between them at school.  As the meeting unfolds, more and more about the characters and their relationship is revealed and the more we know, the less certain we can be about what actually happened.  I loved this slow unfolding and the way the mother of the accused child's metal instability was revealed.  But toward the end of the film, the filmmaker took things in a new direction that was jarring because it was so unlike the rest of the storytelling.  I wish they'd either introduced this slightly fantastical element earlier, or not done it at all.

The Sweet East is one young girl's journey through the Eastern States after running away from a class trip.  She meets a bunch of different people along the way, all of whom want something from her because of the way she looks.  Part coming of age story and part social commentary/critique, this one features a star studded cast of hot young things including Talia Ryder, Earl Cave, Jacob Elordi and the woman who plays Sydney in The Bear.  I enjoyed this one, particularly Simon Rex playing a white supremacist.  Dude sure can play a sexual predator...

Janet Planet sees the adult world through the eyes of a lonely, slightly odd, 11-year-old.  After begging to come home from camp, Lacey spends the summer with her mother, Janet, watching her relationships with the people around her as they blaze and fade.  Janet is still her entire world at this point in Lacey's life, the sun around which she orbits, but you can sense that this stage is coming close to ending.  I thought this one was kind of beautiful and really captures that end-of-childhood vibe.

And finally, The Substance.  Another social commentary about the way women look and are looked at, but far less subtle than The Sweet East.  Demi Moore plays a once-hot actress called Elisabeth Sparkle who is now fronting a morning exercise program.  When the studio executive (a career-best Dennis Quaid) ditches her for being too old, she is desperate enough to try this mysterious thing called The Substance.  A new, younger, better you is created through taking this, but the catch is, each of you only gets 7 days at a time.  And if this is not adhered to, the consequences are... not pretty.  This one wins the award for out-bloodying Peter Jackson and Quentin Tarantino in the final scenes and for making several people in the audience faint.  Body horror at it s finest!

And that was the official end to the Festival.  There is one more film tonight - an anniversary screening of Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures - which I'm going to..  I was at the original premiere way back in the 1990s because in those days, I worked for the Film Festival so it feels like I should be there.

This week is another busy one with a show on Wednesday, the orchestra on Thursday and tickets going on sale for the Jazz Festival at work.  But I hope to get at least a little writing done this weekend.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 9-8-24

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

What am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend!

I have a busy one ahead with several films in the Festival.  I've also picked up a new gig and will soon be teaching spin classes at my gym, so I need to learn the choreo for the first one I've been given to learn.  I think I'm on top of the first two tracks, but need to learn the rest.  Luckily the class I've been given is one that was on rotation recently, so I pretty much remember doing it.  It's the brand new ones that I think will be more of a challenge for me.  But we'll see....

Now, films I've seen this week?  Not so many, actually.  Just two.

Didi, which was a surprisingly funny and poignant story about a teenage skater kid in (I think) California and his experience growing up in an Asian immigrant family in the early 2000s.  It really illustrated the challenges that come with not only growing up and dealing with puberty, but the added challenge of navigating two very different cultures and sets of expectations at the same time.

Then I saw Head South, which is a local film I read the script for a number of times while working at the Film Commission.  It's about the punk music scene in Christchurch in the late '70s and felt so, so familiar in a lot of ways even though I didn't grow up in Christchurch and was a little too young for punk in the '70s (my punk years were in the mid '80s).  There were so many beautiful moments of Kiwiness in there that anyone who grew up here in that period would recognise.  And some really great music too!  Enjoyed it very much.

I have another 6 films to see in the next few days, and then the Festival is over for another year.  It's a short one this year.  But I'm not going to get a lot of time back.  I've somehow managed to get myself booked up every night next week too...  Not sure when I'm going to get any writing done.  Maybe the week after...

What are you celebrating this week?

Insecure Writers Support Group - August

It's the first Wednesday of the month so it's time for the Insecure Writers Support Group!

The awesome co-hosts for the August 7 posting of the IWSG are Feather Stone, Kim Lajevardi, Diedre Knight, C. Lee McKenzie, and Sarah - The Faux Fountain Pen!

And here's this month's question:

Do you use AI in your writing and if so how? Do you use it for your posts? Incorporate it into your stories? Use it for research? Audio?

For me, the answer is no.  I have dabbled a bit with AI but ultimately have not found it at all useful in terms of creative writing.  From my perspective, it seems to be useful for things that can be templated, like business letters, job descriptions or health and safety plans, not anything that requires creativity.  And even then, I find a lot of what gets spat out needs a lot of work to get it to a point where it's useable.

I did play around with trying to get it to write a story using the daily writing prompt from the writing website I use, but the story it came up with was incomplete, badly written and very uninteresting.  I didn't even feel like adding to it or re-writing it would make it into something that I'd be happy putting my name on.  And doing that would probably have taken me longer than writing a 1,000 word story from scratch.  I generally give myself half an hour a day to write these prompt-based 1,000 word stories and I feel like it would take me way longer to fix an AI-generated one.  And where's the fun in that, anyway?

Writing is something I do for pleasure.  It's my creative outlet.  Why would I let a computer do it for me?  It would take all the joy out of the writing process for me.

If there is a good way to use AI for writing-related stuff, I'd be interested in knowing what it is.  So if you are successfully using it in some way, I'd like to know what it is...

Weekly Goals 5-8-24

 As I expected, I didn't get any writing done over the weekend.  I worked all day Saturday and Sunday I went to the four-hour doco which took up most of the day.  It was good though.  About a three-Michelin star restaurant in rural France.  it really showed the thought that goes into designing every dish, the precision of the chef's in the kitchen (and there were so many of them!) and the way the FOH staff take care of the customers.

The wine cellar was awe-inspiring and when they were talking about buying single bottles of specific vintages and bandying about prices like 20,000 euro per bottle, my mind was blown!  I mean, imagine having that kind of money!

There was also some amazing cheese in this film.  So many different kinds of cheese.... 

So goals for this week...

I'd like to get another two chapters written this week.  I'm heading into the climactic part of the story, so I'm hoping I can get through one of the big events.

I have a bunch more films to see, so hoping to enjoy them.

I have a bit of a cold, so hoping to be able to kick that out quickly.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 2-8-24

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

What am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend!

Well, not exactly...  I'm working about 16 hours tomorrow, so it's not really a weekend.  But on Sunday I have tickets to a 4-hour Frederick Wiseman documentary which I'm very much looking forward to.  Not for everyone, I'm sure, but for me, it's the most must-see film of the Festival.  I don't think I've ever missed a Wiseman doco.  Lucky the Film Festival tends to programme them because they don't tend to get a general theatrical release.

I kicked off my 2024 Film Festival yesterday afternoon with Humanist Vampire Seeks Consenting Suicidal Person, a dryly funny French Canadian film about a vampire with too much empathy to kill and her friendship with a morose young man who was picked on by all the town's bullies.  Very enjoyable!  I do love a vampire movie, especially ones that have new twists to the mythology.

I haven't got a heavy load of films booked this year, but I am going to 10, so I will report back on them as I go.

I don't expect to get any writing done this weekend, but I may take a day off during the week to make up for working the last two weekends, so that would make up for it.

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've read: Up With the Sun

 

If you know me, you know I have a thing about classic movies, Broadway shows and old-time celebrity gossip.  So when I saw this book that's a fictionalised account of the life (and death) of a decidedly C-list celebrity, I knew I had to read it.  Especially when I realised the celebrity in question was gay and hiding it like so many celebrities of his era.

Dick Kallman, the celebrity in question, is not the nicest character - something that is very likely the reason he didn't have the success he dreamed of.  Luckily, out POV character through the book is not Dick (who was murdered in 1980), but his friend Matt, a pianist whose life is actually more showbiz than Dick's, if less flashy.

Spanning a period from the 1950s through to the 1980s, the book offers a snapshot of the way gay culture and attitudes to homosexuality changed over the 30 years through the eyes of someone living that reality and disliking himself for it.  There are delightful little cameos from real life stars from the barely known to the top of the Hollywood food chain, and enough gossip to sink a ship.

The central mystery - how Dick Kallman was killed and why - is not the most interesting part of the book, but is a great premise to hang the rest of the story on and gives Matt license to dig into Dick's past through a scrapbook Dick kept of his showbiz career that Matt pilfers from the crime scene. It also gives Matt a romance of his own with a street-hustler turned police informant who quickly becomes central to his life.

Part true-crime, part social history and part celebrity dish, I enjoyed this one.

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

A look back at the life of a little-known, C-list celebrity striver who met a bad end in New York City in the 1980s.

Dick Kallman was an up-and-coming actor—until he wasn’t. From co-starring in Broadway shows, to becoming part of Lucille Ball’s historic Desilu workshop, and then finally landing his own short-lived primetime TV series, Dick’s star was clearly on the rise. But his roles began to dry up and he faded from the spotlight - until his sensational murder in 1980. Told from the perspective of Matt Liannetto, Dick’s occasional pianist and longtime acquaintance, we see the full story of Dick’s life and death. Liannetto is a talented journeyman pianist, often on the fringes of Broadway history’s most important moments. He’s also a gay man who grew up in an era when that sort of information was closely held, and he struggles with accepting the rapid changes happening in the world around him.

Up With The Sun takes readers on a journey that spans more than thirty years, from the studio lots and rehearsal sets of the 1950s to the seedy streets of 1970s Manhattan. It is a busy, bustling world, peopled by a captivating cast of characters all clamoring for a sliver of the limelight. Readers will bump elbows with Sophie Tucker and gossip about Rock Hudson during intermission at Judy Garland’s comeback show. Newsweek has called Mallon a "master of the historical novel," and here he proves himself a veteran of the genre, doing what he does best: conjuring figures from history who feel real enough to walk right off the page. This is a crime story, a showbiz story, a love story, and a deeply moving story about a series of pivotal moments in the history of gay life in the post-war era.

Weekly Goals 29-7-24

 As I suspected, I didn't get any writing time over the weekend, so I've made no more progress on A Stranger to Kindness.  And I suspect this week will be much the same, especially since the Film Festival starts on Wednesday too.

I don't have a ton of films booked for the Festival this year - just 10 at this stage, but I may add a few more once we're in train.

Everyone in my house has a cold at the moment, so my main goal for the week is to try and avoid catching that.  I have far too much on this week to be able to deal with being sick!

And that's about it for me.  

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 26-7-24

 

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

What am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend!

Well, kind of...  We've got the semi-finals for the opera singing competition we're running happening, so I'm working all weekend.  But it is just in the evening, so I may get a bit of writing time during the day.  But I'm not counting on it.

Had a couple more query rejections for Guide Us this week.  I seriously don't know what's wrong with this one.  I've never had such a dire response rate to a query.  And this query has had more professional eyes on it than any previous one.  It's incredibly frustrating.

And that's about it for me this week.  What are you celebrating?

Books I've read: We Are The Light

 

I picked this up on my last trip to the library because I've enjoyed other books by Matthew Quick and figured I'd probably like this one too.  And while I didn't love it, I did enjoy it and appreciate what it was trying to do.

Lucas Goodgame has survived an unspeakable tragedy that has taken his wife from him and torn his entire small town apart. He manages to hold himself together with his belief that his wife, Darcey, has stayed with him in her angelic form, visiting each night to hold him and guide him through his grief and the fact his analyst appears to have abandoned him.

Through a series of letters to his analyst, Lucas tells the story of his grief and eventual healing, something that is brought about when a young man, the brother of the person who instigated the violence that tore through the town, sets up camp in his yard.  A former counsellor at the high school, Lucas is drawn to help this damaged boy, and through helping him, somehow manages to heal the entire town.

Lucas is a fascinating POV character in that he wholly believes what he thinks is happening, even though his interactions with the townspeople show us that he is not seeing everything as clearly as he thinks he is.  And what a town it is!  All the citizens who rally around Lucas have their own quirks and eccentricities and they are really what makes this book so delightful.

The eventual revealing of the truth of what happened the night of the tragedy, and Lucas's own acceptance of the truth make for compelling reading. And of course, the fact that there is a movie theatre right there in the centre of the story, doesn't hurt.  At least from my perspective.

So I'd recommend this one.  It is heavy in places, and its depiction of grief and grieving is very real and raw, so if you're in a fragile place or on your own journey through grief, it may be tough read.  You've been warned...

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

Lucas Goodgame lives in Majestic, Pennsylvania, a quaint suburb that has been torn apart by a recent tragedy. Everyone in Majestic sees Lucas as a hero—everyone, that is, except Lucas himself. Insisting that his deceased wife, Darcy, visits him every night in the form of an angel, Lucas spends his time writing letters to his former Jungian analyst, Karl. It is only when Eli, an eighteen-year-old young man whom the community has ostracized, begins camping out in Lucas’s backyard that an unlikely alliance takes shape and the two embark on a journey to heal their neighbors and, most important, themselves.

From Matthew Quick, the New York Times bestselling author of The Silver Linings Playbook, We Are the Light is an unforgettable novel about the quicksand of grief and the daily miracle of love. The humorous, soul-baring story of Lucas Goodgame offers an antidote to toxic masculinity and celebrates the healing power of art. In this tale that will stay with you long after the final page is turned, Quick reminds us that guardian angels are all around us—sometimes in the forms we least expect.

Weekly Goals 22-7-24

 I managed to get quite a bit of writing done over the weekend and I'm quite happy with the scenes I wrote.  I feel like I may have sorted a few things out in my head about who knows what and that has clarified the way forward for me. 

Means I need to go back and change some stuff further back, but I'll do that later.  I know editing is going to take a long time; it always does.  One of the negatives to writing without much in the way of an outline or plan...

So my goal for this week is to try and write at least one more chapter.  It may not happen - I'm working the next two weekends because our next event is happening over that period.  Plus, the Film Festival starts at the end of July.  I haven't bought a ton of tickets for the Film Festival this year, but I got a ten-trip ticket for Christmas that I've redeemed, so I'm going to at least ten.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 19-7-24

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

What am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend!

I had two days off and did a bunch of writing on A Stranger to Kindness. I'm at that awful point in drafting where nothing seems to be hitting the page the way I want it to and everything I write feels like it's in the wrong place or happening at the wrong time.  

I know it's all part of the process and that this draft is all about getting the story onto the page and I'll be able to fix it later, but it doesn't feel great.  If feels like I'm not getting it right, that I'm not hitting the beats.  I think I'm struggling a bit with trying to show Harley's inner conflict between what he's internalised, what he's been told and what he's seeing in his new home.

Hopefully I'll be able to get that layered in once I've finished writing the thing...  I'm getting to the meaty stuff now, but can't help thinking that I haven't given the core relationships enough time to develop before getting there.  I guess we'll see how it comes out in the end.  I've written about 35K words, so it's not like I've got a bloated word count.  I can probably write another 10K or so building up those relationships before I need to get to the major turning point, so maybe I'm not in such bad shape.

I hope to get a bunch more writing done over the weekend. The weather looks like it's going to be dreadful, so a good excuse to stay in!

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've read: The Heart's Invisible Furies

A friend at work gave me this to read because she thought I'd enjoy it.  She was right...

It's kind of an epic story in that it spans around 70 years in life of Cyril from his birth out of wedlock in 1940s Ireland to the present day.  In telling the story of this one man, we get to see the way attitudes and ideas have changed over the years. And the ways they have not.

Cyril realises quite young that he's gay, even if he isn't able to communicate what it is he feels when the glamourous young Julian shows up at his house and wants to compare willies.  Cyril's attraction to Julian forms the backbone of his identity, even while Julian seems oblivious to his desires.

With Julian unable (or unwilling) to return his affections, Cyril is forced to seek satisfaction in the only places available to him in the repressed Ireland of the 1950s and 1960s.  It's only after escaping Ireland for Amsterdam that Cyril is finally able to accept himself and the love of another man.

In 1980s New York, that acceptance is turning to fear with the AIDS epidemic ravaging the gay community, yet it isn't AIDS that shatters Cyril's life but a random act of violence.  Broken, he returns to Ireland to try and reconnect with his past and find a way forward.  And in doing so, he may just find the family he's never had before...

I really enjoyed this book.  Cyril was a fascinating character because he is terribly flawed, yet still very relatable.  It was also fascinating to follow the ways attitudes toward homosexuality changed over the period of time, particularly in Ireland with its deep rooted Catholicism.

The author's note at the end was also a fascinating read, so if you decide to read this book, don't skip that!

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

Cyril Avery is not a real Avery or at least that’s what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn’t a real Avery, then who is he?

Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead.

At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from – and over his three score years and ten, will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country and much more.

In this, Boyne's most transcendent work to date, we are shown the story of Ireland from the 1940s to today through the eyes of one ordinary man. The Heart's Invisible Furies is a novel to make you laugh and cry while reminding us all of the redemptive power of the human spirit.

Weekly Goals 14-7-24

I got another chapter written over the weekend, so this week my goal is to add another one (if I don't take those days off) or another four or five if I do.  I feel like a lot of what's happening in this story is happening in the wrong order, but I'll deal with that in editing, once I've seen the shape of the whole book.  The good thing about writing in Scrivener is that it's easy to move scenes around.

I got a few more query rejections last week too, so I'm going to try and send out a few more queries this week too.  Some of the agents I wanted to query in my first round were closed, so hopefully they will have re-opened now.

And that's about it for goals.  What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 12-7-24

 

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

What am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend!

And I don't have a lot on this week, so I'm hoping to get time to write another chapter or two of Kindness.  I may also be able to have a couple of days off during the week too.  We were all gifted an extra two days' leave for working on Light Cycles and they have to be used in July.  This week makes sense to use them because the following week is when things ramp up for our next event.

I snuck out of work a little early on Thursday to go and see Kinds of Kindness, the new film by Yorgos Lanthimos.   It's almost three hours long, but doesn't;t really feel long because it's broken into three parts, each of which is kind of like its own film.  Just all three have the same actors in them, just playing different parts.  And all three stories are about power - having it, not having it, relinquishing it.  It's interesting and absurd and makes you feel a little off kilter.

I loved it.

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've Loved - The Outsiders

I’ve been thinking a lot about my writing career, how it started and my influences.  And I can’t think about that without referencing the book that started it all for me.

I first read The Outsiders when I was 12.  I remember finishing it the first time, sitting there, stunned and reeling from what I’d just read and thinking ‘I’ll never be able to read another book again.’

Obviously, I have read other books since then.  I’ve been moved by other books. I’ve been influenced by other books.  But I’ve never again finished a book and felt the same way as I felt when I finished that one.  I’m not exaggerating when I say that book changed my life.  The Outsiders changed my life.

I always felt like an outsider growing up.  Because of my dad’s job, we moved to a new country every couple of years, so I was always the new kid in school, the one with a funny accent, the wrong clothes, the wrong age for the class.  Even when we came “home” I felt like an outsider because my references and experiences were so different from those of the kids who’d grown up there.  So I embraced my outsider status and revelled in being different, wearing it on the outside so there was no mistaking it.

And I started writing.

The Outsiders is the book that made me want to be a writer.  The book that made me believe I could be a writer.  And as a writer, it’s a book I go back to whenever I want to remind myself how I need my books to make a reader feel.  Because I want to write things that make my readers feel the way I felt the first time I read it.

I still have the first copy of The Outsiders I ever bought.  It’s a movie tie-in with Coppola’s film and the illustrated cover – now long gone – showed the characters looking very like the actors that portrayed them in the film.  It’s faded and discoloured now, the back cover and last couple of pages torn.  It’s a well-read book, one of only a few I’ve owned that I can honestly say I’ve read to rags.

I used to sleep with that book under my pillow.

In fact, I slept with all S E Hinton’s books under my pillow, arranged in the order I liked them most – The Outsiders, Tex, Rumble Fish, That Was Then This is Now. I think that lasted about a year.

Interestingly, while I still love The Outsiders, as an adult I’ve come to appreciate Tex more and would almost argue that I like it more than The Outsiders.  It’s more subtle, which makes sense when you remember that Susie wrote The Outsiders when she was 15.  My writing is more subtle than it was when I was 15 too. At least I hope it is!

It’s also less obviously influenced by The Outsiders.

My early writing was basically S E Hinton fan fiction, if that term had existed.  My characters sounded and felt like her characters and I often didn’t even bother to change their names from Johnny or Steve.  I don’t think I ever wrote a character called Ponyboy, but they often sounded a lot like Ponyboy.  I also wrote a lot of boy characters.  Boys and brothers. 

I still write boy characters.  And brothers.  Always brothers.  I think I’ve only ever written one book where my protagonist only has a sister – An Unstill Life.  My other characters all have brothers, one or more. My protagonists’ brothers are often my favourite characters in the finished book too.  I love Finn in Stumped almost as much as I love Ozzy.  He’s such a complicated and layered character, even as seen through Ozzy’s eyes. And in Guide Us (the one I'm currently querying) Jason - Juliet's twin -  is a  character I enjoyed writing very much in that he's both a heo and a villain in Juliet and Iris's story.

I cannot stress how much of an influence The Outsiders has had on me as both a writer and as a human.  The book and the Coppola film (which I have probably seen at least 20 40 times ) have been constants in my life since 1985.  And I know I’m not alone.  Generations of kids have read and loved those characters in the same way I did, seeing themselves and their feelings reflected from the page. 

I can only dream that I’ll write something that will have the longevity and enduring popularity that The Outsiders has had.  Something that reaches in to touch the hearts and souls of readers because it so perfectly captures exactly how they feel in that specific moment.

A writer can dream, right?

 

 

 

 

Weekly Goals 8-7-24

 I managed to write another chapter of Kindness over the weekend, so I feel like I'm on a roll.  I have a couple of extra days off I need to use in July, so I'm hoping to take those next week and write a big chunk more.  This book might actually get finished before the end of the year!

And that's about it for goals this week.

What do you hope to achieve?

Celebrate the Small Things 5-7-24

 

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

What am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend!  And I have nothing much on this week which makes me happy.  I'm planning to go to a movie - something I haven't done for a while - and to write another chapter of  A Stranger to Kindness.

I realised this week that I missed the 10 year anniversary of becoming a published novelist.  It was in January, but because my first publisher went out of business and An Unstill Life was re-published by my current publisher, I didn't have that date at the front of my mind.  It's kind of hard to believe it's been 10 years, but then, I do now have five published novels.

To kind of celebrate that 10 year anniversary, I decided to do something I haven't done before and go back and read those published books (except My Murder Year which only released last year so is still pretty fresh in my mind from editing) which has been interesting.  After finishing each of those books I thought I'd never forget a single word of them because I'd spent so long with each of them, but I was surprised at how much I'd forgotten about them. 

I thought I'd find re-reading some of the older ones a bit cringeworthy - I'm pretty sure I'm a better writer now than I was when I wrote them - but I was pleasantly surprised.  I found a rather embarrassing number of stupid errors in one of them, but I can only blame myself for that...  I've always said Stumped was my favourite of my own books and after re-reading it, it's still true. That one is good!  If it's not tacky for me to say that myself.

There were parts of all the others that I'd probably write differently now, but they're not terrible.  I was surprised at how much I enjoyed re-reading Chasing the Taillights which is probably the oldest of these stories in terms of when I wrote the first draft.  And I was surprised at The Sidewalk's Regrets - there's a lot more of me in that one than I remembered!

So here's to there being more, better books in the next 10 years!

IWSG - July

 

It's the first Wednesday of the month so it's time for the Insecure Writer's Support Group!

The awesome co-hosts for the July 3 posting of the IWSG are JS Pailly, Rebecca Douglass, Pat Garcia, Louise-Fundy Blue, and Natalie Aguirre!

This month's question is a technical one:

What are your favorite writing processing (e.g. Word, Scrivener, yWriter, Dabble), writing apps, software, and tools? Why do you recommend them? And which one is your all time favorite that you cannot live without and use daily or at least whenever you write?

Personally, I'm a Scrivener user for my longer-form work.  I love how easy it is to move scenes and chapters around, something that is really important when you write in the rather chaotic way I tend to write.  I know there are a lot of features of Scrivener I don't use - I've never been taught to use it properly, so probably don't really harness its full potential.  If anyone has any parts of Scrivener they particularly like and want to share, I'd be keen to know what I'm not using...

For short fiction, I tend to just use Word because I don't need to move things around in the same way, and I don't feel like working in Scrivener adds anything to the process.

And that's probably the long and short of it...  I used to like to handwrite first drafts and only move to the computer for editing, but these days I tend to hit the laptop right from the start because it speeds things up a bit for me.

What writing software do you prefer?

Weekly Goals 1-7-24

 I got another two chapters of A Stranger to Kindness written over the long weekend, so I'm pleased about that.  I'm not sure any of it is any good, but I guess I can figure that out when I'm finished.  

So my goal this week is to keep going and to try and write at least one more chapter.  If I can write a chapter a week, I'll get this book finished!  I know t won't happen that way, but I'm prepared to try.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 28-6-24

 

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

What am I celebrating this week?

It's a long weekend!  A weird one where we get the Friday off instead of the Monday.  But it's still an extra day off...  I plan to use it to write and to finish my beta read.

On Sunday I'm catching up with my old team, which will be great.  It's been a while since we all got together, so I'm looking forward to it.

I've been to the gym three times already this week and plan to go another three times over the long weekend, so I'm feeling very virtuous.

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've Read: Everyone Hates Kelsie Miller

This was a rather frivolous, silly book I read a few weeks back.  I've  been reading too many long books recently, meaning I haven't been finishing stuff quickly enough to review on a weekly basis!  I must read faster...

Keslie hates Eric and has done since they were at grade school.  They have always been rivals, especially now they are at a super-competitive high school.  At the start of their senior year, Eric and Kelsie run into each other at a party and in a moment of weakness, Eric admits his girlfriend has ghosted him since leaving for college.  Kelsie admits her bestie, Brianna, has not spoken to her either, since leaving to move in with her mother across the country.

When Keslie discovers Brianna is planning a co0llege visit to the same college Eric's girlfriend is attending, she is willing to do just about anything to try and talk to her friend - even put up with Eric.

Without much of a plan, Eric and Kelsie head off, certain things will work in their favour, despite not really knowing where their people might be at any given time.  And they talk, uncovering things they each didn't about each other and their shared past.

By the end of the trip, they will either have killed one another or buried the hatchet forever.

This was a quick and easy read.  I found both Eric and Kelsie quite annoying and spending that much time with them grated on me a bit.  They did grow throughout the trip, and Kelsie was somewhat less obnoxious by the end, but not quite enough to make up for what came before.  And Eric, for someone supposedly so smart, was ridiculously shallow.

But if you like an enemies-to-lovers romance, this is not the worst I've read.

Don't just listen to me though.  Here's the blurb:

Today Tonight Tomorrow meets A Pho Love Story in this whip-smart young adult novel about a girl who embarks on a “breezy road trip romp” ( Publishers Weekly ) with her longtime rival to win back her best friend and his girlfriend.

There’s no one Kelsie Miller hates more than Eric Mulvaney Ortiz—the homecoming king, captain of the football team, and academic archrival in her hyper-competitive prep school. But after Kelsie’s best friend, Brianna, moves across the country and stops speaking to her, she’ll do anything, even talk to Eric, to find out why.

After they run into each other—literally—at the last high school party of the summer, Eric admits he’s been ghosted by his girlfriend, Jessica. Kelsie tells him she’s had zero contact from Briana since she left their upstate New York town.

Suddenly, a plan is they’ll go on a road trip to the University of Pennsylvania the following week when both Brianna and Jessica will be on campus. Together, they’ll do whatever it takes to win back their exes.

What could go wrong?

Used to succeeding in everything, Kelsie and Eric assume they’ll naturally figure out the details on the drive down. What they don’t expect is that the person they actually need may be the one sitting next to them.

Weekly Goals 24-6-24

 I have two main goals this week: to finish my beta read and to add more words to Kindness.  I ended up not working on my own book at all over the weekend, but I did work on the beta reading, so I hope I can get that done by Fridayish.  Then I can spend the rest of the long weekend on my own book.

We'll see how that goes...

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 21-6-24

 

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

What am I celebrating this week?

It's my youngest son's 17th birthday.  How the heck am I old enough for my youngest to be 17?  Crazy!  I don't feel any different inside than I did when I was 16...

I've read through the stuff I wrote last week and some of it is okay...  I think there's definitely some stuff I need to add and change, but as a starting point, it's not too bad. I'm so in love with these characters though.  I just hope I can do them justice.  I'm going to try and find a few hours to work on it this weekend (not fixing stuff, but writing forward) so I can keep up the momentum I started last week. We have a public holiday next week and I'm hoping to take an extra day on top of that to get a couple of writing days in there.

I've made more progress on my beta reading too (I'm 13 chapters in), so I need to make some more progress on that too...

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've Read: Every Other Weekend

 

I have a confession to make.  Reading this book was cheating on the book I'm actually supposed to be reading - a massive 800 page Ukranian novel which I'm reading for my book club.  I picked this up while I was writing at the library on Wednesday so I had something to read while eating lunch and just kept going...  Apologies to my other book.  I will get back to it, I promise.

I'm a huge fan of Abigail Johnson, and I enjoyed this one very much.  The characters kind of irritated me to start with, but they really grew on me as they began to see themselves and their circumstances more clearly.

The premise is simple - two kids have to spend every other weekend with their fathers in a dodgy apartment building after their parents separate.  Both hate it for different reasons, but once they meet and become friends, these weekends become the best part of their lives.

Jolene is an aspiring filmmaker, living her life in stories she can control because her own life is so miserable through no fault of her own.  She is deliciously snarky and mean as a result and has some of the4 very best lines in the whole book.

Adam, on the other hand, comes from a tight, loving home. But after his oldest brother dies, everything falls apart and his father moves out, unable to keep living with his wife's grief.  Adam s furious at his father, seeing his leaving as an abandonment of the family as a whole.  The way he treats his father and brother made me really dislike him, but his loyalty and obvious care for his mother kind of redeemed him a little.

With only two days a fortnight together, the friendship between Jolene and Adam is slow to start, but feels so organic as a result. It is so easy to see why these two people might bond, given their similar-yet-different circumstances.  With chapters alternating POV, we also get an insight into their lives when they aren't together (although I feel like we get much more of Jolene's life than Adam's - especially her friends).

I really enjoyed seeing the way they both grew and changed over the course of the book and how their friendship grew with them.  Their circumstances may have been similar to begin with, but by the end of the book they are in very different (better) situations yet you can see that their relationship has developed to a place where they don't need the shared anger and misery to bond them anymore.

So I'd recommend this one.  

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

Can life begin again… every other weekend?

Adam Moynihan’s life used to be awesome. Straight As, close friends and a home life so perfect that it could have been a TV show straight out of the 50s. Then his oldest brother died. Now his fun-loving mom cries constantly, he and his remaining brother can’t talk without fighting, and the father he always admired proved himself a coward by moving out when they needed him most.

Jolene Timber’s life is nothing like the movies she loves—not the happy ones anyway. As an aspiring director, she should know, because she’s been reimagining her life as a film ever since she was a kid. With her divorced parents at each other’s throats and using her as a pawn, no amount of mental reediting will give her the love she’s starving for.

Forced to spend every other weekend in the same apartment building, the boy who thinks forgiveness makes him weak and the girl who thinks love is for fools begin an unlikely friendship. The weekends he dreaded and she endured soon become the best part of their lives. But when one’s life begins to mend while the other’s spirals out of control, they realize that falling in love while surrounded by its demise means nothing is ever guaranteed.