Sunday, 10 April 2016

Book review and writing chores


10 April



I’ve posted another book review to ForReadingAddicts, one of my Facebook feds I do enjoy. That’s six or seven I’ve done now. What I try to do with them is to five a sense of what I felt while reading the books, others can do the deep textural analysis if they wish, but that is not my sort of writing – or reading actually – so I don’t do either. This review is on Lauren Beukes’ Broken Monsters, an odd tale of murder in Detroit. I felt let down by the ending though but as one of the 3 for a fiver offer, it wasn’t a total waste of dosh.



I suppose it had to happen at some time. There is was happily tapping away at me keyboard, working on Arathusia, when my lappy crashed. There glaring at me was a blue screen with these words shouting at me, ‘YOUR COMPUTER HAS ENCOUNTERED A PROBLEM AND NEEDS TO RESTART NOW.’ It meant that I have now lost over 4,000 words of the story, all of which needs to be done again. I always save and close down Word when I’m finished, to prevent this happening but on Friday it caught me out and it wasn’t my fault!



On a more positive note though, a few months ago I had snap photo in my mind about a retired cop standing at his bedroom window, watching snow falling. I know have around 1200 words of a new Alan Parsons story line down and saved, and there’s two bodies already. He’s the cop who finally caught the baddie in The Mission, my first novel. Finding plots lines is not really a problem for me, it’s the discipline needed to get them finished that is my major problem right now. I have so many on the go and I never know which one to work on.



Simon Whaley, in his e-book, Wunderlist For Writers, says he works on different projects every day, to keep himself motivated. Besides which he is a full time writer and needs to keep on top of his projects. He’s not one of the lucky few who has hit the big time and can concentrate on just project. Simon needs to juggle a number projects whereas, in my case, it’s me getting bored with one and starting another one. There’s a message in that you know; if I am bored with it, how interested will readers be? Oh dear …



Blimmy , Jan has just made a mug of tea and has just finished it, while mine is sat here beside me and only half gone. After 36 years of marriage you’d think I was used to that! Ah, goodo, I’ve just noticed that fish have just woken up, that means I need to feed them. By waking up, I mean the light on the tank has come on. My round on the kettle now then … right, next drink done, fish red, dunking biccies to hand – not to get on.  



Jan has got hold of a Bluetooth speaker which works with her lappy at least. I’ve not tried it on here though. Our new telly is supposed to a ‘Smart TV’, which can connect to the ‘net. We haven’t tried to do that as yet but we are wondering if we can get that speaker to work on there as well. The telly is certainly a good one, but is let down by poor speakers, we have to raise the volume very high to hear anything. Playing a DVD is even worse and what we really need is a sound system. For now, we will try to make do the one Jan has got her hands on. There’s another going if anyone wants it.


Today’s photo …

A rather nice rambling rose bush.            



Todays’ Funny …



What do you get if you cross an orange with a comedian?
You get peels of laughter.



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