Delicious Chocolate Cookie

So I’m sitting in the office with the lights turned off and the fan on and the AC cranked up and I’m drinking iced tea and I just finished eating a delicious chocolate cookie. All completely necessary information, I know. But hey, it’s hot out, and I gotta stay cool and hydrated, and who WOULDN’T want a delicious chocolate cookie? See, it all makes sense.

At any rate, on to the big writing news of the week!

***drumroll***

I started that huge novel rewrite!! It’s for a novel I first wrote back in 2006 for NaNoWriMo, and I feel like it’s a story that needs telling and I want to try again and see if I can get it right this time! There’s an enormously long way to go, and a lot of big decisions I’ve gotta make along the way, but I have a good start so far and I’m pretty excited about it.

As for that short story, I’ve decided to leave it alone for a while. Writing is so weird. Sometimes things just need more time to gel, and I think that’s where this story is. I do think I’ll try again someday, but for now it needs to retreat into the subconscious and see if it can find a plot and some character development. Um, yeah…

I finished reading Dark Lord of Derkhelm earlier this week, and I just loved it. I’m always so impressed/amazed/inspired by Diana Wynne Jones. She wrote so many books during her lifetime and they’re all so witty and strange and wonderful. She’s a FANTASTIC storyteller. Dark Lord is just about up there with Fire and Hemlock and Howl’s Moving Castle for me. I’ve read a ton of her books, but not all of them yet, which I need to remedy. I aspire to be as creative and productive as Diana!

And speaking of productive, I think I might go work on that novel revision for a while……

Cheers, and stay cool out there!!

P.S. Why is the tea all gone??

Book Review: Fire and Hemlock

Yes I know I posted once this morning. And yes I realize I mentioned I was reading Fire and Hemlock.

I spent the last four hours finishing it, mostly forgetting to breathe.

It was amazing.

But not at all what I expected. If I manage to write a book half that good I can die happy.

But that’s not really a review, is it?

It all starts when nine-year-old Polly accidentally gate-crashes a funeral. She meets a man named Thomas Lynn, and they do a bit of silly play-acting together. Except it all seems to come true, right down to the giant in the supermarket. Ten years later Polly isn’t sure it happened at all. But she still has the picture she stole the day of the funeral, the picture of fire and hemlock hanging over her bed. And she has the memories that she can’t quite seem to reconcile with real life.

This book is gorgeous and gripping. Vivid. Intriguing. And it ended just a tiny bit too soon.

Diana Wynne Jones, you are my hero.