Month: July 2011

Reading, Writing

Writer’s crush

sashikaufman

I just finished David Mitchell’s latest book The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.  It’s really amazing to read 2 or 3 of an author’s books and really observe and enjoy them as they hone their skills.  Mitchell just keeps getting better and better.  He demonstrates his skills in the complex plotting of this book, the unusual and meticulously researched historical setting, and the beauty and attention he lavishes on individual sentences.  I have to share one of my favorites; an introductory sentence used the first time we meet a character.

“Arie Grote had a grin full of holes and a hat made of shark’s hide.”

This sentence epitomizes the title of my blog “Ideas in Things.”  “No ideas but in things,” is a quote from William Carlos Williams about writing. The way I understand it is the same way Mitchell uses the grin full of holes and the hat made of shark’s hide to show us his character rather than tell us about him.

Brilliant, just brilliant!  Gush, gush, gush.

Advertisement
Random musings

Warm Nights, Hot Ladies

sashikaufman

All I wanted for my birthday was to go dancing.  Luckily Bubba’s Sulky Lounge was happy to oblige with its fabulous 80’s night.  Luckily I have fabulous friends who went all out with their 80’s apparel.  There was plenty of good times and “hands over the head” dancing had by all.

Watch out for these ladies!

 

Note the wide variety of 80's looks.

 

A fight breaks out!

 

Good times!
Writing

I’m a slow cooker

sashikaufman

2 pages of writing a day.  This has always been my goal when I’m in a writing mode.  Sometimes I accomplish a little more, but I try never to write less.  This summer I’m getting writing time in bigger chunks spread farther apart.  So I’m faced with a dilemma; dare I try to adopt a bigger goal?  I would like to have a first draft on my new w.i.p. finished by the end of the summer.  Dare I do the math and see what that would require?

240 pages (approximate estimated length of novel) – 60 pages (already written) = 180

180 (divided by a number I never like to count -days of summer) = About 5 pages a day.

Whoa, that’s two and a half times my current goal!

Ambitious, a little scary for me, but certainly possible.