After several delays, my website additions are finally up and running. I need to keep adding more stuff, including links to other sites and some articles I've written, but most of the main material is there. School visit information and some photos. Haven't yet worked out how to put up my small video. Apparently I need a plug-in from Macromedia which I'm putting off getting (ah, procrastination). I've added a link to this blog too.
No new writing this week. I had good intentions and then suddenly had to write a synopsis for a YA novel I've finished reworking. I thought I had an old version on my very old computer in the back room but couldn't find it so had to start from scratch. It took several hours and who knows if it's any good. Synopses seem to be the thing everyone hates writing (so hard to make them sound interesting!) but are becoming standard in a world where most editors only want to see the first three chapters.
We are all time-starved and I often wonder why.
An old friend who writes family histories has asked me to help her on the one she is writing at present. Previously I had said I couldn't manage it. However I am now going to be doing quick edits (slash and burn, I call it) and handing it back for her to decide whether I've done it the way she wants.
I finished the 'Rise and Fall...' book - interesting but ultimately depressing. I wonder what teens think of it. The main character seemed so conflicted and unable to work out who she was, and the depressing part for me was that I didn't feel she'd made any progress by the end. In fact, I thought the ending was fudged - not really resolved in terms of character growth and a bit too neatly resolved in terms of plot. Left me feeling uneasy, as if the author had tried to make life simple and failed.
Then I started 'Sea of Trolls' by Nancy Farmer, which I had been looking forward to after 'House of the Scorpion' and haven't got past half-way. Found it very disappointing - the main character feels shallow and slight somehow, and I just haven't been able to involve myself in the story. Is this HP hangover, I ask myself? So I've put it away for a while.
And moved on to crime - Kathy Reichs - 'Cross Bones'. It reads like a clone of the Da Vinci Code - same religious stuff, as in did Jesus really die/live/whatever, except this is about bones and tombs and ossuaries. Yawn. It's just interesting enough to keep me reading, but she falls into the 'As you know, Bob' thing of using tons of dialogue to provide a mountain of information.
Maybe I need to pull out my Annie Proulx (That Old Ace in the Hole) and try that for a complete change of pace.
For an addicted reader, there's nothing more frustrating than not being able to find a book that I can totally sink into.