Shutter Island
I have had ‘Mystic River’ in my to-be-read pile for quite sometime. I haven’t seen the movie but I have seen the movie for ‘Gone Baby Gone’ and thought it was great.
The trailers for the movie ‘Shutter Island’ drew me in and I bought the book the other day. Could not put it down. Stayed up till 2:00 AM this morning and had to go to bed because I couldn’t keep my eyes open. First thing this morning, I put on a pot of coffee and sat in my cozy reading chair and finished it. It was so good. I won’t spoil anything by telling you more about the story but if you like suspenseful mysteries, you have to read this one. Now I am counting down the days for the movie.
Spent the afternoon with my writer friend Sara. We like to get together at least once a week. We usually meet at Barnes and Noble and we discuss writing and books. We have both been struggling with finishing our most recent attempts at novel writing. We have both been struggling with either trying to find a job or supporting a spouse who is trying to find a job. I do think that has taken a little bit of the drive to complete the work – out of us. On top of it, she had a trip to the Emergency Room recently and is waiting to follow up with her own doctor and because of a debilitating headache has found it hard to do anything, let alone write or read.
I have gone back to basics and started reading ‘The Writer’s Book of Days’ again and doing the daily writing prompts. I actually wrote a pretty good short story the other day, if I do say so myself. Since I have published one short story in the past, I think I can tell when something might be worth sending out and this is the first story in a while that has jumped out at me and encouraged me to submit it somewhere. This week I will edit and polish and start looking for a home for it.
Doing the prompts has helped pull me out of whatever was holding me back with my writing. It gives me something to warm up with before I jump into the story I started in November. I think part of my problem was Nanowrimo. Though it is a great way for me to get a huge amount of words written on a project, it also leaves me feeling a little disenchanted when it is all over. I know it isn’t supposed to be perfect, it is a first draft but I spend so much time pumping it out that by the time the end of November comes, I’m getting burned out with the whole process. I lose my desire to write. The other thing that has made me slow down and reassess what I’ve been doing is the fact that though I am thrilled to be starting a new job next week, I know I will not have any time to take off to attend any kind of writing conference this year. That fact took a little steam out of my sails. But now I have something to look forward to next year. I am going to take a little more time to finish my novel, continue writing some more short stories and start another novel this year. Hopefully I can start planning to attend a few conferences in 2011.
I will have a new Write a Novel with Me post – hopefully tomorrow.
In the meantime keep writing,
Virginia
I have been debating reading Shutter Island so now that you recommend it, I will have to as you haven’t steered me wrong yet.
We may be going to the movie on Monday for my birthday so hope it doesn’t ruin the book for me.
How is your job going? Do you like it?
What kind of writing conferences do you go to? I’m not even sure what to look under to find ones. The problem, of course, also lies in the fact that I work every weekend of the year.
I have been wanting to go see Shutter Island too. Just haven’t wanted to go alone. I loved the book. Happy Birthday early. The job is going very well. It was such a relief just passing the insurance exam. I won’t be selling but I needed it to be a Customer Service Rep. I have training until May 10th. At that time I will have kind of a wonky schedule too. I will Have Saturday and Tuesday off. But when I was really busy selling real estate, I had weeks with no days off so I will adjust. Money and benefits are wonderful. Hubby has been job searching since April 2008 so my finding this job has been a Godsend. I also had a friend recommend me to Women’s Digest here in Des Moines. I have to send them a couple samples of my work and if they like it, they’ve offered me a monthly artlcle. Doesn’t pay very much but it would make me a professional freelancer.
I have been to several writer’s conferences over the years. I belong to RWA so have gone to both regional and the national conference several years ago – Chicago, Kansas City, Omaha, Anneheim. I’ve attended a couple of mystery conferences – Love is Murder in Chicago and Mayham in the Midlands in Omaha. I used to attend a conference in Kansas City that wasn’t genre specific that I really liked at Maplewood Community College. Got to practice pitching a story to a couple of agents and a publisher. Just depends on what you write. I would love to take a class in the summer in Iowa City. Some of my Ya-Ya’s (Writer friends who call themselves Ya-Ya’s after the movie.) have done it over the years. Two of them are now published. One with a novel and the other with a historical documentary. I won’t be attending any conferences this year but I hope to next year after I’ve built up some vacation. My best friend has attended the Pikes Peak conference a couple of times and really wants me to go with her. She won’t be going this year either. Her husband lost his job last summer so we’re both in the same boat.
I said Womens Digest, I meant Womens Edition.