On Fridays, I post a round up of the various posts and articles that have been of interest to me during the week:
I loved this article about Nora Roberts from the New York Times’ “By the Book” feature. I’ve wrote down many of the suggestions and have added them to my Goodreads.
Sometimes I add recipes of things that I plan to make on this blog, since cooking is one of my other creative outlets. I made this soup from my writing hero J.T. Ellison this past weekend. Since my kiddos don’t touch it, it makes a ton of leftovers. Which means I don’t have to cook for most of the rest of the week. (WINNING.) And I got a kick out of this post regarding Joan Didion’s cookbook.
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Listening to: I wrote a blog post awhile back about listening to music while I write. To that end, I made a Spotify playlist of the songs that have inspired me / contributed to the muse for After Life. The songs are a little all over the place (Bowie! Off-Broadway!), but they all have a spot in the canon. (Let me know if the link doesn’t work … I’m new at this Spotify thing.)
Reading: Still on Deborah Harkness. Took a (very) quick detour to the first Pendergast novel “Relic” by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. A boyfriend of mine from high school had loaned me that book during my senior year and it was an absolute joy to rediscover it. It also reminded me how important pacing is in novels. I am a fast reader by nature (and necessity – I’m the mother of two toddlers) and I slammed that book in four hours. It was exhilarating. I’m going to have to visit the library and read the rest of them as well.
Fiction update: Editing, editing, editing. I’m past the “this is shit” phase from last week and I remain cautiously optimistic. The deadline I have set for myself is pages in hands of beta readers by April 1. I can do this.
michellekubitz 