Mets vs. Royals Game 2

Watching the World Series. Bottom of the 4. 1-0, NY Mets. Last night the KC Royals won after an epic 14 innings, and technical difficulties that shut down the ball game. Tonight, it's the bottom of the fourth with two men on base, Royals.

Seems to be a pitchers game though, with the Mets who have 88-97 mph pitches. And the Royals deep bull pen - means they don't have to worry about wearing out pitchers.

Oh, and its drizzling in KC, while it's raining in NY.

Wed Reading Meme...

Continues to fascinate me how two people can read the same book yet have opposite reactions to it. MD, who ironically recommended Boys in the Boat for the book club, disliked it and is struggling to get through it. While I loved it. She found it to be overly sentimental and manipulative. About a boring topic that seemed to not matter all that much. I felt the exact opposite, I found the book to be compelling, and satisfying on multiple levels.

Reactions to my own book have surprised me as well. While my two publishing contacts did not like my book, two separate book clubs, various co-workers male and female of varying ages, friends and acquaintances of my mother, including her hairdresser, two online friends, and a few family members have loved it. Strangers and people who know me. I have discovered that it is in part a writing style issue - people who prefer a more minimalistic writing style, with less description and detail, didn't like the book as much (such as my father whose favorite writer is a toss between Ernest Hemingway and Raymond Chandler), while folks who love details, and description, adored it. My mother told me tonight that her hairdresser loved my book so much that she gave it to a friend. She then asked how it was doing in sales - and my mother said, well it's difficult since so much of it is by word of mouth. True. So very true.

For anyone who has read my book, various characters were inspired by real people, actually. And I can't remember the name of the blind guy dating Hope in the book. I just blanked on the name. That character is based loosely on a friend of cjl, who I never met, but cjl used to talk about. He lost his vision as a teen, and loves to watch Looney Tunes cartoons for the the sound effects and score.
Tom and Jerry as well. Fiske is loosely based on a guy that I met at cocktail party who was a card counter in Vegas, along with a few other characters in my head at the time, including Spike. Caddy is based on various people, as is Hope. Many of the things that happened in my book, actually happened to me - the job interviews, all of them, are based on real interviews. The robbery of the lap-top actually happened. And the rock concert in Farmingdale is loosely based on a James Marsters concert I attended and various gossip regarding what went on back stage at the concerts. And the emergency room bit -- was based loosely on my own experiences in that emergency room both as a patient and assisting a friend.

John Grisham stated recently that he can't read any of his own books. He tried once. And decided never to do it again. Once they are out there, he's finished with them. I think that's true. I find it difficult to read stories or things that I've written. I've moved on. Makes me wonder if other writers feel much the same way? And possibly, like me, forget things they've written. Readers and television watchers assume the writer knows and remembers the story better than they do, because well it came out of them or they wrote it. But here's the thing about story-telling, it's a bit like channeling, once it comes out of you -- you forget it. It's gone.

Sort of makes one wonder why we bother with reading or writing book reviews. I think a good book review gives you a sense of whether you might be interested in or enjoy the book, regardless of what the reviewer thought about it.

As you know, when it comes to culture, I'm really not a snob. And my taste varied.

Anywho...

1.) What I've just finished reading?

( comic books and romance novels, aka pulp fiction )

2.) What I'm reading now?

( Read more... )

I'm basically reading pulp fiction written by women and men. I love pulp. It requires little concentration. Is comforting. And quite cathartic.

3) What I'm reading next?

One in the Heart by Sherry Thomas -- Sherry Thomas's attempt at contemporary romance, which is admittedly a genre that I'm not all that found of. But Thomas focuses on family issues better than most.

Uprooted by an author whose name I can't remember -- about a girl who enters a dangerous forest to become a wizard's apprentice, only to fall for him.

X-Men - Second Coming - the return of Cable and Hope to the X-men.

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

And whatever book my book club decides on next. I'm supposed to come to the club on Friday with three selections. Right now, mine are:

1. Station Eleven - a sci-fi dystopia novel about a traveling theater group
2. Euphoria - a story about three anthropologists in a love triangle, in Africa, with cannibals
3. The Birthday Boys - a non-fiction novel about a doomed expedition to antartica