Losing oneself in Books and Writing
Apr. 29th, 2012 08:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. If anyone is reading this? Please wish me luck. I just sent the first 105 pages of my novel Doing Time on Planet Earth to a former work colleague who is the Director of Contracts at a Publishing Company in MA. I know this is a longshot.
Brief summary of Doing Time? Told in the point of view of three people - an unemployed and depressed former editor of a library reference publishing company, a struggling private eye who wants to help the editor because he has a savior complex, and an embezzler/identity thief that they are both tracking (who just happens to be the editors best bud). During the course of the novel and against all odds they come together to help each other.
What I didn't tell her is the novel references pop culture, and the editor and identity thief met online in fandom. It's a weird book. Doesn't quite fit in any genre. And takes place in a post 9/11 NYC during the Bush era.
I finished it five years ago. And sporadically been sending it out. It's the best thing I've written. I keep hoping it may get published someday and someone besides the five people who have read outside of me will read it. I'm too cowardly to publish it to my blog.
It's hard enough when you don't get responses to blog posts but to works of fiction, ugh, the pain!
2. My weekend was more or less swallowed by a trashy novel. It's quite sad. But I think I needed it. To just lose myself inside a book. Have you ever lost yourself inside a book, just fallen into that world. Laughed, cried. And even if its not great...it doesn't matter, you love it? And then afterwards feel a bit guilty because it's not great and probably forgettable? I hope it's not just me. At any rate, I need to lose myself a bit.
Last week was fretful. And the next two will be two. I'm overwhelmed at work. And personal life feels almost non-existent outside of church. And my relationship with kid-bro is tenuous at best. .So am a bit lonely. And frustrated. And wired. Sleeping badly. So losing self in book was a welcome release, particularly one that I did not envy or want to be the characters or felt the need to think. In honor of this, a list of books I've lost myself in that I remember:
1. Dorothy Dunnett's Checkmate, the last novel in the Chronicles of Lymond.
2. Jim Butcher's "Changes"
3. Frank Herbert's Dune
4. Elizabeth Peter's The Night Train to Memphis
5. Kim Harrison's Pale Demon and various others in her Rachel Morgan series.
6. Dan Simmions Hypernion
7. John Green's The Fault in Our Stars
8. Suzanne Collin's The Hunger Games Triology
9. JK Rowlings Harry Potter books
10. PD Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster novels...which I call my happy books
Honorable mention:
* Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and Sandition
* Robin McKinney's Sunshine
* Loretta Chase's Last Hellion
* Fanfic by various Spuffy authors specifically wisteria, herself_nyc, rarhriah, angeria,
and unbridled_burnette.
* Katherine Novell's A Calculated Risk
* John Grisham's The Firm
* X-Men Comics
* Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
* The Ice House by Minette Walters
* The Flanders Panel by Arturo Pereze-Reverte
* Cordelia's Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold
* The Secret History by Donna Tartt
* The Sparrow by Maria Doria Russell
* Grass by Sherri Tepper
Two things I lose myself in - books and writing. I'm considering purchasing Tess of Durberville's next on my Kindle and maybe renting the Roman Polanski film, along with Far from the Maddening Crowd. I've never really read Thomas Hardy, sorry to say. Also need to read some Henry James...although I tend to agree with Mark Twain's assessment. James lacked a sense of humor. I need a bit of wit.
Brief summary of Doing Time? Told in the point of view of three people - an unemployed and depressed former editor of a library reference publishing company, a struggling private eye who wants to help the editor because he has a savior complex, and an embezzler/identity thief that they are both tracking (who just happens to be the editors best bud). During the course of the novel and against all odds they come together to help each other.
What I didn't tell her is the novel references pop culture, and the editor and identity thief met online in fandom. It's a weird book. Doesn't quite fit in any genre. And takes place in a post 9/11 NYC during the Bush era.
I finished it five years ago. And sporadically been sending it out. It's the best thing I've written. I keep hoping it may get published someday and someone besides the five people who have read outside of me will read it. I'm too cowardly to publish it to my blog.
It's hard enough when you don't get responses to blog posts but to works of fiction, ugh, the pain!
2. My weekend was more or less swallowed by a trashy novel. It's quite sad. But I think I needed it. To just lose myself inside a book. Have you ever lost yourself inside a book, just fallen into that world. Laughed, cried. And even if its not great...it doesn't matter, you love it? And then afterwards feel a bit guilty because it's not great and probably forgettable? I hope it's not just me. At any rate, I need to lose myself a bit.
Last week was fretful. And the next two will be two. I'm overwhelmed at work. And personal life feels almost non-existent outside of church. And my relationship with kid-bro is tenuous at best. .So am a bit lonely. And frustrated. And wired. Sleeping badly. So losing self in book was a welcome release, particularly one that I did not envy or want to be the characters or felt the need to think. In honor of this, a list of books I've lost myself in that I remember:
1. Dorothy Dunnett's Checkmate, the last novel in the Chronicles of Lymond.
2. Jim Butcher's "Changes"
3. Frank Herbert's Dune
4. Elizabeth Peter's The Night Train to Memphis
5. Kim Harrison's Pale Demon and various others in her Rachel Morgan series.
6. Dan Simmions Hypernion
7. John Green's The Fault in Our Stars
8. Suzanne Collin's The Hunger Games Triology
9. JK Rowlings Harry Potter books
10. PD Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster novels...which I call my happy books
Honorable mention:
* Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and Sandition
* Robin McKinney's Sunshine
* Loretta Chase's Last Hellion
* Fanfic by various Spuffy authors specifically wisteria, herself_nyc, rarhriah, angeria,
and unbridled_burnette.
* Katherine Novell's A Calculated Risk
* John Grisham's The Firm
* X-Men Comics
* Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
* The Ice House by Minette Walters
* The Flanders Panel by Arturo Pereze-Reverte
* Cordelia's Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold
* The Secret History by Donna Tartt
* The Sparrow by Maria Doria Russell
* Grass by Sherri Tepper
Two things I lose myself in - books and writing. I'm considering purchasing Tess of Durberville's next on my Kindle and maybe renting the Roman Polanski film, along with Far from the Maddening Crowd. I've never really read Thomas Hardy, sorry to say. Also need to read some Henry James...although I tend to agree with Mark Twain's assessment. James lacked a sense of humor. I need a bit of wit.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-04-30 01:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-30 05:54 am (UTC)