Exchange, and other stuff
Well, I've drawn a very sexy Severus for my exchange piece, but I just can't get the hang of Hermione. She obviously doesn't do it for me in the way SS does! So while I have whatever the art equivalent of writer's block is, I have moved to one of the fic prompts that I always intended to have a go at anyway. I've got 8 pages of longhand to type up at lunch time, which is probably the first 1/3rd or so. Hopfully, my muse will stay with me and not chase the plot possums away.
We are supposed to be going to a rodeo tomorrow afternoon/evening, but with the current equine influenza problems, I'm not sure if it will all still be on. We went last year, and it was an experience. I didn't realise just how big the bulls that they ride are, or what prima donas the bulls themselves are. They play to the crowd, acting all big and fierce. They are huge, and if they wanted to, could certainly get out of the ring and cause havock amongst the crowd. Instead they play up the "big and mean" aspect, and trot round the ring with an air of 'worship me, because I'm much better than that stupid cowboy in his gold chaps (yes, really) that I've just thrown to the floor'. I didn't think of them having personality before.
My holiday reading - eventually - went something like this:
Isabel Allende, In the House of the Spirits. This was just a stunning book following a family in an unspecified South American country as it moved from Conservative, to Socialist to dictatorship. Although the main male charachter wasn't a very nice person, I sympathised with his sense of confusion at how the world was changing - he honestly believed that he was looking after his workers and it was hard for him to realise that food and shelter are sometimes not enough and that they wanted autonomy. The main story is told from the perspective of the women in the family, and the hardships they face throughout the turbulent times. I'm really not doing it justice with this, but it is definitely worth a read.
Dorothy L Sayers, Lord Peter Views the Body. This was a collection of short stories, and I'm afraid that I didn't finish it because Lord Peter Whimsey was getting on my tits! I am going to give the author another go, but with a novel rather than the short stories. Without knowing the character, these short stories never gave me a chance to connect with him and I just thought he was a smart arse, so maybe a novel will give me the chance to get to know the man, and he will cease to annoy me so much.
Jane Green, Jemima J. This was enjoyable, but the constant change in perspective between her writing in the first and third person interrupted the flow a bit. The main character is an overweight journalist secretly in love with the news editor on the local paper where she writes the 'top tips' column. After going on an internet course, she starts chatting to an American gym owner in a chat room and sends him a picture of herself that the graphics department have doctored to make her look thin. He invites her to California, so she has to work hard and eat nothing to make herself look like the picture before she goes. There is an ironic twist to the tale, and a lovely happy ending. Perfect holiday fodder!
Jane Green, Mr Maybe. I didn't enjoy this as much as Jemima J, but it was an entertaining enough story about materialism in relationships. Libby is looking for a rich husband, but meets the sexy but broke writer Nick. When the rich but boring and crap in bed Ed proposes, she has to make the decision between love and wealth.
I never got round to reading Watership Down, sorry
camillo1978 , but I will do it eventually, maybe, if it doesn't make me cry!
We are supposed to be going to a rodeo tomorrow afternoon/evening, but with the current equine influenza problems, I'm not sure if it will all still be on. We went last year, and it was an experience. I didn't realise just how big the bulls that they ride are, or what prima donas the bulls themselves are. They play to the crowd, acting all big and fierce. They are huge, and if they wanted to, could certainly get out of the ring and cause havock amongst the crowd. Instead they play up the "big and mean" aspect, and trot round the ring with an air of 'worship me, because I'm much better than that stupid cowboy in his gold chaps (yes, really) that I've just thrown to the floor'. I didn't think of them having personality before.
My holiday reading - eventually - went something like this:
Isabel Allende, In the House of the Spirits. This was just a stunning book following a family in an unspecified South American country as it moved from Conservative, to Socialist to dictatorship. Although the main male charachter wasn't a very nice person, I sympathised with his sense of confusion at how the world was changing - he honestly believed that he was looking after his workers and it was hard for him to realise that food and shelter are sometimes not enough and that they wanted autonomy. The main story is told from the perspective of the women in the family, and the hardships they face throughout the turbulent times. I'm really not doing it justice with this, but it is definitely worth a read.
Dorothy L Sayers, Lord Peter Views the Body. This was a collection of short stories, and I'm afraid that I didn't finish it because Lord Peter Whimsey was getting on my tits! I am going to give the author another go, but with a novel rather than the short stories. Without knowing the character, these short stories never gave me a chance to connect with him and I just thought he was a smart arse, so maybe a novel will give me the chance to get to know the man, and he will cease to annoy me so much.
Jane Green, Jemima J. This was enjoyable, but the constant change in perspective between her writing in the first and third person interrupted the flow a bit. The main character is an overweight journalist secretly in love with the news editor on the local paper where she writes the 'top tips' column. After going on an internet course, she starts chatting to an American gym owner in a chat room and sends him a picture of herself that the graphics department have doctored to make her look thin. He invites her to California, so she has to work hard and eat nothing to make herself look like the picture before she goes. There is an ironic twist to the tale, and a lovely happy ending. Perfect holiday fodder!
Jane Green, Mr Maybe. I didn't enjoy this as much as Jemima J, but it was an entertaining enough story about materialism in relationships. Libby is looking for a rich husband, but meets the sexy but broke writer Nick. When the rich but boring and crap in bed Ed proposes, she has to make the decision between love and wealth.
I never got round to reading Watership Down, sorry
camillo1978 , but I will do it eventually, maybe, if it doesn't make me cry!