Hope everyone had a good holiday! Ours was fine, just quiet with family, which was nice. Sometimes we have a lot of visitors with us, but not this year. And what was REALLY nice was that the MEN pitched in and helped my sis and me clean up. Now you know who still did the lion’s share, but it was nice that they didn’t just sit on their butts watching football the whole day!
I remember Thanksgivings at either of my grandmothers’ houses. Ah, those were the days. I was too young to have to work much, and not trusted to set the table with the good china or crystal. Instead my sister and I would go outside if the weather was good (this was in New England) and go for walks, or watch while the men threw a football around, or play with the dog, etc.
Then we’d come inside and a feast would have appeared as if by magic, filling the table with delectable smells! A huge turkey, with stuffing peeking out of it, and mashed potatoes and mashed rutabagas, little salad plates to fill with cranberry gel or cranberry-orange relish (made from local cranberries), giblet gravy, homemade rolls, salads…
It was like something out of Harry Potter, this magical feast appearing, conjured seemingly out of nowhere. Somehow I never thought to look at either of my grandmothers, or mother and aunt, when they finally slid into their chairs, grateful for the first chance to sit down after hours and hours of racing around, cooking.
You betcha that these days I know EXACTLY where the feast comes from.
Anyone seen the new Harry Potter? I went to a midnight show the day it opened, and saw it. Any thoughts? (No spoilers, please, it’s still early days and lot of folks probably haven’t gotten to see it yet.)
Speaking of cruddy agents, not only to they LIE, they also come up with the most ridiculous excuses for not being able to sell books, if they have the nerve to challenge Writer Beware publicly, and we point out their lousy track records. I remember Agent R, who bleated publicly that he couldn’t sell any books, despite having been in business over a year (and steadily collecting fees from authors) because he was too tired to work days. And why, you may ask? BECAUSE HE LIVED IN A HAUNTED HOUSE AND WAS KEPT AWAKE ALL NIGHT BY THE GHOSTS. Or so he claimed.
I swear, I am not making this up.
That guy was publicly laughed off Writers.net. He’s pretty well gone underground and we haven’t heard a thing from him since then.
Okay, here’s today’s WRITING TIP:
When you find yourself writing a description of ANYTHING (person or location) and you realize you’ve written over three or four hundred words about it, it’s time to stop describing, move the story forward, then, later, go back and edit down that description. Stopping all forward action for more than a printed page is almost always a no-no.
-Ann C. Crispin
Author: STORMS OF DESTINY/HarperEos
www.accrispin.com
I agree with harry connolly about the HP/GOF movie. It felt flat–as if it was simply an outline of the major events of the book. There were only a few points in which I became emotionally invested in the characters. Visually a treat, but overall, disappointing.
ljcohen
http://ljcbluemuse.blogspot.com
Oh, I forgot to mention…
I live in a haunted house and I have plenty of energy to get through the day. That agent was just a wimp.
🙂
I saw the new Harry Potter. It was fun, but this is the first time one of the movies has seemed so much less than the book. Goblet was much darker and complex than the previous books, that the adaptation felt much thinner than any of the others.
I understood the changes they made (and I know why they had to make them), but the movie can’t help but suffer by comparison.
It was still a good movie, though.