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16 November 2012

NaNoWriMo Up to Today

Okay somehow Blogger's spam filter is kaput. Great, just great. Don't take it personally if I invoke Captcha for a while, although I hope there's a workaround.

Ummm let's see. I've had a busy non-writing week, and an okay writing week too. I'm about to hit a couple of kaboom moments that I've been waiting to unleash for a while, so that's exciting. My main character isn't going to see what's coming. As it turns out he's a wee bit smug, so I think I'll enjoy smashing him in the face with the plot equivalent of a wet fish.

In the meantime, I've been reading super short novels and ultra short stories. If you haven't read them, I heartily recommend Daisuki by Hildred Billings and The New Death and Others by James Hutchings, for totally different reasons.

Hildred's book is naughty lesbian erotica (or maybe porny romance?). Hildred manages to deftly balance fun sex scenes with an exploration of what it's like to be a gay woman in Japan and a central romance in which, despite conflict, we aren't asked to choose sides but rather understand both characters' points of view. It's lovely.

James Hutchings's short story collection sits somewhere between a modern, snarky Aesop's Fables and a perverse version of the Grimm Brothers' Fairy Tales, with a smidge of Cthulhu thrown in just for fun. There's some shorter poetry in the mix, also, which is everything short poetry should be, which is to say clever. James, I trust you wouldn't mind my sharing a bit from the poem that convinced me I was going to have a great time reading the collection, "If My Life Was Filmed:"

If my life was filmed, it would
go straight to DVD
and someone who was famous once
would have the role of me
and if five stars meant 'excellent'
you'd give it two or three
and most of those who rented it
would watch ironically.

Seriously, The New Death and Others is worth your time if you like smart ideas played out in the time it would take to crack a whip. It's worth the investment to get to read the second half of "If My Life Was Filmed."

(37060 words)

7 comments:

Deborah Walker said...

James' book sounds like my cup of tea. Thanks for the recommendation, Elijavascript:void(0)zabeth.

Writer Pat Newcombe said...

sounds like your nanowrimo is going very well! It is ecxiting when we get to those moments in the plot that we have been waiting for with bated breath - or something like that!

Libby said...

Going to check out The New Death and Others. The poem got me, as did your rec!

Catherine Stine said...

I just finished reading The Passage, which is over 900 pages! So, I'd say that I'm definitely ready for a short novella! Have a peaceful holiday.

Deborah Walker said...

mmm, spammy-delicious.

Elizabeth Twist said...

Is anyone else having issues with spam getting through on Blogger? Most of it is still getting spamerated, but enough is getting through.

Hand-marking all this spam...it's downright tiring! I miss the days when there was a proper team of enslaved but intelligence enhanced monkeys to do these things.

Wayne Assiratti said...

I have read the New Death and Others too. It's full of great stuff. I did a review for it on my blog a while back. It's really smart without being reall preachy about current issues. I loved it.

As for Spam, I haven't been subjected to that as yet as I don't have a big readership and probably aren't on gthe spammers radar yet. that's what I'm telling myself anyway....

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