#365Gratitude Day 344: It's gonna be magic

I really, really, really love Lev Grossman's Magicians series.  It's the story of Quentin Coldwater, a very smart and very depressed high school student, on his way to college, who knows that there's something missing from his life, something vital.  He's filled with ennui, bitterness, sarcasm, good math skills, and a penchant for card tricks.

The something that's missing from his life is magic.  Also maybe prozac, some therapy, and emotional maturity, especially around relationships.  He gets into a sort of magical college called Brakebills.  Adventure ensues!  

The books are like putting Harry Potter, Narnia, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, a bottle of vodka, and maybe some amyl nitrate in a blender.  They're amazing.  Quentin is, at turns, empathetic, heroic, disgusting, vain, selfish, obnoxious, an unreliable narrator, and worthy of a deep outpouring of love he's never gotten, but you're going to give it to him whether you like it or not, damnit.

They're brilliant.

Which is why I'm excited more than is probably healthy that they're becoming a Syfy miniseries, too.  Well, they have been.  And they are going to be on in 4 days.  I know, when I found out, I immediately DVR'ed it. 

Check out the trailer!   

#365Gratitude Day 343: A good reading

No, not the utility kind. 

The fiction kind.

I've been working on my new book A Little Patch of Sunshine, for a while now.  My writing is a funny thing - sometimes I am on point, churning out thousands of words every time I sit down, with ease.  Other times, I just can't seem to find the time or the secret-entrance-behind-the-bookshelf-in-the-study-inside-my-mental-house to get there.  

Years ago I recall something a favorite author, Piers Anthony said about writing and the block.  You just keep going.  You find coping mechanisms, deploy them, and plow on through. [One of his better coping mechanisms is employing these brackets where you have a conversation with yourself about the issue in question.  Isn't that a good idea.  Yeah, I thought so too.  Look how meta you're being right now.  I know, it's amazing, right?]

One of my coping mechanisms is to have test readers.  They're a trusted few who I let read my work as I go, and they help me fine tune it.  Another coping mechanism of mine is to perform my writing, to read it aloud for an audience.

That's just what I did this past Wednesday night.  I read from both Concerning Littleton, already published, and from A Little Patch of Sunshine which is still up on the blocks, with the hood open.  

People dug it.  So much in fact that the audience visibly paled at the places I wanted them to.  (Which is a challenge when the audience is a text based IRC chatroom while I read on the podcast stream.  You know you've really got people trembling when they emote that they're doing so.)

It worked well.  My creative fires are banked and getting hotter.  I'll be doing it again.  Repeatedly.

#dailyThink Painful expectations

I was just thinking that every time I feel any sort of emotional pain it's because of some expectation I have or have had. "That shouldn't happen to me" or "That shouldn't happen to anyone" or "I need this to happen/be true"

Can you think of times when you have been sad, disappointed, anxious, nervous, or angry that WERE NOT tied to an expectation?

Leave me a comment, tell me about it. That would be great. Not that I'm expecting  you to. No pressure! 

#365Gratitude Day 342: Courageous Nostalgia

I love rediscovering how much I love something by sharing it with someone else. My friend Amelia (I've spoken about her here before. You may remember that she likes potatoes.) was talking about how she's started getting interested in old movies and tv shows, made before she was even born.  

That reminded me of one of my favorite movies ever, a 1937 Spencer Tracy film called Captains Courageous, based on a Rudyard Kipling book. It's about a spoiled young boy from a rich family, who falls overboard on a cruise, and winds up on a Gloucester fishing boat.

I love this movie. It's tear-bait in much the same way the Pixar movie Up is.  You fall in love with the characters, even the ones you dislike, and then cry your face off as life has its way with them. 

I'm grateful telling Amelia about it has got me thinking about it. I'm going to show it to Missy sometime soon.  

#365Gratitude Day 341: Yang's got her back

So yesterday I'm watching an episode of Star Trek: Voyager on Netflix on my computer, in my home office.  

Missy and I have been watching the series, but stopped.  She loves it though. So she hears it and comes to check it out, and see which one it is. She bends down to look at some detail.  

Yang sees this. He doesn't particularly like Star Trek, seeing as how he is a cat and doesn't comprehend TV in general and streaming content over the Internet in particular. I've tried explaining it to him before, but it never goes well. 

But he does love Missy.  And he really wanted to rub up against her face. So this happened.  

I love these little moments. Clearly I have to watch that show more often.