Of Monday Marvelousness April 7, 2008
Posted by Jen in : Journal, Novel , trackback
Ooh. I’m feeling a bit… a bit… a bit something? I’ve just started reading Books, Baguettes and Bedbugs and, well, it’s doing things to me. Especially now that I’m actually ‘reading like a writer’ instead of simply devouring any book that comes my way. It sounded ideal – books, food, Frenchness and – joy of joys – an alliterative title. I like those, in case you hadn’t noticed.
But it’s a bit too good. Every word is so perfect, so beautifully chosen. Not stodgy or highbrow, just evocative and perfect and slightly unusual. The trouble is, of course, that it’s making my own as-yet-unedited manuscript look as if it has all the grace of a baby elephant. And it’s made me realise that even if The Novel is something of a chicklit affair, it still needs enough poise and beauty to make it stand out from the queues of other wannabes.
I seem to be having one of those days when everything seems almost impossibly beautiful. Don’t worry. I’m sure I’ll be my usual curmudgeonly self soon enough. But the world really was dazzling when I got up. It’s Monday morning. I’m duty-bound to look a bit cross but I’m smiling inside.
And when the neighbour reports that I was hanging out of the window, photographing his cock, this is what he meant. Honest, m’lud.
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You’ve got a lot of snow!
Now I’ve got to go and buy another book. I hold you personally responsible. I was holding out until the next Novel Racer is published (ie YOU). x
I’m also reading books that are driving me near insane with their perfection. It’s not fair!
Love your photos, we didn’t get any snow over here but we did get plenty of hail stones! (It’s close but it’s not right…)
OMG…..now I am going to go out and buy another book to go onto the ‘must be read’ pile *outward sigh but inside am delighted about having an excuse to go and buy books!!*
Your photo’s are fab!!
C x
What lovely photos! And what a view! I wish I had a view like that!
It’s good to read a book that does something to you.
I love the photos! The snow makes everything look so pretty, doesn’t it?
Sounds like a great book. I love ‘reading like a writer’, even though sometimes it makes me feel like giving up!
Naughty girl!
The other side of starting to read like a writer, or look like a photographer, or whatever, are the times when you think ‘well that’s not much cop, I can do better than that!’ which are sort of encouraging. Trouble is, to me, there doesn’t seem much in between, either things are discouragingly better than one’s own, or contemptibly poorer…
And you say you’re a curmudgeon!
Lane - inches, we had yesterday, huge inches! Me? Published? Pffff… serious editing to be done. Can you lend me a sword?
Yvonne - well, coming from a balmy (or is that barmy?) rock where it never snows, I do still find it all childishly exciting. Driven insane by perfection… now there’s a writing prompt if ever I saw one…
Carol - books and snow! Life is fab!!
A Writer - The view is great. And, if we stand on the garden table, we can see Batemans and feel Rudyard Kipling’s writerly vibes lurch up at us!
Maddie - it really does make everything so clean and pure. Perhaps I could become an Eskimo?
Helen - I know what you mean - sometimes it just seems hopeless
Lucy - Crumbs, I had thought of the reverse of it like that. Hopelessness or contempt… ugh. Maybe we should just watch EastEnders all week and stop thinking at all. Nah, maybe not, eh?
All our snow’s gone now ): Wish I’d had m’ camera yesterday, walking Molly, as someone had built a rather magnificent snow-duck in one of the fields.
I’ve been known to hang out of my window and photograph the chicks in next door’s garden…
…forgot to mention that a couple of years ago I read a great ‘chicklit’ book that made me want to throw in the towel. It was so well-written it made my efforts seem like the precocious dribblings of an annoying five-year old. I still have days like that, but feel I’ve learnt from books like that one.
Well that would seem to be a book for me, living where I do and all that. Are you allowed to nail your neighbours cock to the roof just to get a nice photo!!!!!! Seriously though fresh snow just has the wow factor. And don’t get dispirited with the book.
Karen - Chicks and cocks. That should get my stats up then! Learning from good writing, rather than crumbling awe, is so much harder than it sounds, isn’t it?
Sheepish - You’re going to be writing a book like that. You even get to put sheep on yours - I’m thinking a French version of ‘All Creatures Great and Small’. Hurry up and write it!
I’ve not come across this book before but it does look interesting, damn, another to add to my ever increasing tbr pile.
What a glorious view.
Debs - it’s very good, it really is. One of those books that lovely bf happened upon in his incessant trawlings of tucked-away bookshops. I highly recommend it and it’s sooo satisfying to get away from fiction…