Refuel
Currently reading:
The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark
Fang Fiction by Kate Stayman-London
Out There Screaming, edited by Jordan Peele
An American Sunrise by Joy Harjo
Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice [audiobook]
I heard Julie Clark on a few Hamptons Whodunit last weekend and immediately started reading The Ghostwriter as soon as I had a quiet moment.
Books finished this week: 1
Somewhat pitiful that I only have one book to show for two weeks of life, but we’re working on it.
★★★☆☆
Where this book came from: Pre-ordered the paperback through Thriftbooks!
Why this book: One of my coworkers——hi, Beata!——shared a special edition as part of our in-office book club a few months back, and the story sounded excellent.
Thoughts: I think my biggest issue with this book was the protagonist, Cora. She’s (understandably) a bit blank, clearly dissociating after she witnesses something traumatic, but that also makes it difficult to enjoy being in her head. I felt the pacing was off——lots of repetitive ideas expressed very similarly, slowly plodding from one plot point to the next——and even when things picked up and reveals finally started coming in the last twenty-five pages or so, it wasn’t quite what I was expecting and I didn’t really . . . care? The author tackles a lot here (racism, supernatural entities, a serial killer subplot, capturing the terror of living in the early COVID days, grief, trauma, etc. etc.) , and I just don’t think it was all successfully done. Though there is eerie imagery, this is definitely more “horror” in the “humanity is fucked” kind of way, and maybe something is wrong with me (or, probably more likely, I’m coming from a place of immense privilege as a white cis woman), but that didn’t resonate the way I’d hoped and expected. Your mileage may vary.
Library updates:
Greetings, readers! And before I go further, my sincerest apologies. I had planned to draft and post a missive last Sunday, as scheduled, but I had been away for the weekend (more on that below) and, frankly, something had to give. I was (and remain) proud of my uninterrupted posting streak, and am hoping to get back to that kind of consistency going forward.
But, anyhow! What have you missed the last two weeks? Well, last weekend I was at Hamptons Whodunit (for myself, not for work), and it was a pleasure, as always. What I love most about Hamptons Whodunit is how quiet it all feels. I stayed out near the beach in Amagansett this time around, and spent a lot of time sitting outside or with the door cracked to hear the ocean. When I was in town for the festival, I basically parked myself in the church hall for as many fiction panels as I could consume, making only short forays upstairs for books (the new on-site BookHampton pop-up was deadly) or out for food.
I got so much work done last weekend, too, which I’m proud of myself for. I finished a freelance project, nearly knocked out the first round of edits for a work project, and wrote almost 6500 words in four days. But what’s even better than all the physical work that happened is how it all made me feel. All I wanted to do when I first woke up, whenever I had a moment between panels, and after I got back to my room at night was write. I was having the time of my life working on a new story and I hated when I had to stop to do something else. Even the work/freelance responsibilities I had felt manageable and almost fun out there, because I could do them in my own time.
I had therapy that Friday night and talked a lot with my therapist about how the weekend was already helping me reset and reprioritize. (I know this idea has come up before and I’ve talked about it a lot the last few months, but stay with me.) It was amazing to me how much work I could get done without all the other distractions, when I let myself lock in on a few choice tasks and commit to them, when I set my own schedule and realized I wanted to be awake early, enjoying the quiet of a cloudy morning and knocking out as much as I could in the hour or two before I had to head out. All the quiet and alone time just helped me figure myself out in a way that I’m realizing I need periodically in my life.
I’m still an occasional user of the app Co-Star (this is going somewhere related, I promise). Last Friday, my message for the day was “refuel.” And I took that to heart. I used the weekend to clear the work/freelance decks and set myself up for better days ahead. I got a ton of writing done, and had fun doing it, and realized that the having fun was always the goal. Yes, I was (and still am) working on the story with the aim to get it published, but I want to enjoy unraveling the story for myself along the way, too. When I got home from Hamptons Whodunit, I felt calm, rested, and full of creative energy. Two out of three of those things may have slipped away with the resurgence of real life, but I’m still clinging to the creative drive and excited to see where it takes me.
And then, not to undersell this past week, Bendy——hi, Bendy!——came to town so we could experience Florence and the Machine’s Everybody Scream tour. Twice. Nothing will ever compare to watching that woman run and crawl and scream her way across a stage, all while she wails her hurt, rage, power, and joy to the rafters. I left fulfilled. I left inspired. I left hoarse, after screaming every word to “Howl” in a crowd of thousands.
Bendy and I also watched a number of James Bond and Mission: Impossible movies, mostly while couch-rotting yesterday. But more on that another time!
A few choice scenes from Hamptons Whodunit weekend, and a bonus Bendy and I showing off our eye looks before seeing Mother Florence at Barclays.
Closing thoughts:
What else? What else? What else? What else?
Total books read from the Moratorium Library: 202
(Total books added to the Moratorium Library: 434)
All purchased from BookHampton——and I blame Hamptons Whodunit entirely.
(Though Yesteryear was purchased to be a book club read with my coworkers. The others were purchased because they put that book room upstairs from where all the fiction panels happened this year, which is genuinely just very mean to me specifically.)
