A Girl with a Book

"Extremists have shown what frightens them most: A girl with a book." -Malala YousafzaiI seem to have lost a week… I know I’ve managed to stay on top of an editing freelance job and been productive at the office, but without specific deadlines for school papers hanging over my head, and with hubs fighting a terrible flu… I think every day was a Monday, until it was the weekend, and I woke up in the middle of the night last night thinking today was going to be Monday, too, and I’d forgotten to set my alarm.

This is not boding well for my NaNo dreams. It doesn’t help, either, that NetGalley recently made Gail Carriger’s Etiquette and Espionage Finishing School series books 1 and 2 available for reviewers. Carriger sucks me in every time, but in light of Malala Yousafzai’s historic achievement earlier this month, I’m not sure my kind of being a girl with a book quite measures up–even if the age groups do match up.

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I love the sentiment of her quote, regardless. I could certainly match extremists for rage, should anyone try to pry books out of my hands, or words from my grasp.

Tomorrow I find out for sure what the requirements are for my capstone project. I halfway suspect the unknowns of that are part of what stressed me out this week. So last night, rather than do anything productive, I curled up with hubs and watched our first movie selection from the backlog of the past two years: Men In Black 3. We’d started it because we’d figured it would be the same kind of light-hearted sci-fi silliness its predecessors had been, and were surprised by the depth of the ending. If you want to see an example of how a franchise adds emotional weight to the story arc its characters have followed over the course of a series, this is a great example. Naturally, that meant we sat up half the night watching the extra features, too. No wonder I’m leery of movie nights: with those bonus elements… a 2-hour movie can turn into a 5-hour marathon. Still worth it.

Because of weather and illness, we also only managed three walks for 7.4 miles this week. Not bad, but not my goal, either.

So, we kick off a new week, my final week of new coursework requirements, and the final week before NaNoWriMo begins. I’m trying to help Gayla meet her Friday release deadline goal for Frost and Bothered, so I’m not sure there will be any fiction writing again for me this week, which means I’ll be jumping into November’s start cold, if I do. Strangely, I have a good idea about the structure and even how I want to start my NaNo offering… Maybe that’s my excuse for not working on my other WIPs–I seem to do best if I focus on one thing at a time. Either way, I’ll report back next week on my progress, and hope you check out my ROW80 cohorts‘ successes until then.

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10 thoughts on “A Girl with a Book

  1. I love the MIB movies. πŸ™‚ I’ve been on TV series marathons lately. Love Revolution, SOA (although the rampant violence turns my stomach, I can’t seem to look away! GAH. Great character development), Once Upon A Time, there’s a few others I get involved with and then hours have passed. I set boundaries for myself with them. LOL No watching until I complete X or Y.

  2. Sounds like you have a solid handle on your process, to know that you seem to do better working on one thing at a time. I wish I had that much clarity. My process seems to be changing all the time: sometimes I need to focus on just one project, other times I go crazy if I can’t split up my writing time between several different projects.

    Bummer to hear you don’t think you’re going to be able to do NaNoWriMo. I hope you’re able to get in some creative writing of your own this week, even if it’s just a little! Unless you don’t want to, in which case never mind. ;*) Have a good week!

  3. I think that, given you week of Mondays, a movie night was just the ticket. I know what you mean about a 2 hour movie turning into a 5 hour experience, though! The hubs and I recently watched a movie twice, all the way through, back-to-back, just so we could hear the commentary. Sometimes I don’t know what’s going through my head….

    1. πŸ™‚
      I actually caught the cold portion of hubs’ flu, so I’ve been having fun sniffling while sniffling that I won’t likely have the time to NaNo after all this year… The final requirements for the capstone won’t let me cram in everything early, and will mean my evening hours will once again be dedicated to bloviational class assignments rather than fiction writing. πŸ™

  4. I think we’ve all had weeks like that, but now it’s behind you and hopefully next week will be better πŸ™‚

    Love Gail Carriger’s work and I’ve read the first of the Finishing School books, but no further. My local library has the second, so I’ll have to pick that up soon. Thanks for the reminder!

    I also really enjoyed that aspect of MiB 3 and thought it was a great way to wrap up the series.

    Best of luck for the coming week and with NaNo πŸ™‚

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