A Day for Remembrances

Posted on November 11, 2008 by Heather

Today, November 11th, is Remembrance Day here in Canada and other Commonwealth countries.  It is a day originally set aside to commemorate the end of World War 1, but has been continually expanded to commemorate all those citizens of Commonwealth countries that have taken part in any war or peace keeping action up to the current day.  It is a time when we think about what our freedom has cost in terms of life and personal sacrifice, and to reflect on what needs to be done to ensure everyone experiences freedom.

I guess that brings up the question of what freedom really is, and whether we are right to impose our ideas of freedom on other people.  So many things in this world are subjective: religion, freedom, love.  What shouldn’t be subjective is human rights.  And that is what we need to fight for: the preservation of human rights, both here and abroad.

I am deeply grateful for the sacrifice Canadian men and women are making overseas, just as I am so incredibly grateful for all the sacrifices made in the past.  And while I will do my best to make sure that Baby Man understands these sacrifices too, I hope that he will never be called upon to do so himself.  May he and all his children grow up in a peaceful world.

Image Source: http://flickr.com/photos/34427466731@N01/1402612 Used under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 license.

Comments Off on A Day for Remembrances | Posted in The Outside World |

Worn Down

Posted on November 10, 2008 by Heather

I seem to be hitting one of those walls that I come to every couple of months.  Nothing is really wrong; the Baby Man is awesome, confidently learning to walk all on his own it seems; the husband is doing well, helping out as best he can.  It is me and the cat that aren’t doing very well.  She is getting very old, and I suspect she hasn’t much time left.  She spends most of the day asleep now, and cries for attention nearly all night.  This keeps me awake, and adds to the sleep deprivation I am trying so hard to recover from.  Really, it figures that as Baby Man happily sleeps for 13 hours a night, I’m kept awake by the cat.

So, with all of this, the NaNoWriMo isn’t happening.  I’ve got 215 words, which isn’t that bad I guess.  It is 215 more words than I have written this year.  Knitting isn’t going well either.  I’m just too damn tired to fiddle with bloody cables.  Thank the gods that my holiday shopping is nearly done.  One more shopping trip, and I can avoid all stores until the new year, when it is time to birthday shop for Baby Man.

What I most need right now is a good night of sleep (preferably 12 hours), and a whole day to watch Jane Austen movies and work on cross stitch.  I think the likelihood of any of that is nil.

Comments Off on Worn Down | Posted in My Life |

Book Review: City of Pillars

Posted on November 6, 2008 by Heather

I really don’t want to write this review, but part of the agreement required when taking part in the Mini Book Expo for Bloggers is that you must review the books you are sent, even if you don’t finish them.  I didn’t finish City of Pillars by Dominic Peloso.  I wanted to finish it.  I wanted to like it.  But I didn’t.

The book has a good premise: a man is mistakenly given a cryptic manuscript and must do everything he can to stay alive when the bad guys come looking for it.  I’m sure there is more to the book than that, as the back cover promises “an ancient, worldwide conspiracy”, but I didn’t get that far.

Sadly, this book just isn’t particular well written.  It suffers from many technical errors, like wordiness, telling instead of showing, and many, many passive sentences.  It is told in the first person, and yet we are told too many times what other characters are thinking.  Take this passage as an example:

“Who are you, and what crime would you like to report?” said the officer mechanically.  his badge said ‘Frank Daly’.  He had been working a long shift and was a bit tired.  He had manned the desk for almost a year now and had heard it all.  His main function was to stop all of the nuts from bothering the real detectives.  He resented his job.

Now, unless the protagonist went out for a beer with Frank later, there is no way he could know any of this.  It breaks the suspension of disbelief that an author has to create to make his story successful.

And that brings me to what was most disappointing to me.  By telling this story in the first person from a distance of eight or ten years, the tension is taken out of the book.  Clearly the author survives the pulse-pounding showdowns he is recounting.  I never became hooked, and gave up after about 80 pages.

I do think that there is a seed of a great story here.  And I think with the help of a good editor, and maybe a shift to a third person perspective, this could have been a great book.  I’m interested in seeing what Peloso writes next, and hope that it is the great book that the City of Pillars could have been.

And to add some fun to this post, here is a picture of the Baby Man reviewing a book.  He says, “Yum!”

1 Comment | Posted in Book Reviews |

Dear America

Posted on November 5, 2008 by Heather

Well done!  That is all.

Comments Off on Dear America | Posted in Media & Politics |

Random Things About Me

Posted on November 4, 2008 by Heather

I was tagged by Beverly over at So This is Wonderland for this meme.

The rules:

  • Link to the person or persons who tagged you.
  • Post the rules on your blog.
  • Write 6 random things about yourself.
  • Tag 6 people at the end of your post and link to them.
  • Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
  • Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

And Six Random Things About Me:

  • I have a listing on IMDB.  Seriously.  Can you find me?
  • I have a collection of over 600 books.  I’m much more restrained when it comes to buying books now, though, since I hardly have time to read.
  • I once saw a ghost.  Seriously.  My dad saw the same lady at a different time.
  • I can’t spell.  Thank goodness for spell check.  Although, I’ve found as I get older my spelling is actually getting better.  Except for all those damn words that break the rules, like receive.
  • I was a tom boy growing up, and now I do things like sew, cross stitch and knit.  Yet, I still sort of think of myself as a tom boy.  I love video games and don’t give a damn about shoes and make-up.
  • I am very particular about my salads.  They must meet certain requirements before I will eat them.  No dandelion leaves (generally in a field greens salad), for example, or large pieces of iceberg lettuce rib.

I wasn’t able to come up with 6 people to tag.  I’m very shy and don’t really comment on other people’s blogs.  (Random Fact 7 for free!)  And a couple of the people I was going to tag have already done this meme.  Here is who I did tag:

2 Comments | Posted in Memes & Collabs |

Time to Write That Novel?

Posted on October 30, 2008 by Heather

It’s that time of year again. No, I don’t mean Halloween/Samhain. I mean NaNoWriMo–National Novel Writing Month. It is the time of year when crazy writing-type people try to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November.

I’ve tried to complete a NaNoWriMo novel a couple of times in the past, but gave up pretty quickly.  I found that I just didn’t have it in me to be so disciplined… and I also didn’t have any sort of story idea.  Believe me, you can’t get very far without some sort of idea of where you want to go, or even who your main character is going to be.

I’ve been playing around with the idea of trying NaNoWriMo again this year, but setting a personal goal of about 10,000 words.  With the little man (now 9 months old) and getting back to work (from home, on my own terms, thankfully), I just don’t have a lot of free time to devote to writing.  This is clearly evidenced by my lack of blog postings, and the fact that I still haven’t finished moving over The Lotus Pond to its new platform.

Writing is important to me, even though I don’t make time for it.  I want the Baby Man to know his mother as someone who writes because it is what she loves to do.  And I hope he learns from this that doing what you love to do is its own reward.  So, with that in mind:

NaNoWriMo Participant - 2008

Wish me luck!  I will be happy if I even get 100 words written on my NaNoNovel in November.

2 Comments | Posted in Me, the Writer |

Book Review: Mr. Darcy Presents His Bride

Posted on October 27, 2008 by Heather

It may come as a bit of a surprise, but I am a huge Jane Austen fan.  Reading about Mr. Darcy, the various Janes, Emma, and all the rest makes me long for the days when it was “… a universal truth that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”  I’ve devoured all of Jane Austen’s books, and have even sought out a few of the “sequels” in an attempt to stay in Ms. Austen’s world just a little bit long.  Unlike the originals, the sequels have been a bit hit and miss.  I remember one in particular that was quite a bit more ribald than anything Ms. Austen would have written.

The latest Jane Austen sequel to land on my night table is Mr. Darcy Presents His Bride by Helen Halstead.  The story begins just slightly before the end of Pride and Prejudice, with Jane and Elizabeth preparing for their wedding and for leaving their father’s house.  It is essential the story of how Mr. Darcy’s friends and family accept, or don’t accept, his lovely new wife Elizabeth.  Along the way, we learn how her sisters fair, what becomes of Charlotte and Mr. Collins, and how Lady Catherine deals with it all.  I really don’t want to say too much for fear of giving away anything.  I will say that I am exceptionally happy with how everything turns out, including the fate of Wickham and Lydia.

I was so pleased with this book.  It is a wonderful continuation of Ms. Austen’s legacy.  Ms. Halstead does a very good job of capturing Ms. Austen’s style.  There were times I almost felt like I was reading an original Austen work.  And yet, I also got the feeling that there was something of Ms. Halstead in the book too.  She was able to flesh out characters like Georgiana, and introduce new characters who well suited to the world of Darcy and Elizabeth.

Mr. Darcy Presents His Bride is a book that I believe will be well loved by all Jane Austen fans, even those who are a bit sceptical of “sequels”.  I eagerly await Ms. Halstead books, and know that I will enjoy it whether it is an Austen sequel or an original piece.

Buy Mr. Darcy Presents His Bride by Helen Halstead from Amazon.com

Helen Halstead’s website: www.helenhalstead.com/

By the Sea from The Sampler Girl

3 Comments | Posted in Book Reviews |