Ten Years

The towers on 9/11/11

With the 10 year anniversary of 9/11 just behind us, I've been thinking about how far I've come in that decade. What started out with me working at Blockbuster Video watching the news from New York on a TV we kept behind the counter, has ended with me going to school within walking distance from where it happened.

It struck me as odd on the 11th this year as I walked toward the new WTC that ten years ago, people were rushing away from the site, and this year people crowded toward it.

Also ten years ago, I was working on a version of a story that would become Awake. Today it barely resembles that story (because it kind of sucked), but has been stuck in a perpetual mode of "first draft" ever since. Maybe in another ten years I'll look back on today and think, "wow, I hung onto that piece of crap for that long?" Who knows. Maybe I'll be watching it in the theater by then, reading in forums about how so-and-so actor sucks in it.

To supplement my writing in 2001, since for some reason literature that was written 100 years ago was the only thing with merit in my eyes, I was obsessively reading Oscar Wilde. While enjoyable, all this did was make my writing as pretentious as possible, which is why the whole thing has been thrown out except for the single concept I'm using now. 

Discussion time: how has your life changed in the past 10 years? Any surprises you didn't see coming?

Reviews

Time for some fantasy in my reading now ... just kind of happened that way.

Interview With the Vampire - Anne Rice

I started this book years ago and put it down for whatever reason. Now that I'm trying to broaden my literary horizons somewhat, and because I didn't feel quite up to reading Twilight, I went with Anne Rice again.

The story was nice, but I recognized some things in her writing style as things I've been told not to do -- like being too wordy. As I got into the book, I wanted to yell, "get on with it! I KNOW!" I read somewhere that she doesn't use an editor, but that her writing would be much better with one. I agree.


The Princess Bride - William Goldman

This book was a bit of a surprise for me. After having seen the movie about a million times (as we all have), for some reason I wasn't expecting the book to be funny. Because I read primarily on public transportation, I try to keep my reactions to myself, but I laughed aloud several times.




Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince - J.K. Rowling

My husband and I have been watching the Harry Potter movies lately, but since I've been spending too much time away from home, our DVD watching time has been seriously compromised. I wanted to find out what happened next (since I didn't get on board when I was younger), so I pulled out the books.

Maybe it's just me, but Rowling gets a bit wordy too. Granted, I'm not in her target age group. Something that bugged me a lot was how angry and stubborn Harry is. He gets an idea and sticks with it till the bitter end, despite what anyone else tells him. Maybe we can chalk that up to what this character has been through (which is a lot for someone that age), or just his own character traits (because at least one of the other characters calls him out on it).

Anyway, I liked it well enough that I went straight into the last in the series, and even at the beginning of the book, I'm holding my breath thinking, "oh no... oh NO!"