Agonies of a Young Author

I've decided to join the girl next door grows up and J.B. in "Feel Good Friday" (thanks for the link!) It's been a rough week- couple of big rejections- but I'm NOT focusing on those. So the five things that made me REALLY happy this week:

1) "Hear Haiti" Writers night: I went with my dear friends MlleDiabolique and Mistress of Anthropology Doom, and there was a slide show with pictures and background music, along with yummy yummy Haitian food. I've never had plantains, and I finally got to try some! There was curry chicken, rice and beans, cabbage, and potatoes. And plantains, of course. And homemade ginger beer, but it was STRONG, and I admit I was sadly unable to drink the whole glass. AnthropologistFAIL.  And the writers were great. I'll have to look some of them up (I didn't grab a program!), although I need to work on my French a little bit first.

Oh, yeah! I got to take home a whole plate with me as well! So Haitian food for two nights!

2) I rediscovered Mary Stewart. I went to the library recently with Roomie the Long Suffering One, and found her among the shelves. I started reading Stewart in my childhood, maybe 11/12/13, so finding her was like comfort food, chicken noodle soup for the bibliophile, crawling right back into the warmth of a security blanket. It was great. I found 3 new titles that I never read before (Thornwyld, Rose Cottage, and The Ivy Tree) and now that I've finished all three (in two days!!!) I've have to hunt down the only three remaining titles that I have not yet read (Touch Not the Cat, The Wind Above Small Isles, and the Storm Petrels.) Also, what does it say about me that my formative years were spent reading gothic romances?

3) I love Disappointed Realist's piano compositions. I'm obsessed with the one "another untitled piece"-- something about it makes me feel like a Jane Austen heroine. Like when Keira Knightley is standing on top of the cliff in the 2005 version (I geekily know all the release dates of Jane Austen movies. I was having a phone conversation with The Maternal Figure earlier, and whipped out the release dates of Sense and Sensibility (1995) and Emma (1996) from nowhere- and they are HER favorite movies, not even mine. I have no clue how I know this, but I do. I also know that there are three previous versions of P&P before the K.K. one- 1940, with Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson and written by Aldous Huxley; 1980 with Elizabeth Garvie; and 1996 with Colin Firth. Yes, I own all 4. Yes, I know all the release dates.) Point being, I love his work.

4) I love libraries. Love, love, love. I came back with 3 Mary Stewarts, one book on the Algerian War of Independence (A Savage War of Peace), one on the FBI high-tech crime unit (Who Killed Precious?), one on forensic investigators (No Stone Unturned), one on a park ranger (Nature Noir), two on Japanese detective fiction (Murder Most Modern and Purloined Letters) and one on Japanese literary feminists (The Bluestockings of Japan) and one on American poet H.D. (Collected Poems, 1912-1944). My tastes are... eclectic, to say the least.

5) I am writing fiction again. Poetry is not, I must remind myself, my only talent.

Right now:
What I'm listening to: "another untitled piece" by Disappointed Realist
What I want most: the other Mary Stewart books. Library tomorrow it is.