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12 August 2020

 Song mood: I Like It Like That by Pete Rodriguez.  Not sure why that song popped into my head.  It reminds me of Havana by Camila Cabello.  There has been this song in my head that I still haven’t figured out.  I don’t quite remember any latching lyric.  Something I can google and find out what it is.  I know it’s from the 80’s.


I have more issues with my car.  Which is why I didn’t do much for my birthday.  And spending a night at a hotel watching The Office is just another expense.  The issues with my car are stressing me out as I think I may want to get another car.  Not a happy moment for me, but I will do what needs to be done.  I just wish the public transportation was better here.  I wouldn’t need a car.  But here, you more or less need a car.


Down to the last twenty pages of my birthday book: The Garden of Bewitchment by Catherine Cavendish.  It was terrible.  Dialogue is modern.  ‘The Victorians’ in this story are prudish about certain things that in the real time period they wouldn’t be.  So there were a lot of general ideas that were off.

The author has huge info dumps in the dialogue.  So much so that it doesn’t even sound like natural speech even in our time.  One character was telling a story and his speech was four pages long.  

Then there is word economy.  The author has a lot of awkward sentences where a stronger verb or better descriptor could replace half the sentence.  There were sections in the book that didn’t make sense, where characters go off and do things for no reason at all.  The list goes on and on.

Just as weird, she write as though no one has ever seen a twin before.  In my opinion, the author didn’t utilize twin characters.  But then when I write twins in a story, they tend to be mischievous like in The Parent Trap.

What I would do if I were writing this story, first I would read a ton of books written in the Victorian era.  I would try to match the dialogue.  I would use the books written in the Victorian era as a reference.  I would read other current authors who wrote historical fiction.  I would watch movies based off those books.  There is a ton of stuff from the Victorian era.  A ton of research material.  Personally, I would try to imitate MR James if I were writing a horror store set in Victorian England.


I had a very ordinary birthday.  My car may be dying and I may have to get a new car.  And my birthday book was a lesson on why I should have been an editor.


Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir has been phenomenal.  I loved the first book Gideon the Ninth.  And this sequel is proving to be just as good.  Muir has been rocking the second person POV.  A POV that is rarely used and she rocks it.  It adds to the mystery because it’s not clear who the narrator is.  There are a few candidates as to who the narrator could be.  I am totally enjoying this book and I’m so glad it is audiobook form.


I need a writing partner, I’m sure of that.  Someone to say, hey, why aren’t you writing anything?  Okay, I’ll write something, but it’ll be bad.  Of couse I blame my dying car.  At some point, I will need to start reaching out to other people, for my writing and to make friends and whatnot.  I’m kind of like my father, except that I’m mobile and leave the house.  I just find it harder to talk with people.


That is me for the moment.  Maybe tomorrow will be a change I have been looking for.

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