Sunday Weekly Wrap Up - Lots of books in progress

 

I’m currently sipping on multiple books and making some progress in my main A to Z read, The Dragons of Dorcastle by Jack Campbell, in which there are about 100 pages left in the book and they finally mentioned dragons but have yet to see them. 

Slowly rereading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and picking up on details never noticed before.  I had forgotten about the extent Mr Dursley went to keep Harry from receiving his Hogwarts letter and Hagrid’s anger.  

In When Christ and his Saints Slept, I really dislike Maude’s husband, Geoffrey but she’s feisty enough not to let him run all over her. 

I started listening to Christopher Paolini’s To Sleep in a Sea of Stars and the narrator makes the story come alive and I can’t wait until my buying ban is over to buy the Hard back and read it. 

Nonfiction wise, In Light the Dark, Billy Collins talks about he fell in love with W.B. Yeats poem, the Lake Isle of Innisfree.

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

 And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

 I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

 

I wasn’t familiar with Yeats’s poem and love the beautiful, vivid imagery.   

Collins talks about how there’s always one poem you should memorize that inspires and sooths and, in the process,

 “going from deep familiarity to complete mastery – is a challenge and a deep pleasure. In repeating different lines, your reading becomes more focused than it’s ever been before. You become more sensitive to every consonant and vowel.”  

I have yet to find a poem I want to master, but I think I will set a goal of finding that one poem that speaks to me enough to do so.  

And as Collins says “Poetry becomes an oasis or sanctuary from the forces constantly drawing us into social and public life. Poetry exerts a different kind of pull on us.  It’s a pull toward meaning and subjectivity. It’s the sound of lake water lapping by the shore.”

Which is probably why I was blown away while listening to Paolini’s story. There is a poetry about his word choices, the descriptions, although aren’t poetic, are so vivid they draw you out of yourself and into the story. 

 

My  52 Books theme this week is the Daughters of Mnemosyne who are the nine muses and the focus is on Kalliope, the goddess of Epic Poetry.  I started Divine Comedy years ago and read Inferno but didn’t read the last two volumes. I have Purgatorio waiting in the wings and since this year is the 700^th Anniversary of Dante’s death, I’ll read it sooner rather than later.

 For fun I took the buzzfeed quiz: Write A Romance Novel And We'll Tell You Which Greek Muse You Are and I am Terpsichore: The Muse of Dance

“When it comes to romance novels, you like them intricate and unexpected. Full of twists and turns as the lovers are blown about by the winds of fate, you look for passion and grace in every line and when the perfect plot twist occurs, you cannot help but gasp aloud.”

Ha, right on.  Yes, I do love books full of twists and turns and unanticipated moments. 

Although I don’t feel like I was that creative this week I actually was and wrote three posts and put them up on the blog: a review for My Christmas Number One, thoughts on Fathers of the Church, plus an A to Z poem about Homonyms called Knight of Night. 

 
Story wise, I had written a whole new day which amounted to four new chapters, 16 – 19, filling in the story and providing more clues and snippets that will apply to the rest of the story. Before, I had skipped the day with basically a reference to he didn’t show up on Saturday and bypassed the day, skipping to the next day and the dramatic scenes.  I came to realize my character wouldn’t have put up with being sidelined. So, I gave her the day to work through and it’s been interesting. The revision has been slow going and I’m currently on Chapter 16, doing the multiple pass thing and filling in descriptors, fixing dialogue, making sure have all the senses and makes sense.

And I managed to accomplish all this amid getting a new laptop and transferring over all my files and being distracted by the news of the day and working three days last week.

Giving myself a pat on the back and pressing ever onward and upward.