Go, Canada!
The women’s hockey team is currently leading Sweden 4-1 for the gold medal. Tradition says it should be the U.S. they are facing—that’s the way it’s always been, so long as women’s hockey has been an Olympic sport—but the Swedes won the shoot-out last week. Hmmmm. Shoot-out. No wonder people think hockey is a violent sport.
The NBA All Star game was here in Houston yesterday. Somebody won. I have no idea who. I do know that Eva Longoria was in town for the event.
I finally found an offer for high-speed internet that seemed worth the effort to change over. So, as of a week tomorrow, our household will officially be in the 21st century. Wi-fi and the whole works. We’ll end up saving money in the long run when we retire our two dial-up accounts. It also means we don’t have to reactivate another land line when our daughter is home from university in the summer.
Time for me to get back to Missing Persons. Got the green light from my agent on the last batches of chapters. He had a couple of notes about one scene that needs clarification, but other than that, full speed ahead. Only a handful of chapters left to go. Weeeee! I spent the weekend writing a 2-page synopsis for The Silent Desert. I’m putting it together as a submission for a novel-writing fellowship. Last year they had over 600 submissions, so I don’t have high hopes, but I figure, what the heck. Why not? I’ve had trouble writing synopses in the past. They tend to go on an on for six or seven pages. I think that points out flaws in the respective novels rather than in my synopsizing skills. I had no trouble at all getting the basics to this new novel down in two pages. I tinkered with the wording quite a bit, trying to find le mot juste for certain parts, but that was just fiddling. I got all the major characters in and all the major plot developments. I’m quite proud of it, actually. The submission takes the first 50 pages, and if the novel makes it past the first round of cuts they want the second fifty pages as well. I did a quick polish on the pages, which I hadn’t read since I first wrote them last November. Some funny typos. I know they’ll be edited heavily when I next get back to work at the book in earnest, but at this stage, for this purpose, I just want to make sure there aren’t any conspicuous gaffes and that the writing flows well.
We watched The Constant Gardener on the weekend. A very well executed adaptation. Smart people behind and in front of the cameras. Bill Nighy’s great, no matter what he’s in. I can’t wait to see him playing Davey Jones in the next two Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
It’s been a cold, drizzly weekend. Not a lot of rain, probably nowhere near enough, but sufficient to make it seem dreary. The azaleas are going to wonder just what the hell is going on with the weather. Their flowers are at the verge of popping into bloom when all of a sudden the temperature plummets to the 30s. Crazy.
