Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

An excellent book. Another of those "must reads" that are on my list, and I am glad I finally got around to it. The writing is excellent, and for a change it is told from the omniscient viewpoint. The characters are the focus, not the plot. Even though it is "about" a hostage crisis, it is not a thriller.

That's the only criticism I have about it. Through much of the book there was no tension about the hostage crisis. There was very little tension between the characters. There was quite a lot of internal tension within each character. The author even predicted the ending before it happened, so there wasn't much suspense either.

The epilogue was a little surprising. I would not have predicted that at all, but it still rings true to me.

Place this one on your own "must read" list. I highly recommend it.

Submissions to Byline magazine

I submitted nine stories this morning to Byline magazine. Old fashioned printed submissions in envelopes. What a hassle.The magazine seems very interesting though, catering to new writers. Keep your fingers crossed.

Submission to Black October magazine

Submitted the strange story Mom's Book to the strange magazine Black October. They should be a good match for each other.

GWA Annual contest entries

I entered seven short stories in the GWA annual contest.

1. Broken Keys


2. Christmas at Grandma's


3. Flip Flop Flap


4. From Dogs to Cats


5. One Man's Church


6. Tuning Hammer


7. Within a twilight Cave

All shortened to 2k words or less for the contest. That's probably too short for some of these stories, but I wanted to increase my chances as much as possible. I don't know who the judges are or how long it will be before I hear the results.

GWA November Contest - third place

The theme was "Chaos". My entry was Chaos Theory: From Dogs to Cats. I managed to pull out a third place. This is a strange little story. If I couldn't see, hear, taste, feel, or smell it, I left it out. No thoughts and very little dialog.

Joyce Carol Oates: The Falls

Now that NaNoWriMo is over, I have a chance to catch up on some reading. This is the second novel by Oates that I have read, the other was Them. As usual, the characters are more important than the plot to Oates. Many plot points were left unresolved though, and that tends to drive me nuts - I like to have everything resolved and wrapped up at the end. One thing that was never satisfactorily resolved for me was the original "Widow Bride" sequence. I was hoping that the eldest son, at least, would visit that topic again, but it never happened. None of the children knew about that part of their mother and father's lives. The other problem I have is with the passive voice and tense confusion that is apparent repeatedly throughout the book. I don't remember that from the other book of Oates that I read. I could never get away with it, but I'm not a published novelist. On the other hand, I liked the dark, gothic nature of the book. I would prefer that she go a little further in that direction, but it would be difficult to do without becoming melodramatic.

Another thing that bothered me was the introduction of new characters late in the novel. Is that wise? It seemed to be at the expense of earlier characters, like the mother.

NaNoWriMo wrapup

I reached the 50k goal about Thanksgiving, but not the end of the story. I kept plugging away, and wrapped it up today (11/28) at about 66k words. I'm so glad I finished the story and brought it to a satisfying ending.

It's pretty rough. The first part, about 40k, is more cohesive than the second part. The last 27k suffered from my fatique.

It has holes also, and needs to be re-arranged, but it has successfully achieved what a NaNoWriMo novel should. I have a rough draft of a novel down on paper, and I did it in a month.

I really like the story. I realize it won't appeal to many people, but this is the Southern Gothic, grit-lit novel that I wanted to write.