Waking Up a ZOMBIE...
(BOOKS, awesome author meets, strange happenings, and what a small world!)
Hello there beautiful friends. Hope all is well in your neck of the “woods” … Things are going well here and I have an update a few days earlier this week for you on things going on in my life, since I had an amazing night the other night at Doylestown Bookshop’s event where I FINALLY got to meet Lisa Scottoline. My MOM had gotten to meet her when she was a part of a book club led by Shirley Rosen (an AMAZING lady who introduced me to HOPE (yes, my kitty)… and she always invited me to come to their book club when she hosted it at the shore in Ocean City, NJ, USA… mind you this was many years ago and Shirley passed away 8 months after my own mother (mi MADRE my MOM) in 2020 from complications of asthma and some type of cancer I believe. I was not close with her family and they were not tight knit so I found out after the fact and GOOGLE really is what told me, unfortunately as well as another book club member friend of my MOM’s)… And Shirley Rosen arranged for the book club to meet Lisa Scottoline at her house years ago and to have a book club there! That’s so cool. I jumped at the chance to meet Lisa Scottoline at this event. Her latest book came out called “The Unraveling of Julia” and of course I decided to read it immediately. Excellent book I must say. I am almost done it. She has close to 40 titles she has written and won an Edgar Award for one of them. She is an amazing writer and an IDOL of mine so yeah. There’s all that.
But here’s even more fun to think about with this night! I met another writer I know from her Cape May series written at the shore and she asked me to join her “street team” to get her book noticed and of course I joined. (You all know my love for Sea Isle City, NJ, USA)… and so when I met her the other day, we hit it off immediately and started talking and she actually stays in my Dad’s condo’s building at least once or twice a year at the shore! Isn’t that AMAZING? SMALL WORLD! I knew part of those books were Sea Isle City influenced, haha. I seriously did. And she is a great writer and writes stories with characters you actually want to get to know and you become invested in. I love it. She sent me her recent book “Cape May Christmas in July” … Her name is Kimberly Brighton and she and her mother were so sweet and kind to me. Just all-around good people. I had so much fun sitting with them at the Lisa Scottoline event and I hope I see her again, especially if it is at the shore! SMALL WORLD, am I right or am I right? =)
Not much else has happened, just getting ready for the wedding and reading the wacky news. One of my favorite movies is “The Conjuring” and it’s a horror flick and there’s a doll in it that is demonically possessed and its name is “Annabelle” and it’s a REAL thing since that movie and it’s sequels and the movie about the doll are all based on actual real events. I think it’s partially why I love that movie so much but mostly because it scared me with EVERY single emotion you can be scared of, including LOVE. Love is a scary ass emotion, innit? It truly is! So yeah, I get it, and it is just well done as James Wan is the most amazing director probably to ever grace this planet, and I mean that full heartedly even with my love of David Fincher (Fight Club, Gone Girl) -- David Fincher had books to work with not just scripts. Maybe they shouldn’t even be thought of in the same way, but whatever. So yeah, this man who was in “possession” of the doll was in Gettysburg, discussing the doll and the people who originally had the doll called “the Warrens” (who the Conjuring is based on) and he just died unexplainedly. He was 54 or 56… I cannot remember his exact age, but still he was in his 50’s-- that’s unusual to just drop dead out of nowhere. (Although RIP to Bramen the NFL football player who also died really young from cancer recently who had played for the EAGLES at one point… I feel sad mostly for HIS family, as well as THIS man’s family) … but isn’t that weird? And since that story was right up my alley I kind of needed to write about it. I wonder if I will hear more… I hope to. But kind of just WEIRD. Can you tell I’m already ready for HALLOWEEN? Fall in general, really... I am OVER this heat and I just think I don’t even enjoy summer much anymore.
Anyways, I am thoroughly enjoying
writing class as it’s gotten me to write a lot more and I’m working on editing my memoir by fictionalizing it and getting creative. Getting my creative vibe going is always a toughie for me to figure out but once it’s there, LOOK OUT, I’m UNSTOPPABLE.I used to write so many stories called “Seagle Island” (Yes, the spelling was wrong, but for a reason) … and it was mostly influenced by Sweet Valley (remember that? THROWBACKS) and I loved writing those stories with my best friend, and she STILL is my best friend forever, named Chrissy. Thanks, Chrissy, for those drawings, now if only I could find them! They were so good and I had people in my classes borrowing the “books” I created. They were written on Sundays when I was in 6th and 7th grade and I had about 12 “books” in “Seagle Island”… Chrissy always could draw and I had no talent there whatsoever even though I loved to paint watercolor because I took a class. Anyways, they weren’t amazeballs or deep or what not but they had you wanting more and isn’t that the point sometimes? Hence, why I love thrillers and romance books like Kimberly Brighton’s that make me invested in the characters from page ONE. Thanks to the amazing writers and authors of the world who wrapped me up in their stories and helped me escape. You’re the true HEROES of my life story.
Back to my original statement though, I AM working on the editing process of the memoir and it’s going to be a FUN ride. I don’t have timespan on this, but maybe as I go along I’ll post tidbits (behind a paywall of course) … thanks to those paying subscribers, I appreciate YOU!
And I appreciate all of my freebie readers too. You the real whatever they say. Thanks.
WHAT I HAVE BEEN READING:
TS Eliot, so much TS Eliot because of that book I mentioned in my last blog post called “Unsub” by Megan Gardiner. He mentioned TS Eliot’s poem “East Coker” and I decided it needed a re-read so I pulled out my trusty anthology of TS Eliot writings (he IS my favorite--- duh—so it’s not like I had to “pull it out” even-- it WAS out, haha) … “East Coker”, it takes my breath away. “I begin at my end…” “My beginning is my end…” Remember those words because they’re so true, and I have a picture of my favorite part… but yeah… I’ll leave it at that and I will stop with the ELLIPSIS overkills. LOL.
You all already know from earlier in the post that I’m currently finishing up “The Unraveling of Julia” by Lisa Scottoline but I also read “One of Us is Dead” by Jeneva Rose this week and that was really good. I like her stories a lot. Even if they aren’t pretentious literary fiction. So what? I can’t stand it when people say they only read one genre, especially women when they tell me “I NEED to hold a book” (despite Kindle (paper white!) being the easiest thing on the planet to use—there I said it!) because I can guess what they will say they read next. (INSERT GIANT EYEROLL HERE) … 1. You’re missing out and losing out on a lot of great authors and titles and 2. COME ON! … Now, I don’t use AUDIBLE (yet!) but I don’t go around almost putting it down when it’s just because I love reading and haven’t tried it yet. I thought about doing it on my walks and listening to books instead of the MAYHEM album by Lady Gaga for the 1000th time. “Phantom of the dance floor, come to me, sing for me a sinful melody…”
… with that, it’s all I got for today. I won’t be writing until after my brother-in-law’s wedding. At least not for this blog. I might be editing and re-writing (fictionalizing) the memoir, we shall see. I hope I am. But I need to focus on stuff for that and possibly help my mother-in-law not feel like she is going nuts with final details. But I won’t be wearing or “Falling over in my 9-inch heels” but I hope the wedding is like the “garden of Eden (poison apple take a bite)” … I love Lady Gaga. =)
As always, thank you for reading my posts about my silly, little (sometimes crazy!) life. Have a great weekend ahead!
-xoxo-
LWB*
I love how you love books.