I’m taking a few minutes to type this up, while waiting for it to be time to leave to go and see “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children”. I will give my review at the end of this post when I get home!

In the interim:

1. Tomorrow the Steampunk unLimited event commences (YAY!!). I will be there to set up in the early evening, and if anyone wanders through and wants to shop, I’ll be happy to sell. Also, I have been given a space in the authors’ caboose on Sunday at 11:30am to do a reading. I suspect I’ll probably read bits and pieces from A Potagerie of Rejects, since it’s the newest book, HOWEVER, I will bring the first few chapters from the The Open Book, and if any fans of the Twins Trilogy show up for it, they will get a preview… Speaking of the twins: today is Bonnie and Beau’s birthday. Born by artificial means of a c-section, it’s only fair to admit that this is the central date to my ‘twin’ Chris’ and my birthdays (the 6th and 19th, respectively). We, being artificial twins as well, it only seems an appropriate birthdate. That being said…
2. I worked on The Open Book for a while this morning, and plan to get to it some more upon my return this afternoon. I’m working on closing up the last unfinished chapter. It is stretching out a bit longer than expected, but I’m taking it in stride and making sure I get the outlined moments connected right. This draft will be extremely rough, but I shouldn’t have a problem with smoothing things out and filling in any remaining detail holes. It’s my intention to get it at least half done (or to the point of where I have something substantial already written) today, and then to finish it up tomorrow. As I got this week’s homework done last night, it’s all I have on my plate before heading out to the event for set up.

And there we’ve come full circle. More to come…

My Review of “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children”

First off, it was nice to see a Tim Burton film without Helena Bonham Carter or Johnny Depp in it. While both good at their craft, this movie wasn’t for them, so it was a wise casting move to pass them over. Second, while it was a little jarring in some sections where the editing from one scene to the next was…sloppy, it was still a captivating film and a pleasure to watch. Maybe not so fluid as Crimson Peak, but still beautiful in hundreds of other ways. Everyone did an excellent job (except the woman who played the aunt delivering a birthday gift…she seemed very out of place…), so all characters were quite believable. Not to mention the extra bonus, as I had no idea Terrance Stamp and Dame Judi Dench were in it! I will definitely see it again.

That said, and on a really personal note–

1. As an authoress: it was great eye candy to stir my imagination and to refill my creative well. It’s been a while since I’ve had that, and shutting off my phone for two hours really helped. I got to just BE and experience it, rather than halve my attention between something awesome and something invasive (though it’s not really halving as in 50/50–usually it’s more like 97/3 and the creative influence is not the heavier side). I had moments during the film where I caught myself thinking “I really need to write more and faster! I really need to be in a place where I am financially able to spend days upon days being absorbed in my writing–if that’s what I want to be doing”. I put myself into a number of job roles in a matter of seconds, and at each one found myself asking, “But when would I write?” One of those roles being a criminal psychologist (I’m a 2-day-old victim of debit card fraud…and a damn good detective, it turns out), and another being a Miss Peregrine. Yes, a nanny of sorts…
2. As a once mother: this tugged–A LOT. To be surrounded by other people’s children, nurturing and loving them…Getting back what I lost and giving back even more in return. And as great at that as I would be, on a large scale (say, a school mistress, for instance), the above question popped in once again: “When would I write?” Never mind that I don’t know the first thing about running a school–nor care to–and would rather never deal with things like the education department or anything else that a middle man would more effectively deal with than I. A smaller number of children–that I could balance. In any case, it’s a nice little dream to be a mentor or the like to anyone, but as I said a few days ago: All I have are my books, and that is what I will have to be content with, whether I like it or not.