Darlene's Digest

Try not to hate me, but I have to say this: It's 72F. I'm sitting on my back porch, admiring my pots of pansies. I hope it's a lovely day wherever you are, and if not, hang in there. Spring is coming.

So it was a cold, and I'm over it now, thank you. I watched "Mansfield Park" on PBS last night. I came to it with no preconceptions, because it's one Austen book I haven't gotten around to reading. I thought it was interesting, but it did have a truncated feel to it. One thing I liked about the movie was the costuming. Fanny's clothes looked appropriately out-dated, especially compared to the sophisticated Miss Crawford. We also saw Fanny wearing the same dress in multiple scenes, which reflected her status as the "poor relation". I did think the actress's messy hair detracted from the character, but that may be a personal prejudice. The classic 1940's "Pride and Prejudice" was on again last week and while I watched it, I couldn't enjoy it as much as I used to. I've seen other productions that were closer to the book. Yes, Lawrence Olivier is a wonderful Mr. Darcy, but Greer Garson was too old and too pretty to play E...

Is it a cold or is it allergies? Guess I'll know in a week. If it's a cold, I'll be feeling better. *sigh*

Y'all laughed, laughed , when I said my books were being published in Estonia. But I wasn't kidding. Rly. You can now direct your pirate lovin' Estonian friends to their favorite bookstore to buy Kapten Sinisteri armuke, Salakaubavedaja pruut and Piraadi saak Hot pirate romance for those cold winter nights in the Baltics!

There are many vocabulary building sites on the net, but my favorite is My Word A Day. I've subscribed for a few years now and find them valuable. Today's word is "bibliophage", and I particularly like the second definition: "A pest that consumes books". Yep, that's me all right.

Remember in "Romancing the Stone" where Joan Wilder is finishing writing her book, tears streaming down her face? Been there, done that. If your emotional scenes don't wrench a reaction from you, how can you expect them to move your readers? There's a scene in Captain Sinister's Lady that still makes my eyes moist when I read it, and the scene I was working on today in A Sea Change made me cry. Good news is I don't write scenes like that very often. Angst is all well and good, but my goal is to make my readers laugh, not cry. At least, not cry very often. And certainly not cry when they should be laughing.

I'm hard at work on A Sea Change, and had a lovely little plot breakthrough this morning, which cheered me immensely. Once again, the key to success is not to fear the blank white page, but to plant one's butt in the chair and just start writing.

It's still great to be a Florida Gator! Even though we're all scratching our heads over today's loss to Michigan.