What I'm Reading
At the minute I'm reading Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad, alongside my friend Laura, and I'm really enjoying it so far! It's a sort of retelling of The Odyssey from Penelope's POV, but between each chapter there is a poem or a song or a monologue from the POV of Penelope's 12 hanged maids, acting as a Greek chorus. I'm really enjoying how Atwood is twisting the various things we know about Penelope and Odysseus, and Greek mythology in general, and I recommend it!
Next week I'm going to be taking part in The Underhyped Read-A-Thon - I wrote a blog post about it with all the information you need to know here! I think it's a great idea for a read-a-thon, a chance to read some of the books on your shelves that have been forgotten by the rest of the reading world, and I've set myself the challenge of only reading books with less than 1,000 ratings on Goodreads.
What I'm Writing
I'm currently working on one of the climactic scenes of my WIP, in which a murder is committed, for the sake of my portfolio. I'm hoping I can finish a decent draft of the scene today and then send it out to some of my course mates to get it critiqued!
Recently I've also been revisiting a couple of vague ideas I had - one for a middlegrade novel and another for a YA novel - though they are very, very vague. Neither of them really have a particular plot or strong characters, but for now I'm trying not to let them distract me too much. I need to focus on my WIP!
What Inspires Me Right Now
I think knowing that I'm going home for a couple of weeks this Sunday is pretty inspiring - I'm looking forward to a change of scenery and some of my parents' cooking!
What Else I've Been Up To
Once again this week I haven't been up to much aside from working on my portfolio and job hunting Next week I'll definitely have more to talk to you about, because I'm going somewhere very exciting on Saturday!
What's new with you?
J.
I LOVE ORPHAN BLACK. I just want to throw all the awards at Tatiana Maslany. The Emmy committee needs to get their heads out of their asses and recognize more science fiction and fantasy genres in all categories. Okay rant over. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI agree! There's so much talent in this show - Tatiana's amazing!
DeleteI have Orphan Black on my to-be-watched list, seeing as everyone's talking about it lately and it looks fabulous!
ReplyDeleteBest of luck with the murder scene! And have fun at MCM! I've not been to the Manchester one, but the one in Birmingham last year was great. Not as manic as the London one, but it still had lots of things going on!
It's a great show, you should definitely watch it!
DeleteThanks - I just need to find my camera so I can take plenty of pictures...
That Underhyped marathon sounds great. I'd consider doing it if I wasn't already committed to too many things this summer. I think anything we can do to give more exposure to these books is great. I started watching Orphan Black awhile back and for whatever reason got sidetracked. I really need to get back to it! Have a wonderful time visiting home and an all around great week! :D
ReplyDeleteThe first time I watched Orphan Black I watched the first two episodes and I wasn't all that bothered, and then one night I decided to give it another try and I marathoned the rest of the series, from episode three to episode ten, in about two days! I definitely recommend it. :D Thank you! ^__^
DeleteOrphan Black is SO GOOD! Such an underrated and totally epic show. I love love love Allison.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to check out that underrated list. So many books I read that are amazing seem to slip under the radar.
Alison's fantastic. :D I have a hard time choosing a favourite, though - I love them all!
DeleteBelieve it or not, I've never actually read any of Margaret Atwood's books, even though she's a Canadian author and spent part of her childhood in my hometown. That's something I really, really need to remedy. Surprisingly, we weren't assigned any of her books in school. I just read the Odyssey this past year so The Penelopiad sounds like an interesting concept.
ReplyDeleteI hope these vague story ideas don't distract you too much but grow into something amazing when the time is right. Good luck writing the murder scene for your WIP and with the job hunt!
I'm really enjoying The Penelopiad so far, and it's a very easy read, too. :)
DeleteThank you! ^__^
Believe it or not, I've never read any of Margaret Atwood's books even though she's a Canadian author and spent part of her childhood in my hometown. I really, really need to remedy that. Surprisingly, we weren't assigned any of her books in school. I just read The Odyssey last year and loved it, so the concept of The Penelopiad sounds interesting.
ReplyDeleteI hope these vague story ideas don't distract you too much but grow into something amazing when the time is right. Good luck writing that murder scene and with your job hunt!
I'm going to have to check out that read-a-thon and the Penelopiad. I love Greek/Roman mythology, so it sounds like such an interesting take on it.
ReplyDeleteI hope you do - it'd be great to get a lot of people involved in an underhyped read-a-thon. :D And I definitely recommend The Penelopiad, I'm really enjoying it!
DeleteI may have to check out the Penelopiad. Sounds interesting.
ReplyDeleteDo! ^__^ I'm enjoying it so far.
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