Books and more

Apparently it was a small gathering of Iqaluit bloggers at the library yesterday as I saw Kate, Bob and John all there. I spoke with John briefly because we know him and his wife though Cathy's work. Not so much Kate and Bob, which is kind of silly, I guess. But it is odd to go up to people and go "like your blog." (someone said they spotted me earlier the year at the airport and wanted to say the same thing to me. Now I know how they felt...)

There's enough of us kicking around town that we should all get together some evening. Perhaps the next time some other Nunavut blogger is passing through town. It's a thought, anyway.

My haul was not nearly as impressive and Kate and Bob's, but then again, we arrived five minutes after the place opened so who knows what fines we might have missed.

I got:
Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
Toy Story 2 on DVD
A book on growing houseplants
Get Organized, Get Publish!
1,818 Ways to Write Better & Get Published
A large coffee table book filled with wildlife pictures that promptly went straight to Cathy's class.

Pretty disappointing, really. Last year I found "Thank You For Smoking" and "A Confederacy of Dunces." The selection wasn't really there. Then again, it was $5 for a bag of books an the money went to help the local library. So I shouldn't complain.

Besides, I'm pretty picky when it comes to second hand books. First, and this drives Cathy mental, I like new books. I hate books with the spine cracked or beaten up. Yes, they're "well loved". To me, they not been taken care of properly, which is disrespectful in my brain.

Although I am hopeful about the Vonnegut book. I've been meaning to give him another try for years. And I could use something good to read. The last few books have been bitterly disappointing. The last good one I read was "Crooked Little Vein" by Warren Ellis. That was followed by Greg Rucka's "Patriot Acts" which was a bitter disappointment from the previous books in the series. I then tried "The Book of Fate" by Brad Meltzer, which I gave up on after 100 pages as it was entirely too contrived. I'm now in a disappointing death trudge with William Gibson's "Spook Country". I keep hoping it will get better, but 70 pages in that hasn't happened yet.

I keep wondering if it has something to do with me trying to write my own book that's making me hate others right now. Could be, but I doubt it. And we'll see if the publishing books I bought help.

As for the book, I hit 50,000 words after writing for about 24 days. To put that in perspective, during National Novel Writing Month they want you to write that many words during November. So I'm on quite a roll.

Or well, I was. Since I hit 50,000 three days ago, I've written another 3,000 words. After finally beating into submission a section where the lead character finally hooks up with the woman who had been driving him nuts I'm now not entirely certain where to go next. A lot of the first 50,000 words were building to that point. I know where it has to go, I'm just not 100 per cent sure how to get there.

Ah well, no one said this was going to be easy. At 53,000 words I think I might be around half way done. But we will see...