I spent most of last night working on my review of The Painter of Battles but didn’t get it finished. Maybe tonight. Reviews are funny things. They start as a conglomeration of ideas and quotes (in this case, I made three or four pages of notes while I read the book, noting some especially quoteworthy passages) and grow into paragraphs and evolve into something that I hope has continuity and flow. I’m to the point where I’ve got paragraphs, but I’m still working on the flow.
I didn’t watch anything on the tube last night at all, though I did tape SVU and Boston Legal. I read a few more chapters of The Barbarous Coast and continue to marvel at Ross Macdonald’s style. For a noir writer, he’s very descriptive and he makes me aware of some of the descriptive shortcomings in my own writing, especially in my longer works. I love his dark view of people that oozes into the way he chooses to describe them.
Speaking of which, I added another 1200 words to the novel-in-progress this morning. Then, after my shower, I thought of a couple of things that needed to be addressed, so I hand-wrote myself a note for the next session.
