Catching up

It has been a while...

I promised to speak to my reading habits and I will, but first I want to write about a family trip to the Stratford Festival.

We are fortunate to have world class theatre only forty-five minutes down the road.  Every year the Stratford Festival puts on some of the best live performances to be found anywhere.  In the spring, while looking at their website, I couldn't believe my eyes.  My second favourite play, The Tempest, was on the playbill.  Not only that, but in the starring roll - Christopher Plummer.  I've seen Christopher Plummer before, 20 years ago in Macbeth. I knew we'd have to go.  Fortunately for the kids we were able to arrange 2 shows on the day we went.  The second was a stellar adaptation of Peter Pan.  In both shows, the acting and the spectacle combined to give me the most satisfying live theatre experiences I've ever had.  Just magic.

Let's see - what else?  The second Loremaster book plods forward, getting a little more robust every time I can steal a few minutes to work on it.  I am now also working on a vampire short story.

Reading habits...  I was prompted to talk a little about my reading habits after I made an observation a few weeks ago.  I always have at least a half-dozen books on the go at any time.  Currently I am reading Spider Robinson, Robert J. Sawyer, Christopher Moore and selections from three anthologies.  And that's only the fiction.  I'm flighty when I read.  I jump from book to book.  It's not that I get bored with what I'm reading.  I usually don't.  But I'm not the sort of person who can sit and read from cover to cover uninterrupted.

Here's the observation I made a few weeks ago.  There is one - and only one I've found so far - author who corrals me in for the duration.  Kurt Vonnegut.  I was reading God Bless you, Dr. Kevorkian - granted a short book - when it dawned on me - I just read this guy in one sitting without the need to read something else.  I decided to see if  Spider Robinson had the same effect.  Although I like Spider's writing a lot, no such luck.  What is it about Vonnegut?  What does he give me that no one else ever has?

I think Vonnegut gives me at least one new or irreverent or painfully true idea on every single page.  He masterfully takes these many new, irreverent truths over the course of each book and binds them together into a story that leaves me thinking and laughing long after I close the book.

That's what I think, anyway.

Daytrips...

As the summer crawls luxuriantly along, I find my workspace looks increasingly like this: 

No complaints about that.  The kids have done a pretty good job of keeping themselves occupied with outdoor crafts, reading, building stuff in the workshop and generally being decent siblings toward one another.  Every so often, however, we need a day trip.

Last week we went here:

Luther Marsh is part of the Grand River Conservation Authority.   The Marsh boasts numerous trails, sight-seeing towers and a host of wildlife.  Birds abound and the air is filled with song.  There's a lake:

The dog just couldn't resist...

We saw frogs, fish, hundreds of birds and a host of insects who obligingly stayed very still to have their pictures taken.


There were scores of these little guys:

And this pretty little thing just begged to have its picture taken:

Unfortunately, there has been so much rain lately that the Marsh proved too...well, marshy to navigate.  The trail we were following had deep muddy sections that soon proved impassable.  We will need to plan another visit after a dry spell.



Next time I'll talk about something I've notice about my reading habits...

I write like...

There's been lots going on with the kids and I am actually getting a bit of writing done on the second Loremaster book, but I stumbled across something fun I'd like to share.

I found this website - I Write Like

The site makes this claim:

Check which famous writer you write like with this statistical analysis tool, which analyzes your word choice and writing style and compares them with those of the famous writers.


Now, I don't know what research, if any, has gone into this analytical engine.  I took a goodly hunk of Cory Doctorow's Little Brother and plugged it into the engine.  It told me Cory Doctorow writes like David Foster Wallace.


Oddly enough, much of my work, when placed in I Write Like's analyzer, comes back with the same result.  


Different writing yields different results:


Herne  is apparently written like H.P. Lovecraft


From My Father`s Hands compares to Margaret Mitchell 


Sweet Jesus - Pact reads like Margaret Atwood


The beginning of Loremaster looks like Dan Brown and the end, according to the analysis, reads like Shakespeare. 


The Witch  looks like David Foster Wallace
As does The Platinum Ticket, Just Business, The Rat Dog and Root of Evil.


I've never read any David Foster Wallace - looks like I might have to.  


I'll say one thing, he has a great first name...