The Scribble Pad - Roslyn's Blog
Monday 18 August - Back in the saddle again
Ventured into a bookstore again on Friday, and was blubbering again in minutes.
Now, really. Honestly. I do think it's time to get a grip, don't you? If I stay away from my fiction any longer, I'll plain old lose my nerve. Therefore, be it known to all and sundry that I will be going back to my books starting this week.
Soon as I have a nice, cold hit of Bailey's Irish Cream. You know...just to take the edge off things.
Like I need an excuse to drink Bailey's.
Read my previous blog entry - Time is Money
Sex and Obeah
From time to time I'll feature a sort story from my unpublished collection, Sex and Obeah. I'll start off with Smiling Lessons. A very sweet story, always a favourite of mine. As an aside, the character Rebbie, who like to look like candy, was the foundation for Candy Don't Come in Gray.
SMILING LESSONS
Warren Tyrone grew up surrounded by women. The family’s small concrete house, which abutted a field in the small eastern Trinidadian town of Sangre Grande, was home to his grandmother, Marion, a stocky bandy-legged dirt farmer with a love for donkey-rope tobacco. Two aunts, who commuted daily to their jobs as sales clerks in Arima, and his mother also shared the unpainted four-room building.
Warren’s mother was a woman well into her middle years, who shared her own mother’s physique. She was short and sturdy, like a deeply rooted tree trunk, legs splayed far apart, feet set at sharp angles from each other. She and her mother spent their days, from the moment of their rising at four-thirty, to their return to the house at dusk, hacking out a living from the stubborn red dirt upon which their crops squatted. This season, they had planted eggplant. Other seasons, there were tomatoes, ochroes or perhaps peppers, all short crops guaranteeing the swiftest possible turnover.
His father, whom Warren had met but could not remember, had despaired quite early of the game of fatherhood, and had hopped a Canadian cruise ship as a kitchen steward, mouthing promises of foreign currency upon his return. Warren’s mother nodded solemnly and spent her last few dollars on some warm woolen socks to give him as a going-away present. That year she received a Christmas card with a folded ten-dollar bill in it: their first and only correspondence.
Warren also grew up surrounded by the paraphernalia of women. When he was five his mother deemed him old enough to bathe on his own, and ceased sponging him down at the outside pipe. Warren began using the inside bathroom with pride, and not a little trepidation.
Simona Taylor's 50-Book Challenge
One year. 50 books. No bullshit.
Book #29 is Mischief by Ed McBain
I should be bloody well shot. Three weeks and I can't get off my ass and read another book! This ain't no way to win a 50-book challenge, cupcake!
Anyway, I enjoyed Mischief tremendously, as I always do with an 87th Precinct story. For me, Ed McBain is a sure-buy. I especially love anything with the Deaf Man in it, as he is so deliciously diabolical. Sexy, too.
Mc Bain is a genius, no doubt about it. His descriptions are brilliant, and his dialogue is boss. I have to admit being a little irritated from time to time by his treatment of black and Hispanic characters, most of whom seem incapable of speaking the Queen's English, and, if they can, he seems compelled to explain why. I also noticed that he points out if a character is black or Hispanic, but generally doesn't bother if he's white, as if white is the default setting. Which I guess for him it is.
But that's just me. I still love him, and I'd buy his books any day.
True A Day
A brand new story every day about crazy (and sometimes stupid) people doing crazy (and sometimes stupid) things.
(You might see random question marks all over the place. Don't ask me!)
What's the reading level of my site?
Found this strange little doohickey on a site. It's a little programme that analyses the content of your site and calculates the reading level required to fully understand it. As it turns out, mine is at the Elementary School level.
Stop laughing. This is not a bad thing. In fact, I'm pretty proud of it. The Elementary or early Secondary levels are the ideal level for most writing. It means I write with clarity and precision, and most people get what I'm saying right off.
So cheers!
Last updated Monday, August 18, 2008
