One specific advantage of marrying an American woman is that she’ll remember Father’s Day, and this time I got a whole day off to myself. I got up bright and early to catch a 5:46 bus, so as to arrive in Stuttgart shortly after ten. My goal: a writing workshop on historical fiction led by Tracy Barrett.
My Y chromosome set me apart from everyone else present, but that soon faded into the background (except for the occasional group “Yay”) as Tracy took us through the Ten Commandments for Historical Fiction (though I still haven’t found out which of them was condensed from originally two). After lunch and a free writing exercise the workshop concluded with animated chatting and, for some of us, a manuscript critique. It was the first time I’d had my manuscript critiqued, and I found Tracy’s comments encouraging and helpful, especially her suggestions on what might be painlessly cut. Kirsten Carlson organized a lovely event for her swansong as Germany/Austria RA of SCBWI; her successor, Maria Bogade, has some large shoes to fill!
On the way home I got to finally sink my teeth into Stephen Lawhead’s “Skin Map,” a Christmas gift. It’s a quick read, though everyday life has me stalled even on that. Maybe it was the workshop, but I have some nits to pick about his research (nobody in Macao would call a foreigner “gaijin”). Back in Lucerne at 21:49, I dashed into the Drinks of the World shop to use up my point cards I’d rediscovered while decluttering. I figured that with a closing time of 22:00 and my bus leaving 22:02 getting enough Newcastle Browns to total just over 5 francs would be easy, but I’d discounted that the local youths would be grabbing their last breezers and swelling the line. On a whim, I checked the Scottish beer section and – Happy Father’s Day! – discovered that Drinks of the World had heeded my plea and added Innis & Gunn to their offering.
The bus driver wasn’t too happy to see me board the bus with two beer bottles in my hands a minute or two before departure, but I assured him I wouldn’t drink those lukewarm, and set to gently arranging them in my backpack. I emptied one the following day to go with my Father’s Day meal, and the other’s waiting for another momentous occasion.
I wonder if I can wait until July 14th…
Sounds like a great day! I think it benefits all parents to have these little mini-vacations and it is nice that you and Janet accommodate each other this way.
I guess now you don’t have to come all the way to CT to get Scottish beer!
Sarah
It’s a good thing he has other reasons to come to the U.S. 🙂
Yes, I can and will come for the people. I think the beer may even be cheaper here, at 3.70 a bottle.
I’d love to see what your manuscript looks like after the input from the workshop. Is this the same one we looked at before?
Yes, it’s the same manuscript. I’ll be happy to send it your way once I’ve reworked it.
Looks like comments on Linda’s review are closed, or I would have written there. I have finished – finished quickly for a father of two little ones – a testament to the engaging plot, and some of my comments align well with Linda’s. I agree that the description of female characters is overdone: in one case, a character comes upon “probably the most beautiful woman he had seen up close in the flesh,” which apparently was 15 lines too short a description for Lawhead. Maybe he’s thinking that we should be as derailed as the male character, but that kind of writing jars my sensibilities (and I don’t mind beautiful female characters). On the other hand, perhaps we need the description to know that this was, indeed, a very beautiful woman, for previously the same character had stepped “into the most dazzling and unusual landscape [he] had ever seen.” This landscape turns out to be a sunny fishing village with a three masted schooner at dock and a definite re-enactment feel to it, which makes me think this character needed to get out more. I would have thought how he got there would have been far more unusual than the landscape itself. I’ve already mentioned the gaijin flub; there were also some German language oddities. Enough of these, and the reading pleasure diminishes, simply because my internal fact-checker turns on.
Still, a fun read, though I wish people who wrote trilogies wrote such that the single tomes could stand alone. I appreciate the need for a cliffhanger, but here, after 400 pages, despite a few fights and pursuits little seems to have happens, and it all ends with characters AWOL, a deus ex machina of sorts, no comeuppance, and the sense that even death isn’t the final word. (That’s great news at Easter, but not so much in a suspense story.) To top it off, the epilogue introduces yet two more characters – again, I understand the need to get readers coming back for the sequel, but I feel manipulated by such an ending, feel my trust in the author broken.
That said, I’ll keep it around, in case I get to read sequels…
I’ve temporarily opened comments again on my review, and would greatly appreciate your copying this there. When the spam for a post gets overly overwhelming, I get mad and pull the plug.
I’ve temporarily opened comments again on my review, and would greatly appreciate your copying this there. When the spam for a post gets overly overwhelming, I get mad and pull the plug.
So far I’ve found that each book in the series has gotten better. Reading sequels is a possibility….
I’ve added it to your blog, with slight modifications. With sequels a possibility, I’ll keep the book a little longer…