The Martian

 I was at lunch with a friend last weekend and we were discussing something and all of a sudden a joke from a movie popped into my head and my friend's husband knew what I was talking about.

It had to do with The Martian by Andy Weir. I’d seen the movie but hadn’t read the book. Luckily we are the sort of nerds that go to bookstores often, and I found a copy of the book.

I mentioned in an early post that the story of how The Martian was published was kind of amazing and very inspiring to me. He was a computer programmer for twenty-five years but always wanted to be a writer. So, he wrote a book as a hobby and people liked it. The liked it so much that it got the attention of an agent and a publisher. It's a modern day Cinderella story.

It’s a fun book to read. When I first started reading the book, I intended to review the first few chapters, but I read over 120 pages in one sitting.

The thing that strikes me most about this book is that I don’t want to leave the universe that Andy Weir created and I love the voice of the main character. To me, that’s what makes this such a compelling story.

I could care less about the science or if it could happen. I’m most certainly not a huge fan of science fiction and under normal circumstances wouldn’t have given this book a chance.

I think that’s a lesson I need to take to heart when creating my characters. It’s not the story, because I won’t be the first writer to write a coming of age story, but if people can root for my protagonist, then I have something.

Also, I found some of his earlier writing online. He’s written Doctor Who Fan Fiction and some other stuff. It was like his training ground.

Currently, there’s some fan fiction about The Martian. I wonder how that feels as an author: for someone who wrote fan fiction to now have fan fiction written about the characters they created.

The Life We Bury

                                                 
I've had a very long week, and haven’t felt much like writing or reading. It doesn’t happen a lot, but sometimes the children run me ragged and my only desire at the end of the day is to sit in a quiet room away from other humans.

I was thinking about a book I read recently called “The Life We Bury” By Allen Eskens. It's one of those that sticks with you long after the last page.

This is the Synopsis from Goodreads:

College student Joe Talbert has the modest goal of completing a writing assignment for an English class. His task is to interview a stranger and write a brief biography of the person. With deadlines looming, Joe heads to a nearby nursing home to find a willing subject. There he meets Carl Iverson, and soon nothing in Joe's life is ever the same.

Carl is a dying Vietnam veteran--and a convicted murderer. With only a few months to live, he has been medically paroled to a nursing home, after spending thirty years in prison for the crimes of rape and murder.

As Joe writes about Carl's life, especially Carl's valor in Vietnam, he cannot reconcile the heroism of the soldier with the despicable acts of the convict. Joe, along with his skeptical female neighbor, throws himself into uncovering the truth, but he is hamstrung in his efforts by having to deal with his dangerously dysfunctional mother, the guilt of leaving his autistic brother vulnerable, and a haunting childhood memory. 

Thread by thread, Joe unravels the tapestry of Carl’s conviction. But as he and Lila dig deeper into the circumstances of the crime, the stakes grow higher. Will Joe discover the truth before it’s too late to escape the fallout?

I normally don’t like murder mystery stories. However, the few I’ve read and finished, I’ve enjoyed.

I loved the way this story was told and I loved Joe. He was a hard-working kid who was trying to escape his alcoholic mother. Joe has always had to take care of his family and is now running from his mother and autistic brother.

The main plot points of the novel are interesting. Carl's life was tragic, but not an uncommon story. To be honest, it wasn’t the mystery that had me so intrigued, it was the B plot that had me up past my bedtime reading. It was so true to life, one day Joe is a college student writing a paper, the next he’s bailing his mother out of jail on DUI charges or taking his brother home to live with him.

Joe’s brother is autistic. I absolutely LOVED this plot point. I loved the honest portrayal of a sibling with autism and the way Joe was protective of him in the way a brother would be protective of his younger brother. I also liked that for Joe, having an autistic brother was just apart of his life and most importantly, Jeremy wasn't his autistic brother, he was his brother.

 I really really liked his neighbor turned loved interest, Lila Nash. I hope she's in the sequel because I wanted more of them. I also loved that Lila made instant friends with Jeremy.

The author Allen Eskens, was working as an attorney when he wrote this. He even went as far as taking writing classes, his website says that: after law school, he studied creative writing in the M.F.A. program at Minnesota State University-Mankato, as well as the Loft Literary Center and the Iowa Summer Writer’s Festival. Okay, my bucket list begins and ends with attending the Iowa Summer Writer’s Festival.

I had a book hangover after this one. I didn’t want it to end, a fact I tweeted (using an old account) to the author, and he retweeted me and followed me. I’m going to send Mr. Eskins this blog. If he reads it, he should know that he is an inspiration to me. I can’t wait to read the sequel (it’s pre-ordered at Barnes and Noble), and I am trying very hard to get my hands on your other books.

Morning Rambles

I have to leave for work in a few minutes and I’m crabby. Awesome, way to start a day spent with children. Even the coffee isn’t helping and I love coffee more than should be possible. I wish I could curl up with a book and get sucked into another world. Its days like this being an adult is overrated.

I was thinking about a book I read a few years ago called “Ten Girls To Watch” by Charity Shumway. I read in the midst of a lot of life drama that I won’t go into and that book was an escape. It made me want to write more.

The novel was partly autobiographical in the best ways. The character was her but not her. The author has fallen off the map and isn’t active on social media otherwise I would tell her how much I loved her book. If you haven’t read it, try and get your hands on a copy. I'll link the Goodreads page below.

It’s getting late, I should leave. I’m going to read more of Eleanor tonight and post something.

Ten Girls To Watch

The First Post...or who is the lady?

I am a writer. I am sitting at my computer typing words and hoping they make sense and that someone will read them. Most importantly, I hope someday, someone will pay to read the words that fall out of my brain, specifically in the form of a novel.

I have an idea for a novel that is very very very loosely based on my parents that I am about half done with the first draft. It's a coming of age story that asks the question "What do you do after you fell on your ass and got back up?" What is the other side of the rainbow? It's a love story, a coming of age story and I'm gonna finish the first draft or die trying.

I am a reader. I have a "to be read" mountain range...(more about that later).

Saying I love books is the understatement of the year.

I am a mother. I love my little boy. with every part of my heart...in fact, it beats for him. He causes it to skip beats, fall to my knees and quicken. He's the light in the darkness of life.

I've read my Harry Potter and you can't tell me that Lily Potter is the most amazing fictional mother in the history of...ever. She cast a spell on her son so that as long as he returned to his bloodline, he would be protected from Voldemort. It was an ancient form of magic Voldemort couldn't understand.

A mother's love is fierce and begins the minute they are bent over the toilet with morning sickness. It isn't meant to be understood until a person takes one look into the eyes of the tiny human they created, and know from the deepest part of their heart, that this baby is without question their reason for waking up in the morning.

I'm a wife, married to a wonderful man for four years, but together for fourteen. He's my prince (actually he's my Luke Danes and I hope you got that reference and if you didn't, go watch Gilmore Girls) and we are living our very own messy (quite literally) version of happily ever after.

There is a pimple-faced teenager who is as old as my relationship and I look forward to the day the pimple faced teenager turns into a fully grown adult with a job and mortgage. In short, my life began when I fell for him and any course it takes would be meaningless without him to share it with.

I am a preschool teacher. Four-year-olds are awesome, I love the age and developmental stage. I hope they walk away from my classroom with a love of the written word...and the ability to share, sharing is caring

This blog isn't here for me to talk about my job or the two people who make life worth living, this is my outlet from the stress of life. I need to branch out as a writer. I'm not going to get an MFA or run off to Paris and write my magnum opus. I'm going to write the novel that lives in me in the midst of being a wife and mother with a full-time job. So far, my thoughts on this blog are to write about what inspires me as a writer from the point of view of a reader and vice-versa.

So, if you made it through all that, congrats. I hope you stick with me.