Good afternoon, all.
I’m close to a week late in posting my weekly writing goals for the third week of January. That’s okay, though. Right? Things got a bit busy, and sometimes by the end of the evening, I’d run out of gas, and just didn’t have it in me to write an update.
Week of January 15-January 21 Breakdown:
- Monday, January 15=631/580
- Tuesday, January 16=616/580
- Wednesday, January 17=707/580
- Thursday, January 18=675/580
- Friday, January 19=931/580
- Saturday, January 20=248/580
- Sunday, January 21=685/580
- Weekly Total=4,493
- Overall=13,958
Weekends are always rough. I think this stems from the week’s saturation. Teaching full-time takes its toll, so by the time I get to Saturday, I’m ready to pull back on the reins to a certain extent. It’s nice to partake in a leisurely morning spent with Audrey and the girls. Thankfully, writing over my daily goal throughout the weekend affords me a cushion of sorts on the days where I don’t meet my goal.
Monday, my response to my selected January text was due. I chose Tim O’Brien’s In the Lake of the Woods. This is the second O’Brien book I’ve read (I teach The Things They Carried to my sophomore every year), and it’s a gut-punch. You can read my thoughts on this novel and how O’Brien plays with structure and time here.
Tuesday evening, I attended Augsburg University’s Open Mic/Informational Meeting. Good to see old chums and new faces. I read a small section from my work-in-progress novel. This was a good opportunity to further figure out what’s working and what’s not working.
I’m just about finished with Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant. This has been the audiobook for my commute to work for the last month and a half. It’s a fantastical quest narrative set in an England just decades past the time of King Arthur and his round table. An elderly couple sets out to visit their son in a neighboring village and are caught up in an adventure of homerically epic proportions. I’d highly recommend.
I also listened to Greg Sistero’s The Disaster Artist, which makes me want to see the film based on the book.
Finally, my current read is Edgar Cantero’s Meddling Kids which works off the old Scooby Doo tropes, except the team of kid detectives is all grown up, and dealing with the fallout from their last case.
Alright, that’s enough for now. Thanks for reading. Be well. Huzzah!
Ryan L. Purdy 