All downhill from here

You know that little engine that goes, "I think I can, I think I can," when faced with a big hill?  Well, the past few weeks I have felt just like that little engine felt when looking at that big hill.  The end of a school semester is always a stressful time.  So much going on, so many deadlines to meet.  It's all a little crazy.  To top it all I was busy with NaNoWriMo which was putting undue stress upon myself.  With all the school deadlines, I  was trying to write 50 000 words in the month of November, crazy isn't it?  But I did it!  Just.  How I managed that I'll never know; I was forced to reach down deep into reserves I never knew I had.  For the first time NaNoWriMo wasn't fun, writing wasn't fun; it was all just too stressful.
Overlapping NaNoWriMo was report writing time.  But I can happily say that today I printed out the last report, now it's all downhill from here.  I feel like I made it to the top of the hill, desperately clinging onto my sanity and the view from the top is amazing!

NaNoWriMo is finished for 2010.  I still have to finish the novel and that I'll do in my own time when writing is fun again and something I look forward to.  Report writing is over until next May.  The swimming gala snuck in and besides two little kids nearly drowning because the older kids supporting them were so competitive they forgot the little ones couldn't breathe under water, it was uneventful and quite successful.  Work dramas and troublesome personalities are receding into the background.  Siobhan's play, The Apple, was very good and she was excellent again.  She is so talented.  Thursday, tomorrow, is a public holiday.  Friday is my last day of school before the holiday.  I'm leaving a week early to see a breast specialist.  Saturday morning is the Junior Triathlon and in the afternoon is the swim gala, both of which I'm organising, but after the past few weeks those should both be a piece of cake.  Monday morning I fly to Cape Town.  I'm counting down the hours...

Deception Point by Dan Brown

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Hmmm. I have to think about this. I know that many people say that Dan Brown's writing jarrs their literary veins, and he makes every mistake authors are told to be careful of. But, he is able to write a page-turner that you can't put down, filled with action albeit some a little improbable, that you get so caught up in you don't care if he uses the word 'coffee' five times on a page and overplays the adverb hand. You don't care, you just want to find out what is going to happen next. If it's highly improbable, so what, it takes your mind off the stresses of your life as you read about the stresses the hero has to endure. Dan Brown offers pure escapism and Deception Point is exactly that. He doesn't care about using perfect metaphors, he doesn't want to be a literary guru. All he wants to do, is write bestsellers that make people forget about their own stinking lives. That makes him money, so why should he care that people criticise his writing style? Deception Point is fast-paced, the action flows off the page and you are quickly caught up in the story. So what if it reads like a Hollywood script, it works. I won't say this is one of the best books I've ever read, but it did occupy my weekend and take my mind off all the crap at work.



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Cindy