July 2024

To quote the Decemberists, July, July, July! Never seemed so strange. A bit of a weird month to say the least but here are some books and movies I have picked up or enjoyed followed by a bit of an update on my writing.

A bit about Books:

These are a few books I picked up and will read at some point in the future.

Black Sheep by Rachel Harrison

Rouge: A Novel by Mona Awad

A book I have already ready, but it's available for everyone else to read soon.

Dear Hanna: A Novel by Zoje Stage is out on August 13. As noted previously, it was a great read and a follow-up to Baby Teeth (Also a great read)

Still reading Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. I have started reading Fifty Beasts to Break your Heart by Gennarose Nethercott

A bit about Movies:

I saw Longlegs because how could I not see it? My social media was full of ads and folks who had seen it and been freaked out. The promise of it being the scariest movie in the past 10 years? So, guess what? It was good, scary, and a bit freaky. Nick Cage was doing what Nick Cage does. No movie could live up to the hype of people leaving the movie and being grateful for the Bibles in their cars, but it was good. 

On a lazy Saturday, I watched The Innkeepers. It had been on my watch list for a while, and I'm not sure what I expected. I like that the beginning had a light-hearted vibe, almost sitcom'y. It was interesting when it cut over to something darker, and while entertaining, it did not hit as hard as I thought it might. 

I also watched the Vampire/kidnap for money movie Abigail. I'm glad the trailers showed the young girl they kidnapped as the vampire because I just assumed the criminals would get eaten rather than them just being cruel to a kid. Overall a fun movie, a little gruesome, but that's what makes it horror sometimes. 

A bit about Writing:

I had a dream that I'd written 3 or 4 stories that were not spooky or weird in any way. Just a handful of nice stories. Upon waking, I was convinced I had them somewhere in a folder somewhere. These stories do not exist, and it's not something I have written, but in the dream, I had all the details and a plan to self-publish because who doesn't want to read a nice story. The details of what these stories entailed are lost to dream amnesia, but maybe I'll try to write one. 

Aside from dreaming about writing and this post, I have been in a bit of a holding pattern with my writing. Not motivated enough to really dive into editing or formatting or reaching out to agents and publishers, but also waiting for one of the many good ideas to touch down so I can get started writing. I know I can just sit down and write something, anything, because that's what a writer does. A writer just writes, but I don't want to. I think that's it. I know I need to write, and it is better for me if I can sit down for an hour or so a day and drift off to a place where I'm creating something, but yeah. Don't want to. 

Thats July

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This is a photo of the cattails at the pond where I like to walk. I was thinking how anything could be creepy, and as I stood there, it was almost quiet. The sound of the cars driving dropped away, and the only sound was the red-winged blackbird yelling at me from the tree.



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