Pleasantly Disturbed Thursday

My friend Duane Scott at Scribing the Journey shifted Pleasantly Disturbed Thursdays to Fridays, and we haven’t had one in a while, so I thought I’d move it back for the moment.

My head is buzzing with words. I think I have too much going on.

I’m editing the sequel to Dancing Priest. There’s no title yet. The working title I’ve been using no longer fits. The editing involves what I might call “soft rewriting.” I’m not doing wholesale cuts and replacements, more like minor cuts and small replacements. It’s work.

Every so often I’m stealing a few minutes to write. This novella that started with some music keeps pulling me back toward it. It’s about 40 percent done, and the rest is outlined. I know how it ends, and I’ve already figured out the ending scene. But it’s work, too.

There are poetry projects, articles for blogs, reviews of books – lots more words. And work.

And I’m enjoying all of it.

I’m reading two books for online discussion groups – The Social Animal by David Brooks for The High Calling and Kisses from Katie for the group led by Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter. We’ll be finished with the Social Animal in early March,

Reading underway for book reviews for various people or sites includes This Morning: Poems by Michael Ryan (to be published March 13) and Joseph Wambaugh’s new novel, Harbor Nocturne, due out in April. I’ve also got four other poetry books waiting patiently.

My personal reading right now is Frantic, Mike Dellosso’s new book. It’s set in Maine. It’s a thriller, as in scary. It’s his fourth novel and I think his best yet.

On the non-word front, I did something rather remarkable this past Sunday. I rode a bike. I rode it for 35 minutes. It was the first time in eight months, since my back problem started last June. It was a great feeling to be back on the bike. My legs, however, did issue a protest on Monday and Tuesday.

My wife and I watched the conclusion of the second season of Downton Abbey on PBS Sunday night. We’re both addicts, although I don’t do go so far as to spend hours online looking at all the sites, interviews, speculation and even paper dolls.

Last Friday night, we saw the movie Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, with Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock and a young actor named Thomas Horn. It’s about 9/11, but it’s about a lot more than that. It’s a great movie; the boy is one extraordinary actor. If you haven’t seen it, you should. The trailer is below.