Who adores Mark Knopfler? I sure do. His Dire Straits stuff. His solo stuff. When I’m down – I’m down a lot lately, wrestling with my revision – I bring up Mark on YouTube, and soothe my troubled soul.

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Anyhow, here’s my new idea: I’m going to read outside my areas of interest – that means mysteries, sci-fi, romance even, hell – chick lit! – to see if a plot-driven piece can hold my interest. To see if one of those critters, so not my thing, can thrill me. I am not choosing any old mystery/whatever, I am choosing the award winners, with the NYT Book Review blubs to die for. Who’s my first victim? You’ll find it shortly in ‘What Are You Reading?’ Under the topic, ‘In Search of Enlightenment’.

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I hope to gain insights that I can use in my revision process, that either confirm my prejudices or blast them to smithereens. 

--edited by Mimi Speike on 8/16/2014, 1:37 AM--

Hi Mimi--I love Dire Straights. So fun that's your writing pick-me-up!

I wanted to tell you--and I might have said this before--that if you are going to delve into other genres you've got to read Philippa Gregory--particularly THE VIRGIN QUEEN--you'll love the romance Gregory concocts between Dudley and Elizabeth!! The historical stuff will keep you going through the "romance" parts. And she writes really wonderfully!

Thanks Lucy. I have something here by Phillippa, somewhere. I will make it one of my exploratory reads. I have read some of Carolly Erickson's historical fiction, and was very disappointed. She made her name on her biographies, which are terrific. I found her fiction boring. Perhaps I owe it to her to give her another shot. 

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The one thing I have to say about the mystery I am currently reading is, the opening scene-setting was marvelous, brisk, colorful, and full of attitude. Now it has settled into a rather plodding one-foot-in-front-of-another, he-said-she-said (or I-said, she-said, it's first person) and I am losing interest. But I'll keep with it. 

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I am not a one-foot-in-front-of-another kind of person, and that's the understatement of the year. I have high hopes for Dashiell Hammett in that regard. I hope that the zing of the screenplay for Maltese Falcon is embedded in the prose of the novel, and not just teased out of it by the genius of John Huston, abetted by the lucky casting (the producers had wanted George Raft, who declined to put his important career in the hands of a first-time director) and brilliant performance of Humphery Bogart.

--edited by Mimi Speike on 8/17/2014, 1:19 PM--

Well, as usual, I’ve gotten distracted from my project at hand, my mystery read. I’ve got a conversation going with arnbar via private message. He reviewed me, and I’ve reviewed him. We have a lot in common. His work gives me insights into my own nonsense. I love his voice, if not the exact roll-out. His title: Exodus, Stage Left, says it all.

Arnbar and I share a philosophy: don't let the plot get in the way of the storytelling.