What’s Up Wednesday

It’s What’s Up Wednesday time on the blog. WUW is a meme created and sponsored by Jaime Morrow and Erin Funk, where we give a brief update on our current reading and writing projects, and life as a whole. It’s all about staying in touch, which given how busy life can get isn’t a bad thing. See Jaime’s blog to find out how to participate, and to see a list of current participants.

What I’m Reading

My current read is THE CONFESSION by John Grisham. As you all probably know, Grisham is/was a lawyer, so most of his books have a legal theme. I’ve been wanting to read more Grisham (I’ve only read one of his books), and this one has an interesting premise. A young black man sits on death row in Texas, accused of the rape and murder of a high school cheerleader. But he’s innocent, and despite years of campaigning, the lawyer who has been championing his cause has failed to convince a judge to reconsider the rather flimsy evidence upon which he was convicted. Then, a frail, sick-looking man turns up at the office of a Lutheran minister. The man has a brain tumor, perhaps only months to live, and he wants to clear his conscience before he dies. He murdered the cheerleader. But it’s the eleventh hour. The death penalty sentence is only days away from being carried out. And it seems the judge and jury are too convinced they’ve got the right man to listen to the confession of a dying felon. Can the lawyer prove that, after years of deceit and denials, the man is telling the truth, before it’s too late?

I’ve really only just started, so a lot of what I’ve read so far is set up, background, introducing characters, etc. I’ll wait until I’m further into the story before I comment.

What I’m Writing

I’m still editing the WIP. Perhaps “editing” is the wrong word, since I’m probably adding as many (or more) words as I’m cutting. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this is hard! Probably one of the hardest writing challenges I’ve had to date. It’s one thing to have an alien girl in your story, but it’s quite another when she’s the narrator. I’m working hard to suppress my voice and bring hers out. And to make her voice both alien, and readable.

Would you like to read a sample of the story? OK. I’ve been talking about it for over a year now, so it’s about time I shared. Remember, it’s still in progress, but this is a section that I’m fairly happy with. The main character is a 16-year-old alien girl called Pearl from the planet Maralan who has a deep and abiding love for Earth and its people. She will eventually end up on Earth (in 1879), but at this point, she’s still on Maralan, and she’s with her best friend Trinnie. [For more on the WIP, see here, here, here, and here.] The part I’m sharing with you is where she’s talking about her love of Earth people, and the group ABBA:

I put my Stoka-Dareeg blocks back in their green fuzzy bag, and dropped the bag on the shelf, next to my skola books and the Barbeedoll my Male Guardian got for me when I was younger, when I began loving Earth and everything Earthian. I didn’t believe him when he said that’s what Earthian females look like. Barbeedoll is all bumps and curves, and no humanoid can look like that.

He took another trip to Earth not long after, and got me my ABBA seedee. I couldn’t make music with the seedee so he had to get a seedee player from Earth and make it work here. My MG is skazzy with teck, so soon I could hear the heartlifying beautious sound that is my ABBA. And I saw the picture of Anna-Frid and Agnetha, and they aren’t quite as bumpy as Barbeedoll, but still a lot more curvily than Maralanians like me and Trinnie. They make me look like a stick. And they are so stunlifyingly beaugorgious. But of course: they are Earthians.

And then there’s Benny and his HAIR. Oh my gasholkas, he has hair that is brown, and it’s all over his face! I never saw no such like thing in all my short years. Maralanians have white or yellow hair that only grows on the head. Not the males nor not the females grow hair any other body place. But he’s fuzzy like my Stoka-Dareeg bag. Hair on his head, his face, his arms. And it’s so boiling on Earth, the poor sad man must get drip-hot.

I wanted to sing all the ABBA songs, so I started to learn Earthian English way way way before we started learning it in skola (which is why my English is so awesomeness. Much more than Trinnie’s. Her English sucks like a black hole). Then I learned ABBA are not even from England, and are from a place called Sweden, and they learned English just like I did. And that made me love on them so much. It’s like we share blood.

I hope you enjoyed that. If you want to read more, I’m still open to potential beta readers…

What Inspires Me Right Now

If you read my WUW post from last week, you’ll know my SecondBorn is an Asiaphile who just returned from a trip to that part of the world. I think I’ve been drawing inspiration at least somewhat from her and her love of Asian people, culture, K-pop (and certain K-pop groups) for Pearl and her Earth obsession. There are certainly similarities between the way my SecondBorn speaks of the “beautiful Asian people,” and the way she can think of a K-pop song for just about any situation, and the way Pearl thinks and speaks about Earth people and culture, and ABBA. My SecondBorn and Pearl are quite close in age, too!

What Else I’ve Been Up To

It’s a particularly busy week this week at the Smith household, with a lot of youth-related activities at church with which all but two of our kids are involved. We also have my sister-in-law and a couple of nieces visiting, so there’s a lot going on.

How’s your week so far?