Fibro Book Club: Burial Rites

As head prefect of the Fibro Club, I now declare this meeting open. Everyone have their glass of wine and their thoughts in order? Excellent.

I've had several actual, real life conversations about our book, Burial Rites, over the past week. We all agreed that we knew from page one that it wasn't going to end well. When the book is about the last person executed in Iceland, you know you're not looking at a happily ever after. But somehow that didn't seem to matter.

The reason I chose this book as our first selection was that it is one of those books. Debut author. International two-book deal worth $1 million. This book had something going on. Everyone said so.

There is no denying that there is a lot of grim in Hannah Kent's book. A lot of cold. One of the people I spoke to this week didn't feel that there were enough words to really convey the sense of place, but I really enjoyed the sparse nature of Kent's prose. To me, the sense of place built, word by word, page by page, along with the intimacy as the inevitability of the story inched forward, revealing itself under all that snow.

"Slow" was another word that came up a lot. It is a slow tale and, yes, a bleak one in many ways, but I found it intensely interesting. Strong female characters. An otherness in the setting. Historic detail. And, always, that slowly unravelling story.

Ultimately satisfying - for me, if not for Agnes.

What did you think? Share your thoughts here or pop over to the Fibro Club Facebook page to join the discussion.

Weekend Rewind (Limited Edition) #2: Writing week

I'm going in early with the Rewind this week. I have a house to clean. In high heels (long story, but I'm going to a ball tomorrow night and will be wearing heels for the first time in ages, so I'm practising... as you do). So, here I am.

Thanks to everyone who linked up last week - it was SO good to see so many familiar faces, and to meet some lovely new ones too. This week, I thought I'd mix things up a bit (you know how I love a mixed tape) and rather than going with February as our theme, which might be a little ... expected ... (after January last week), we're going to do something else.

The theme for this week is ... WRITING.

So, you can give me a post about writing or some of your best-ever writing, you choose. Try to keep to the theme though, just because I get such a jolt when I visit the next link and it's not following the vibe.

Usual schtick applies: pop up your old post for some new comment love, then (please) visit some other blogs to leave some comment love, and like/follow me on Facebook or Twitter just so you can keep up with the Rewind notifications. If I can't comment on your post due to technical issues (as per last week's Disqus/iPad fiasco) I like to say hi in Twitter or Facebook to let you know I've visited, so make it easy for me (please).

All right, must go, the vacuuming awaits (oh, my glamorous life).

Ready, set...

Rewind.

Community Service Announcement: Fibro Book Club Facebook Group

Just a short post tonight to let y'all know that the Pink Fibro Club (Books & Reading) has a new and exciting home on the web. It's here.

Would love to see you over there. It's a friendly place to talk about whatever you're reading, get some recommendations and generally hang out when you're looking to procrastinate. I'll announce the book club selection each month over there, as well as in my newsletter.

And now I must go. Need to finish, Burial Rites, so I can write my June 1 post.

Any minute now.

Dealing with The Block

Do you ever suffer from Blogger's Block? It's not a common thing for me, but when it hits, it hits hard. To the point where my mind looks something like this: [                                 ]. Not pretty is it?

There are a few tricks I use when The Block rears its ugly head. One is to simply start writing. About anything.

To whit, the opening line of this post.

Usually, if I'm working on a book or an article or some other form of writing, I simply switch projects. My good friend Allison Dobell is currently working on her second novel, and I find that to be a nice distraction when a heavy, research-based feature story, for instance, is not coming together.

Blogging is somehow different. It doesn't seem to matter what I distract myself with, the blink-blink-blink of the cursor remains. Perhaps it is because blogging is so personal. If your brain is blank and you're essentially writing about yourself, you know you've got problems.

Another trick I try is a good, long walk. This has the benefit of both clearing my mind and shrinking my butt. Walking around the block usually clears The Block. (As does weeding, but we won't bring out my gardening/writing metaphors today.)

I'd like to be one of those bloggers who has a list of ideas at the ready at all times. But the truth is that I generally sit down with little to no idea of what I'm going to post that day (unless it's a Q&A, of course... have I ever mentioned how much I love Q&As?). This leaves me to be all footloose and freewheeling on a good day.

And leaves me stuck in quicksand on the bad ones.

Like now.

Time to put my shoes on for a walk...

How do you deal with Blogger's Block?

The Weekend Rewind: It's ba-a-a-a-ck (limited edition)

I was reading Maxabella's post the other day about her new World Blog Tour, an innovative new way to visit more blogs.

"She's right," I thought to myself (or may have actually spoken out loud because I'm that kind of girl). "I don't visit enough blogs."

My blog roll kind of disappeared during the Fibro renovation a while ago, I started writing three books at once and... well, reading blogs disappeared off my daily To Do list.

So I'm going to make it easy on myself (and you, hopefully) and bring back the Weekend Rewind for a limited season. I'm even including the circa-2010 image that Maxabella created for me. Isn't it cute?

If you haven't been part of the Rewind before, it's a simple linky thingo with few rules. You link up an old post for some new comment love. You visit a few other blogs to say hello and make them feel loved. We all sing kum-bayah, come back next Friday and do it all again.

But it's so much fun! It's an opportunity to dust off those posts that you felt really didn't get the attention they deserved, and an opportunity to find some new favourite reads.

I wrote this post once about the importance of having your blogging neighbours over. Sometimes I feel that, since those halcyon early days of blogging, we've all neglected that idea a bit.

But I digress...

To keep it interesting, I do like to have a theme (otherwise, seriously, how do you choose a post???). To make it easy, I'm going to make this week's theme JANUARY. So, you can link up any blog post that you wrote in ANY January of ANY year in which you have been blogging.

I have three years' worth of posts to choose from now... Including four Januarys... Which is about 21 years' worth in real terms (blogging years are like dog years as far as I'm concerned).

Okay, that's it. If we're not already besties in some form or other, like me on Twitter or Facebook simply to keep up with the notices of when the Rewind link is up (gives you a better chance to get in early!)

And... REWIND!

(As an aside, I've just realised that I've set the life of the linky for one week. Usually I close off at around 8pm on Sunday night - for two reasons... one is that if you get in any later than that, you generally don't get too many visitors and, two, is that I forget to check it after Monday... So, let's pretend it closes at 8pm on Sunday May 26, okay?)

This one time, at Jedi Training Camp...

So Fam Fibro took a little random holiday over the past week or so. We had to head waaa-aaa-ay north for a family function, so we took the opportunity to build in a mini-break. Mind you, with many hours of driving built in, it wasn't so much a break as an opportunity to spend a lot of time together.

We fit a lot into a car journey. The boys have portable DVD options, so The Builder and I like to plan our small talk to coincide with the times of peace. We covered off our metaphorical trip around the world, what we'd do with $600 million if we won the US Powerball (you think you know someone, and then the enormous, crewed yacht comes up in conversation), the relative merits of different forms of transport, why we didn't have a map of NSW when we had maps of all the different parts of NSW except the part we were actually going to be visiting... You can see why we had to eke this stuff out to ensure we weren't blown away by the enormity of it all.

When the boys were not immersed in Star Wars/Ninjago/Batman, we played I Spy. It has to be said that the quality of our games has improved now that Mr6 can actually spell a bit. No longer does everything begin with L. Which is not to say that he didn't attempt a few furphies. Like not realising Lego began with L. Cue much head shaking on Mr9's behalf.

Mr6 also instigated (or tried to) several games of 'Toyota'. Apparently this game involves trying to be the first person to spot a Toyota. All well and good, unless you are on a dual-lane freeway between Newcastle and Taree with not another car in sight. Even he could see that was going nowhere.

When we got to our destination, the boys were thrilled to discover that we had rolled up to a Jedi Training Camp. And I had to agree that the rather dilapidated cabins in which we were staying did seem to have come from 1976 and there were potentially Wookies hiding in the woods. But apart from a preternaturally aggressive possum with a liking for cheese and crackers (had to be shoved off the verandah with a broom light sabre several times), there wasn't so much as an Ewok to see.

There was, however, an amazing stretch of beach over the bridge (that's it pictured), and lots of friends and laughter and fun all around. The Force, she was with us.

On the way home, after another discussion about the lack of maps in our lives, we treated ourselves to a night of luxury at The Pinnacle Apartments in Newcastle. I mention it by name because we've stayed there before but could not remember what it was called - we had to call them from out the front to see if they had room for us because we could not look up their number. Now we will just be able to check the Fibro. Genius, or what?

We love Newcastle. The boys love the long stretches of unspoilt scooting potential along the waterfront. The Builder and I love the possibilities for beers in the same location. We lost 90 minutes of our lives in the most fabulous antiques shop and came out with the coolest 1930s bakelite desk lamp ever.

Something for everyone.

Today we're back at work and school. Already our little break is a memory. But we have plans. Big plans.

We just need that $600 million to pull them off.