LifeWork

I love my work and my life doing my work. As tenuous as an edit can get, or as tough as it can be developing a new novel’s plot, no way would I trade it to be a hedge fund manager. My work is filled with revelations, insights, new ideas, and the fascinating creative impulses and literary expressions of other human beings. It’s been so for some forty years now. How could I not love my lifework?

Like many of us, I struggle to assimilate the two recent Supreme Court decisions and have concluded the Court (1) should be seated by outer-space aliens who have no political agenda or (2) simply abolished.

Onward. No book review today, but instead a stroll through the work I’ve been up to lately, capped by mention of the book I’m currently reading but haven’t yet finished, so am not ready to review – reasons for which you’ll soon learn.

A recipe for cookbook authors. A dear friend has written a marvelous cookbook, its recipes entwined with stories of her family and personal life. She brought it to me the day before it was to go to press and I found way too many copy-editing and proofreading issues which (IMO) should have been caught much earlier. The recipe (sic): start your book’s editorial process as soon as possible! I’ll be introducing this book to you in a subsequent JackBoston post.

A supernatural YA novel. I’ve a very talented colleague who writes in several genres and asked me for a reader review of her novel-in-progress. It concerns 13-15-yo middle grade students who learn one of their teachers is a werewolf! It’s a fun romp, and a delight to read. I can’t wait to for it to be published and buy a copy for my 13-yo granddaughter.

A January 6, 2020, thriller. This novel about the post-Trump Washington insurrection is gonna kick some you-know-what when it’s published. The author, although an outlier, is a current-events fanatic and man who understands the political underbelly of America quite well. Quite well enough to write a (“Network”-inspired) “we’re mad as hell and not gonna take it” response. It’s going into second draft and we may see it by Jan. 6^th, 2023.

Discovering a new book. I recently had a stimulating breakfast conversation with one of my sons and his wife concerning my ghostwriting work. She mentioned a book she thought might interest me in my research for my current author-client’s book. It’s Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaardner. I looked it up on Wikipedia. My daughter-in-law was spot on, so I dropped in at our relatively new indie bookshop, Maxima Book Center in Lexington (a town which had gone from once having three bookshops to none until now), and ordered a copy. This is another of those hidden gems, a book which has been around for a score of years, been a bestseller, has had a profound impact on literature, yet today remains relatively unknown. Can’t wait to start it.  

Crossing another bridge. Most of you know Brilliant Light published Bridge Across the Ocean, my fourth novel last September. I’ve shared the book with many, but none who’ve surprised me more than an author and scriptwriter who is now working on a movie treatment for Bridge! She’s sent me the first 25 pages and although she’s taking a different approach to the story – as she should – reading it, it’s easy to imagine it as film. I’m excited!

The pleasures of reviewing books. I’ve also been asked by a very creative small press to review a new work by one of their authors. You’ll hear more about it. And at the same time a New York book publicist has asked me to consider reviewing a novel they’ve taken under their wing. The hardcover book arrived a few days ago, all 650 pages (!!) of it, and 150 pages in, I’m hooked. I’m reading it three or four times a day and am working with the author and publicist of an excerpt we can publish on Fictional Café.

LifeWork. I love it.

No post next week. I wonder what July 4th surprises await us.