Smash, Thud, Clang, Grunt

I had the kind of weekend that requires a weekend for recovery. Saturday, I got together with a group of friends to see the third Hobbit movie, then we had a gathering afterward. I then had two hours at home before I had a choir party. Sunday, I sang in both services. And meanwhile I was doing one final pass on my book over the weekend, squeezing in proofreading time among all these other activities. I got most of the work done by bringing my laptop to church, and after I sang in the first service when others in the ensemble were heading out, I hung out in the choir room during the rest of the service and between services and did my editing. It was a pretty good working environment because it was quiet, no one else was in there, and there weren't a lot of distractions because the church WiFi doesn't work well in the choir room. However, when the organ kicked in at the end of the first service while I was deeply absorbed in my work, I was somewhat startled. And then the sermon (that I heard in the second service) turned out to be about honoring the Sabbath. Oops. But I usually avoid working on Sundays unless I have a deadline, and I'd told my agent I'd have this book to her on Monday morning.

It was a good thing I did one more pass because I caught a few errors and did some general improving work. I now have a longer list of things to look for.

I have to admit to being rather disappointed in the Hobbit trilogy. The casting was perfect, the performances were wonderful, and there was a lot to like about it, but the good stuff was buried in a lot of bloat. It's a little book that didn't need to be overly expanded into an epic. I never got around to seeing the second movie in the theater and finally saw it on HBO last week. I got a lot of knitting done during it because while all I heard was "smash, thud, clang, grunt" I didn't have to look at the screen, since I wasn't missing anything. I could pause my work and look up when characters were actually interacting. For the third one, I wish I'd had my knitting with me because there was a lot of "smash, thud, clang, grunt." I kept checking my watch during the endless battle scenes (when I wasn't providing mental commentary). The parts where the characters actually talked to each other were so good, but I think we could have figured out that there were epic battles raging without having to see every little detail.

Also in the fantasy realm, I'm rather amused by Galavant, that sort of fantasy comedy musical TV series (though they haven't introduced magic yet, so I guess it's technically not fantasy). It's not the best show ever, but there's usually at least one bit that has me in hysterics. Last week, it was the super-slow joust and the "Maybe You're Not the Worst Thing Ever" romantic ballad. This week, it was the inept water-adjacent pirates who'd taken up sustainable agriculture (made even funnier by the fact that Hugh Bonneville was playing the pirate king, and it was in the time slot right before Downton Abbey came on another channel). Oh, and there was also the band put together from the executioners, since the king had executed all the musicians, and the executioners were the next best thing, since they had a drum. I end up having to rewatch OnDemand to catch all the jokes.

This week's fun: I need to write cover copy, take care of some business/promo stuff and maybe get back into writing book 3, but it's a short week because I have a Choristers Guild workshop Friday and Saturday and there are some other things I need/want to do this week, so maybe it will be a thinking/reviewing week before I dive in.