Monday Meandering

Wow. It's been a busy and wonderful three weeks with my oldest son and his family. We did a lot of fun stuff:

• Got to see How to Train Your Dragon 2.
• Went to the Utah Arts Festival. Pretty cool stuff there, especially the aerialists.

• Went to the rodeo. Haven't done that in a bazillion years. It rained on us.

• Went to a baseball game on July 3rd and got a great fireworks show. Scared the crap out of my grandson because we were so close. It had sprinkled on us earlier but it stopped before the fireworks.

• Had a BBQ and fireworks for the 4th.

• Saw a theater-in-the-round presentation of Man of La Mancha.

• Introduced the grandkids (who live in China) to movies like E.T., Shanghai Noon, and Secondhand Lions.
• They did other fun stuff like mountain hikes, sleepovers with old family friends, confidence course, and a visit to one of those bouncy places.

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Reading
I got some reading done. Here are the books I've read so far this year:

I actually listened to another book that Goodreads wouldn't let me list since I'd already read it once before and reviewed it. That was Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings. And it was a behemoth. But I read it in advance of the second book that came out in January.

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Pen Name?
The timing was good for this visit because I'd run into a roadblock with my next project and wasn't sure what to do. After talking about it with some writerly friends, I decided to go back to another project I wrote a couple of years ago and needed to be edited. This is very different than my previous books because it's YA and a fantasy. Good decision to shift to it! It's been a great break, and I'm excited to get to work on it when the vacation is over.

Question, though. I'm wondering if I should use a pen name for this YA fantasy series. Would people who like my contemporary adventure romances be put off  by this change in age group and genre?

What do you think?

A to Z - Don Quixote - Man of La Mancha

I'm switching up my P & Q posts today and tomorrow

to accommodate a blog hop for the book Protected by Cindy M. Hogan.

The movie Man of La Mancha starring Peter O'Toole and Sophia Loren came out the year I graduated from high school. I LOVED this film. The message of persevering after worthy goals regardless of the odds and of not limiting yourself by "the world as it is" impacted my life. It's full of beautiful, dramatic, and humorous music and lyrics.

Following is the video from the film where the mad Don Quixote (he's really a country squire who thinks he's a knight (and sees windmills as dragons he must defeat). He's stopped at an inn where he's sure the inn's maid (and whore) is a fine, virtuous lady. The maid Aldonza--or Dulcinea as he calls her--has had a terrible, bitter life and can't believe the fine noble things Quixote is telling her.

The clip below shows both versions of the song To Dream the Impossible Dream from the movie. The first is when he sings to her and begins to bring her into his madness. Then, after some horrible things happen to both Aldonza  and Quixote has been brought back from his madness by his family, she comes to his home and reminds him of who he really is. It's a long video, but the basic song only take the first two minutes.

Did I mention that I LOVE this song? I love everything it stands for. And that, I hope, is reflected in my life's actions and the behavior of the characters I write.



The movie is the telling of the author Miguel de Cervantes's wait in prison before he must go before the Spanish Inquisition. The prisoners take his manuscript, and he must convince them they should let him keep it. That story is interwoven through the telling of Quixote's tale. At one point the prisoner, who is acting as the prosecutor, challenges Cervantes about the stupidity of dreaming and failing to see "life as it is".

Here's Cervante's response:



I memorized this soliloquy from the soundtrack when I was in college. It still gives me chills.

What about you? Has there been any book or film that particularly impacted you and continues to influence your view of the world?