March 2008

Hi, everyone,

Wow- what weather we've been having. In Toronto, it's been one winter storm after another, and people are getting pretty sick of it. Luckily, I've been able to escape most of it be getting down to Palm Beach regularly, but ever time we come back to Toronto to visit, we get a good blast to remind us of exactly what we've been missing. Our street has been almost unnavigatable, due to the huge piles of snow that line the road. This has made selling our house very difficult. It seems no one is coming out in this weather. Hopefully, this will all change soon. It's spring, after all! At any rate, our new condo still isn't ready, so there's no real rush. We'll just have to wait and see.

Other than the weather, the really big news of the season is that Charley's Web is now in stores. The feedback I've gotten so far has been amazing- everyone seems to love the book, and of course, I look forward to hearing your thoughts. The book came out on my birthday- March 18. I spent the day in transit, flying from Florida to Toronto, and arriving in time for dinner with my family, which was great. I've also sent the manuscript for my next novel, Still Life, to my publishers, so hopefully they'll be as enthusiastic about it as I am.

Not much else to report in the way of writing. I have an idea for another book circling my brain, and in the next few weeks, I'll try to get something down on paper. I'll do an outline, as I always do, and try to nail down the basics of the plot and the characters. Of course, much of the joy in writing are the surprises that spring up along the way. But I find an outline very helpful, because it gets me to focus.

I saw several movies recently- incidentally, I predicted 17 out of the 23 Oscar nominees- one which I loved, one which I hated. The one I loved was "The Bank Job". It was well-acted, intelligent, and edge-of-your-seat suspenseful. I highly recommend it. The one I hated was "Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day". It was stagey, old-fashioned, and so irritating I wanted to scream. There was nothing I liked about it- even the look of it was unpleasant. And I wanted to throttle Amy Adams, who seems stuck in her 'Enchanted' role.

I read a lovely little book called 'What Was Lost', and I'm reading a collection of essays by Toronto writer Norman Snider called, 'The Roaring Eighties', which I'm enjoying very much.

And that's about it for now. We return to Florida for the first few weeks of April, then it's back to Toronto before a brief trip to Vancouver. So, stay well, and keep reading.

Warmly,
Joy Fielding