This morning after I woke up, I turned the television on and caught the last few minutes of Mad Men. During the commercial break, however, there was a trailer for a movie I had originally wrote about in this post. The movie will be released soon and is an adaptation of a short story called The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Originally written by early twentieth century author F. Scott Fitzgerald, this was a story I can remember reading in my younger years and really enjoying. So naturally, I’m very intrigued that it has been made into a movie.

Of course, what’s more intriguing is that it’s a short story. No movies in recent memory have been based off of short fiction, as Hollywood has a penchant for taking novels in the pop fiction genre and totally twisting them around until the movie barely resembles anything in the book.

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Ready…get set…go! Today marks the start of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) – where you have 30 stress filled fun filled days to get that novel out onto paper for the world to enjoy. Not too long ago, I wrote this post about NaNoWriMo. If you haven’t already started writing (depending on the time zone you’re in), you are already behind!

I am not going to be participating this year because I have too many other writing projects on my plate and I’m concentrating on keeping this blog moving in new directions. But my good blogging buddy Melissa over at Writing Forward is participating and is seeking out writing buddies.

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The literary world lost another great today. All the major media outlets are reporting that Studs Terkel died at the age of 96. He’s a Pulitzer Prize winning author, credited with making the oral history into a reputable literary genre. He was also a famed radio show host in my own hometown of Chicago! Here’s a brief excerpt from a this NYT article:

The elfin, amiable Mr. Terkel was a gifted and seemingly tireless interviewer who elicited provocative insights and colorful, detailed personal histories from a broad mix of people. "The thing I’m able to do, I guess, is break down walls," he once told an interviewer. "If they think you’re listening, they’ll talk. It’s more of a conversation than an interview."

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It’s Halloween! On a Friday! Coincidence? I think not!

Halloween is probably one of my least favorite holidays. To begin with, I’m not a big fan of little kids. And I don’t like them ringing my doorbell, and when I don’t answer, they proceed to pound on the door with their little fists. Secondly, I think the idea of strangers giving out candy to little kids is a little creepy. Finally, don’t even get me started about those cheesy costumes! Yeah, I’m a "buzz kill", I know. The truth is that there are very few holidays I get excited about anymore.

We can still look on the bright side, though, because today is still Friday! That means a weekend of freedom, slacking off, and lots of naps. Even though the two days go by really fast, it still feels like a vacation. But by Sunday evening, I’m crying in depression that it’s almost over. There are times when I start feeling down Saturday night because I know that Sunday is close by.

Anyway, let’s just have a good Friday! And for all of you out there in InternetLand, have a happy and safe weekend!

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Brad’s Note: One new feature I’ll be implementing on this site, starting with this post, is posting reviews of books I have recently read. While some books I review may have been out for a while, I will also try to review some new releases as well.

Before I start, I have to admit something: I was reluctant to read this book. Why? Probably because it was released when I was in my last year of college and I was completely engrossed in my classes at the time. Not much of an excuse, I know, but better late than never, right?

Also, I should point out that this post probably does not qualify as a review. It’s more of a few general thoughts about the book I had. I just don’t want to be too misleading in the title of this post.

The Road (aff link) written by Cormac McCarthy, is a Pulitzer Prize winning novel about a post-apocalyptic world where a man and his son are trying to get to the coast because the man thinks they have a better chance for survival there.

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In all the years I have been writing, and in all the writing projects I have undertaken – whether fiction, articles, blog posts, essays, etc, one thing that has always held true is that if the momentum of my writing project dies, the project will probably be doomed.

You are probably asking, "What is this momentum you’re talking about"? When I refer to momentum in this post, I’m talking about keeping a writing project going until it is done. This means writing every day and always making progress – always moving forward.

How does the momentum die? Usually, you start to lose your momentum on a writing project when you let it sit unfinished for a few days. Or even worse, a few weeks go by without even looking at your partial manuscript. Your imagination will no longer be engaged in your story and it will take all that much more effort to get the momentum going.

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Do you read a lot of books? If you’re like me, you probably do. While I love reading more than most things in life, sometimes all those books start to blur together. Characters and plot lines become indistinguishable from each other and when trying to recall the details of a particular novel long after finishing it, I find myself struggling to remember basic information about what I had read. This can prove to be very embarrassing during pretentious literary conversations at parties.

Thus I started a reading journal! Can I be any more of a dork? Seriously though, here’s how it works: The reading journal is like any other journal and is very flexible in how it’s organized and what you decide to write. For example, you might want to just stick with the basics and write down the plot line, main characters, supporting characters, setting, and maybe your thoughts about particular events in the novel.

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Social networking just won’t go away! Today, as I was browsing through my morning Publishers Weekly email, I came across this article, describing retail giant Barnes & Noble (B&N) launch of their own social networking site.

Much like other book social networking sites, My B&N has features that let users showcase the books they’ve read and what they’re currently reading (the site also lets them feature music and movies).

The site, called Goodreads also allows users to create different lists and share them via other social networking sites (cross-social networking?).

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With the economy sinking, stocks plunging, jobs being lost and more homes foreclosed on than ever before, the word "free" is music to the ears of just about everyone! Generally, when I’m offered something for free, I’ll usually take it. Why not? I have nothing to lose. If I don’t like the free item it goes straight into the trash can.

With that said, it’s pretty easy to conclude that "free" has a lot of power. It catches people’s attention and can get consumers to try something they might not normally try. What about using free to sell more books? Yes, it does seem counter-intuitive at first. But it has been shown to work, as this post points out from my good friends over at the Teleread Blog.

The post gives a very brief summary of author M.J. Rose and her decision to make her new book, The Reincarnationist, free on Amazon (aff link) until October 30. The Teleread post then links to an article that Rose wrote for The Huffington Post, where she explains her decision in terms of other items that do well as free samples:

It’s because trying something for free is the best way of discovering it. And free doesn’t mean sampling a quarter of a cookie – it means the whole cookie. It doesn’t mean someone spraying my wrist with perfume – it means them putting a small bottle of the fragrance in my shopping bag. It means spending a weekend in a hotel and taking two showers using the same soap. It doesn’t mean reading the first five pages of my book online – it means reading my whole book for free as a way of discovering me as an author.

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Friday is here and I’m sure all of you have been biting your nails waiting for this week’s Friday Link Love. Why? Because you love the cool and interesting links I post! At least I hope so. This week I have been bookmarking like crazy. In fact, there is quite a bit of overflow this week – links I bookmarked, but didn’t make it onto this post for one reason or another. I just might do an Overflow Link Love post sometime soon, I’d hate to see such good content go to waste.

This past week has been especially productive for me. I’m working on a new short fiction project that is really taking off. I did a very basic outline (read more about outlines in this post) that laid out the major events, a character list, and that was it. The story is really "writing" itself and I’m having a blast with the writing process. It’s during times like this that I know I hit on a really good idea because everything just "gels" together.

Anyway, now that it’s Friday, you can kick off your shoes and relax. And as always, have a safe and happy weekend!

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