TGIF!! (How I wish that lineup of sitcoms was still on…)

Here are the things that made my week:

1. I’ve said it before but it bears repeating: print out your manuscript to edit it. It’s the secret to seeing the forest for the trees and it’s changed my life.

2. To continue the theme of my Tana French obsession, I found this interview, and I love love love this quote:

I’ve realized that I write a lot less about romance and parent/child relationships than I do about friendships. I think I keep coming back to this idea because in some ways, friendships are even more essential to a human being. You can be a perfectly healthy person without having kids or having a romantic relationship — you can live a full, happy, healthy life. I’m not sure you can do that without friends.

My FAVORITE thing to explore in my own writing is unconventional relationships between people (more on that below).

3. A life-changing (or at least money-saving) thing I’ve been doing: making my own vegetable broth. I just put all my veggies scraps (think potato peels, carrot peels, garlic skin) in a bag in the freezer, then when there’s enough (about 1/2 a large ziploc) I put them in a big pot of water with some salt and pepper and once it reaches a boil, simmer for an hour. Then I strain and discard the vegetables. Voilà free broth!

Reading: The Girl on the Train It’s good in that it’s really well-written and suspenseful, really drops you right into the action. But I have the same problem with it that I had with Gone Girl, and also with The Secret History–I do not like a single character in it. So while I’m definitely reading voraciously to find out what happens, I don’t particularly care if any one of the main characters or supporting characters ends up getting arrested (or killed). It’s a legitimate technique, sure, but in general I prefer stories where there’s at least one character to root for (maybe Evie, the baby? I have no issues with her.)

Watching: Mad Men. Season 7 Part 1 finally came to Netflix. I love that show. Why can’t everything on TV be so well-written? The penultimate episode “The Strategy” was my favorite, entirely because of the Don/Peggy scene near the end. This is the kind of unconventional relationship I’m talking about–not romantic, not family, not even quite friends, really, but something else, and I absolutely love them together.

Listening to: The Les Miserables Pandora station. Sometimes I like to pretend I’m Eponine while in the shower.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Image found here