Writing, obviously, or I wouldn't be doing it. When nothing is going well and I need to hack away at something, I attempt to do gardening. My garden suffers for my art, poor thing. And when nothing else will do, there is always music.
Music
Blues and blues-based rock. Not just any blues and rock, but blues and rock that came out of the UK and Ireland in the 1960s and 1970s. Rory Gallagher, Ten Years After, Led Zeppelin, Queen, John Mayall, Peter Green, Deep Purple, Robin Trower, Climax Chicago Blues Band, and many others.
Movies
There are so many, but here are a few of my favorites: A Better Tomorrow; Heartlands; Levity; What's Eating Gilbert Grape?; Bullitt; Snatch; Birth; Shaun of the Dead; Withnail and I; Dead Man; Moulin Rouge; Fearless Hyena; Serpent's Kiss; The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly; The Princess and the Warrior; City on Fire; Happy Together; The Adventures of Sebastian Cole; The Badge; That's the Way I Like It; Hidden Fortress; Sanjuro; Igby Goes Down; Ninth Gate; Incident at Blood Pass
Books
American Gods by Neil Gaiman; Zodiac and Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson; Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke; Touch Not the Cat by Mary Stewart; Cypress Grove by James Sallis; Dream Days and The Golden Age by Kenneth Grahame; Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome; Clay's Quilt by Silas House; Ship of Fools by Richard Paul Russo; The Midwife's Tale by Gretchen Moran Laskas; Big Enough by Will James; Ernie's Ark by Monica Wood; Black Sun Rising by C.S. Friedman; Danny, Champion of the World by Roald Dahl; Coming Up For Air by George Orwell; Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling; The Hill of the Red Fox by Alan Campbell McLean; Jake by Alfred Slote; The White Tribunal by Paula Volsky; Cider With Rosie by Laurie Lee; Once in a Blue Moon by Penelope Williamson; The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway; and the Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian and the Smiley series by John Le Carré
Heroes
People who are willing to give it everything they've got.
I'm supposed to be reworking a chapter this morning...um...afternoon. But I haven't started yet. Now that I'm finally on the computer, I'm on email and myspace. But it's great to connect with you again! You're right...we'll have to do a better job keeping up with each other. :-)
