Don't you hate when real life gets in the way of your writing?
It took me all day yesterday to back my computer up and make the changes necessary to reactivate my CDR drive. By that point, I wasn't interested in sitting in this chair any longer. It's a good thing we made time to go to the gym yesterday - it helped me work off some of my frustration.
This morning, I woke up with a hideous headache and have to go out soon to have my hair cut. It's long past needing it. I'm hoping my head will have cleared by the time I get home so I can do some work this afternoon. I have a critique meeting tonight, so want to be able to report progress when I get there.
Next week had better not present so many challenges! I really don't want to rush this entry. Then again, it's not like I've even received my October RWR yet, though I guess I can just enter the GH online.
On another topic entirely, there's a discussion on a list I'm on about WWII and the difficulty in selling mss set during this period. Have to admit I'm surprised how some people seem not to understand how strongly it still resonates for many people. I'm one of those, though for me it's translated into an interest in the period. I enjoy reading books and watching movies/tv series from the era, but at times they do upset. I'm wondering if it's because of my family background (I'm a first generation Canadian). My father's family was deported to Siberia during the war and my grandfather died after he was released from a Moscow prison when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. Their life went from one of comfort and normalcy to one of privation and the loss of everything they knew. Recently I found a photo taken a couple of years before the war - it shows the whole family together. It's now one of my prized possessions, capturing a moment in time that was never to be repeated.
People from all over the world suffered during the war and even those who were very young were greatly affected by those horrible six years and the decade that followed (rationing remained in place in England until the mid 50s). Remembrance Day is approaching - here it's represented by the words Lest We Forget.
That's why the books/movies recreating the era are so important - they help us remember. But those who lived through it, no matter what age, don't necessarily need works of fiction to remind them. The experience is imprinted on them forever - the images and memories evoked by what they read and see on tv/movie screens can be too much.
It's a double edged sword. We want never to experience such horrible slaughter again, yet one of the best ways to teach current generations about the war is through fiction. But I fear until those who lived through the war itself are gone, the WWII era will remain a tough period to sell, simply because its effects were so far-reaching.
Does that make sense?
Teresa
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