Mostly quiet here as I’ve been gearing up for the publication of my first novel on 14 July. I’ll write a longer post about that shortly.
I’ve also been revising the next novel, probably due in 2023, and distracting myself with running and watching TV and the occasional film online.
The running is going well. I’m trying to do a couple of short runs and one long run in a week with recovery time in between. The short runs are 3.5k and the long runs are 5k plus a bit more until I get home – on Tuesday I ran 5k then walked/jogged a further 2k to the house, with no reaction yesterday except stiffness in my quads. What I’m finding is that my pace is increasing as a consequence of my legs becoming more comfortable with the fact that they are running, without me having consciously to try and speed up.
The sore quads could be down to a number of things, not least that I live on a hill and inevitably have to include downhill sections that induce muscular imbalance. I also need to look at my stretching routine and the impacts of an essentially sedentary writing life. That will become more important as I start to look at my primary goal of running 10ks again, but I’m nowhere near ready for that yet and don’t expect to be giving that serious consideration until much later in the year.
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On TV, Ms Marvel continues to be a joy, while Obi-Wan Kenobi was a disappointment. In the end, it reminded me of a quickly-written Star Wars novel that’s all narrative with little or no depth. It had a good cast who deserved better, as did the audience.
I’ve also been dipping into some old episodes of Warehouse 13, which have been entertaining without ever really hooking me. As with most programmes of its type and era, its dramatic structure is built around ad breaks on US Networks, which is a dated model.
On the film front, I finally watched Dr Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and was disappointed. That’s not because it wasn’t enjoyable enough as a diversion, but because, like Obi-Wan Kenobi, it could and should have been so much better. The film played with cosmic trippiness without ever really feeling it in the way that the first Dr Strange film did. It had its moments of genius, but it was also flattened into what seems too often to be the default Marvel template now – surface spectacle as a substitute for depth, while simultaneously aspiring to depth. It didn’t have any of the heart or invention found in Ms Marvel. The Disney MCU is losing its mojo by playing safe, just like Disney Star Wars.
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