Florence and the Machine and Sundry Other Topics

Florence and the Machine has my vote this last year as most inspiring band for a writer (or for anyone else, for that matter). They've been necessary listening for both my last manuscript and the one I'm currently working on, and so I was really looking forward to seeing them at the Whiteriver Ampitheater last night.

I was not disappointed. Florence has an absolutely glorious, operatic, blasting voice, and it's taylor-made for an outdoor ampitheater. The show was like all great band shows: music and more music, without a lot of fancy sets or props or costume changes. Just Florence Welch obviously loving every moment of what she does. It was a fantastic concert. My only regret is that the venue has a reputation for being difficult to leave (like, two hours in the parking lot difficult), and I was advised to leave a the beginning of the encore, which I did. It got me out of the parking lot in record time, but I ended up missing the song I'd waited the whole concert for. So here it is--the song that's been a major inspiration for this newest manuscript:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGH-4jQZRcc&feature=player_embedded

Besides seeing Florence and writing feverishly, I've been devoting myself to classic French literature this last year. I'm not quite sure how that got started--probably with "A Very Long Engagement," which has rapidly become one of my most-watched favorite movies. Or perhaps it began before then, with a guilty pleasure of a movie: "The Lover." Or perhaps it was reading Colette's "Cheri," a few years ago, which was a revelation. In any event, I've now read Flaubert, Zola, Balzac, Duras, Colette, Laclos and have several others on my TBR list. I love Duras--there's something about her work that resonates with me, though I don't know why, and Balzac is fantastic. Really, I love that over-the-top, bigger-than-life, emotional melodrama, along with their matter-of-fact realism about sex, romance and love--all colored with a healthy dose of cynicism. I'm finding the inherent fatalism (almost nihilism) of the French actually very comforting. :) I've also been watching a lot of French film, which I've always enjoyed in the past, and which I'm liking even more now. I'm not even close to the end of this particular obsession. Currently, I'm reading the novel of "A Very Long Engagement," and loving it too.

In publishing news: my newest novel, Bone River, is scheduled for a December 4, 2012 release, and I should have a cover soon to show you. Keep watching this space!

Now, back to listening to Florence...