Tonight I will not be writing in order to attend Book Club. Left is our discussion topic. In keeping with the spirit of the book, I will be bringing shrimp potstickers to share. I wanted to bring Sake and drink it all myself, but that wouldn’t be very giving or seemly and anyway some of the members are pregnant. I enjoyed the book. It was a NYT Bestseller. I didn’t realize that until after I’d read it. How wonderful for the author. I enjoyed reading the interview with Jamie Ford at the end of the book. How nice that books offer such interviews these days. How pleasant. How lovely. I learned about JF’s writing process, his writer’s boot camp experience, that a chapter in the book was once a short story that wound up a Glimmer Train Finalist—not a Glimmer Train top 25 Finalist, but a Finalist, which means one is allowed to promote an unpublished short story as a genuine GT Finalist, even though one’s name will not be listed anywhere on the GT site and definitely not in the Top 25. I know this becuase I have been a GT Finalist several times. And, back when GT was into poetry, a Top 25 Poetry Finalist. I have never worked any of my short stories into a novel. Nor do I seem to have stand-alone chapters in my novels that can substitute as short stories. I would have to tweak and rewrite and none of this has to do with the above book club selection. I’m going to Book Club. Good night. But before I go, I will say that as my son toyed with his pasta dinner, I worked on a short story I plan to submit to Glimmer Train. Another goal. And since I have more energy today vs. yesterday, bring them on (goals, I mean). Did I like the book? Yes, I liked it. My only big problem was the dialogue between Henry and Keiko—their conversations (and, actually, anytime they spoke) kicked me way, way out of the story. Good night!  And not a frog fish in sight. (see previous post–or, not)