Drunken Owls and Other Delights

 It felt wonderful to sleep in until 8:30am, something I haven't done in ages! Granted, I was up until 11pm last night finishing off Shannon Chakraborty's The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, which I'd realized early on was in fact a 'let's get the gang back together for one last heist' caper film, complete with bonkers action and wait-what plot twists, and just enough humor to make it a super fun ride. This new series is a lot less serious than her Daevabad trilogy, that's for sure, but it you loved that, you'll love this one as well.

Meanwhile, we walked to the park today and spent a little bit of time in the botanical garden, harvested some more of the red lettuce (there's still a ton of it left), then had a late lunch at the Richmond Republic, where I had a 10% APV beer that was super tasty and left me slightly spinny for at least two and a half hours. All in all a lovely day to be outside!

I'll admit I've been allowing myself to relax over the last couple of days, partly because my setting up Queen Ophelia's War for Thursday's drop date went so smoothly and quickly. I've earned it, dang it! I'm not entirely sure how I'll go about promoting this one but I'll give it the old college try, I suppose. That's something I'll be working on in the next six months anyway: figuring out productive ways to attract attention to my novels!

As for the day job, I'm doing a few midshifts this week (one as a register jockey, the other as a front end babysitter) with a midweek day off, which I've come to enjoy. the 1-2-1-3 variation on the day job schedule breaks it up so I'm not going full out for five days.


Hope everyone has a lovely week!

I've been doing a lot of rereading of Queen Ophelia's War these days. When I get in to the 'constantly rereading my WIP' segment of a novel project, that means that I'm relatively okay with the draft I'm currently working with, and this is the one I can use as a master to work on overdubs, edits and additional vocals. Which is a good thing, because I've been hoping to get this one out sometime early next year.

Thing is, what I haven't been doing is actually working on the damn thing. Part of it is because I've been distracting myself with blogging and other things. I haven't necessarily been putting it off as I haven't really made all that much effort to try and get somewhere with it. I've just decided to go on a blog hiatus for at least a month in the hopes that I'll get off my arse and get moving on that right away. [I'll still work on the daily 750 as that doesn't take all that long for me and I kind of see it as a warm-up before the actual work. And besides, I'm still writing and not doing something else like playing games or futzing around with my mp3s, right?]

I haven't been reading all that much this year either. I've mentioned much earlier that I think reading that Big Honking Two Volume Beatles Book exhausted me mentally, but come on -- it's been a good number of months so there's got to be another reason why I'm just not resonating with any books these days. I did distract myself recently by reading the full run of the Gunsmith Cats manga on hoopla (as mentioned, I'd forgotten how horny that one could be at times, heh), and the occasional manga catch-up, but that's it. I've got Karen Lord's latest next to my bed with two of her previous books in the same universe to reread, and I'm hoping that might break me out of this slump. We shall see.

Anyway, it's far past time for me to get work done again.

Let's see...what's new to report...

--Managed to get a vaccine appointment for A for the 30th by way of doing the same thing I did for myself: constantly refreshing multiple websites until something came up! Once again it's RiteAid and findashot.org for the win! Some of the sites were super picky, stating you could only be someone from this particular county or zip code, or that you had to log on to some other website first, or what have you, but FindAShot basically kept it easy and clean: it refreshed itself every five minutes for places that offered it like CVS, Walgreens, RiteAid, Safeway, and so on. As soon as I got a bite, I just went for it.

--Multiple important scenes in Diwa & Kaffi have been improved significantly and I'm quite happy about that. I think I may have maybe six or seven Big Moments to fix, but most of the rest of the scenes read just fine. It's the ones where you can tell I rushed it that needed work. I'm *hoping* to get it done by the end of the month, but I'll be happy if I get it done by mid-May. Where am I going to submit it? Good question. Still working on that.

--I'm getting lazy with my stretches and exercises again. I need to spend more than just five minutes doing a few twists and saying "meh, I'll do my crunches tomorrow". I'm doing okay with them, but I could be doing a lot better.

--Building management stopped by the other day to check the layout of the apartment, as apparently they need to get into a few of our closets to set up some kind of fire safety thing. Which means that on a certain day, I'll need to empty it all out so they can get in. Which means that I'll have to figure out where I'm going to put certain boxes and whatnot, even if it's just for half a day. It'll be a pain in the butt, but at the same time I'm trying to look at the plusses, such as dusting and vacuuming the corners (and maybe getting rid of a few shirts I haven't worn in like five years). Thankfully this shouldn't take more than a day so it won't be too big of an issue.

--For the very first time, the bookshelf containing my music books now wholly contains *books I have actually read*. I've managed to get the TBR pile down to a few dozen, which have been moved to the bookshelf next to my side of the bed. And THAT particular TBR pile is only a single shelf, so I should be able to get through them soon enough!

--Next week we'll be going to a restaurant (with A's parents) for the first time in who knows how long. To be honest, it's not really blowing my mind as it would most other people. I think it's partly because I've been the one heading out each week to do the grocery shopping or other outside errands, so it's not as if I've been squirrelled away and not seen another human being aside from A this past year. I do miss heading to places like some of the local diners and a few of our favorite watering holes, though!

....and that's all I can think of for now. Gotta finish doing the laundry and prep my writing blog entry for Monday. Hope everybody has a fine week ahead!

It's a windy Saturday here in San Francisco, but it's also clear and nice. A and I went to the De Young Museum in the park to see a few exhibits (Cult of the Machine, a look at the machine age in art in the early 20th century; and Weapons of Mass Seduction, a look at WWI and II propaganda posters and art), and after that went for a walk through the arboretum. All in all a nice three mile walk! Then back to our boring world of buying groceries and then spending the afternoon doing not much of anything else. I just went through a month's worth of political fliers that were mailed to us, ripped off our address and shredded that bit (the rest can go into the recycling).  We'll most likely hit the farmer's market tomorrow and do a spot of vacuuming.

Now? I'm downloading the all the folders of the 2018 Hugo Packet. I tell you, when they came up with this some years back it was a brilliant idea. They work with all the participating publishers and provide us with e-books of the nominated items. It gives me tons to read for the next month or so! [Plus, it gives me e-books of stuff I already have that I enjoy reading too!]  I'm still trying to find time to make good on my idea of reading more e-books, especially including self-published items, but now that I'm mostly caught up with my To Be Read Pile, I should have more time very soon.

And with that...not much else this weekend! I'm trying to keep it minimal, because I have to head to Concord on Wednesday, and then we have the weekend trip to Mendocino/Ft Bragg next weekend. Between that and squeezing in my writing and my blogs, I'm always kind of busy. A *good* kind of busy, but busy nonetheless. The mini-vacation will be a nice respite.


Hope everyone is having a good weekend! :)

I've been seeing this meme in various places, and it's been a while since I posted one, so why not? :)

In no particular order...

--Mark Danielewski, House of Leaves. It's messed up, it parallels my favorite album of 2000 (his sister Poe's Haunted), it challenges what a printed book should look like and how it should be read, you can spend years analyzing it and still come up with different meanings to the plot, and overall, it's a hell of a lot of fun to read. One of my all-time favorites, it's a great example of writing outside the usual boundaries of fiction.

--Dave Sim, the Cerebus comic series. Sure, Sim kind of turned into a nutcake in the last quarter of the series (he's really calmed down since then), but I have to give him credit and mad props for creating fascinating characters with depth (even if they end up being jackasses), fascinating art (especially when Gerhard jumped on board), and writing a finite three-hundred issue story arc during a time when comic books rarely did so. I learned a lot about character interaction in this series, actually.

--Katsuhiro Otomo, AKIRA. Another comic series, yes, but one that was absolutely brilliant in its execution. One of the best SF/supernatural storylines I've ever read. Visually stunning and an excellent example of storytelling from a somewhat different culture. From this series I learned about ensemble casting, unconventional POVs, and how to keep the story going even when the scene is completely internal.

--Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. My favorite of the series is still Book 2, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, but the first book is filled with some of the best ridiculous, self-mocking British humor out there.

--Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front. This one always stayed with me since I first read it during the summer of 1989--probably one of the first classics I read in high school that wasn't assigned to me! It's fascinating in its delivery, both sad and lighthearted at the same time as the characters try to make the best out of a really bad situation.

--JRR Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings. Believe it or not, I never read this all the way through until just recently, around 2006. [I attempted it in junior high around 1985, but had little patience/attention for it at that time.] I think reading it as an adult made more sense, as I was able to grok what he was trying to do with it. It's by no means a perfect story, but still one of the best examples of detailed worldbuilding out there.

--Ira Robbins, The Trouser Press Record Guide. I no longer own this, but the 1986 edition was the one that blew the doors off for me in regards to music collecting, rock music in general, and informing me on just how many albums I was expected to have in my then-growing collection. My listening habits changed drastically after I read this book--and yes, I did take notes.

--Madeline L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time. My sister handed this to me when I was a kid and thought I'd like it. That I did! It was probably my first introduction into reading SF/Fantasy, and still one of my favorites.

--Simon Reynolds, Rip It Up and Start Again. A relatively recent book by a brilliant music writer, it's about the post-punk scene of the late 70s-early 80s, but in the process it explains how that scene eventually morphed into the early years of alternative rock as we now know it. This was the first book I picked up when I started planning writing about the college rock years with Walk in Silence, and it really helped piece a lot of things together for me.

--Lee J Hindle, Dragon Fall. Yep, I've talked about this one before. The book that got me writing seriously in the first place--the one where I thought "hey--I could do this too."

I've been hearing that lately--the idea that the kind of story you want to write is often similar to what you love reading. A few of my writing friends mentioned that in the past few months, and I've also seen it on Twitter as well as in some of the writing magazines I subscribe to.

When I started taking my writing more seriously in the mid-90s, I'd originally started with a wave of Stephen King novels that my ex handed me (The Stand was of note, and was partly the inspiration for my penchant for an ensemble cast rather than a single POV). After I moved back to Athol, I made a conscious effort to pick up more science fiction novels, considering that was the genre I'd started writing at the time. But it wasn't until I was making the weekly trips to the comic book store at Hampshire Mall that I'd also started heading to the bookstores there--specifically, hanging out at the old anchor store there, Media Play (I think Best Buy is there now). They had a pretty decent science fiction section, and I'd spend an hour or so there, digging through the shelves and trying out a few novels here and there. This is where I found Kate Elliott's Jaran novels and Richard Paul Russo's Carlucci books, and a host of others.

Some of them fell by the wayside, read but not leaving much of an impression. On the other hand, there were others that just clicked with me--they may not be Hugo Award-winning novels, but they were books I really enjoyed. As I've often said, these are the novels that would hit me in just the right way that I'd want to run downstairs and start writing my own book right there and then. Those are the books that I love reading--the ones that spark that excitement, even if they're just entertainment. I've been reading a lot of different genres over the last ten years, but it's only recently that I've come back to actively looking for those specific books that hit me just the right way.

Recently I began reminding myself that that is the kind of book I want to write as well. I don't want to write The Great American Science Fiction Novel, nor do I want to write The Most Awesomest Book Ever (although having my stories labeled that after the fact would be nice!). I want to write something that will kick that spark of excitement in me, and hopefully in others. I think that reminding myself of that on a more consistent basis will in effect make my writing (and my revision) that much better.

(snagged from aberwyn :) )

What I'm reading: Currently reading Frank Brady's Orson Welles biog, Citizen Welles.

What I'm writing: Revising A Division of Souls and doing a damn good job of it! :)

Nearest book to Computer: That would be my bookcase o' reference, so...that would be the Barbara Ann Kipfer's Flip Dictionary that I got through WD Books...still a great reference, since my caffeine-addled brain tends to forget simple words now and again. :)

The book I love most: Hmm, good question. Probably Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves?

Last book I got as a gift: Richard Neer's FM: The Rise and Fall of Rock Radio, which I got for Christmas, after losing my old copy years ago. A very interesting read.

Last book I gave as a gift: The Just Bento Cookbook I gave emmalyon for Christmas. :)

What I'll read next: After reading kateelliott's Crossroads trilogy (I just finished it last night), I'm taking in some shorter standalones to get through the TBR pile. In my bag is F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, which I haven't read since high school.

Fifteen books you've read that will always stay with you. You have fifteen minutes to think of them. Go.

1. Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves
2. Lee J. Hindle's Dragon Fall (inspired me to start writing)
3. Richard Paul Russo's Carlucci
4. Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine
5. Ray Bradbury's Zen in the Art of Writing
6. JN Stroyar's The Children's War
7. JK Rowling's Harry Potter series (okay, that's 7 books, but I'm counting as 1 here)
8. Douglas Coupland's Generation X
9. Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front
10. JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (sure, I FINALLY read it after all these years...and yes, I LOVED it. :p )
11. Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome
12. pretty much most of the late 50s-early 60s Peanuts collections from Charles Schulz
13. Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
14. Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle In Time
15. Steve Kluger's My Most Excellent Year

Okay, so in the midst of my musical retrospectives and other "best of decade" memes out there, I thought I'd post what are probably my favorite books of the decade. Interesting that they're either genre or YA...there's only two nonfic books that really jumped out at me. This is far from complete, of course, since I know I'm probably forgetting a few titles.


For your enjoyment...

House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski. My favorite of the decade. This novel has so many levels to it, and so brilliantly woven together. Not to mention it being the written equivalent of The Blair Witch Project. Creepy, mindbending and entertaining all at the same time.

The Children's War by J.N. Stroyar. By no means the best "Germany won WWII" alternate history out there, nor is it exactly the most brilliantly written novel, it's nonetheless one of my favorites in that genre in terms of story.

Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series. Poor Harry Dresden is always in deep shit at the start of every novel, and it never seems to let up...but when he faces his foes by quoting nerdy things like Looney Tunes or They Live, you gotta love it. Exciting and funny at the same time.

Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse series and Harper Connelly series. Sure, they're the latest thing, but they're all kinds of fun to read. The Sookie books are fun in terms of supernatural weirdness, and the Harper books are just damn creepy.

J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. Sure, some of them came out in the late 90s, but nonetheless...brilliantly written, and contains some of the best worldbuilding out there today. A series I wish I'd written.

Wen Spencer's Ukiah Oregon series. Interesting series about a guy raised by wolves who works as a tracker...and eventually finds some rather interesting things about his past. Lots of fun reading this one.

Sergei Lukyanenko's Night Watch series. There's something to be said about foreign writers writing in genre...they always give it a great twist that you don't always see elsewhere. This series is not quite horror, not quite supernatural, but pretty harsh and exciting to read.

John Harris, Britpop!: Cool Britannia and the Spectacular Demise of British Rock. One of the best books about a genre I listened to and obsessed about in college.

Inside 9/11: What Really Happened, from the editors of Der Spiegel. Out of all the books about 9/11 I've seen, this one got me the most, simply because it was decidedly clinical and nonpolitical. Pure reporting without any heartstring-pulling, anger-inducing or flagwaving, and extremely well-written.

Hitori Nakano, Train Man. Go ahead, buy the book and read it already...I dare you not to get all "Awwwwww ^_^" at the end! Very cute and excessively nerdy love story told in the form of a 2chan bbs. SO worth reading!

Cory Doctorow, Little Brother. Great YA book that takes place here in SF, and pretty intense in places. Sure, the parents might be a bit flat in the book (I'd like to think that was done on purpose to show a "go with the flow" fear on their part), but it's a great read.

Miyuki Miyabe, Brave Story. A doorstop-sized YA novel about growing up, changes in life that you can't always control, committing to a quest, and of course, learning now to be brave. Well-written, exciting, and definitely worth it.

Frank Portman, King Dork. Another YA book, this one written by the singer of the Mr. T Experience. Funny, nerdy and goofy in a very John Hughes-ish sort of way.

Steve Kluger, My Most Excellent Year. Most of my all-time favorite books and movies are ones that get me all wound up and want to sit down and get some hardcore writing done. This one, on the other hand? I just wanted to start it over and read it again, it was that enjoyable of a read. I did a brief blurb of it here. Not bad for a book that I impulse-bought up in Napa. :p

Alex Robinson, Tricked and Box Office Poison. Let me start off with BoP. If you gotta pick up an indie comic omnibus, you MUST pick this one up, and I'm not just trying to shamelessly plug alexbot3000. It's just that good. Sure, most of the issues came out in the late 90s, but the omnibus is from '01, so it counts. ;) As for Tricked, very interesting take on the jaded rock star story, not to mention AR's great ability to tell a story from multiple POVs.

Terry Moore's Strangers in Paradise series. Sure, it started while I was still living in Boston, but he finished the series about the middle of this decade, and it's a great series to follow.


Here's to hoping we get even more great novels out there next decade! :D

So when did I finally get around to reading Lord of the Rings?

*checks past LJ posts*

Yeesh. Freakin' JULY. FOUR months!! Granted, I did distract myself with other shorter books every now and again, just to break up the tedium, but still...haven't taken that long to read a book in quite some time...

Last night I got nearer to the last chapter of the book, when Gandalf finally took off to visit Tom Bombadil and leave the four Hobbits to make their way back to the Shire. So it looks like I have a few more scenes to go (plus the Appendices, which I will read because I'm a worldbuilding nerd like that). So yeah...should be done some time in the next few weeks, looks like. :p

I'm thinking a few short novels might be on tap after this until I feel the need for another big honkin' book. ;)