Yet another month has come and gone, and yet another pile of books has been added to my “read” shelf. I picked up the pace after February’s lull in reading. Right now, though, there’s a bigger fish to fry – I want to talk about the fact that Amazon has purchased Goodreads. At this point, I… Continue Reading
This is a follow-up to my previous post about the Hugo nominees in various categories of fiction. Last time I discussed the short story, novelette, and John W. Campbell shortlists. Today, I’ll discuss the novella and novel shortlists. Best Novella My choices: Silently and Very Fast by Catherynne M. Valente and The Man Who Bridged… Continue Reading
Title: The Terror Author: Dan Simmons Publisher: Little, Brown and Company Rating: 3 out of 5 Format: Print (hardcover) I’ve decided to ditch the “Reading challenge” portion of my book review titles. This was the 12th book that I read this year, and dear Lord, was it a doozy. About the book: It is 1847.… Continue Reading
Title: Mort (Discworld Book #4) Author: Terry Pratchett Publisher: Corgi Rating: 3 out of 5 Format: Print Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series is one of the grand old ladies of fantasy fiction at this point. Pratchett’s prolific output and consistent hilarity have earned him scads of readers. However, until this year, I had never read any… Continue Reading
Title: Beginnings, Middles and Ends (Elements of Fiction Writing Series) Author: Nancy Kress Publisher: Writer’s Digest Books Rating: 5 out of 5 Format: Print I first learned about Beginnings, Middles and Ends from from the same place where I get a lot of my writing advice: Mur Lafferty’s I Should Be Writing podcast. Considering the… Continue Reading
Happy holidays to all! As you unwrap your presents and spend time with your family, I hope that today’s pleasure has been heightened by the gift of a book. Here’s a story of how a book I received for Christmas had a profound effect on me. Note: This post was originally published as a guest… Continue Reading
I’ve hit the dreaded “Week 2 Wall” in NaNoWriMo. Last weekend I wrote over 8,000 words – 3,000 of backstory and notes, 5,000 of plot – because I knew that the following Monday, I wouldn’t have the time to put anything down because of a WCDR Board meeting. However, the loss of momentum was deadly.… Continue Reading
I have to admit at this point that I’m beginning to flag a bit. I’ve made a good amount of progress so far – over 12,000 words in total – but both yesterday and today were days where I had to struggle to think of what to put down next. This does not mean I… Continue Reading
Ok, I have to admit it: I’ve fallen for NaNoWriMo, and I’ve fallen hard. When I first heard of it a few years ago, I thought it would be a neat thing to try, but that it wasn’t the right thing for me to do. Then, when I decided to go for it a few… Continue Reading
Well, the first day of NaNoWriMo ended much differently than I thought it would. For the past few weeks I was mulling around one idea in my head, thinking over how I would structure the story and how to introduce the main character and her circumstances. However, the story I was planning was just a… Continue Reading
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