Booklog #8

76.  That's the number of books currently in the 'To Be Read' category on my Kindle.  76!  I can't help but wonder whether there'd be that many if they were physical not electronic...probably not, I suspect (there'd be nowhere to put them for one thing!).  If they'd all cost me full price, then for the well-being of my bank balance I'd probably be begging someone to take the Kindle away from me before I book-shopped my way into abject poverty, but fortunately a good portion of them were either free or less than a pound. 

I can't believe how quickly my buying habits have changed.  It took me ages to come round to buying music as MP3 downloads instead of CDs - I always felt that I'd never be able to give up the feeling of actually owning it physically, but now it's been a long time since I bought a CD.  I'm a total Amazon junkie - all my music downloads come from there, as well as my ebooks! 

As I always say to people whose response to the Kindle is "ooh, I could never read on that, I like the feel of a real book too much" - well, I still like a real book too!  But not to the extent that I'd consciously turn a blind eye to the benefits that the Kindle can offer me.  It doesn't have to be one or the other - there's room in our lives for both, folks!

This week I've started:
Er, nothing I'm afraid - once again it's been a busy time at both work and within the Open University study camp so I've only had time to plug away with the long books that I'm reading. 

This week I've finished:
Um, nothing here either.  But I hope that by next week (Boxing Day!!) I'll have reached the end of Shatter. 

I'm still reading:
The Children's Book ~ A.S. Byatt
Pillars of the Earth ~ Ken Follett
Shatter (The Children of Man) ~ Elizabeth C. Mock

Only one more post before Christmas...good luck with any last-minute prep you might be doing! 
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A Good Bad Day

Only ten days till Christmas - are you prepared?  I'm quite clearly not, having bought about two gifts so far (argh!).  This has been playing on my mind all day today and putting me off writing, I've felt that I should be using the time to sort out Christmas shopping.  "Here we go," I hear you say, "another excuse"- but no!  Even with that distraction, I still managed to get 1581 words done towards Project NaNo.  This is far better than I ever managed on a 'bad day' before NaNoWriMo, so it would seem that the experience has done me good. I'm better at getting into the 'NaNo Frame of Mind' and just typing whatever words come without editing every single sentence five times before moving on.  That said, I did have to resort to bridging a couple of tricky gaps with AND THEN SOMETHING HAPPENS WHICH LEADS US TO...  I'll go back and fix those at a later date.  ;o)

This made me think about the whole concept of working from/at home.  I couldn't even hazard a guess as to how many articles, books, blog posts and such must have been written about this topic - about how important it is to stay focused, avoid the TV/housework/bookshelf and to make sure family and friends know you are Working and not Available To Run Errands, Babysit etc.  I know all that, yet it is still incredibly difficult to put it into practice!  I'm lucky that I don't have children or pets to take up my time, I'm good at leaving the TV off and ignoring housework is practically written into my DNA, but my gosh the internet is my downfall.  I think the only solution would be to work somewhere with no wi-fi, but then I wouldn't have my special mug, cosy fireplace or slippers...it is a dilemma indeed. 

A quick side note in relation to technology - I've tweaked the blog a bit, adding 'About me' and 'Contact me' links at the top and amending the widgets down the side.  I just wanted to say that if you have any comments or feedback, or ideas for things you'd like to see or questions to ask me - please just let me know! 

Finally then, to wrap up, I watched the Galaxy Book Awards last night.  It's such a rare treat for there to be a programme on about books!  There were two reasons why I especially enjoyed it - firstly, one of my heroes, Terry Pratchett, received an Outstanding Achievement award.  I've always admired Terry's amazing imagination since I first read his 'Nome' trilogy as a child, he is such an inspiration and it's so sad that he is suffering from Alzheimer's Disease.  If you have the means available, I would urge you to donate to the Alzheimer's Society (UK) or Association (US) to aid their fight against this terrible condition. 

The second reason I enjoyed the show was a little more self-absorbed.  There's an award for 'New Writer of the Year' and I couldn't help but lean towards hubby and whisper that could be me.  Self-indulgent, yes, overly-optimistic, almost certainly, but I allowed myself a little moment to imagine how I'd feel if it was me and my goodness - did it feel wonderful.  I know that money, awards and fame are not the keys to happiness, but if that warm glowing feeling of appreciation isn't pure motivation then I don't know what is...

Every artist was first an amateur ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Booklog #7

Season's greetings!  I'm feeling slightly festive today, after writing cards, putting up decorations (well, supervising hubby putting them up anyway) and doing a test run of baking biscuits to give as presents.  I'll be honest - cooking is not my strong point, even this basic shortbread recipe turned into a bit of a stress, but they seemed to turn out okay so I'll make another lot just before Christmas to give away. 

But onto the books! 

This week I finished:

The New World ~ Patrick Ness
This is a short story that was free on Kindle, with a strong sci-fi feel.  I suspect it's a kind of mini-prequel, designed to lead you into reading Ness's other books.  Although I like fantasy (Tolkien etc) I'm not into sci-fi so much, but for free I thought I would give it a try.  There's absolutely nothing to criticise about the writing - the short plot moves along well, the teenage heroine and her parents are well developed as characters in such a small piece and the ending is a real cliffhanger - but it's just not my cup of tea.  If you enjoy sci-fi as a genre though, I daresay you would really like Patrick Ness.  3/5 

This week I started:

Nothing except The New World - it's been quite a busy week for me.  I did download a few Kindle books, which are now sat in my ever-expanding 'To Be Read' category... 

I'm still reading:

* Shatter (The Children of Man) ~ Elizabeth C. Mock
* Pillars of the Earth ~ Ken Follett (I'm up to Part 2, have put it aside while I work on getting through Shatter)
* The Children's Book ~ A.S. Byatt (chapter 25, it still hasn't got any better!)

Best wishes! 
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Frustration...

Our snow (such as it was - it never got beyond about an inch deep) has gone and today's predicted fall never came, so my hope that I would be able to sit at the table and gaze out at a beautiful winter wonderland somewhat fell through.  It's probably a good thing though as the more my eyes are looking out the window, the less they are looking at the laptop! 

Kicked off today with some studying - I was able to finish the first section of the 'Fifth Century Athens' block, which seemed to go on forever, so am now only one week behind schedule instead of two (argh!).  Refueled with a sausage butty and it was on to some writing.  I was hoping to re-channel my 'NaNo' frame of mind and put myself Into The Zone where the words just flowed, but it didn't quite work out.  I suspect that my husband going through the TV listings magazine for the Christmas period and asking me whether I'd want to watch this, that or the other did not help.  Seriously, I love him and all, but he does not assist with getting the creative vibes going in the room.  I need to be alone to write!  :oS

Anyway, that aside I did manage to get about 400 words down towards Project NaNo, bringing the new total to 10,471.  The next 10k day has been scheduled for next Wednesday (15th) so I will definitely take that up again (it was great fun last time, as well as productive!).  I just need to remember to send hubby off on some sort of mission for the day.  Perhaps he could do his Christmas shopping? 

Wishing you a warm and productive week! 
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Booklog #6

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This week I finished:

Nothing!  Everything I'm reading at the moment is quite lengthy.  ;o)

This week I started:

Shatter (The Children of Man) ~ Elizabeth C. Mock

This was a free download on the Amazon website, so I thought I would give it a try.  It's an epic fantasy with magic, mystery and lots of characters and places with funny names.  And when I say lots, I mean lots.  I'm up to chapter 9 and there are three separate sub-stories going on (though two have converged now, which helps) and frequent references to the various belief systems, gods and mystical forces that exist in their world.  I don't want to criticise, as the characters and storyline are good - but it feels like I've had everything thrown at me at once but without any explanation.  If I'm honest, I felt so overwhelmed that I nearly gave up on it, which is rare as I hate to leave a book unfinished. 

I've pushed on and it has improved, but I still don't have any feel for how things 'work' there, if you know what I mean.  What are the rules of that world?  There was a series of articles in Writing Magazine about constructing a fantasy universe and one of the pieces of advice was that the 'rules' have to be set down clearly so the reader knows what is considered 'normal' and can get their footing, as it were.  If elephants can fly there, then show that this is the norm so that the reader doesn't wonder why none of the characters have noticed when a herd flies by.  If there's a complex religious belief system then you need to explain it to us early on so that we don't feel a bit stupid for not understanding it (like I did, and to a certain extent - still do at chapter 9!). 

I am intrigued to know what happens to the characters - even if I don't really understand yet what it is that's threatening them - so I'll carry on to the end.  Hopefully I'll pick up what's going on along the way! 

I'm still reading:
* Pillars of the Earth ~ Ken Follett
* The Children's Book ~ A.S. Byatt (still up to ch 22)

Have a great week! 
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The results are in...

As the UK is in the grip of what seems to be The Worst Winter Ever And It's Only The First Of December, I write to you from within a huge jumper, thick trousers and fingerless gloves.  No, I'm not outside, I'm in my living room (with the fire on!) but once my fingers get cold it takes an awful lot to bring them back to life.  For every ten minutes I sit here writing, I feel like I need to spend five minutes huffing on them.  But enough about my rubbish circulation...

Yesterday was the final day of NaNoWriMo and as you can see from my little blue box on the left, I did not make it to the 50,000 finish line.  I'm very happy with just over 10k though as it's much more than I've ever been able to produce in such a relatively short space of time before now.  The feeling that all you need to do is just sit and write whatever comes out of your head is really liberating and on the sessions I was able to sit and do it, I did get quite swept up in it.  Now I have eleven months to think of an idea that I can use for next year's NaNo...  ;o)

Today I've been catching up with some studying.  I got the mark back from that last essay that I was stressing about - 72%!  Hopefully for the next one I'll have a bit more confidence, given that my tutor obviously thinks I'm better at this than I do.  We've moved on from Homer now to fifth century BCE Athens - the foundations of democracy and all that kind of thing.  I've been reading about Athenian theatre and listened to a play called Persians by Aeschylus.  It's not a cheery way to spend an hour, I can tell you - there's a lot of wailing and lamenting and 'aiaiai'-ing!  I'm sure that once I get a bit further into the study block it will become more apparent how this links to Greek society and so forth. 

Persians and the associated coursebook reading has taken up most of the day, but I've also been doing some tweaking to the blog, trying to make it more what I would want to see if I were a reader.  I hope it doesn't feel too cluttered, I don't know how (or if it's even possible) to make the main section wider so that things would be more spread out.  Hmm, maybe I need to add Blogger for Dummies to my collection...

Lastly I just want to share two links with you.  I saw them while browsing some other blogs today and they just made me laugh, hopefully you will too! 

Nine Circles (credit to Nathan Bransford as it's his blog)

Awesome Bookshelf System (credit to John Baker as it's his blog)

Best wishes - stay warm!

Picture from here

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