Books I Read in 2013

I read 35 books in 2013 - that's the most I've read since I started keeping track in 2010. Here are my posts from previous years: 2010, 2011, 2012. No time to review all the books, unfortunately, but if I liked them enough to finish them that usually means they're pretty good. I've divided them into a few categories but they're (mostly) in no particular order within those categories.

Chick Lit

• Wifey by Judy Blume
• Can You Keep a Secret? by Sophie Kinsella
• Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination by Helen Fielding
• Austenland by Shannon Hale
• Midnight in Austenland by Shannon Hale
• Dreaming of Mr. Darcy by Victoria Connelly
• I've Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella

Geek Fiction

• Eight Million Gods by Wen Spencer
• Dramacon Vol. 1-3 by Svetlana Chmakova
• Deep Secret by Diana Wynne Jones
• Ink by Amanda Sun
• One Con Glory by Sarah Kuhn
• Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Agatha Christie

• One, Two, Buckle My Shoe by Agatha Christie
• Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie
• Poirot Loses a Client by Agatha Christie
• The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie
• Peril at End House by Agatha Christie
• Hallowe'en Party by Agatha Christie
• The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding by Agatha Christie (Short Story)

Star Trek

• Star Trek DS9: Avatar Book 1 by SD Perry
• Star Trek DS9: Avatar Book 2 by SD Perry
• Star Trek DS9: Abyss by Dean Weddle
• Star Trek DS9: Demons of Air and Darkness by Keith RA DeCandido
• Star Trek DS9: Hollow Men by Una McCormack
• Star Trek DS9: Mission Gamma 1: Twilight by David R George III

Hannibal Lecter

• Red Dragon by Thomas Harris
• The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
• Hannibal by Thomas Harris
• Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris

Memoir and Other

• Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman
• Simple Dreams by Linda Ronstadt
• Pulling Up Stakes by Peter David
• Pirate King by Laurie R. King
• Gone-Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright
• Return to Gone-Away by Elizabeth Enright

Books Set at Science Fiction Conventions

Anime convention circa 2001

I suppose the title of this post ought to be "Books Set at Science Fiction, Fantasy, Anime, Comic Book, etc. Conventions" but I thought that was a little too wordy. Every now and then I get on a kick of reading books with a similar theme. Recently I found myself nostalgic for the time in the distant past when I actually went to science fiction conventions. So instead of, you know, going to a con, I spent several days searching the web for novels and stories that take place at cons.

Books I Read in 2012

In 2012, I read 23 books. In 2011 it was 28 and in 2010 it was 32. I'm sensing an unfortunate trend here. Part of the problem was that I started quite a few books on the Kindle and lost interest. I either had to force myself to finish them or else I didn't finish them at all. So what did I manage to read?

My Agatha Christie shelf.

I Wrote a Screenplay

Why write when you can waste time mocking up a cover for a book you haven't actually written?

So a month ago I thought to myself, why not try writing a screenplay? I've gotten stuck trying to write anything else and I figured that, assuming I could finish it, I could then turn it into a novel. And if I never got around to that, at least I'd have written a screenplay.

I picked a story that I've already written one and half times and that was the most movie-like. The current title is Hell or High Water. Here's the log line:


A womanizing country boy and a sarcastic city girl must save a riverfront dude ranch from a killer demon.

E-book Review: Redshirts by John Scalzi

Title: Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

Author: John Scalzi

Page count: 318

Price when I bought it: $11.99
How I read it: Kindle 

Description:  

When the lower-ranking crew members of a starship realize that away missions always end badly for everyone but the high-ranking officers, they are determined to find the reason why while avoiding the missions at all costs.

Opening Line:

From the top of the large boulder he sat on, Ensign Tom Davis looked across the expanse of cave toward Captain Lucius Abernathy, Science Officer Q'eeng and Chief Engineer Paul West perched on a second, larger boulder, and though, Well, this sucks.

My Thoughts:

 I liked Redshirts. It's funny, the dialog is snappy and the story never drags. If you like Star Trek and you like funny, you'll probably like this.

That being said, I have two reservations.

I Wrote Something

 

I wrote something. Finally.

The good news: It's 13,000 words and has a beginning, a middle and an end.

The bad news: It's fan fiction. The Cabin in the Woods fan fiction. OH YEAH.

I don't know what happened. I haven't been able to write a word in months and then by chance I saw The Cabin in the Woods, which punched me in the side of the head with its awesomeness. I couldn't stop thinking about it and in particular, about one minor character who appears on screen for maybe thirty seconds. A story about that character started growing in my head and wouldn't go away so I wrote it down. It was awesome.

That is, having a 13,000 word story come out of nowhere was awesome. The story itself is less than awesome. It needs a lot of editing and based on the number of times my heroine bursts in to tears, I suspect she may be a Mary Sue. It's bad fan fiction and I will probably be doing the world a favor if I never let it see the light of day...

But that's okay, because I wrote something!


P.S. If you're wondering about our move, it's still happening but has been put off until the fall.

On Hiatus Again

Fireplace, before and after

My fingers are crossed that by the time this posts, our house in Arizona will be one hundred percent no longer ours. It was a nice little house and we were finally getting it the way we liked it (see above) when the move happened. I hope the buyers will enjoy it as much as we did, and that they don't hate my choices in paint colors!

Now that it has sold, that means it's time for us to find a place to live in Salt Lake City (and get out of this %$#@ apartment!). The amount of options here compared to where we lived in Arizona is frankly overwhelming. There are 15 towns/suburbs that are in a comfortable commuting distance from my husband's office and according to Zillow, there are about 1500 houses in those areas in our price range. It's hard to even know where to start!

All these big decisions we have to make and another move that has to happen means that over the next few months I will have absolutely no time or brain power left to devote to blogging. Instead of feeling bad about my blogs languishing alone and unloved, I'm going to put them on hiatus for a few months until things get back to somewhat normal. But if you need anything, feel free to leave a comment or contact me - I'll still be around.

If Frustration Were a Person

Nothing goes right for Frustration. Her keys are always lost and she can never find her glasses, though nine times out of ten they are perched on top of her head. There's a word on the tip of her tongue she just can't think of and the hint of an idea at the back of her mind that never seems to jell. Her shoes pinch, her jeans squeeze (they'd fit if she lost five pounds) and the blouse she ordered from a catalog looked much better on the model than it does on her.

Frustration is envious of her older sisters Patience and Acceptance, because they never seem bothered by the same troubles that dog their little sister. Insecurity and Fear are always blocking her path, keeping her from getting what she wants. "If only they would get out of my way," she says, "then I would be a success." But what Frustration doesn't know is that, if she only took a deep breath and gave it another try, she could sidestep her troubles and accomplish her goals.

***

Writing Prompt: Personify an emotion you've felt recently, like in The Book of Qualities by J. Ruth Gendler. This was an assignment in my evening writing class.

Advice for a Paranormal Romance Heroine

(I have no explanation for this, except that it was Halloween, I was in college and there were a lot of office supplies lying around)

So you've just discovered that you're a heroine in a paranormal romance. Here's some advice for you!

• Face facts: you are not normal. Most likely you are a vampire, werewolf, fairy, demon or other supernatural being. And if you're not one yet, just wait.

• If the hot guy seems evil, he's probably good. If he seems good,  he's probably evil.

• If you find something old, it's probably magic.

• Beware of quiet, relaxing moments because that's when the monster will come to get you.

• Don't get too attached to those you love because they're probably going to die. But you can take comfort in the fact that they can come back as a ghost or zombie.

 I wrote these as a exercise in my writing class and thought I'd share. Do you have any advice for a paranormal romance heroine?

Books I Want to Read in 2012

Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin.
An epic, old-school fantasy. I'm a little late to Game of Thrones. Even before the show came out, my fantasy-reading friends were raving about it ("He kills everyone, it's awesome!"). I got it for my birthday last year and read the first chapter but got distracted. I restarted after the new year and am now about 50% through on my Kindle. Yes it's long, but it's so hard to put down!

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson.
Third in the Dragon Tattoo series of thrillers. So I read the first two books in this series in paperback way back when they first came out in the US. I decided to wait for the third one to come out in paperback because I'm the kind of person who hates to have two books in paperback and one in hardback. Well, I guess the publisher wanted to squeeze every last penny out of the hardback because I have waited two &!#% years for Hornet's Nest to come out in paperback.  My wait is nearly over though, because the mass market paperback will be released on February 21st (but the list price is $10, come on!).

The Wicked by Michael Wallace.
Also released on February 21st is the third book in Michael Wallace's Righteous series. I've read the first two (both mysteries set in polygamist communities) and am looking forward to this one because it looks like the focus will move from Jacob Christianson, who starred in the first two, to his sister Eliza. I've actually already purchased it (it was originally self-published; Feb. 21st is when it makes the move to Amazon's publishing arm, Thomas & Mercer) and it will probably be my next read once I finish Game of Thrones.


Crucible of Gold by Naomi Novik.
A historical fantasy (think Master and Commander with dragons!). This is seventh in the series, I think. Why don't they number them anymore? If it's the kind of series you have to read in order (which this one is) then they really ought to number them. Anyway, the last book was not as good as some of the earlier ones (it was all land-based and I missed the sailing!) so I have high hopes for this one. It comes out March 6th.

Redshirts by John Scalzi.
Science fiction. So Mr. Scalzi is being pretty secretive about the plot of this one (there is no description up on Amazon yet), but just the title is enough for me to get excited. Anyone who has ever watched the original Star Trek series knows that when Kirk takes a landing party down to a planet, the nameless guys in the red shirts are always going to bite the dust. Obviously this is not going to be a Star Trek novel, but I'm guessing Mr. Scalzi is going to play with the Redshirt trope some how. It will be released June 5th.

Books I Read in 2011: Part 2

This is the second half of my list of books I read last year. You can read the first half here.

The Book That Surprised Me: Tasting the Wind by Allan Mayer.
Tasting the Wind was a $0.99 Kindle book and I didn't have high expectations for it, so I was caught by surprise when I couldn't put it down. It's a psychological thriller set in a group home for adults with severe disabilities, but it downplays the thrills to focus on the characters: the residents and the employees who care for them. It's a fascinating window in to a way of life that I know nothing about, and approaches the subject of working with disabilities realistically but with humor. The only thing I found jarring about the story was that it was told from two points of view: first person (Martin's perspective) and third person (everyone else's perspective). After the first few chapters I got accustomed to the switching back and forth and it didn't bother me anymore.

Popular Books That I Tried to Avoid, But Couldn't: The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins.
I hate to admit it, but sometimes I can be one of those people who shuns things just because they're popular. The Hunger Games series was one of those things. I saw the books everywhere, read about them online, etc. but had no desire to pick them up. Usually what gets me to overcome my popularity shun is a friend recommending the book, and that was the case this time too. My friends in an online book club raved about them, so I checked the first book out from the library and was hooked.


Most Overhyped Book: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.
I follow a lot of geeky people online and when Ready Player One came out, they all seemed to be gushing about it. The premise sounds amazing: in the future everyone plays a virtual reality game that lets them be a part of pretty much every movie/TV show/book/video game/comic ever made. Every geek's dream, right? Well I guess there can be too much of a good thing - for me, anyway. It seemed like the author wanted to squeeze in mentions of every piece of geek fiction they loved, even when it wasn't relevant to the plot. That and the endless exposition made me wish that I had checked it out from the library instead of paying full price for it on the Kindle. You can read my full review of Ready Player One here.


The Book Purchase I Most Don't Want to Admit to: Twilight: The Graphic Novel, Volume 1 by Stephenie Meyer and Young Kim.
Do you want to know how much I didn't want to admit to buying the Twilight graphic novel? So much that I left it off 2010's list, which is when I actually read it. I PREORDERED THIS, PEOPLE! I don't know what's wrong with me. I hate on Twilight constantly and yet I own all the books. I've seen all the movies (on DVD, I refuse to be seen watching them in the theater). Maybe that is the secret to Stephenie Meyer's success - she makes it so that you'll read her books, even if you despise the story, the characters and the writing. Does she have magic powers? I can't think of any other explanation. Anyway, the graphic novel was pretty and exactly like the book. Those who are obsessed with Twilight (not me, I swear!) will surely enjoy it.

The rest of Part 2, in no particular order:

Books I Read in 2011: Part 1

In 2011, I read 28 books. Last year it was 32. I find that interesting because I felt like I hardly read any books at all this year, but really it was only four fewer than in 2010. Below is Part 1 of the highlights and lowlights of what I read as well as a summary of the rest. Part 2 is here.

Favorite Non-Fiction: Save the Cat! and Save the Cat! Goes to the Movies by Blake Snyder.
If you read the Save the Cat! screenwriting books, you'll never look at movies - or novels - the same way again. The late Blake Snyder shows how well-plotted fiction always hits the same fifteen beats, or points, in the story. Understanding these beats can help a writer to outline a story in a full and satisfying way.


Favorite short stories: by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
I had never heard of the prolific Kristine Kathryn Rusch before Rob Lopresti mentioned one of her short stories in the now sadly defunct Criminal Brief blog. The story (The Case of the Vanishing Boy) was about two geeks solving a mystery at a science fiction convention - how could I resist? This lead to me finding a number of Kristine's other shorts that I enjoyed as well as subscribing to her "business of writing" blog on my Kindle.

Best Use of Geology: Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier.
Remarkable Creatures was an interesting "kinda-sorta-based-on-a-true-story" novel about two women who were involved in the discovery of dinosaur fossils in England in the 19th century. The field of geology is sorely lacking in famous female faces (I majored in it and I couldn't name one) so it was good to learn about Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot.
Runner up: Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. Need I say more?


Worst Kindle Formatting: A Stitch in Time by Andrew J. Robinson.
Thanks to Netflix, I've been rewatching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine for the first time since it aired. A Stitch in Time is about one of the minor characters, Garak, and was written by the actor who played him. I love Garak and was psyched to find out there was a whole book dedicated to him. I knew it would be tough to find a paperback copy of the ten-year-old book, so I bought the Kindle version even though many of the reviews said the formatting was horrible.

Well, they were right. I managed to read the whole thing and, though the story itself was good, the errors ruined it. I can handle a few scanning errors (the funniest of which was "feces" instead of "faces") but there were way too many here (I stopped counting at fifty). Worse were the missing line breaks. Scenes and dialog were smooshed together which made it very difficult to follow the story. Considering that I paid full price for this and it was published by a major company (Simon and Schuster), I expected better. All it would've taken was one person to sit down and read through it and they could've caught 95% of the errors. I can't see any explanation for not doing that except laziness and greed.

The rest of Part 1, in no particular order:

It's A Brand New Year

A LOLcat starring my cat, Sophie.

With a new year comes a new writing journal (pictured above with Sophie) and, of course, New Year's Resolutions. Here are mine:

1. Submit a short story for publication.
2. Finish a novel.
3. Write in my writing journal every day.

Six Sentence Sunday - 12/25

It is Saturday night and my eyes are full of tears as I throw open the wooden doors to the Sunset Deck at the rear of the steamship. Sunset is a misnomer, because tonight the sun is setting over the forward deck at the opposite end of the ship. The rest of the passengers are gathered there to watch so I’m confident that this is the one place I can go to have a good, undisturbed cry.

I fling myself at the railing and let the tears fall overboard. At dinner Alan had once again been oblivious to my desperate attempts at flirting, and I'm so lost in my anguish over him that I don’t notice the small boy standing next to me until he speaks.

“Why are you crying?” he asks.

- excerpt from The Sunset Deck, a short story

 The sentence that begins "At dinner" has me very confused due to the mixture of past and present tense, but I think it's right. I don't have a lot of experience writing in present tense, but I believe this story requires it. If anyone with better grammar experience has an opinion on whether it is correct or not, please let me know!

Read more about Six Sentence Sunday here. To see the rest of my Six Sentence Sunday posts, click here.

Six Sentence Sunday - 12/18

Set up: While playing a game of paintball, the narrator and her friends are confronted by two figures in black armor who shoot them with a strange weapon.

A cold sensation washed over me, like I had jumped into a freezing lake, and things began to move in slow motion. My legs collapsed and then I was on my back, looking at the sky. One of the men stepped in to my narrowing field of vision, raised his face shield and peered at me. Only he wasn't a man at all - he had skin as red as hot coals and pupils so dark that it looked like shiny black beetles were hiding where his eyes should have been. A row of five short horns crossed his forehead and there was a nasty, jagged scar on the bridge of his nose. He smiled at me; it was the last thing I saw before my vision went black.

- excerpt from one of many versions of my untitled "girl gets kidnapped by aliens" novel

Read more about Six Sentence Sunday here. To see the rest of my Six Sentence Sunday posts, click here.

Six Sentence Sunday - 12/11

Set up: Geek Timothy "Oggy" Ogden is excited to meet actor Zac Furie at a sci-fi convention. But his excitement turns to mortification when Zac treats him rudely, writes "Froggy" instead of "Oggy" when signing a head shot, and charges twenty dollars more than listed for the autographed photo - twenty dollars that Oggy tells Zac he doesn't have.

“I’ll just hang on to this until the next ‘Froggy’ comes along, shall I?” Zac said.

Zac's lackey snickered and a few people in line joined in. Oggy’s neck turned red; the color travelled up his face, past his cheeks and stopped at his ears. An announcement came over the loudspeaker: “Dealer’s room closes in five minutes.”

Oggy gritted his teeth. “I don’t have the money. What do you want me to do?”

- excerpt from ZOMG, or Zombies, Oh My God!

Read more about Six Sentence Sunday here. To see the rest of my Six Sentence Sunday posts, click here.

Six Sentence Sunday - 12/04

Speaking of avoiding people…Nan stepped off of the sidewalk and in to the road to let Ruth McAllister pass. The woman had never grasped the fact that sidewalks were supposed to be shared. She walked straight down the middle, her Bichon Frise, Bambi, strapped to her chest in a Baby Bjorn. Nan nodded hello to Ruth and swallowed the giggle that rose whenever she saw Bambi’s head lolling side to side in the carrier. Would it be so wrong to let the poor dog down to get some exercise every now and then? She understood that people could be crazy about their pets, but there was no way she’d ever strap her cat Aggie in to a baby sling - not that Aggie would let her do it, anyway.

- Untitled Snowbird Mystery

Six Sentence Sunday is a blog meme where authors post a six sentence excerpt from one of their works every Sunday. I ran across it on Suzanne Johnson's Peternatura blog and liked the idea. I'm not "officially" participating (i.e. trying to get my link on Six Sentence Sunday's blog) because there are a lot of rules and they confuse me, but I will be posting six sentences every Sunday through at least the end of December. I think it'll be a fun thing to do and will make up for the fact that I won't have much writing stuff to post about, thanks to all the craft projects, travel, and family visits that I will be busy with during the holidays.

Today's excerpt is from a 4000-word cozy mystery short featuring Nan and her husband Charlie. They are snowbirds - retirees from northern states who "fly" south for the winter. In this story, Nan hunts down a thief who has stolen several thousand dollars from a Cow Pie Bingo charity fundraiser.

Reading back over the story to find these six sentences, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was better than I remembered. With a little bit of editing, I think it'll be ready to share with my beta readers. I love the idea of a snowbird detective - the constant moving provides lots of opportunities for new locations and people - and I would love to have Nan star in further stories, assuming I can come up with some good mysteries for her to solve.

NaNoWriMo 2011: Day 22 & 23 - The End?

Daily: 1539
Total: 32997
Last Sentence: "But what about your girlfriend?"

This may be the end, my friends - at least of my chances of winning NaNo. This is my word count from yesterday, the 22nd. After writing that last, uninspiring sentence I had a major melt-down which led to crying which led to a horrible sinus headache that I still have as I write this, 30+ hours later. I wrote nothing today and I doubt that I will write anything tomorrow because of Thanksgiving.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, I am thankful for my husband who is always willing to take time out from work to talk me down from my melt-downs and who has encouraged me to at least write the end of my story, since at this point that's the only part of my story that I know. Apparently the "Middle" is what kills me - I can plot beginnings and endings but whenever I try to do middles, it always ends up feeling like it's all fluffy filler and completely pointless. Middles are obviously something I need to work on.

My new goal is to write my ending before NaNo ends. I most likely will update only on days when I write.

To everyone else who is still doing NaNo, good luck to you! I hope you'll be able to reach your goals, whatever they may be.

NaNoWriMo 2011 Day 21

Daily: 1072
Total: 31458
Last Sentence: “This doesn’t look like Camden,” he said. Indeed, it was not.

NaNoWriMo 2011: Day 19 & 20

Daily: 1982
Total: 30386
Last Sentence: “It’s got the basics and will do for one night."

I probably did four hundred or so words by hand yesterday but I didn't type them in until today. I'm trying, I really am, but it's just not fun any more. I struggle to come up with "what happens next?" Maybe it's my fault for trying to make things happen rather that letting them happen - I've written myself in to a corner and now the only way out seems unnatural and complicated. But at this point when I'm 3000 words behind, I can't afford to go back and rewrite. My only choice is to keep pushing forward and hope it all works out in the end.