Not much to add to last night, except more words...

The Details
WiP: Bear-baiting (Ew, I know) short story
New Words: 393
Total Words: 1528/15000ish

Calling this a victory. I didn't want to, but I did it anyway, and I got more than 250 words. 

First you have to write, and then you have to finish

With apologies to the eloquent Neil Gaiman for butchering one of his lovely quotes on being a writer....

In that way that the human brain is very strange, a short story roared to life today while I was reading a non-fiction book over lunch at a sketchy, local, fast-food Mexican place. A passage on bear-baiting in London in the 1600s, and I was suddenly wishing I had a pen that wrote well on pulpy napkins so I could take enough notes to keep it fresh until I got to someplace where I could start getting ideas down in a more formal medium.

Lacking a suitable pen or a notebook with which I could get started, I headed home and put fingers to keyboard to start roughing this idea out. I won't say that I set a personal best for words produced, but it was a respectable day of writing.

Now, to keep this ball rolling tomorrow!

The Details
WiP: Bear-baiting (Ew, I know) short story
New Words:  1135
Total Words:  1135/15000ish

Review: Tenth of December

Tenth of December by George Saunders

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I picked this up after reading George Saunders commencement speech about the biggest regrets in his life were the failures of kindness from his past, when he could have reached out to someone and did not. I also remembered that radical empathic Cheryl Strayed spoke warmly about Saunders at a talk of hers that I attended.

These short stories are technically excellent, and I enjoyed them, but my hope and expectation was that the philosophy of the commencement speech might shine through the other work, and I couldn't find it anywhere. I would recommend this collection as displaying technically superior short story work, but if you're looking for more things like Congratulations, by the way: Some Thoughts on Kindness, it isn't this.





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Review: Fangirl

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

My rating: 3 of 5 stars




I think I would have liked to have read a book like this before I left for college. It would have made some of the challenges of my freshman year a little more comprehensible.

This book is all right. It's smaller in scope and stakes than what I tend to read, and it might be...75ish pages too long. It started stronger than it finished, and as a result ended up feeling pretty uneven.

For anyone interested, this is set in Nebraska, in both Lincoln and Omaha, and it felt like I would have enjoyed the book more if I had been able to recognize the places she referenced.



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Review: Me Before You

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

My rating: 5 of 5 stars




I'm so sad my stomach hurts. I read the last 50ish pages with my hand clapped over the lower half of my face, holding in the denial I could feel building inside of me at the ending of the book.

You can see it coming, but there's nothing you can do to stop it.

This is a marvelous, moving, and tremendously sad book that doesn't shirk from the hard questions regarding assisted suicide and a patient's right to self-determination. I recommend it, but one shouldn't finish reading it in public, or anywhere where there's no ready access to facial tissues.



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Review: Dreams of Gods & Monsters

Dreams of Gods & Monsters by Laini Taylor

My rating: 5 of 5 stars




This is a trilogy that I knew I had to read as soon as I skimmed the blurb here on Goodreads. Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor was recommended by the magical algorithm of You'll Like It, I think because I loved Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus. I'm not sure the algorithm has ever gotten a recommendation for me so RIGHT before.

I love this trilogy. I love Laini Taylor and will read anything she writes from here on out.

But let's talk about this book.

There's a skill that Taylor possesses in rendering the fierce, funny love between two girlfriends that I am not sure I have seen in any other author I current read. In the face of grimness, there's Karou and Zuzana fighting for one another...and making each other laugh. Actively seeking that good feeling you get when you make your best friend LAUGH. It's just true, and perfect, I don't think I've seen it from anyone else in recent memory, at least. (Upon reflection, I think part of the shiny of this is how effortlessly the book passes that dreaded Bechdel test.)

This trilogy is wonderful and inventive and sweet and funny. If you haven't read it yet, I'm jealous.

Because now you can read it for the first time!



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Me, in one photo.

Red shoes!

So, I hate having my photo taken. The prevalence of the phone as a cultural presence makes this awkward, but I am AWESOME at dodging the pocket phones of friends and family. To be honest, I don't have much of an explanation for it. I'm not in denial about what I look like: I'm zaftig but kind of nice looking despite it, I guess. Decent haircut and passable makeup, most of the time, which is all that most of us can do to look all right in the moment.

I'd look better if I were thinner, and I'm working on that, but GOD I hate having my picture taken. I go all tense and weird when the camera comes out, and it shows every time. But I was walking in Lawrence, KS, the other night, on our way to see my friend Dave who was visiting from Boston, and I snapped this photo of my feet. No weird tense face, just red Chucks and boyfriend jeans. My feet, which I kinda like, in shoes and out of shoes. This is my newest pair of shoes, and they're still a little stiff and shiny.

I can't say I'll be posting my face anytime soon, but I DO love this shot. It probably tells you more about me than just about anything other than a shot of my face.