Month in review: January

I started 2014 full of ambitious resolutions, but you know how it is with resolutions: you're lucky if they last a week. In short, my main plan was to say yes more, but also to know when it's OK and right to say no. So far, I've managed to stick to a lot of my goals, and get into some good habits. I've started swimming once a week, and already I'm noticing the difference, feeling fitter and achieving more lengths every time. I swam 500 metres this week, which is a personal best for me. Let's see if I can do 550 next week. I'm really enjoying it; it is soothing and relaxing, a good way of winding down after a busy day at work.

Not that it's been that busy at work; after the Christmas madness, we are returning to something vaguely resembling normality, and it's been very quiet. Not that I mind; continual customers are exhausting. I've had my hours cut back down to three days a week, though, a downside of the quiet time of year (at least as far as money is concerned. On the other hand - more reading time!)

Winter post-Christmas is generally quite a gloomy time, and so far this year the weather has been pretty disgusting, with storms and floods galore. Often the winter gets me down, but I've decided to make the most of the long evenings, reading books and catching up on DVD box sets. This winter is the third year in a row I've really got into a Joss Whedon series. 2012 introduced me to Firefly, and last year it was Dollhouse. This year I've gone back to the one that made Mr Whedon's name: Buffy the Vampire Slayer - only 17 years late! I remember watching and enjoying the first couple of episodes when I was 13, but for some reason I never got into watching it regularly. I'm partway through the second season now, and although I have a vague knowledge of some things that are to come, remembering my school friends raving about it when it was new, most of Buffy and her friends' adventures are a complete mystery to me. Charlotte suggested I write update posts as I watch the series (and you can all laugh at my ridiculously wrong predictions and wonder whether I've been living under a rock for the last couple of decades.)

I auditioned for a role in the new Isle of Wight Shakespeare Company's Much Ado About Nothing last Sunday. I haven't heard back from them, and so am assuming I've been unsuccessful, but it was great fun trying out and meeting interesting new people (including one who I've interacted with online but never met in person before.) We started off with some warm-up and workshopping exercises, before auditioning in front of a panel with a prepared piece. I've done auditions before, but usually reading from a piece of paper. This time, I saw the audition piece beforehand, a valuable thing with Shakespeare, as it gives you the chance to learn the lines and, if any of the meaning is unclear, do some research. I may not have got a part, but I didn't disgrace myself and am very pleased with how it went.

I've also got into a regular writing routine, aiming for 500 words per day on a story about two sisters, starting in 1999. It's been very interesting looking back to that time and seeing how much things have changed. The plan is to follow the sisters over a fifteen-year period, but so far I'm not sure how all the pieces fit together. It's still early days yet. I've missed a couple of days' writing, but have managed to write over 12 000 words. Of course, I expect to cut a lot out in the edits.

January's Reading Stats:

8 books read

8 books acquired

3 female authors/5 male authors

5 new reads/3 rereads

5 British authors/2 American/1 Canadian

2 kids' books/ 4 adult fiction/1 non-fiction/1 play

Favourite book: N0S4R2

Least favourite book: Mindstar Rising

Sunday Summary: Slumps, Slayers and Shakespeare

It feels like ages since I've written anything on the blog. I've not exactly been in a reading slump, but it has taken me a long time to get through the two books I was reading: my least favourite Harry Potter book, and a science fiction book called Mindstar Rising. After a pretty bad start, Mindstar shaped out to be pretty all right, but the plot was too reliant on fictitious technology which confused me and lost my interest. The book's best part was the description of the landscape, an England after global warming has wreaked havoc on the environment and flooded much of the east of the country. It was interesting to see a future visualised from the 1990s. I noticed that there were no mobile phones, and the student grumbling about not getting a big enough student grant made me chuckle rather sadly. They weren't paying him enough to study? Oh, sweet summer child...

I've got back into my writing with a vengeance this year, aiming for 500 words per day (but with weekends off.) My story so far is centred around a geeky teenage girl at the turn of the millennium, and I'm drawing on a lot of my memories of high school. And if I'm writing about a geeky teen in 1999, then I really need to brush up on my Buffy the Vampire Slayer knowledge. Would you believe I never watched it? That is a shameful confession from such an incurable nerd and Whedonphile as myself. I've never been a big fan of the "chosen one" trope (Even in Harry Potter it is a thing to be endured for the sake of the rest of the story) or of vampires. I've borrowed the complete boxset from Judith and have whizzed through the first season in three days flat. Yes, the vampires are cheesier than a fondue, but I've started to really like some of the characters. Buffy is awesome: cute and petite and girly, but who will suffer no nonsense for either vampires or school bullies. If you think back to when the series was new, it is refreshing to have the pretty blonde teenager chasing the monsters rather than vice versa. I also love Giles and Willow (aw, Willow is adorable!) but Xander is showing definite signs of Nice Guy Syndrome. And as for Angel - well, he doesn't sparkle, I'll give him that.

One of my friends is a founder of the new Isle of Wight Shakespeare Company, and after a lot of dithering, I decided to audition for a part in their first production, Much Ado About Nothing. I saw that play in London in 2011, starring David Tennant and Catherine Tate, and Joss Whedon produced a black-and-white film of it last year at his house with a cast made almost entirely out of the stars of his shows: Angel, Firefly and Dollhouse. Much Ado About Nothing is one of my favourite Shakespeare plays (although why does Hero take Claudio back? Foolish girl!) Benedick and Beatrice are the prototype bickering couple, setting the standard for every other romantic comedy duo since, and Beatrice is a wonderful character, probably Shakespeare's most rounded and modern heroine. Of course, there is no way I'll actually get the part of Beatrice, or any major role - I'm not expecting even a minor part - but I know I'd regret it if I wimped out.

Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell

As soon as I heard about Rainbow Rowell's novel Fangirl, I knew I had to have it. The story of a shy and nerdy girl in her first year at university, who spends more time in the world of her favourite books than in the real world? Gimme! Ellie sent me this book as my Christmas present, and I spent a good chunk of Christmas Day reading the book, once the presents had been opened, lunch had been eaten and everyone was feeling a bit sleepy and unsociable. 

Although nerds have started to become a little more mainstream these days, with the popularity of shows such as The Big Bang Theory and the popular kids proudly wearing words like "Geek" and "Dork" on their T-shirts that were always insults when I was a kid, there isn't an awful lot of representation of girl geeks at the moment. Sure, there is the awkward Amy and brainy Bernadette in The Big Bang Theory, but I want to see girls in fandom. Girls in the comic book store. Cosplay girls. An exploration of the differences between girl-geeking and boy-geeking (broadly speaking: ie Trekkie boys obsessing over starships, Trekkie girls obsessing over relationships.) Fangirl helps to fill that gap. Protagonist Cath's method of geeking out is to write fanfiction of her favourite series of books, Simon Snow. Simon Snow is clearly based on the Harry Potter books, but from the extracts we read, takes the plot in quite different directions. I wondered how much of Simon Snow itself stemmed from Potter fanfiction, as some of its storylines could be very interesting if applied to the Potterverse.

Fangirl brought back a lot of memories of my own sixth form and university days - like Cath, I once submitted a piece of fanfiction (in my case a poem based on Lord of the Rings) as part of my application to one university's creative writing programme. I didn't get accepted onto that course, and I still wonder whether it was because my poem could have been considered, like Cath's story, "plagiarism" - or whether it just wasn't any good. It certainly wasn't subtle. When I was at uni, one of my classmates produced a poem inspired by Torchwood, but she named no names and the poem was a success. I felt annoyed with Cath's professor for failing her assignment for reasons of "plagiarism", but I wondered whether she was write to do so, depending on what the criteria was for the class. If the goal is to produce a story of publishable standard, then no matter how creative and well-written a piece of fanfiction might be, it would still be in breach of copyright.

Aside from the world of fandom, Cath faces other challenges in her new life at university. She is a twin, who up until now has always followed her sister's lead, but now Wren has got a different roommate, is living in a different dorm, leaving Cath to fend for herself. (Cather and Wren - even their names indicate that they are two halves of a whole.) Although I really enjoyed reading about Cath's early days at university, it was marred slightly by flashbacks to Rebecca Harrington's Penelope, for no other reason than the American university setting and the socially awkward protagonist. It improved once I started to get to know the characters, and I really liked Cath's roommate Reagan and her friend Levi. As well as her shyness and anxiety disorder, Cath had to deal with a lot of family issues: a father with bipolar disorder, an absent mom getting back in touch after over ten years and a sister going off the rails. Yet throughout all their ups and downs, despite the times when they seem to be drifting apart, they are kept together by their family ties. Cath, Wren and their father come across as a very believable, far from perfect but loving family.

Although there was a teased love triangle early on, ultimately it didn't go anywhere, instead focusing on a lovely and believable depiction of a first love with one party's fear and trust issues, the combined passion and shyness. The small details made it real.

Fangirl is a celebration of family, friendships, growing up, falling in love with a boy and falling in love with writing, all centred around the fandom community. A really cosy and heartwarming read.

Key Quotes

"I feel sorry for you, and I'm going to be your friend.""I don't want to be your friend," Cath said as sternly as she could. "I like that we're not friends.""Me too," Reagan said. "I'm sorry you ruined it by being so pathetic."

"You give away nice like it doesn't cost you anything. Levi laughed. "It doesn't cost me anything. It's not like smiling at strangers exhausts my overall supply.""Well, it does mine."

To really be a nerd, she'd decided, you had to prefer fictional worlds to the real one.

That was the beauty in stacking up words -- they got cheaper, the more you had of them.

Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell

As soon as I heard about Rainbow Rowell's novel Fangirl, I knew I had to have it. The story of a shy and nerdy girl in her first year at university, who spends more time in the world of her favourite books than in the real world? Gimme! Ellie sent me this book as my Christmas present, and I spent a good chunk of Christmas Day reading the book, once the presents had been opened, lunch had been eaten and everyone was feeling a bit sleepy and unsociable. 

Although nerds have started to become a little more mainstream these days, with the popularity of shows such as The Big Bang Theory and the popular kids proudly wearing words like "Geek" and "Dork" on their T-shirts that were always insults when I was a kid, there isn't an awful lot of representation of girl geeks at the moment. Sure, there is the awkward Amy and brainy Bernadette in The Big Bang Theory, but I want to see girls in fandom. Girls in the comic book store. Cosplay girls. An exploration of the differences between girl-geeking and boy-geeking (broadly speaking: ie Trekkie boys obsessing over starships, Trekkie girls obsessing over relationships.) Fangirl helps to fill that gap. Protagonist Cath's method of geeking out is to write fanfiction of her favourite series of books, Simon Snow. Simon Snow is clearly based on the Harry Potter books, but from the extracts we read, takes the plot in quite different directions. I wondered how much of Simon Snow itself stemmed from Potter fanfiction, as some of its storylines could be very interesting if applied to the Potterverse.

Fangirl brought back a lot of memories of my own sixth form and university days - like Cath, I once submitted a piece of fanfiction (in my case a poem based on Lord of the Rings) as part of my application to one university's creative writing programme. I didn't get accepted onto that course, and I still wonder whether it was because my poem could have been considered, like Cath's story, "plagiarism" - or whether it just wasn't any good. It certainly wasn't subtle. When I was at uni, one of my classmates produced a poem inspired by Torchwood, but she named no names and the poem was a success. I felt annoyed with Cath's professor for failing her assignment for reasons of "plagiarism", but I wondered whether she was write to do so, depending on what the criteria was for the class. If the goal is to produce a story of publishable standard, then no matter how creative and well-written a piece of fanfiction might be, it would still be in breach of copyright.

Aside from the world of fandom, Cath faces other challenges in her new life at university. She is a twin, who up until now has always followed her sister's lead, but now Wren has got a different roommate, is living in a different dorm, leaving Cath to fend for herself. (Cather and Wren - even their names indicate that they are two halves of a whole.) Although I really enjoyed reading about Cath's early days at university, it was marred slightly by flashbacks to Rebecca Harrington's Penelope, for no other reason than the American university setting and the socially awkward protagonist. It improved once I started to get to know the characters, and I really liked Cath's roommate Reagan and her friend Levi. As well as her shyness and anxiety disorder, Cath had to deal with a lot of family issues: a father with bipolar disorder, an absent mom getting back in touch after over ten years and a sister going off the rails. Yet throughout all their ups and downs, despite the times when they seem to be drifting apart, they are kept together by their family ties. Cath, Wren and their father come across as a very believable, far from perfect but loving family.

Although there was a teased love triangle early on, ultimately it didn't go anywhere, instead focusing on a lovely and believable depiction of a first love with one party's fear and trust issues, the combined passion and shyness. The small details made it real.

Fangirl is a celebration of family, friendships, growing up, falling in love with a boy and falling in love with writing, all centred around the fandom community. A really cosy and heartwarming read.

Key Quotes

"I feel sorry for you, and I'm going to be your friend.""I don't want to be your friend," Cath said as sternly as she could. "I like that we're not friends.""Me too," Reagan said. "I'm sorry you ruined it by being so pathetic."

"You give away nice like it doesn't cost you anything. Levi laughed. "It doesn't cost me anything. It's not like smiling at strangers exhausts my overall supply.""Well, it does mine."

To really be a nerd, she'd decided, you had to prefer fictional worlds to the real one.

That was the beauty in stacking up words -- they got cheaper, the more you had of them.

Bout of Books days 6-7

Saturday

Quite a busy day at work today. Most of the day - when I was not serving customers - I was working hard at resetting the education books, revision guides and practice exam papers, which had been condensed down over the Christmas season to make room for all the gift sets and Christmas books. It's looking pretty good for now - until the little darlings and their parents go rummaging and shove the books back anywhere they please. I'll give them a couple of days...

Started reading a new book at lunchtime: Mindstar Rising by Peter F. Hamilton. It's a loan from my friend Jamie, a science-fiction/dystopian novel set in the not too distant future. It's pretty macho so far, military and lots of technobabble. The novel launches straight into the action with the protagonist, Greg, killing a man in cold blood, for reasons of plot that are unclear, and for reasons of character which are painfully obvious: to establish Greg as a tough-guy, ruthless and conflicted, an antihero. I suppose it's better than the Danielle Steel approach of writing: "He was a tough guy, ruthless but conflicted, an antihero" but, at least to me (having studied the art of writing to degree level) it is about as subtle as a brick on the head.

When we meet the first female character - a Navy marine named Nicole - we are told that the protagonist couldn't remember her ever wearing anything other than a bikini (really?!) and we get a detailed analysis of her body weight and figure. Yeah, thanks for that, Hamilton! The second female is a beautiful barmaid, who Greg defends against a bossy cult member, or possibly parent, or both, and who shows her gratitude in the predicted way. (No doubt Hamilton wished to show that even though Greg is a tough-guy conflicted antihero, he is also chivalrous and irresistible to women, and can charm any lady he chooses and she'll just fall into his bed. Sigh.)

Books read today: Mindstar Rising 

Pages read today: 27

Running total: 693

Books finished: 2: NOS4R2, Something Borrowed

My life outside books: Sorting and rearranging all the education books. Yay.

Sunday

I didn't get any more reading done after work yesterday, but instead spent the evening cross-stitching in front of Star Trek: TNG and just generally mucking around on the internet. Oops.

Feeling a bit more forgiving of Mindstar Rising now we've got through the character establishing cliches and onto the plot. It's possible that my attitude towards it was influenced by being put into a foul mood just before lunch, thanks to a customer's phone going off with Creepy Robin Thicke's song as a ringtone. No. It wasn't a great beginning, but it's improving. Now Greg, who is revealed to be an ex-military private investigator with surgically enhanced psychic abilities, has been set an assignment: to uncover a security breach in some rich black-market billionnaire dude's company. 

I had a first go at working out with Miranda Hart's Maracattack fitness DVD, while the house was empty and no one could see making a prat of myself. Fun and exhilarating, but I am horribly out of shape, as well as less co-ordinated than Miranda herself. (I expect she had more practice before filming, however.)

I'm planning to spend the rest of the day reading and generally chilling out, as I'm working full-time next week. I do need to type up my Fangirl notes which have been sat in a draft post for what seems like forever, though probably was only a few days.  

Books read today: Mindstar Rising 

Pages read today: 80

Running total: 773

Books finished: 2: NOS4R2, Something Borrowed

My life outside books: Me and fitness have not been on speaking terms for a long time, but I'm trying.

N0S4R2 - Joe Hill

Victoria McQueen has a talent for finding things. As a little girl, she cycled across the Shorter Way Bridge near her home, to come out miles away. Throughout her turbulent youth, all she had to do was go out on her bike and the bridge would take her wherever she needed to go. But one day, an angry, teenaged Vic found Charlie Manx, kidnapper, serial killer, and vampire of sorts, and she barely escaped with her life. Sixteen years on, Manx snatches Vic's son in his vintage Rolls-Royce Wraith (number plate N0S4R2 or N0S4A2 depending on which edition of the book you're reading.) Wayne (first name Bruce) is whisked away to Manx's Christmasland, a place that promises eternal happiness, fun and innocence. But Vic McQueen will do anything to get her son back.

Vic McQueen is a messed-up character, there's no doubt about that. Combine a childhood of living with parents who loathed each other with her reality-defying gift and her near-death experience at Charlie Manx's, and it's no wonder she went off the rails. But I found it impossible not to like this tough-talking, tattooed young mother just trying to make the best of things despite her brokenness. In the aftermath of her first encounter with Manx, the adult Vic goes through various institutions, and emerges not sure of what is true and what is illusion. It is notable that Manx's return into Vic's life coincides with her running out of medication. Though it's pretty certain that N0S4R2 is a tale of the supernatural, Joe Hill subtly introduces a hint of doubt. There are times when the same scene is shown from two different points of view, each account differing just enough to make you question the narrator's reliability.

Vic is one half of the most unlikely but endearing couple, and I will continue to call them a couple though they are separated at the time of their son's abduction. Lou is the improbable knight on a shining motorbike who helps her escape from Manx; overweight and nerdy, Lou is an archetypal "loser," but he has a heart of gold and an enduring loyalty. Even when Vic and Lou are apart, their love for each other shines throughout.

In N0S4R2, Joe Hill has created characters you can really care for. Even people who appear for just a scene or two are rounded out and make you feel for them - a very dangerous thing in a horror novel. Due to the genre, you know that dreadful things are sure to happen, but I found myself aching for certain characters to be spared. Surely they must be immune? The devastating impact of each death reaffirms that no one is the expendable extra, that when a serial killer is on the loose, there is no containing the consequences of his actions. No man is an island; the redshirt is a myth.

On the other hand, the villains are repulsive. Manx is awful enough, evil and twisted enough to convince himself that he is doing what is best. But his henchman, Bing, is so much worse, utterly vile, a rapist and murderer, broken in the brain, and unlike Manx you get to see inside his mind. His point-of-view chapters made me feel defiled just by reading them.

At nearly 700 pages, N0S4R2 requires some commitment, but it is a twisty page-turner, an unusual and attention-grabbing thriller. Each chapter takes the story in a new direction. In some ways, I was hesitant to read much of the book in one sitting, for fear of what might lie in store for the characters, but that was continually overridden by the desire to get caught up in this adventure and spent my time in the world of the novel.

Lucky No. 14: Blame it on the Bloggers.

I wasn't planning to buy the book this year (whoops - I mean last year!) although I've had my eye on it since its hardback release. The current edition in the shops is the unpopular trade paperback - size of a hardback, but with a paper cover, neither one thing nor the other - and I had planned to wait for the smaller paperback. But Hanna, Sarah, Laura and perhaps some other people I've missed, kept raving about the book and as it was a Christmas-themed book, I could not wait another year. I'm very pleased I gave in: N0S4R2 was an excellent beginning to the new year. Let's see if the rest of 2014's reading can live up to this one.

Key Quotes

Christmas was almost three months in the rearview mirror, and there was something awful about Christmas music when it was nearly summer. It was like a clown in the rain, with his makeup running.

He was as tall as Lincoln and just as dead.

"What are you really scared of? Scared that you're crazy? Or scared that you aren't?"

"I am a leaf on the wind," Lou said, and the man-nurse said, "Dude, don't say that. I don't want to start crying on the job."  (Hurrah for the Serenity reference!)

He believed in his own decency with all his heart. So it was with every true monster, Vic supposed.

Bout of Books: Days 3-5

Wednesday:

After a long weekend, I was back at work trying to smother a rotten headache with painkillers. The headache had been bad enough to keep waking me up in the night - and of course, sleepless night made it worse in a downward spiral effect. The school holidays are now over, meaning that the shop has gone very quiet indeed all of a sudden. This doesn't mean I've been sitting on my backside all day, though. Most of the day was spent in removing the seasonal promotions, setting up the new displays, and rearranging the shop in a way that makes some sort of sense.

I finished NOS4R2 on Tuesday evening, which left me with a book-hangover. I needed some time to put that story world to rest, and so I continued with a safe reread: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. In the book's early chapters, I picked up on one of the series' unanswered questions.

Dementors caused a person to relive the worst moments of their life. What would spoiled, pampered, bullying Dudley have been forced to hear?

I wonder if J.K. Rowling has ever answered that question, or if anyone has thought to write fanfiction on the subject. It reminded me that even supporting characters have their own secret lives, that even though we only see the Dursley family in the summer holidays, when Harry lives with them, they exist throughout the year, and don't define themselves as supporting roles in the Potter boy's story. The very idea!

I decided Wednesday should be a computer-free day, as I came home very tired, wanted an early night, but still planned to get some reading and writing done without the distractions of the internet. I found it quite liberating to write by hand for a change; there are no word-count widgets, and again, fewer procrastination opportunities this way. I'd like to get back into the habit of writing at least bits of first drafts on paper.

Books read today: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Pages read today: 70

Running total: 342

Books finished: 1: NOS4R2

My life outside books: 4 and a bit notebook pages filled. Fountain pen loves me.

Thursday

Despite setting myself a rule of not adding more books to my to-read pile than I read, I have already acquired two books this year, while only finishing one. Judith lent me Commander Chris Hadfield's book: An Astronaut's Guide to Life (which, in fact, was my Christmas present to her in the first place.) My second book might not count, as it's one I've already read, but I will be strict with myself and include it in the total: it is a second copy of Enid Blyton's Second Form at Malory Towers, found in the Oxfam bookshop. I collected these books when I was growing up, but they changed the cover design partway through, and this one and the last book featured more modern and less faithful illustrations. This was the first time in maybe 16 years, maybe more, that I have tracked down one of the remaining books with the "right" cover, so I couldn't help myself. (Now, if I can find the last book in the same style...)

At lunch time, I made a start on reading Paul Magrs' Something Borrowed, the second book in his series about a couple of old ladies with unusual pasts who solve mysteries of the gothic and supernatural kind. I read the first book about Brenda and her friend Effie when I was on holiday. Like the first, Something Borrowed is an easy read, darkly funny and a literary nerd's dream. I expect to have finished that by the end of tomorrow.

Books read today: Something Borrowed

Pages read today: 63

Running total: 405

Books finished: 1: NOS4R2

My life outside books: Yes, I bought a kids' book I already own, because I liked the cover better. So sue me.

Friday:

I'd made a long list of things I wanted to get done today, but the headache that began Tuesday evening has stuck around and keeps threatening to turn into an all-out migraine. Instead I spent the morning and early afternoon finishing off Something Borrowed. While not as brilliant as its prequel, it was a fun, entertaining read. One character, who did not feature in the book itself, but was there in flashbacks, I rather suspected was loosely based on J. R. R. Tolkien. Named Professor Reginald Tyler, a don at Cambridge university (rather than Oxford), he was a key member of a literary society called the Smudgelings (see Inklings) and spent his entire life working on an elaborate mythology (although this was more Lovecraftian in style.) It made me smile, although I rather doubt that Tolkien had the same sort of dark and horrifying secret life that Tyler led.

Over Christmas I sorted out a load of books, DVDs and clothes that I no longer wanted, and this afternoon I took some of these down to the charity shops: Oxfam bookshop, the Red Cross and the Earl Mountbatten Hospice shop. I've still got another bag to go, but I can only carry so much at a time.

Books read today: Something Borrowed

Pages read today: 261

Running total: 666 pages (haha!)

Books finished: 2: NOS4R2, Something Borrowed.

My life outside books: Quiet day off. Back at work tomorrow.

Bout of Books 9.0 Days one and two

Monday:

So, somehow the first day of Bout of Books 9 has been and gone without a blog post update. Most remiss of me! This time around I've decided to do two or three days per post, as that's how the last few readathons have turned out in the end. I might as well set out to do that from the start (and also that's fewer posts of waffle clogging up people's feed readers!)

Monday started out quite well for me. Now the Christmas rush has died down, so have the staffing levels at work, meaning that this week I'll only be working my contracted three days. On the plus side - plenty of reading time! I spent most of Monday morning sitting on the reading-nook-slash-pillow-fort I set up for myself on the spare bed in my room, buried in Joe Hill's excellent NOS4R2, following Victoria McQueen in her fight to save her son from the kidnapper and serial-killer Charlie Manx, from whose clutches she barely escaped with her life as a teenager. This book almost makes me afraid to pick it up each time. I've grown very fond of the troubled Vic, her son Wayne (first name Bruce) and Wayne's geeky dad Lou, and I fear for what the plot might have in store for them. 

Despite the predictions of "the worst storms in twenty years," the weather was pretty good yesterday; cold and windy, but dry with a respectable amount of sunshine. My friend Judith finished work early afternoon, and we decided to go for a walk over the cliffs from Shanklin to Sandown. Although we enjoy the fresh air and exploring the Isle of Wight, we don't tend to go very far from home in the winter, and today I remembered why. Despite living no more than about half an hour's drive from every coastline, I have to allow at least an hour to get anywhere on the buses. (You figure that out!) By the time we got to Shanklin, the sun was very low in the sky, and we did not get very far on the cliff path before we found it had been closed due to landslides. Instead, we walked along the seafront, where the waves were pretty impressive. The only people to be seen were dog-walkers, who enthusiastically declared the angry sea "fabulous."

It was dark by the time we reached Sandown, and another hour on the bus home. We spent more time on public transport than on our actual walk, and I'd foolishly forgotten to bring my book with me. Judith is the sort of friend who is quite happy to spend time together in person, but both completely ignoring each other in favour of a book.

In the evening, I wrote another 500-odd words of my latest story project, in which I am vividly reliving being a teenager at the turn of the millennium. It's early days in this story, which I only began on New Year's Day, but the plan is that this story will chronicle the lives of two very different sisters over the course of fifteen years or so. The focus point of what I am ambitiously calling the novel is a shared journal, and the true stories, which may differ greatly from what they chose to share with each other. 

Monday's Stats:

Books read today: NOS4R2

Pages read today: 151

Running total: 151 pages

Books finished: 0

My life outside books: Stormy walk along the seafront.

Tuesday:

Another day off began when I was woken from sleep by the weather throwing everything it had at my bedroom window. However, it's one of those days where I can't really say I've properly woken up all day. Although I haven't let the winter weather get me down yet this year, there are some days where the greyness seems to get inside my head, keeping me feeling very sleepy and a bit headachy, and no amount of coffee can quite bring me to life. Today is one of those days.

I started my morning off by getting my day's writing out of the way before getting settled into my book. Although I'm quite excited by the ideas of my novel, it's still early days; I'm still experimenting and finding my feet, setting the story up and trying to figure out how much is world-building and how much is waffle. I suspect that a large percentage of the first chapters will be cut out of later drafts, but you can't get later drafts without getting the words onto the page (or screen) first.

After lunch, I finished my first book of the readathon - and the year - Joe Hill's excellent NOS4R2. If this is an indication of the quality of books I'll be reading this year, I'm excited. Now on to start the review, before I forget all the things I want to say about it. (I still need to even draft my review of Fangirl, too.)

I've been indoors all day so far, and ought to go out at some point to get some fresh air and exercise, try to shake off the sleepy headache, even if it's just going for a short walk down to the river and back. 

Books read today: NOS4R2

Pages read today: 121

Running total: 272

Books finished: 1: NOS4R2

My life outside books: Grey, sleepy, fuzzy-headed sort of day

Sunday Summary: Resolutions, Sherlock and Bout of Books 9

Well hello to you all, and a happy new year. Again.

2014 seems to have got off to a positive, if sleepy start. I'm blaming the weather for getting inside my brain. Apparently there has been a little sunshine, but if this rumour is true it is unverified by me, as I've been working when it has shown its face. So far, however, I haven't let the bad weather get to me this winter; I've been enjoying being wrapped up in a duvet reading, watching DVDs and internetting the evening away. (Oops to the last.)

I seem to have gone a bit overboard on resolutions this year, in an attempt to reclaim my life and really make this year worthwhile. Last year had some wonderful moments, but it also had some long stretches of dreariness, and I'd like to look back over each month this year and say, "Ah, yes, this is when I did such-and-such." Let's see how well that goes...

My resolutions for 2014

• To do something new each month. Create new memories, go on adventures, do things I've never done before. I've got one thing lined up already: my friend Hannah, who is a photographer, put out a call for models to feature in some fantasy-themed projects, and I've volunteered to take part. Exciting!
• To write every day. After far too long battling writer's block, I came up with a great idea for a novel, and if I can write 500 words each day, (weekends off) that's 10 000 words per month. Hardly NaNoWriMo, but it's the length of a university dissertation in a month. 750words.com, Write or Die, and Written? Kitten are all great websites to help boost the word count. I use 750words.com as a place to brain-dump and warm up my brain before getting to work on the novel itself.
• To be more active. I'd like to get into a habit of swimming regularly (NOT in the sea at this time of year; I'm not that brave) and to go to the outdoor gym in Ventnor which is both free and less intimidating than joining an indoor gym. Also, my sister bought me Miranda Hart's Maracattack DVD. Maracas make fitness fun! 
• To give more. I don't have much money, but I'm better off than many people, and it doesn't take much to help out: a click of a button, an extra few groceries for the foodbank, buying a Big Issue. 
• Not to let my outgoings exceed my income.
• Except when it comes to books. I want to read more books than I acquire and get my to-read pile down. A tracker on the sidebar of my blog is an attempt to keep me accountable for the books I buy versus those I read and/or give away.
• To be more positive. Not to grumble about work (outside of working hours, and also to keep it off the shop floor.) Not to worry what other people think of me, and in turn to be kinder to others, less judgmental, less snarky.
• To challenge myself to leave my comfort zone, but also to know when I need to stay inside it. To be kind to myself as well as to others.

Sherlock: contains spoilery talk

New Year also saw, at long last, the return of the BBC's Sherlock. Who else saw it? After the end of series 2 in January 2012, all the talk was: how did Sherlock fake his own death? Series 3's opener, "The Empty Hearse" was more about this question, and the big reunion with Dr Watson, than it was about the usual genius deductions and big mysteries. The main plot reminded me a lot of V for Vendetta. But what of the answer to the big question? Three solutions were provided, some more preposterous than others in a clear nod to all the fan theories that have been all over the internet for two years. But do we believe Sherlock's answer? Anderson, to whom he revealed his secret, picked holes in the revelation, and declared it "disappointing." I'm inclined to believe that Sherlock did not tell the whole truth, but is this all the answer we're going to get? Much of the internet says yes, citing the episode's use of the language of prestige, that "a magician never reveals his tricks." True. But I'm inclined to hope that the truth will be revealed eventually, probably at the end of episode 3. Sherlock is not about the unexplained; his method is to wow us with his incredible, complex but often quite mundane methods of deducing the truth. Writer Steven Moffat (also head writer of Doctor Who) has attracted a lot of criticism over the last year or so, and yet I retain my faith in him as a master storyteller, in command of every plot thread. And he did not write "The Empty Hearse," Mark Gatiss (also the actor who plays Mycroft Holmes) did. Yes, Sherlock is a joint project between these two writers (and some others) but I have a feeling that Moffat would want to write the big reveal himself. Did he write episode 3? Not sure, but as he's only co-written episode 2, I suspect he probably did.

Bout of Books 9.0 starts tomorrow; probably the most popular bloggers' readathon, and a chance to get through some of those books I really ought to have read by now. I've been reading N0S4R2 for about a week now, which really does live up to the hype! Written by Joe Hill (son of a very famous horror writer) it is a real page-turner: a serial killer, a take on the vampire genre (and not the sparkly sort) and a girl who can find lost things. I've also got Mindstar Rising, a science fiction/mystery book borrowed from my friend Jamie, Something Borrowed, sequel to Never the Bride, which is a library book I keep on renewing, and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. This book is my least favourite and I've suspended my Potter reread in favour of my Christmas books. Umbridge is so unpleasant I can't even love to hate her; she just makes the book feel oppressive and hard work. But I'd like to finish the series before reading The Cuckoo's Calling, and I want to have read that before it's published in paperback.

Hello 2014

Hello to you all and a happy new year! It's a grey, dreary, blustery day down here, with the promise of storms later. My sister has been packed off on a ferry and a train to London, hoping to beat the weather home and not wanting a repeat of the travel chaos of Christmas Eve. I'm not working today, for the first New Year in five years, which is probably for the best as I'm still feeling rather bleary-eyed from the late night. 

I'm quite pleased it's a new year. The end of the year seems to be all about leading up to Christmas, and once that's been and gone, the year feels tired, and you can't be bothered to do anything, start anything; it is the winding-down time of year. But now 2014 has started, and it's a good chance to think about doing new things and planning new adventures. One of my new year's resolutions is to do new things, gain new experiences and make memories, by doing twelve things I've never done before, whether that's visiting a new place, trying a new food, meet new people (perhaps a blogger meet-up and book shopping spree?) or maybe, just maybe, start getting those driving lessons I've been meaning to take for about ten years.

As far as the blog is concerned, I'm quite happy with how it's going at the moment. I recently introduced a "Sunday Summary" feature, so that I can keep you up to date with my reading and news, even when I don't write a full review. I'm also contemplating a semi-regular "Fangirl" feature in which I look at the stories I love and ponder what it is that makes them great. As well as, hopefully, being an interesting read and discussion point, I'm hoping it will help me get up the enthusiasm for my own writing, which has been so important to me for so long, but which has fallen by the wayside in the last few years.

Last year I didn't sign up for any reading or blogging challenges, deciding instead to focus on enjoying my reading rather than to aim for any targets and beating myself up when I inevitably failed to reach them. I took part in several readathons, which were a great excuse just to get lost in a good book (although often I ended up getting lost in the internet instead.) A new year gives us the chance to start as we mean to go on, and a readathon is a great way to make a head start on some more reading. Bout of Books has been one of the most popular and enduring readathons, and the next one starts on Monday for a week. The Christmas and New Year rush should be well and truly over in town, and the kids heading back to school, and I'm expecting to be back to working part-time, so it'll be a great chance to work down my to-read pile.

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, January 6th and runs through Sunday, January 12th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure, and the only reading competition is between you and your usual number of books read in a week. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 9.0 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog 

. - From the Bout of Books team

Yes please!

I'm not going to overload my reading time with challenges, but this year I couldn't resist the Lucky No. 14 reading challenge, from Books to Share. Astrid has really been creative in coming up with different categories of books to read, and different ways of battling the to-read pile. The challenge is to read one book in each of the following categories:

1. Visit The Country: Read a book that has setting in a country that you really want to visit in real life. Make sure the setting has a big role in the book and it can make you know a little bit more about your dream destination.
2. Cover Lust: Pick a book from your shelf that you bought because you fell in love with the cover. Is the content as good as the cover?
3. Blame it on Bloggers: Read a book because you’ve read the sparkling reviews from other bloggers. Don’t forget to mention the blogger’s names too!
4. Bargain All The Way: Ever buying a book because it’s so cheap you don’t really care about the content? Now it’s time to open the book and find out whether it’s really worth your cents.
5. (Not So) Fresh From the Oven: Do you remember you bought/got a new released book last year but never had a chance to read it? Dig it from your pile and bring back the 2013.
6. First Letter’s Rule: Read a book which title begins with the same letter as your name.
7. Once Upon a Time: Choose a book that’s been published for the first time before you were born (not necessarily has to be a classic book, just something a little bit older than you is okay. You can read the most recent edition if you want to)
8. Chunky Brick: Take a deep breath, and read a book that has more than 500 pages. Yep, the one that you’ve always been afraid of!
9.  Favorite Author: You like their books, but there are too many titles. This is your chance, choose a book that’s been written by your fave author but you haven’t got time to read it before.
10. It’s Been There Forever: Pick up a book that has been there on your shelf for more than a year, clean up the dust and start to read it now :)
11. Movies vs Books: You’ve seen the movie adaptation (or planned to see it soon) but never had time to read the book. It’s time to read it now, so you can compare the book vs the movie.
12. Freebies Time: What’s the LAST free book you’ve got? Whether it’s from giveaway, a birthday gift or a surprise from someone special, don’t hold back any longer. Open the book and start reading it now :D
13. Not My Cup of Tea: Reach out to a genre that you’ve never tried (or probably just disliked) before. Whether it’s a romance, horror or non fiction, maybe you will find a hidden gem!
14. Walking Down The Memory Lane: Ever had a book that you loved so much as a kid? Or a book that you wish you could read when you were just a child? Grab it now and prepare for a wonderful journey to the past :) Comic books or graphic novels are allowed!