Bout of Books 14

Monday 17th August

3.30PM: Well, here we are in the fourteenth Bout of Books readathon! For those of you who don't know me, my name is Katie, and I work part time in a bookshop on the Isle of Wight (a small island off the south coast of England.) When I'm not working, I write fiction (although I'm as yet unpublished,) and am currently writing the first draft of a geeky chick lit novel. Although right now, I seem to be finding all sorts of ways to avoid writing! I've set myself two more scenes to write today, but perhaps I'll find my brain works better if I take a break and read for a little while...

4PM: ...or maybe not. Instead of a reading update, allow me to present my Fictional World Travel challenge entry: the challenge is quite simple, to show off a selection of books set in different countries around the world (not your own.) I've also omitted the USA, because, let's face it, probably a good half of my books are set there, if not more.

The Fictional World Travel challenge was created by and hosted at
Between Library Shelves

The Book of Tomorrow - Cecelia Ahern (Republic of Ireland)

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage - Haruki Murakami (Japan)

A Man Called Ove - Frederik Backman (Sweden)

The Miniaturist - Jessie Burton (The Netherlands)

Pink - Lili Wilkinson (Australia)

Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery (Canada)

To those of you who don't know me, let me say that Anne is one of my greatest loves, and so don't be surprised if you see her pop up again over this week.

I'm going to shut down my computer until 5, and see how much of A Man Called Ove I can get read by 5PM.

Monday's Stats:

Currently reading: A Man Called Ove Frederik Backman

Pages read today: 260

Books finished this week: 0

Quote of the day: "People said Ove saw the world in black and white. But she was colour. All the colour he had."

Tuesday 18th August 

Today already hasn't gone to plan. It's my last day before going back to work, and I was trying to have an early night and earlier morning to try to ease myself back into a workday routine - but I couldn't sleep. I used the time to finish off A Man Called Ove, which is a really lovely book. The titular Ove is a grumpy old curmudgeon, probably a Swedish relation of "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells," who seems to live to complain. But as the book progresses, we see how Ove has come to be this way, and how underneath it all he's really a very kind, very lonely man. A Man Called Ove is in turns sad and funny, often both at the same time, with a wonderful cast of characters, a story about how one person has an effect on a community in many small ways. 

Today was going to be another writing day, but I'll save that for the evening, I think. I have less than one scene before I finish the chapter, hopefully a bit of humour after all the melancholy I wrote yesterday. I'll be having a beach barbecue with my friends this afternoon, but now I'm going to make myself a big mug of coffee and maybe some cake, and curl up with my next book: The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing. 

Tuesday's Stats:

Currently reading: The Golden Notebook - Doris Lessing

Pages read today: 150

Books finished this week: 1

Quote of the day: "There is a female chivalry, woman for woman, as strong as any other kind of loyalty.Or perhaps it was we didn't want brought home to us the deficiencies of imagination in our own men."

Wednesday 19th August

I think today is not going to be a reading day. I went back to work after a ten-day holiday today. It wasn't terrible, but it has marked the end of summer for me, and autumn in retail brings its own particular struggles. Perhaps I'll have an early night, and read a bit of a Discworld book in bed. I'm enjoying The Golden Notebook, but it's perhaps not a book designed for speeding through on a readathon; it's full of politics and feminism and big ideas about the compartmentalisation of life and personality. The protagonist keeps a series of journals on a variety of themes: politics, writing, and personal life, and the novel features segments from each. But right now I don't feel much like reading it, instead flicking about on the internet. I'm feeling the urge to settle down to rewatching some youtube videos instead - maybe rewatch some of Green Gables Fables in preparation for the new season covering Anne of the Island in a modern-day university, which is coming very soon. 

Thursday 20th August

7PM: Maybe it wasn't the best of ideas to take part in a readathon in the week I was due to go back to work for the autumn. Yesterday's reading was a grand total of about seventeen pages. The evening was spent faffing around online, watching Green Gables Fables and colouring. Today, although the back-to-work blues are still hanging around a bit, I'm feeling a bit happier and more relaxed, so I'll push on with a bit more of The Golden Notebook. You do really need to sit down for a long stretch of time and get stuck into that book; it's not very good for reading just a few pages over lunch break. I've just got in from work, and on my way I accidentally picked up a cute and funny little "Happiness Is..." book from the gift section at TK Maxx, and another "colouring therapy" book from the supermarket. I'm going to make a toastie and some soup for my dinner, and read a while, then, later, I might do a readathon challenge, and watch more of Green Gables Fables. 

Thursday Stats

Currently reading: The Golden Notebook - Doris Lessing

Also read: Happiness Is...

Pages read today: 117, plus approx 250 in Happiness Is... (the latter had about 2-10 words on each page so doesn't really count.)

Friday 21st August

3.30PM: Friday is my Saturday, as I'll be working tomorrow, so I spent the morning doing chores: tidying, cleaning, two loads of laundry. I'm now settling down with some more of The Golden Notebook, which I'm finding very interesting as I can relate so well to Anna, with her many notebooks and journals. I have so many notebooks, each with their own purposes: about the novel-writing process, book review notes, and one just for favourite quotations. Then there's the different versions of me I present online - I do not sync my Facebook and Twitter accounts, for instance, but choose what to write for which audience, even in a simple status update. But I might switch to a different book later on.

Friday Stats:

Currently reading: The Golden Notebook - Doris Lessing

Pages read today: 244

Saturday 22nd August

Work again today - but it was decidedly quiet for a Saturday, especially one in the summer holidays. It was really hot and sunny when I ventured out at lunch time, so I suppose most people were on the beach or in their gardens, making the most of the good weather. A couple of days ago I was sure autumn had arrived, and I've been wearing sweaters and fluffy slipper boots already. But summer was apparently not as over as we'd thought. (I've seen the weather forecast for next week, though. Sigh.) I made the most of the peace and quiet to start clearing some space in the stock room for the autumn new releases and Christmas gift books, which could start arriving at any time. We've already got a few annuals in! I swear it gets earlier every year. I also had the chance to sit down and talk to my manager about something that had been weighing very heavily on my mind - part of the reason that my reading's been so difficult the last couple of days. I find it very difficult to admit when I'm struggling, but I knew I couldn't carry on bottling things up, and now I feel a lot better after talking things over with her. 

I finally finished The Golden Notebook, which I've really enjoyed reading - it's a very different sort of novel, a kind of examination of everything that goes into the writing of a book, all the things behind the scenes that might not make it onto the final draft, but which contribute nonetheless. However, I'm glad to have reached the end of it, and am moving on to one of the few Discworld books I've never read - Thief of Time. The final book in the series is released next Thursday. I still can't believe it's ending, though Sir Terry has been gone for nearly six months now. 

Saturday Stats:

Currently reading: Thief of Time - Terry Pratchett.

Also read: The Golden Notebook

Pages read today: 120

Books finished this week: 2 (or 3 if you count Happiness Is...)

Sunday 23rd August 

5.30PM: Okay, so I haven't actually read anything today, or done any of the jobs I'd planned. I got up quite early for a Sunday, but unfortunately migraine struck. I've had a nap, and the pain's mostly gone, but the visual part has remained so everything looks shadowy - not good for concentrating on a book. Probably sitting at a laptop isn't doing it any good either, so I'll put that away for now. I'll try to read a bit after dinner.

11.30PM: The worst of the migraine's gone now, and I've read a bit more of Thief of Time. I didn't realise that this was a book featuring Susan, Death's granddaughter, in a prominent role! Yes, there was a book about some of my favourite characters which I hadn't read or known about! What a lovely surprise. It's wonderful to lose myself in the Discworld, with Terry Pratchett's trademark wit and wordplay, and it looks as though it'll be a worthy sequel to Hogfather in some ways. 

Sunday Stats:

Currently reading: Thief of Time - Terry Pratchett

Pages read today - 65 so far

Books finished this week: 2 (or 3 if you count Happiness Is...)

Quote of the day: "When you look into the abyss, it's not supposed to wave back."

Month in review: July

Hello to you all. In the books world, July was all about Go Set a Watchman. Whether you couldn't wait for it, or were nervous about it, or tried to avoid it entirely, it was everywhere. I used the two weeks running up to Watchman's release to read through the small pile of library books, loans, and gifts, which I did not count towards my "read 3, buy 2" policy for this year. After Go Set a Watchman, with all the hype and discussion, I fell into a little bit of a reading slump, a sense of "Now what?" It may not be a full-on reading slump; I've still read four books (plus a penguin mini-classic) in the past two and a half weeks, which is still pretty good, but I haven't felt that draw to my bookshelves, or that immersion into a really engrossing novel. That's okay. It happens, and it's nothing to beat myself up about.

What I read

Abarat - Clive Barker

The Rabbit Back Literature Society - Pasi Ilmari Jaaskelainen

The Coincidence Authority - John Ironmonger

The Outcast Dead - Elly Griffiths

Nunslinger - Stark Holborn

The Night Guest - Fiona McFarlane

Also

The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick

Go Set a Watchman - Harper Lee

The Beginner's Goodbye - Anne Tyler

Weirdo - Cathi Unsworth

Interesting Times - Terry Pratchett

And (Penguin Mini Classics)

The Fall of Icarus - Ovid

The Night is Darkening Round Me - Emily Bronte

Lord Arthur Savile's Crime

With a new to-read pile for August, I'm starting to feel a bit more excited about reading again. I bought two new books yesterday, both from the children's section: First Class Murder, the latest in the Wells and Wong series about schoolgirl detectives in the 1930s, and Katy by Jacqueline Wilson, a modern-day retelling of What Katy Did. I'm often very wary of retellings, but I think that some of the literary webseries, such as The Lizzie Bennet Diaries and Green Gables Fables (as well as, recently, Project Green Gables.) have softened my purist's attitude, and I find it very interesting to see how they translate to the modern day. And What Katy Did is a book full of really good characters, incidents and stories... but it is ultimately very Victorian in its moralising in the second half, and the "character development" turns an adventurous, ambitious, feisty little girl into a dull, sanctimonious little angel. I think the characters and family life of Katy and the Carrs would fit quite well among Jacqueline Wilson's original novels: she writes about dysfunctional families, often with lots of children and maybe a single or remarried parent, and her characters are believable children. Let's see how she handles this classic.

Provisional August To-Read Pile

Thief of Time - Terry Pratchett

First Class Murder - Robin Stevens

A Wizard of Earthsea - Ursula Le Guin

When We Were Orphans - Kazuo Ishiguro

Dark Places - Gillian Flynn

HhhH - Laurent Binet

Goodnight, Beautiful - Dorothy Koomson

Reasons She Goes to the Woods - Deborah Kay Davies

Katy - Jacqueline Wilson

The Rook - Daniel O'Malley

I've really got stuck back into my writing in the last month or two. Where I work part-time, I'm trying to make the most of my days off as an opportunity to work on my novel, which I began for NaNoWriMo last year. I'm setting myself achievable targets and am really pleased with how it's coming along now. And I've also come up with my idea for this November's project: a children's book set in a girls' boarding school, involving time travel. But unlike the usual time-travel narrative in which someone goes back from the present day into the past, this girl, Olive, comes from 1940 and has to figure out how to pass as a 2015 teenager, with many lessons to learn, while trying to get back to her own past and her family. It's taken inspiration from Charlotte Sometimes, Cross Stitch and Captain America, and I'm going to have to reread a load of my old school stories from childhood, in order to figure out Olive's character and world. 

Which is handy, seeing as Bex is organising another ReReadathon for September, not one but two weeks this time. I fully intend to reread last year's favourites: 11.22.63 and The Martian, as well as at least one Sarah Waters novel, but I'm sure I'll have plenty of time to read a Chalet School, Malory Towers and maybe a Trebizon or two for comparison. 

And away from the world of books, reading or writing them, I've finally got around to buying Star Trek: Deep Space 9. We don't have many places left on the Island which sell DVDs, and especially not older ones or box sets (although CEX the exchange shop opened this week - yay) so I'd been looking in every HMV or CEX whenever I went to the mainland, with no joy. But suddenly I remembered that Hive sells DVDs as well as books. Hive is an online shop I don't mind using - normally I go out of my way to buy in a shop if at all possible - because it supports local independent bookshops.

My Trekkie friends either seem to like DS9 best of all, or hate it. I'm really impressed with it so far; I've only seen about half a season, but I already like it more than The Next Generation. (Gasp! Controversial!) TNG is pretty much how I imagined Star Trek to be before I ever had any interest in Star Trek. It's got some good characters, and some really interesting, thought-provoking storylines, but I never quite warmed to it the same way I did the original series. I felt like it was trying to be more of the same. Picard's crew is still seeking new life and new civilisations, boldly going where no-one has gone before, their ship is even called the Enterprise. DS9, by contrast, is set on a space station, and it's not even a Federation space station; instead, a team from the Federation has been called to work alongside the Bajorans, whose space station DS9 really is, and there is the conflict as the two teams learn each other's ways.

Deep Space 9 ties in nicely with the franchise so far. The pilot opens with a flashback to the biggest season finale of The Next Generation - the Borg attack in which Captain Picard was assimilated, and the battle of Wolf 359, where a Starfleet officer's wife is killed. This officer is Benjamin Sisko, three years later the commander of Deep Space 9, who has been bringing up his son alone. It was good to have some of the issues I'd had with the series so far addressed: the throwaway nature of the doomed redshirts and unseen nobodies, and why it is really not a great idea to have civilian spouses and children onboard the Starship Enterprise. Yes, she is a ship of exploration, not of war, but you might be forgiven for forgetting that, considering the number of space battles all her incarnations have seen, and of course the redshirt mortality rate!

Looking forward: 2015

Hello and a happy new year to you all. I hope you've had a lovely night, whether you were out partying or, like me, having a quiet evening in with TV, books or internet. I had made great plans to have a big Back to the Future marathon with all my friends, lots of pizza and nibbles - and then December 30th came around and I'd organised nothing. So instead, I just put the second and third films on (I saw the first one quite recently) and watched with my parents. I'm quite disappointed with how many people in the real world don't instantly associate the year 2015 with Back to the Future part 2: hoverboards, flying cars, etc.

My New Year's resolution this year is simply to try to be kinder and less self-centred. But I've also taken the time to reorganise my reading and writing life and plan some excursions.

Books:

Last year I set myself a read one/buy one rule regarding my book collection, but that did not have the desired effect of shrinking my to-read pile, as I did not take into account rereads or books that were already in the house, ie borrowed from parents. This year the rule is read three, buy two - and only books from the pile count. I know some bloggers are imposing a 3:1 or 5:1 rule on themselves, but I don't have the willpower to do that.

I intend to carry on filling in the gaps in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, which should not be too much of a challenge as here are only about six I haven't read now. But I want to have read those six by the end of the year.

A more long-term plan is to read or watch all of Shakespeare's plays in the next five years. Will I stick with this? Who knows! I read a few last year, and have studied some in school and uni, so that's at least ten down already.

Writing:

After throwing off my writer's block last November and managing to succeed in NaNoWriMo, I intend to continue with my novel in progress, and finish the first draft this year. I took a break in December but now we're into the new year, I'd like to get that finished.

I plan to take the Rilla of Ingleside book-to-script adaptation out of the mothballs and get that finished this year, for my own satisfaction.

And I would like to have another bash at NaNoWriMo in November, see if I can match and beat last year's success.

Getting organised:

I have had to admit defeat. I have no more bookshelf space. Not that that's going to stop me - my first big purchase of this year is going to be replacing my six-shelf bookcase with an extra-deep six-shelf bookcase so I can fit twice as many books on the shelves. (Admittedly having two layers of books is not ideal, but it must be better than the shelf balanced on my to-read pile under my desk.)

When this arrives, I will reorganise my books and get rid of any I don't intend to read again. Likewise, I will be sorting through my clothes, CDs and DVDs - many of the latter I bought just to watch once, thanks to there being no Blockbuster any more, and the films not being available through Netflix or the library.

Travel

This year I may be able to go on holiday to America. I've not done this before because it's hard to ask friends to go with you when you're all poor and single and don't drive - it's a big expense - but when I grumbled about this to a friend who is a bit older than me, she suggested going with me. I'm thinking Boston.
I'd also like to go to York, which I've been meaning to visit for years (and which Hanna tells me is very good for book shopping.)

I'd like to go to see friends living in Liverpool, Bath and Cardiff, who I don't get to see much, and one of whom I've not seen in years. And I plan to return to Coventry and shop at the Big Comfy Bookshop once more.

When I visit my sister in London, I will seek out new bookshops on each trip, not just returning to Foyle's every time.

Finally, I'd like to meet up with some of YOU lovely bloggers in person! I've made some great friends through blogging, but have only met Ellie in person, two years ago. So, what about it? Who would be up for a book blogger meet-up to invade the bookshops for a day?

Sunday Summary: Christmas!

A belated Merry Christmas to you all! I hope you have had a restful few days, with good food, company and presents.

Last week, for the first time since September, I only worked my contracted part-time hours, so although I didn't get to have an actual Christmas holiday (retail is rubbish 'cause people still want to buy stuff) it felt like a break by comparison with the last months, and with previous years when I've had less time off over Christmas than in a normal week. I was quite fortunate, finishing work at 2PM Christmas Eve, and having Christmas Day and Boxing Day off.

I was less fortunate a couple of hours before I was due to finish work, by coming down with my traditional Christmas cold. I suppose it was inevitable - there had been people sneezing and coughing in the shop all through December, but there are 365 days in a year - why did it have to hit me on Christmas Eve of all those days? It's ridiculous, and I am not impressed! But all moaning aside, it was a very mild case of the sneezes, and it didn't really make me feel ill, and by evening on Boxing Day I was absolutely fine again.

My sister has come back to the Isle of Wight for her Christmas break, her longest holiday since she's been living in London, and she goes back in the new year. Christmas Eve we watched the Muppet Christmas Carol, which we have seen so many times that we were joining in with all the songs and a large amount of the dialogue. It really is one of the best adaptations out there, and has to be watched as close to Christmas Eve as possible.

My Grandma was due to come to us for Christmas dinner, but when my Mum went to collect her from her nursing home, she decided she didn't feel well enough. She's 92, and very aware of the fact. It was disappointing, although not entirely surprising, when she decided not to come for dinner, although Mum persuaded her to come up to see us for a little while, even if not for lunch. My uncle and aunt dropped in with her Christmas present too.

I received some wonderful gifts from my family and friends this year, with a very bookish, creative and nerdy flavour to them.

Books:

I've already shown these off, but from my Secret Santa (who it is probably safe to reveal as Bex now): The Rook, The Thirteenth Tale and We Should All Be Feminists, as well as a bookish tote bag and some knitting wool.

From my best friend Judith: The Bookshop Book by Jen Campbell. This was my Christmas Day read, and it made me really want to take a Grand Bookshop Tour of Britain and beyond! (Coincidentally I bought this for another friend - and although I'd planned to look at it before wrapping it, I never got around to doing so.)

From my parents: The Handsome Man's Deluxe Cafe by Alexander McCall Smith, the latest in his No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. The cover claims it is signed by the author, although the pen marks on the title page resemble some form of hieroglyphics. They also bought me Terra's World, the sequel to Terra which I read in the Bout of Books readathon and which was one of my favourite books of the year.

From my sister: The Year I Met You by Cecelia Ahern, one of my favourite comfort-read authors, and The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth, a non-fiction book about what makes up good writing. She also bought me a second-hand copy of Farmer Giles of Ham by J.R.R. Tolkien, and illustrated by Pauline Baynes, who is probably best known for her illustrations of the Chronicles of Narnia series.

Judith also bought me a book token, because she's been rather ill and lost track of how many presents she bought me (plenty. Too many, probably.)

Writer's materials:

From my sister: This t-shirt:

Also a notebook/journal which is a replica of River Song's journal from Doctor Who.

From my parents: Ready, Set, Novel - a Very Useful Resource for plotting a novel, with all sorts of pages for figuring out your characters, outlining, brainstorming, etc. This is produced by the people behind NaNoWriMo.

And Judith bought me a fancy notebook too:

I was very touched by all these writerly gifts, because it made me feel that my closest friends and family have noticed me picking up my long-neglected writing, and want to encourage me in it.

Crafty:

From Judith: a cross-stitch bookmark kit
From another friend, Sharon: a make-your-own purse set - part of which I can make up with my newly-acquired sewing machine.
From my friend Esther (who is also Judith's youngest sister) some homemade chocolate brownies, and hand-made earrings and bracelet.

Nerdy:

Thor: The Dark World DVD from my parents
Starfighter cookie-cutters - put together to make a 3D cookie spaceship! Awesome. (These were from Judith too.)

Boxing Day was a traditionally lazy day, with no alarms being set, and lots of lounging around the house reading. I am very much not someone who rushes straight out to the shops as soon as the post-Christmas sales are launched. Boxing day is for family. We spent the afternoon playing a long game of Isle of Wight Monopoly. I am terrible at Monopoly, but yesterday I managed to stay in the game a lot longer than predicted, even managing to acquire some respectable properties (although I was a very close second to be declared bankrupt!)

How did you spend your Christmas?

Sunday Summary: NaNoWriMo and fancy gadgets ancient and modern

Hi all. My laptop and I have migrated downstairs today from my bedroom to the dining room, where there is warmth and coffee. NaNoWriMo has delayed my return to proper blogging. Considering that I'd had no thoughts of doing it this year, I'm rather pleased that I've just passed 23 000 words and am getting really stuck into my story. This does mean, however, that there hasn't been much reading this week. I will get reviewing soon, I promise. At the very least, I want to rave at great length about Stephen King's 11.22.63. 

This month I've fallen back into my long-lost late-night writing habits formed during my student days, finding myself getting very productive between about 11PM and 1AM. I'm really rather excited to have got that part of me back, although it's not so good when I have an 8.30AM start at work the next day. But this month I've been working more shorter working days, which fits in my writing pattern quite well. It's such a relief to get so invested in a story of my own making again, to have the creative part of my brain ticking over even in the background - although I'm sure it's making me ditsier and more scatterbrained than ever.

One of the NaNoWriMo pep talks, from Divergent author Veronica Roth, gave some advice I took on board: to break out of one's own well-established writing habits and see if any other ways work. I've long been a strictly linear writer: start at the beginning and carry on until I get to the end (or, more often, lose interest and give up.)  This time around, I've done a little bit of skipping around in the story, writing later scenes and leaving some of the joining scenes until later. I use Scrivener writing software (after an unfortunate incident where I was accidentally saving it as an OpenOffice document to a shared dropbox, completely unsuited to the purpose, and someone else deleted it, surely having read enough to know that it was not meant to be there. NIGHTMARE!)

I fear I'm rather a hardened cynic when it comes to romance, so it's been a real challenge to switch off my inbuilt censor which screams "NO, NO, THIS IS TOO CHEESY AND PREDICTABLE!" whenever my character even, say, notices that another person is attractive and likable. I don't want to be a bitter old spinster! I am not writing a romance novel, but there are love relationships in my novel. At uni I took a course in genre-writing, and we were due to study a Mills and Boon book, but the tutor took pity on us and dropped it from the course. So now I started introducing my character's love interest and realised I didn't know how to describe them, or show growing friendship and attraction. So I've downloaded a couple of free ebooks that I probably wouldn't even get out of the library using the self-serve machines, and am reading critically, thinking about what I like and what I don't like. I can't be having with too much of the characters talking about their feelings, for example, and there needs to be more of a plot than just the mushy stuff.

Yes, you read it right. I, Katherine Edwards, ink-and-paper loyalist, have downloaded some ebooks. No, I have not been won over to the dark side and bought an e-reader, but I did invest in a shiny new smartphone and downloaded the Kobo App, for emergency bookless situations. Anne of Green Gables was, of course, my first freebie. (That's four, when added to my hardback and two paperback copies.) I'm undecided whether e-books count as additions to the to-read pile or not. I've also started an Instagram account, although so far it just has a couple of trial-selfies (with ridiculous faces) and shelfies.

I've also inherited a sewing machine. It's a vintage (read "old") Singer that my Grandma bought in the '70s, but still seems to be in good condition. Since she moved into a nursing home earlier this year, it has been passed on to me. I'll admit I'm a bit scared of sewing machines - they have a tendency to get out of hand when I try to use them. But Mum has promised to help me figure out how to use it, and I already have grand dressmaking plans, and a Great British Sewing Bee book to help me get started.

This week I have been:

Reading: The Last Battle by C.S.Lewis. Never my favourite of the Narnia books, it's got some great stuff in it but I've always found it troubling and uncomfortable.

Also the aforementioned cheesy romance novel on e-book, which I will not name and shame. It is not terrible, but it is not my cup of tea.

Watching: Not much, but a bit of Star Trek and Heroes. I'll be honest, the main reasons I'm still watching Heroes is because of Sylar being enjoyably psychotic, Hiro and Ando being adorable, and Claire's story is still a bit interesting. I'm a bit lost among the other characters and subplots, but I don't like giving up on a story partway through.

Stuck in my head: Taylor Swift: "Shake it off," Kansas: "Carry On Wayward Son," "I'll make a man out of you" from Mulan, and "Little Talks" by Of Monsters And Men. Also some of the songs from Mary Poppins.

Looking Forward To: This time next week I'll be on holiday. I wasn't planning to go away during my time off, but I found out that Cary Elwes, who was Westley in The Princess Bride - one of my favourite films of all
time - is signing a book he wrote about making that film, in Forbidden Planet in London. At first I muddled the dates and thought it was the Saturday, my last day at work, because things are always on Saturdays and it seemed inconceivable (ho ho) that it would be any other day. Then I checked again, and it's actually the following Tuesday. The book was on my Christmas list, so I decided I would break my book-buying ban and go up for the signing, and do some Christmas shopping, and see my sister all at the same time.

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.

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: Wilkie, NaNoWriMo and light reading.

It's been a busy old week this week, and though I got off to a good start on Sunday and Monday by making a nest and ignoring the world in favour of books, blankets and biscuits, one week on I am only half-way through Cathy Kelly's latest book, The Honey Queen. I decided to read this one as a bit of fluff after the short but heavy-going Slaughterhouse 5. Slaughterhouse 5 was an interesting read, but one which I think I would actually enjoy more if I were studying it, reading and rereading and taking notes. Though quite simply written, there is so much beneath the surface about humanity, war, death and time, that I don't think you can really appreciate the full impact on a first read.

It's a funny thing, but I often find "light" reading to be harder work than more "literary" or bulky novels. Although I am enjoying The Honey Queen, which reads rather like a miniature soap opera, focusing on the lives of various inhabitants of a small Irish town, it seems to be taking a long time to read. I have read just over 200 pages in a week. Is it because there are a lot of characters to keep track of, or because it is a character-based rather than plot-driven narrative? Is it because my inner critic finds more to say about the writing style, or perhaps it's just not all that exciting? I don't know. It's certainly not badly written, although I do find that what Ms Kelly tells us about some of her main characters doesn't seem to tally with what she shows us. And it is a very warm, cosy community to lose myself in. But something about this book makes reading it a much more drawn-out process than logic dictates it should be.

November marked the beginning of NaNoWriMo (National novel-writing month) which I decided to participate in out of a feeling of desperation. All my life, my writing has been the thing that has most defined me, but lately I haven't written very much aside from this blog. I'm terrified that I've lost the knack or the drive or the ability, and so I'm using NaNoWriMo to re-teach myself the art of Making Things Up And Writing Them Down. I got off to a good start on Friday, but yesterday I went out for a family meal after work, and I only managed a couple of hundred words scribbled in a notebook on my lunch break. But I don't mind too much if I don't reach the target of fifty thousand words this year, as long as I keep going and create a story.

Also, on a whim, I signed up to Ellie's "Read Wilkie" readalong of The Moonstone, which I am enjoying very much, though I have not got very far into it. It's a nice, laid-back readalong, so one I should be able to fit in alongside NaNoWriMo and any other books I have on the go at any one time. This afternoon, I'm meeting an old school friend for coffee, then afterwards I'm going to see the sequel to Thor at the cinema.

Have a good week, everyone!

Bout of Books 8.0: Sunday

This morning was a grey, dull day and impossible to wake up. A single coffee wasn't enough, and unfortunately I've been feeling and acting somewhat like a she-Hulk this morning. Sincere apologies to those who were on the receiving end. Have a Nutella cupcake as a peace offering. She-Hulk likes baking cake, apparently.

I haven't done a lot of reading, again, today, because I got stuck writing a new scene for my Rilla of Ingleside adaptation. (Actual writing, guys! Two days in a row!) Where yesterday's work involved a lot of typing up from the original work, reworking speeches and scenes, today I had to use my imagination to flesh out characters who are important in the series but don't have an awful lot of on-screen time in the novel. In particular, though this is the story of the younger generation, I wanted to make Anne and Gilbert still recognizable as the characters countless readers have fallen in love with. In Rilla, they are mostly just Doctor Blythe and his wife: wise and patient and lacking the spark that makes their personalities so, well, them. 

I'm up to the 19th century in Necropolis, which has described the shift in people's attitudes to death over the years, from pragmatic acceptance to sentimentality, from memento mori to lavish memorials. The book also, briefly, told of 23-year-old Jane Webb, author of a book

Set in 2126, in an England that had reverted to absolute monarchy, this featured prototypes for espresso machines, air-conditioning and, most prophetically, 'a communication system that permitted instant world dissemination of news.'

This chick predicted the internet. Why have we never heard of her? And they say there's no place for women in science fiction!

I don't expect to finish Necropolis tonight. I plan to watch a couple of episodes of one of my many box sets, then have an early night. (It may be a bank holiday tomorrow, but I still have to work. Here's hoping for a sunny day so that everyone'll go to the beach and let me make a start on my huge list of things to be done this week.)

All in all, it's been a good readathon. I didn't expect to read all of the books on my list - Cuckoo's Calling and Perdido Street Station are still outstanding - but my to-read pile is starting to look like it's getting under control now. I must rectify that.

Bout of Books 8.0: Saturday

9PM

After a lovely - but too quick - day off with plenty of reading, I was back at work today, where I spent much of the time manning the front till. This is not one of my favourite jobs as I'm not allowed to wander off and get anything productive done, but just have to stand there and serve customers. Most are friendly or neutral - I haven't had any really unpleasant people for a while - but smiling at everyone is tiring. Still, the coming week has plenty of other work to do, and I spent the last part of the afternoon making lists with bullet-points, trying to organise every small detail of what I have to do on each day. (I am a fervent believer in lists. They make the jobs feel less overwhelming, and it is a nice feeling to cross items off.)

I couldn't get to sleep for ages last night, for no one's fault but my own. I tell myself that the computer must go OFF at 10PM on a work night, and that I must wind down with a book for half an hour to an hour before switching off the light, but that time crept to 10.20... 10.30... 10.45... I was in bed by about 11, but my mind was still whirring. So I made a start on my next read: Necropolis by Catharine Arnold. It is a beautifully macabre history of London, the people who died there and the burial rites throughout the centuries. I continued with this book at lunch time, and have got up to the various plague epidemics before the Great Fire of London. Having lived in London for a few years, I do love to find out about the stranger things in its history. It is a very strange city.

I had intended to read more when I got into work, but instead, inspired by the video I watched and shared yesterday, of Neil Gaiman's advice for budding writers, I brushed the cobwebs off an old project: a screenplay adaptation of L. M. Montgomery's Rilla of Ingleside. My recent "work" on this project has been a scene-by-scene outline, but though I hadn't finished the planning, I felt it was time to jump in and actually do some writing. First drafts can be edited, but blank pages can't.

The Emily Series, L.M.Montgomery

A family friend once told me that her abiding memory of me was as a little, pigtailed girl wearing a straw hat and with her nose buried deep into the childhood classic Anne of Green Gables. The hat no longer fits, and pigtails are a thing of the past, but the Anne books are perhaps, of all the hundreds of books I have read in my lifetime, the novels which have influenced me the most; the redheaded heroine more of a kindred spirit than is perhaps natural for a character that has "no real existance." It would be only natural for me to open my book blog with a review of Anne of Green Gables, and a discussion of just why it is such an important book to me.

But I'm not going to. It's gone ten at night, too late to be able to do Anne Shirley justice, and too early for the magic to work that brings inspiration to life just at the time when I know I should be getting ready for bed. Instead I will write about one of Lucy Maud Montgomery's other heroines: Emily of New Moon. It is inevitable that there will be comparisons to the Green Gables series, but I hope you will forgive that.

I grew up with Anne Shirley since I was about seven, but had not heard of Emily Byrd Starr until a year or so ago. I stumbled across the first book in the series in a charity shop for the not-too-shabby price of 49p, and took it home.

The first thing that struck me about Emily was a peculiar phenomenon that she called "The Flash."

It always seemed to Emily, ever since she could remember, that she was very, very near to a world of wonderful beauty. Between it and herself hung only a thin curtain; she could never draw the curtain aside -- but sometimes, just for a moment, a wind fluttered it, and then it was as if she caught a glimpse of the enchanting realm beyond - only a glimpse - and heard a note of unearthly music [...] She could never recall it - never summon it - never pretend it; but the wonder of it stayed with her for days.

Reading this description made me shiver, because I realised I knew exactly what Montgomery was trying to say, though I couldn't have expressed it quite so myself. I once wrote:

Sometimes a sight, a word, an image, sends me right out of myself and I know I am in another world - a story. Sometimes it is so vivid it gets mixed up in my memory with reality, at other times I can't quite grasp it, like there is something beautiful just out of sight.

Emily's "Flash" is at the heart of the series, making remarkable a straightforward coming-of-age novel. No, not straight-forward. Anything but that.

Eerier than the Anne novels, Emily of New Moon has traces of the supernatural, all the unexplained, throughout the series. Hinted at with her "Flash," each tale has at least one incidence of the "second sight" which Montgomery never tries to explain away, or to explain. Emily 's is also a darker story than Anne's. Towards the end, in particular, I see traces of Montgomery's darker state of mind, of "white nights" and three o'clocks in the morning. I would find all this tied up in two themes: love and writing. There is the pain of misunderstandings that threaten the relationship between Emily and a childhood sweetheart, the pain of smiling through what seems like unbearable sorrow and forgiving a betrayal unknowingly commited. But there is more, and I would say it is all tied up with a character named Dean Priest.

Now, I don't know whether L.M.Montgomery intended Dean to be quite so creepy as I find him, but in the twenty first century... well! He is in his mid thirties when he meets Emily - she is a little girl of twelve. There is nothing wrong as such in his behaviour at first - but his mind! From the first time he meets her, he is waiting for her to grow up - he is waiting until she is old enough for him to love. And what starts off as mildly disturbing just grows and grows. When Emily is an adult, and the age difference between them is only an issue because of the "age difference" rather than her being a child, he slowly becomes a double of Mrs Kent, the possessive mother of Emily's friend Teddy. Mrs Kent will not allow Teddy to love anything lest it make him love her less. She hates anything he likes and will set out to destroy it, whether it be his artwork, his kittens or friendships. What I find to be the darkest part of the Emily series is when Dean echoes that so completely - in his jealousy, he lies to Emily in a way that destroys the writer within her for a time, and threatens to destroy her very essence.

For writing is the essence of Emily. She is a writer to her very core. When asked to give up her writing by a disapproving, old-fashioned aunt, Emily's reply that it's "[n]ot that I won't - it's just that I can't," strikes a chord with me. I couldn't stop being a writer. Even Emily, when she commits no fiction to paper for two years - a sacrifice I never would be able to make, for anyone or anything! - stories and characters grow, bursting to be written. Writers are advised that they should never write about writing, but Montgomery's ignoring of that rule was a successful putting into words of things that otherwise might remain unexpressed. The series is a story about coming of age as a woman, and as a person, but most of all as a writer. Some people write, other people are writers, and the Emily of New Moon series expresses just what it means to be the latter.

When I read the Emily books the first time, I wasn't sure I liked Emily, simply because she wasn't Anne. As a child I found Anne Shirley to be more even than a friend - it felt as though she was a part of me, a dreamer, an optimist, someone who loves people. Emily is certainly more down-to-earth than Anne, and while Anne's imagination is her defining characteristic, Emily is far more single-minded. It's not that writing is the only thing that matters to her - love, friendship and pride are also top priorities. But without her writing - she cannot be truly herself. In that brief period after Dean told that awful lie to her, she is almost a puppet, fooling nobody but herself that she is happy and fulfilled. Anne could live without writing, I think. She'd not stop imagining, or dreaming, but writing seems more of a fancy for her, rather than a desperate need. She could write, or she could not write. Emily could not not write.