Briefly

I spent a decent portion of this afternoon wandering through the somnolent whispers and sad summer haze of The Virgin Suicides. Such a lovely book. I wish I could say I'm reading it, but I'm not. I'm working on a new edition of it. Which is almost as good, I suppose.
Anyway. Life has been busy. I've been managing a smidge of writing almost every day, which is grand. And I've read two books recently.
First, The Luxe by Anna Godbersen. So much fun! Serious teenage angst, secret love affairs, demanding parents. Secrets, lies, seductions, hidden desires . . . And set in historic Manhattan! Really, truly, this is great guilty-pleasure reading. I promise. And I can't wait to read the rest of the series.
Second, Leonard Cohen's Collected Poems of the 1950s and '60s. I tried really hard to like the man's poetry. I read most of the collection. I just can't quite bring myself to jump on the Cohen bandwagon though. I kept expecting him to say a little something more, to be a little tighter, a little less . . . I don't know. I just felt like most of the poems were missing something.
So, that's books four and five. Maybe in the future I'll remember to number them as I go.
And now, I'm off to a fun-filled evening with a good friend from work. First, hummus and dolmas for dinner, followed by cookies. Then a great concert at the Beacon Theatre. I'll try to get back here tomorrow to let you know how it is. In the meantime, have a lovely evening!

Quick link

I'm buried in work right now and should therefore not be here at all, but I just wanted to post this really quickly. Jay Lake talking about what it takes to make it as a writer. Really, readers of mine, read it. He makes a really great point or two. Because, in the end, it is about hard work and discipline and persistence.
And as an aside, a really brief book blurb for you. I just finished reading Pale as the Dead by Fiona Mountain, and quite enjoyed it. The book was a bit of a departure for me; it's a rather gentle thriller, with the main character, Natasha, being a genealogist. But that just let to all kinds of historical tidbits woven around and through the particular problem that Natasha was trying to puzzle through. I thought it was very well done; the history was well researched, the writing was tight, the characters well rounded. I would definitely read more by Fiona Mountain. (This was book #4 in 2009, if anyone is keeping track of my thirty-books-in-one-year goal!)
And now, speaking of mountains, back to the one made of work on my desk!

Look!

Twice in one week, aren't you impressed? I am. I'm also sneaking time at work when I should be working on the gazillion projects on my desk, but oh well. I would rather sit here drinking my ginger hot chocolate and blog for a bit.
Things are fairly quiet in my corner of the world right now. It is snowing like crazy here in NYC. It's given my day a muted feeling. Everything seems quieter when it's snowing. Even inside a busy office building. It's so calming to watch the snowflakes squall past the window. I love it! I wish I could be out in it. I suppose I will be soon enough, on my way home. . . .
I've started a new freelance project and am frustrated by it. Not because it's bad. Because it's merely competent. The story itself is pretty good, but the writing doesn't quite have the necessary edge for this type of thriller. It's grammatically correct; everything makes sense. But I still just feel like it's missing a little oomph. Sigh.
I wonder if I can convince my partner-in-crime to head over to my house for the evening. Once I get there, I'm not going to want to leave again! The unfortunate part of tonight is that there are many things I should get done. All I want to do is put on some tea and curl up with a good book. Ah, well. I suppose there'll be time for that this weekend.
I'm chipping away at some dream-based short stories while awaiting feedback on my revised novel. So far, I don't feel like it's going very well. Don't get me wrong, I'm perfectly happy to put pen to paper regardless of what's coming out. But short stories are hard. And I haven't gotten back into a good rhythm with them yet. Give me another one or two, and then I'll be writing something worth talking about. For now, it' s just good to stretch the writerly muscles.
Hmm. I just got really sleepy. Must be the amount of extremely rich hot chocolate I've consumed in the last hour or so!
Okay. I'm covering for my work spouse while he's on vacation, so I should probably get back to it. As long as I stay fairly focused, things should stay well under my control. Happy snow day!

Late

I know, it's late in the month and I've barely said a word! Apologies; it's been another busy month and my Internet at home has been intermittent at best. So. Here I am.
January has been cold. Cold. Recently one morning it was 9 degrees. Brr! I am definitely a winter child and enjoy the cold, but I do hope that this doesn't go on for too long. However, I love that we've gotten some snow this winter!
I finished another book today: Mirrors of the Unseen, by Jason Elliot. And I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would! It's basically a travelogue about Iran, only so much more. Jason talks at length about the people, the history, the art, the religion, and the architecture. Of course he touches on the politics of that part of the world, as well, but that's not what it's about. Not what he dwells on. It was like a kaleidoscope of his impressions of this beautiful, ancient culture that most of us don't know a whole lot about. There were moments of description that were so keen I could almost have been there with him, it was so clear to me. This one is definitely a keeper. I'll revisit it next time I have a yearning to travel somewhere foreign to me.
I have a lot more to say but unfortunately I've got to keep it brief this evening. So have a good night, and I'll be back sometime in the next couple of days. Ta!

A New Year

So on the New Year theme, I thought I'd make up a list of goals. Not resolutions, mind, just goals. So here we go:

• Read thirty books (not hard, if you know me at all)
• finish working on Nor and start another novel
• three to five short stories
• spend more time outside
• treat my body better
• make music more consistently
  

I think that's a good list, don't you? Not too much, not too little. What about you all? Any brilliant things on your horizons sparked off by New Year?
On to other topics . . . my holiday trip was quite good, overall, with the major exception of what I discussed in my previous entry here. I saw my godchildren, saw my whole immediate family, spent some time with my partner-in-crime's parents, and saw some of my friends. Not enough of them and not for long enough, but that's the way it goes on these trips. Of course, having my flights messed up in both directions wasn't great, but I seem to have bad luck with holiday travel, so oh well. It was a pretty good Christmas. I even saw what-if boy on my last night; we watched a movie together, and then slept next to each other, as chaste as brother and sister.
In regard to my goals for this year, I've already read two books. The first was Greywalker, by Kat Richardson. I love good, dark urban fantasy! This one is about a woman named Harper who has a near-death experience and afterward sees the world differently. Literally. She can now see a place called the Grey, which is a sort of limbo between our world and the otherworld. Which means, of course, that her life immediately gets complicated through the presence of vampires, witches, and ghosts, none of which she believed in before. This book was dark, and gritty, and the interactions between the characters was natural and believable. Beyond that, Harper's transition from total disbelief to accepting the change in her was also believable. And it's the first book in a series, which means I have several more stories about Harper to enjoy!
The second book is called Freaks, by Annette Curtis Klause. It's about a boy born and raised among circus performers who are physically different in all sorts of ways. Eventually he feels too normal for his extended circus family and sets off to seek his fortune on his own. It's a really fun read; there's some good teenage angst, and a great love story between Abel (main character) and a three-thousand-year-old Egyptian mummy, and some great secondary characters (particularly a gaggle of children Abel saves from an evil circus man named Dr. Mink). I really enjoyed this book, but still, somehow, I'm not sure that it's a keeper. It just didn't catch me as much as some books do.
Anyway. Twelve minutes left of the workday, so I should probably wrap things up before it's time to go. I also need to pick a new book to read, since I finished Freaks on the train this morning, and that always takes a few minutes!

sad holiday

I just found out that one of my friends in NYC passed away quite suddenly yesterday. She was a good friend of my partner-in-crime. I wonder how her family and her children are holding up.
I don't know much about what happened. She had an aneurysm. I hope she got to have Christmas with her family first. I hope it was quick, and painless.
I don't really know what I want or need to say about this. We just got the phone call a couple hours ago. I was at her house last weekend. She gave me a Christmas gift.
I hope that I get to see her family soon and share the sorrow in the hopes that it will make it a shade easier for them to bear. And I hope that wherever she is, she's happy.

On the Fly

I know, I've got to stop with the tiny little posts and do more substantial ones more often. I did feel like I was off to a good start in November, but then life just got busy with houseguests and freelance work and such, and now all of a sudden it's December and I've barely started my Yule gift shopping. Yikes! How did December get here so fast?
Anyway. A brief update, against the to-do list I made for November. I did do two freelance projects last month(or did I do three? They've all blurred together in my head). I read three books. I started a fourth but wasn't into it, so discarded it, which only sort of counts, I know. Or I could count one of the books I proofread. I mean, I did read those . . . Anyway. I'll deliver some book reviews soon. Next week, perhaps. Let's see, what else. I did make some progress on the first two movements of the Time Pieces, but they're not performance ready or anything. I've been hampered by my lack of good reeds and my reluctance purchase more, but today I finally went out and got a box, so I should make some good headway now. I didn't manage to deliver on my novel, either. I got part of it sent out to my loyal readers. And the rest will happen over December, I suppose, so I'll have to push my timeline back a bit. I'll live.
I have to run, I have way too much to do tonight, and am expecting a phone call from my oldest goddaughter, who I haven't spoken to enough lately. Next time: book reviews, and my thoughts on the movie Twilight, and possibly a rant about buying gifts for people.
Have a good night!