Having fewer problems breathing, but my voice (when I have one) sounds like I've been chain-smoking for the last twenty years. Ugh. So, definitely still sick, but hopefully on the mend.

I'm currently working my way through Diane Duane's Interim Errantry, which is a collection of three Young Wizards novellas. I'm on the third (Lifeboats), which I'm thinking looks long enough to be a novel by itself. But the second one (How Lovely Are Thy Branches) was the one that stopped me cold and made me go bwuh? Because it mentioned Snowmageddon and Heathrow being shut down.

Oh ye gods. Was it really five years ago that our flight was (luckily) diverted to Manchester? (Luckily because Manchester instead of, say, FRANCE.) And we then had that interminable eight-hour bus ride to get to Heathrow? Where my inlaws, with the patience of saints (I swear, they should've gotten medals for it) were still waiting for us at like two a.m.? That goes under "unforgettable life experiences." Also under "thank god we did not have a small child with us at that point."

I was not expecting that blast from the past in a Young Wizards book!

My current book is Pocket Apocalypse, by Seanan McGuire. It's the fourth, and newest, volume in her Incryptid series. Newest as in it just came out two days ago.

I'm torn between tearing through it as fast as I can (because what happens next??? I must know!) and going through it slowly and sedately (because savor the experience and it will be like another year before the next volume comes out).

The book combines several of Seanan's favorite things: virology, horror (werewolves!), and Australia. Thus far, I'm concluding that if the average Australian is anything like the members of the Thirty-Six Society, I'm adding reasons to my "why I am never going to Australia" list. But since the Australians I know are all pretty nice people, I'm guessing it's just this fictional group that are dicks.

Which, of course, makes me suspicious that there's something going on with them. I'm halfway through. We shall see....

There are a handful of fanfic writers about whom I can honestly say "I will read any and everything they write." This is because they are superlative writers, and even if I don't know the series they're writing for, they will paint the world such that I live in it, love it, and understand it.

Corollary to this is the fact that there are a few fanfic reccers whose every recommendation I will read. Because they rec the good stuff. issen4 is among this latter category, and recently recommended Gadarene, which is a Merlin fic. Now, I am not a fan of Merlin, but I read this story. And then read it again. And again. And sat a while, trying to figure out what it was that drew me to the story. And how I could take that ineffable whatever-it-was and apply it to my own work.

All writers have themes we cycle to again and again, usually because we keep thinking of (hopefully witty) new things to say on the subject. Lois McMaster Bujold and mules, for instance. :) It's why fanfic writers write multiple works on, say, a particular pairing (Prowl&Jazz), or a series predicating on a single what-if (Simulacra). Something draws us to an idea and we keep gnawing away at it.

And I think I've identified what I like in Gadarene. It's not the pretty slashiness so much as the heartbreak and fear when things must be kept hidden, and the beauty that unfolds like a flower when it becomes all right to display them. So last night I went to Field of Stars and found my first scene with Alain Lowsturm and Bastian Tel Amo, and reread it. And realized a part of the story that I hadn't even known, predicating on Alain's heritage as the son of a demon. (A completely consensual conception; Alain's mother is complicated, powerful, and awesome. So was his father, for that matter.) Demons, however, being stolen ("perverted") shards of gods, are the product of what the Tel Amo clan classifies as the darkest of magic.

Because of what he was born as, Bastian and every single teacher at the Tel Amo-sponsored university Alain studies at would be obligated to kill Alain in his sleep if they knew.

What stress does that add? How high does it raise the stakes? How does he cope? What are Alain's plans once he finishes university? And what will happen when/if this all comes out?

This is part of why writers read. So that we can learn better how to write.

I am currently struggling to work my way through Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, and remembering why I seldom step out of genre writing when I pick up a book.

In non-genre writing, no one is ever happy.

And that's completely setting aside the whole foot-binding thing.

Went to the gym tonight for the first time in probably two months! 600 calories lighter!

Started in on a new book: The Land of Painted Caves, the (at last! finally!) sixth and ultimate book in Jean M. Auel's "Earth's Children" series. By three pages in I was understanding the Amazon reviews and yelling at the author for bad writing. My god, Maralys and my classmates would smack me down so hard for doing what I've already read here.

Spent part of yesterday rereading Deus Ex Machina and Summer Job. Have made more notes for myself about what the hell I actually want to be happening in DEM; it's very jumpy right now because I hadn't figured out everything I wanted out of it when I started. Which sometimes works, but not this time, I think. Listened to the score for the first film at the gym, and kind of feel like I should rewatch the first two films to find my center and voice for the tale before diving back in.

It may seem an odd juxtaposition to my last "waah, probably cannot afford cons!" post, or perhaps related to it in a way, both being about financial matters, but I am wrestling with indecision on a matter.

I'm beginning to consider getting a Kindle or Nook or something. Mostly so that I can read Walt's books.

(Me pimping: Walter J. Golden is one of my former classmates in my novel-writing class. After taking Maralys' course for something like fifteen years, he finally stopped last term, feeling that he was no longer getting as much out of it. He's got four e-books published, and from the parts of them I read/edited in class, I WANT to read the rest! He's a really good writer, and does both real world suspense stuff and fantasy writing. So if you're inclined to take my opinion as good, and have a few bucks to drop on e-books, go look up him and his work.)

Anyone who has any of these mysterious e-reading devices, can you give me thoughts on the one you have? Pluses, minuses, would you buy again or not, etc?

It'll be awfully expensive to get an e-reader just to read Walt's books, though, so I'm also trying to find some other use for one. Wonderful Husband has suggested I could download fanfic onto one to read at the gym... can't read paper books there because my hands get all sweaty and I'd have to break the spines anyway to get them to stay open.

Reading through my new old issues of Threads is kind of amusing. Back then it wasn't so completely a high-end home sewing publication. There are articles about knitting, crocheting, and quilting as well as about sewing clothes. The individual issues are actually not outdated and pointless; though styles have changed since then, I've already found three or four techniques I want to try. But the entertainment factor is also high. These magazines are from the nineties, you see. Pre-widespread Internet access. None of the ads have websites. And there are tips about using the holed strips at the edge of printer paper as measuring devices. Oh, the nostalgia!

Under the heading of "books that don't count toward my "50 in [year]" goal are rereadings. Because for me that's just too easy. (Srsly. I have three huge bookshelves packed to the gills and could do with another one, and they're all old, well-beloved friends.) In addition to rereading my way through the collection of romance novels, hopefully prepatory to offering most of them first to my mother and secondly to Goodwill, I've recently started pulling the Little House books off my shelf to reread. Now, it's easily upward of fifteen years since I last read them, but they stand up well to the test of time. And now that I'm older I notice different things in them. The role of women seems unimaginably constricted to me, but the fashion descriptions are much more interesting than they used to be. The casual, blatant racism ameliorated by the fact that these books were written, what, 50 years after the events, is also interesting. The social status of adoptees at that time is also weird to me, but fleshes out what I know of historical adoption trends. And then, of course, there's the gardening. Some of the things the Ingalls grew are familiar: tomatoes, onions, peas, beans, beets, turnips, squash, lettuce, corn, oats, wheat. But as little as a year ago I wouldn't have known what ground cherries were, or husk-tomatoes. And, heck, this evening I had to look up what "pieplant" is. (Rhubarb. Which I have three seedlings of.)

I love revisiting old friends like these books. They don't change, but as I grow older, I find new things to think on.

Spent today at work (aside from answering phones, filing, photocopying, sorting mail, and shifting bags of ashes from one box into another) trying not to fall asleep. And sneaking games of Spider Solitare on the computers so as not to fall asleep. And reading a translation of "The Art of War" which was trying to put me to sleep, the translation jiving poorly with modern English, until I started in on the commentary essays that explained just what the thing was going on about. And then I just kept thinking about the Entire. Damn. Vorkosigan. Family. Because it all fits and I begin to wonder at what point Bujold read and understood Sun Tzu, because there's no way she hasn't.

But now I am at home and still trying not to fall asleep and knowing I either have to chicken out of this scene or not get any writing done tonight because this is going to take /research/. Which I should have been doing before, but it just kind of organically developed last night and I have trouble going to the gym let alone knowing how weapons move and fights are done. Not a physical person.