An observation of the reading habits of an M.E. bookworm …

I seem to have nothing to say today. I woke up this morning all sparkling ready to get down to some work but unfortunately I have come to you after I’ve worn my brain down. I’ve been going through my enormous Amazon Kindle book archive (1626 books) creating a wish list of books my mum might like to read. She is not into all the genres I read so I’ve been selecting the first books of series she might enjoy. I have it narrowed down to 24 books/series – an selection include:

• pure fantasy: A Tapestry of Spells (Nine Kingdoms) by Lynn Kurland,
  • This is the second trilogy set in the Nine Kingdoms by Lynn Kurland. The story revolves around Sarah and Ruith trying to stop Sarah’s brother from destroying the Nine Kingdoms. On the way they have to confront their own powers and history while romance blossoms.
• science fiction mixed in with fantasy: Quest for the Moon Orb (Orbs of Rathira) by Laura Jo Phillips,
  • When Karma Baraka first saw the sand dunes of Planet Rathira, little did she know that this apparently peaceful world with a civilization strangely like that of Ancient Egypt was under attack by demons from another dimension, that the strange-looking cross recently given to her was the Ti-Ank, a talisman of unbelievable power, or that her possession of the Ti-Ank and her remarkable ability to speak to the dead marked her as the long-prophesied Techu, whom the Rathirians believed would come to save their world. I enjoy the Egyptian elements as something different from your usual medieval fantasy settings. The main character is a strong female who won’t be battered down my male prejudice. I enjoy the gentle romance as the party make the way across the desert to find the Moon Orb.
• sword and sorcery fantasy: The Kinshield Legacy (The Kinshield Saga) by K.C. May,
  • Warrant knight Gavin Kinshield sets out to find a letter from his father to discover what caused the demise of King Arek. The story romps along. An easy read but still satisfying to see our hero grow into his potential.
• young adult fantasy: Ready, Steady, Dig! (The Rooks Ridge series) by Rosalind Winter,
  • When you have spent the last sixteen hundred years faithfully guarding a precious hoard of gold and silver buried in the foundations of a Roman villa, the arrival of a bunch of TV archaeologists is seriously bad news.
    But the little household gods of the Villa Corvo have ways of deterring intruders that the makers of the popular programme “Ready, Steady, Dig!” could never have dreamed of. This is a fun satire on Time Team (a UK archaeology program – a dig in 3 days) methods woven round the household guardian Lars. Will 12 year old Vera and aging rock star Bony be able to help the stone figures save the day? I smiled all the way through. As a fan of Time Team there was a great deal to smirk over.
• murder mystery: Invisible (An Ivy Malone Mystery Book #1): A Novel by Lorena McCourtney,
  • Ivy Malone is not your average crime fighter. She is getting on in years and found that with age she has become invisible. So when she spots something unusual she puts her powers to good use. I love this series because Ivy is such a wonderful lady. She would make a wonderful grandmother. I’m always rooting for her to solve the mystery.
• young adult murder mystery: I Am Not a Serial Killer by Dan Wells,
  • A young man trying to deal with sociopathic tendencies who works at mother’s funeral parlor on the weekends. He ends up trying to solve the spate of murders in the town. Thoroughly enjoyable mystery with wonderfully drawn main character
• military science fiction: A Galaxy Unknown (A Galaxy Unknown, Book 1) by Thomas DePrima,
  • A young ensign finds herself awakened from cryo sleep a decade after she abandoned ship in the middle of the night. She finds that the galaxy is know ravaged by space pirates. This is the first of her adventures in defeating them. I love this series because it is a slight satire on other series such as Honerverse by David Weber but matures into its own right. There is daring do and impossible escapes which adds up to a light hearted, fun science fiction read.
• romantic suspense: The Unsung Hero (Troubleshooter​s) by Suzanne Brockmann
  • After a near-fatal head injury, Navy SEAL Lieutenant Tom Paoletti is ordered to take a leave of absence from his team. When Tom catches a terrifying glimpse of an international terrorist in their hometown, and the Navy dismisses the danger as injury-induced imaginings, childhood sweetheart Kelly Ashton is the one person who never doubts him. Creating his own makeshift counterterrorist team from his most loyal officers and the town’s residents, Tom knows they must save the day if he is to have one last chance for happiness with Kelly. This is a book containing intertwined stories of romance in the the second world war as well as new love with two teenagers. This book has real depth of characterization and the thriller suspense element is well drawn. I thoroughly enjoy all the books in this series. The military action elements just get better and better.

 

So I hope I’ve given you some new authors to go and explore. I’m off to read Intruder (Foreigner Novels) by C. J. Cherryh before the new novel Protector comes out on the 2nd April. Bren is one of my favourite characters of all time. I was blown away when I first read this series. I can still devour it down two books a day once I get started. C.J. Cherryh has an amazing ability to delineate different mindsets both between aliens and within human cultures. I find her observations on interactions stunningly interesting. I can’t wait for a new book to absorb.

 

Hours Sleep Today so far : – 12 hours in 1 session1 😐
Headache intensity / pain level : 2 😀
Nausea level : 0 😀
Joint / muscle pain : 2 😀
Fatigue : 4 🙂
Brain Fog : 4 🙂

see my explanatory scale document here.

Short but sweet …

Off to the physiotherapist today to confess to my sins. Have completely collapsed since my last visit and so expect to get that disappointed look. Still given that I did manage to get my assignment in on time it has not been a total loss the last few weeks. I am now gearing up to get the next assignment done – due in 24th April. Only got 4 weeks or so which means need to get myself in the groove soon.

 

In other news I’ve been engrossed in a reading binge. I have read all 10 of the Blood Destiny Series by Connie Suttle, all 5 of the Legend of the Ir’Indicti Series and am now working my way through her High Demon Series. If you are looking for a little bit of little fantasy this is your author. Don’t expect deep plotting but do enjoy a rollicing storyline as she barrels towards the her finale  She has managed to make me cry while reading so don’t expect it to be all sunshine and light either.

 

Right I’ve off to get dressed to leave. Speak soon I hope.

Hours Sleep Today so far : – 12 hours in 1 session 😐
Headache intensity / pain level : 4 😦
Nausea level : 0 😀
Joint / muscle pain : 2 😀
Fatigue : 5 😐
Brain Fog : 5 😐

Another one bites the dust …

Well, it is gone, done, finished. The first assignment for this year’s course with the Open University is submitted. It is winging its way across the ether as we speak. It actually turned out not to be a complete nightmare AND I got it submitted by the deadline, whoo! The large part got done two weeks ago when I had my bright spot and worked my way through all the diagram questions. Today and yesterday I was focused on getting the last of the short answer questions out of the way. I now know what the legal and ethical implications of database management are or at least my assignment knows. I’ve already overwritten those files in my memory.

When I haven’t been assignment working (most of the time) I have been (surprise, surprise) reading. Given my slow brain melting state the last few days I’ve been going back re-reading some favourites. Lois McMaster Bujold is one of my favourite authors. Her Miles Vorkosigan series blew me away when I first got started with Cordelia’s Honor back in 2008. Since then I have gone on to read everything she has every published that I can get my hands on! Anyway I was started off on this path of remembrance by her latest release – Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance. Having read the newest book in the series I decided to go back and read the earliest. I’m now back up to book 12 in the series so I’ll soon be back to where I started!

As a break in the science fiction writing I also started reading a book I’d been recommend by Amazon. I recently worked my way through the Nola O’Grady books by Katherine Kerr starting with License to Ensorcell. I loved these books – urban fantasy with a dash of humour. I can’t wait to find out with her next adventure might be. Since I’d run out of Nola’s adventures to read I tried a new book Blood Wager by Connie Suttle – book 1 in her Blood Destiny series. I really enjoyed it. I really like the heroine Lissa – a newly turned vampire. It’s fun hearing her complain about her new life not coming with a manual. I must say the ending annoyed me mostly because I wanted to thump one of the male characters round the head. When you start composing rants as you lie down to sleep dressing a character down for their behaviour you know you have been well and truly sucked into a series.
To distract myself from my spiraling rage I went back to visualizing my latest fantasy novel idea. I really should be trying to visualize in the novel I’ve already started but right now I don’t have the heart for it. I hope that I’ll feel more myself as the summer draws near and will then tackle the Moon Daughter project. In the meantime I’ve been dreaming up new worlds and characters. My ‘what-if’ from a couple of posts back (8th March 2013) has matured into 3 fleshed out characters, a world magic system, 2 local environments and 3 visualized scenes. This is still a very early phase though. I am nowhere near having a plot or character arc in sight!

Well now that I am done working for the day I shall head off to read the next book on my list either A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold or Blood Passage by Connie Suttle.

Hours Sleep Today so far : – 5 hours in 1 session 😦
Headache intensity / pain level : 2 😀
Nausea level : 0 😀
Joint / muscle pain : 2 😀
Fatigue : 4.5 🙂
Brain Fog : 5 😐

Headache, headache go away; Don’t come back another day …

I woke up today without a headache!!! 😀 😀 Does happy dance in head. The Gabapentin seems to be helping. Although by mid afternoon I was back in headache mode. I spent yesterday and today reading through my novel on my Kindle. Always very excited to see my work displayed on the screen! I went through and made notes about where extra scenes need to go in to line the novel up with my new and improved plot structure. This evening I went in yWriter and added in the extra chapters and scenes all ready for tomorrow. Hopefully I shall arise from my slumber, chow down on yogurt and fruit, and then begin to write about my young male hero trying to talk my young female heroine out of self harming.

 

It is just 2 hours until National Novel Writing Month begins. I can’t believe where all the time has gone. I think I am ready, ish! I now have worked out a rough outline for the ending. I’m not sure exactly sure how it will play out when I start writing but at least I have some sort of plan which is a lot more than I had yesterday! I have named a few more characters, worked through all the name changes with Search and Replace, taken out a few obvious overwritten passages. So I hope the draft is as it needs to be for me to start work on it tomorrow.

 

Apart from the writing month consuming all my thoughts I have actually watched a bit of TV. My sister and I sat down and watched the pilot episode of Elementary which we both enjoyed. We have Continuum and Arrow waiting to be watch so I shall have to spare some time from writing to watch them.

 

Anyway I’m off to rest my writing brain with a little R and R reading. I’m still working my way through the Mindhunter series – I’m reading Deadly Intent (book 4) next in the pile.

 

Hours Sleep Today so far : – 8 hours in 1 sessions 😀
Headache intensity / pain level : 2.5 🙂
Nausea level : 0 😀
Joint / muscle pain : 2 😀
Fatigue : 4 🙂
Brain Fog : 3 🙂

Who do you think you are looking at? …

Yes, that is the question, who? I’ve been on a naming frenzy yesterday. I need to name 107 characters so far created. I had 88 characters remaining without names but I made solid progress yesterday as I named 22 characters so only 66 character names left to go. Oddly enough in the naming stakes the more insignificant you are the more likely you are to have a name. It is only the difficult or major characters who I struggle to name. For instance at the moment it is mainly family members, military officers and one major viewpoint character who are without names. The good thing about the naming process is it forces me to focus on the characteristics I most want to highlight. With National Novel Writing Month only 34 hours away it has been good to immerse myself in the characters before I start writing again.

 

Other than that life has been nice and quiet. My sister and I finished watching Series 3 of Being Human last night. Love that show!! Eagerly looking forward to seeing if Lovefilm will send us the first disc in Series 4 quickly. Otherwise I’ve been reading Kylie Brant‘s Mindhunter series. I finished off book 3 Waking the Dead this morning and now am looking forward to book 4 Deadly Intent. I also read Jaycee Clark‘s Kinncaid Brothers Deadly Shadows. I am just loving these author’s novels. I need to find a way to include the same kind of menace in my work. At least I can count such pleasurable reading hours as research for my own novel! 🙂

 

Right now I’m off to try to name 66 other characters as well as get my head in the game for November 1st and writing 1,667 words a day.

 

Hours Sleep Today so far : – 7 hours in 1 sessions 🙂
Headache intensity / pain level : 3 🙂
Nausea level : 0 😀
Joint / muscle pain : 2 😀
Fatigue : 5 😐
Brain Fog : 5 😐

Winter is coming – hibernation is beginning …

For me hibernation involves curling up with my Kindle and never leaving my bedroom again. I’ve been in major reading mode this last week. My exam on the 12th October was amazing. It was the most relaxed exam I have ever sat. This was mainly because the paper followed a set layout for the questions. So I knew beforehand precisely what sort of answer would be needed for each question so there were no surprises. Of course that doesn’t mean I got the answers right!! Hopefully though I’ve done enough to get over 70% and therefore get a 2:1 on this module.

 

In response to my dropped stress levels my body then went into full ME crash mode. I’ve been having horrendous headaches, nausea, and fatigue.  I’ve therefore been profitably spending my time submerged in my Kindle devouring other writers’ worlds. The highlight of all this reading has been Suzanne Brockmann’s Troubleshooter series (The Unsung Hero). I’m loving the in-depth, intertwined storylines. The romance is really well drawn and the action believable. I love the storyline of David and Mallory. I’d fall in love with David too. 🙂  Finally the dork gets the girl!

 

In other news, National Novel Writing Month approaches. I have been mulling over my plot issues but am still mostly unresolved on the major issues i.e. the ending!! However I have made progress so once November rolls around I shall begin my plan to rewrite and restructure my novel to actually get into a fit state for consumption by a reader. Given my hibernating state I have not been near my computer for the last week but I shall endeavour to make some progress on character outlines and plot breakdowns in the next few days before November steams around.

 

Hours Sleep Today so far : – 8 hours in 2 sessions 😦
Headache intensity / pain level : 6 😦
Nausea level : 2 😐
Joint / muscle pain : 2 😀
Fatigue : 6 😦
Brain Fog : 6 😦

On your marks … Set … Go …

11 days until Open University software development exam – ahhh! :-S I began my revision this morning with creating a breakdown of the 6 past papers I own. It is amazing the patterns in questions. I can now tell you with 99.9 % confidence that I will need to draw a state diagram for question 6, that at some point I will need to draw an activity diagram, state the signature and specification of an operation and redraw a communication or sequence diagram to it’s counterpart diagram. I’m feeling much more confident now I see what I need to revise and what I don’t.

 

By the way my sister’s thesis was submitted on Thursday 28th September. I had only one day where I only got 3 hours sleep trying to get it all down. However we did have a week of eating, sleeping and proofreading! The end product was well worth it – it looked like a professional document, which is what we were aiming for. I am incredibly proud of my sister’s hard work, determination and professionalism. I’m expecting that she shall excel in the academic world. She has already been asked to oversee an analysis of undergraduate statistics performance. Now we begin the preparation for the viva (an oral exam) – she is worried about it but I know she’ll do herself proud.

 

After all that stress I’ve had a few days hibernating with a series of good books – getting my head out of thesis space. I’ve found myself in a romantic suspense mood so I’ve been motoring through different series – I think I’ve read about 15 books in the last 4 days. I’ve added Kristen Ashley (Rock Chick), Suzanne Ferrell (Kidnapped), Katie Reus (No One to Trust), Tess St John (Don’t Let it Show), and Julie Ann Walker (Hell on Wheels) to my list authors to watch for new releases list. I’m very excited because the nest book in Julie Ann Walker’s series is out tomorrow so I am counting the hours! I’m gradually working my way through their back catalog’s; it will be a good way to get some time out from software development definitions and diagrams.

 

I did manage to get a little time in on my novel on Saturday. I tried to outline my plot using the 7 Point System. I know I have to outline the plots for at least 4 of my characters since they are point of view characters but I think I may have to outline other characters as well mainly the bad guys. It is much harder than it looks! But I’m getting there. Hopefully once the exam is done I’ll have time before the November National Novel Writing Month to get myself ready to rewrite and finish this novel.

 

Hours Sleep Today so far : – 8 hours in 1 sessions 😀
Headache intensity / pain level : 4 🙂
Nausea level : 0 😀
Joint / muscle pain : 3 😀
Fatigue : 3 😀
Brain Fog : 4 😀

36 hours and counting …

Just 36 hours until I turn 29 years old. I can’t believe the time has gone by so quickly. If anyone asks me I still think I’m 27! Only 12 more months and I’ll be 30 – that makes me feel very old. 😦

Of course there are to be no birthday celebrations this week. PhD madness has descended and it is all hands to the pumps. Just 4 days remain until the my sister’s thesis needs to be printed off. I’ve done a wonderful job if I do say so myself. I have only the second half of Chapter 3 to read – all 40 pages, but I’ve read everything else so we are making progress. By my reckoning I think we are on track to finish in good time. We’ll combine a PhD thesis hand-in and birthday celebration meal next week sometime.

Sadly once the PhD thesis is given into strangers’ hands I shall be moving onto exam revision – boo. 😦 There should be plenty of time to work my way through the past papers and general unit notes. It is mainly a case of learning the definitions and diagram notations.

I did get very distracted yesterday by a wonderful program that might be of use to me in my writing – MindMap6. This is a free piece of software that enables you to make quick and easy mind maps. Now normally I avoid mind maps. I find them extremely chaotic and therefore abhorrent. However for my novel I am still trying to find the best way to represent individuals, their information and their relationships. It is possible that the mind maps will help me do that. Anyway I had a bit of fun playing around with the program and watching the tutorial videos. If nothing else I might use them as a way to store information about where all the information on characters is stored! The text view looks like it will be useful to me as my preferred way to view items even though the visual tool might be the easiest way to add in information. Anyway I won’t be able to do anything with it until the exam is over.  Looks like come November I’ll still be trying to figure out what my story is about and what the ending should be.

Despite being hard at work I have had time to do some reading. I read Whirlpool (The Julesburg Mysteries, Book One) by Lorena McCourtney. I don’t know if I like it or not. I’m a Christian but in general I’m not a fan of faith in fiction. I think this is mainly because I believe that God is a real person and just the same way I’d feel uncomfortable having my mum depicted in a novel so I feel about God. Now Lorena McCourtney does a reasonably good job at delineating the ups and downs of faith within an extraordinary event but the problem is it is very presumptuous to assume motivations or actions for God – we just can’t guess at what He may or may not do in a given situation. This is why I don’t use my own faith directly in my novels but rather have made up religions since I can happily manipulate my gods and goddesses and not be offending a real person. I enjoyed the novel but I’m not sure I would go on to read the next one. The faith aspect in the Ivy Malone novels was more softly handled and more to my taste.

I also got Dale Mayer’s series Psychic Visions: Tuesday’s Child, Hide’n Go Seek and Maddy’s Floor  read. I had a wonderful time working my way through them in the wee small hours of the morning while waiting for sleep to arrive. I’m very sad to have got to the end of this series. I shall keep a beady eye out for any other books come outing in the future. I might have a look at her young adult books when I fall off my mystery book wagon.

Another book I read during the hours of 3-6am this week was First Visions: Second Sight Book One by Heather Topham Wood. This was not such a success. I think maybe I was reading a different book to other reviewers. I thought that the book had major telling not showing issues as well as serious dialogue issues. I liked the premise and the plot. But I found the main character to be a whiny child although this may have been exacerbated by the fact telling rather than showing which tends to over-repeat and over emphasize characteristics such that even sympathetic characters can be made annoying. It’s not bad for a first novel but it could do with an editor to go through and make the author re-word sections to more description and less explanation.

Well there are plenty more books out there to read so I think I’ll go do that for a bit before heading back to the work face and trying to finish proofreading Chapter 3 of my sister’s thesis.

Hours Sleep Today so far : – 6 hours in 1 sessions 😦
Headache intensity / pain level : 3 😀
Nausea level : 0 😀
Joint / muscle pain : 4 😦
Fatigue : 4 🙂
Brain Fog : 3.5 😀

Anybody got any matchsticks? …

I’ve had 12 hours sleep and still feel like I could drift off at any moment. It was a heavy day yesterday – brain-wise. My sister and I got the grammer corrections done on Chapters 1 and 2 of her PhD thesis. We’ve got 65 comments corrections to make on Chapter 1 and 130 odd on Chapter 2. So if we crack on we might get those two chapters done and finished by the end of the day. I’ve still got to go tackle Chapters 3, 4 and 5 though.

 

As part of our relaxation from short-term stores, primacy and recency, my sister and I dragged out the first Harry Potter film – Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. My goodness the actors are young. I really like the first film because it is the happiest film/book of the seven. I remember the magic of it the first time I saw Diagon Alley, or panned up to see Hogwarts. Just seeing all the places I had imagined on film was very exciting. Also because of the short length of the book, the film was a pretty faithful representation. The later books get further and further away from the books just because there was too much information to be included. Anyway looks like my sister and I might be having a Harry Potter film run as we try to find ways to relax after arduous correction sessions.

 

I did actually get some reading time the last couple of days as I waited for the next PhD chapter to ready for reading. I got up-to-date on Terri Reid’sMary O’Reilly Paranormal Mystery series by reading the latest book – Broken Promises. I thought about reading Victoria Laurie‘s Psychic Eye Mysteries, Book 7 – Doom with a View, but in the end I spent a bit of time pottering around on Amazon finding new series to read. So I devoured my way through Tuesday’s Child Book 1 of Psychic Visions by Dale Mayer instead. I always love to find a new author’s catalog I can work my way through so I’m looking forward to spending some more time in Dale Mayer’s worlds. I bought a couple of other mystery authors so I’ll be working my way through my new authors before I come back to this series. I’ve got Whirlpool (The Julesburg Mysteries, Book One) by Lorena McCourtney lined up to read next. I love Lorena’s Ivy Malone Mysteries so I am looking forward to having time to read the Julesburg series.

 

Right time to get back to proofreading before my sister comes back with her whip.
Hours Sleep Today so far : – 12 hours in 1 sessions 😐
Headache intensity / pain level : 5 😦
Nausea level : 0 😀
Joint / muscle pain : 4 😐
Fatigue : 5 😐
Brain Fog : 4 😐

Cure is worse than the disease …

On Sunday I had an generalized allergy reaction. I have no idea what set me off but I was itchy all over. This happens to me occasionally – I’ve given up asking why. So I dusted off my antihistamine tablets, tossed one back, and enjoyed my remaining hours awake itch free. On Monday morning I woke by choking on stomach acid. It was the start to one of those days. I had a dreadful headache, think sandpaper across your forehead, but put this down to my rude awakening. Since headaches are run of mill for me I didn’t think much of it until the breakfast incident. I had just happily spooned a collection of chocolate puffs and soya milk into my mouth when I suddenly had a mouth full of stomach acid. Thankfully I managed to avoid a) choking to death and b) vomiting into my breakfast. I did make a quick dash to the bathroom to hover by the toilet for a while. After a short while though it seemed my system calmed down again.

 

Despite a 12 hour sleep overnight after four hours awake I just had to go and lie down in a heap in a dark room. I thought I was sleeping quite lightly but it turns out my sister hoovered the entire house – right up to my bedroom door without waking me. This is  a very strange occurrence since usually someone stepping at the top of the stair will wake me let alone the hoover being dragged around. Anyway I decided to give up on the day and hibernate instead.

 

So on Sunday and Monday my sister and I got all the Paralympics watched – go Team GB. Finished Series 2 of Being Human, watched discs 2 and 3 of Series 3 of Dexter. And I still had time to finished Chapter 2 of my sister’s thesis and find the time to read the first half of Terri Reid‘s Secret Hollows – A Mary O’Reilly Paranormal Mystery (Book 7).

 

Hours Sleep Today so far : – 9 hours in 1 sessions 🙂
Headache intensity / pain level : 5 😦
Nausea level : 2 😐
Joint / muscle pain : 3 🙂
Fatigue : 5 😐
Brain Fog : 5.5 😐