Revisiting Old Novels

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I have to say that working on a fanfiction I started in high school has been interesting.  It’s been years since I’ve worked on it, having abandoned it after a year in college.  I can’t remember why I abandoned it now, but working on it again has brought back a lot of memories for me. 

It’s been slightly difficult to go back and work on it, in that I’ve had to go back and reread it to remind myself of what’s going on.  My writing has gotten a lot better over the last 8 years.  I still have no idea where it’s going, but I feel good about working on it again.  It’s mostly to prove that I can finish what I start, which I’m confident I can do now.  Plus, it’s kind of like my baby, you know? 

I have no idea if I’ll ever put up the chapters I’ve added, so for now, I’m just waiting to see where it goes before I make any decisions. 

Here’s what I find weird though.  Of all the things I could go back and work on, I decided to go with my 1st ever fanfiction.  It’s an interesting choice, but I’m glad I’ve decided to go back and work on it.  It’s slowly becoming one of my favorites again, although going back and working on something several years later is weird.  Especially since I’ve never done it before.

And for the 1st time since November, I’m accomplishing some of the stuff I set out to do.  That makes me happy, and I’m reminded why I love writing so much.

Innocent Traitor

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Book: Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir

Pages/Format: 399/hardcover

My Thoughts: Having read several of her books, I thought I’d give this book a try.  It’s about the life of Lady Jane Grey, who is also known as the 9 Days’ Queen.

The format I found to be somewhat annoying, as she shifted between the different characters.  Just as I got used to one character, she would sometimes switch to someone else.  While it was interesting to see the different perspectives, it would have been nice to focus on one character throughout the novel.  Plus, I felt like the shifting characters fell flat- the characters had very similar voices, and if it weren’t for the “headers” and different events/relationships, it would be very hard to distinguish between everyone.  Personally, I thought the most distinct character was the executioner of Lady Jane Grey.   

Something I thought was interesting was that I found myself wanting to take notes.  I think that’s the direct result of having read several of her non-fiction books, and taking notes what I’m reading. 

I could envision everything happening- she really brought the people to life, and dug deeper than just the facts, which also brought the events and the people to life.  I honestly felt like I was one of the characters in the book.  Or if not one of the characters, then I felt like I was eavesdropping or peering into their life in some way. 

My Rating: It gets a 3 out of 5, as it is Weir’s 1st attempt at fiction.  It was very enjoyable overall, despite the fact that the characters sounded very similar.

I, Lorelei

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Book: I, Lorelei by Yeardley Smith

Pages/Format: 339/Hardcover

My Thoughts: This book was okay.  It’s about 11-year-old Lorelei, who writes a journal to her cat who died.  She chronicles her life as a 6th grader so that he knows what’s going on in her life.

I thought it looked interesting when I was at the library.  I liked how Smith used journal entries to tell the story, and the fact that the journal was written to her cat made it more interesting and original.  And the fact that she was writing to her cat made it feel a lot more personal.  Lorelei included a horoscope or a word-of-the-day too, which was different and slightly unexpected. 

A few parts made me smile, and a few times I even felt sad for Lorelei.  I found my attention wandering a few times, getting bored with the story. 

I found it hard to relate to at times, but that’s probably because it’s targeted to kids, and I’m not the target audience, but it was still enjoyable, and held my interest long enough to get through it.  I’d definitely recommend it for kids.

Rating: 3 out of 5.  I liked the format, and found myself wanting to know what was going on in Lorelei’s life.  Writing an entire novel in letters or as journal entries is something I definitely want to doing sometime, but nothing I’ve really come up with would work well with that.

And The Research Has Begun

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I’ve started rereading The Children of Henry VIII by Alison Weir.  It’s been a while since I’ve read it, and since I’m determined to write something set during Tudor England, it might give me an idea or two.  And since I’ve been listening to Tudor Talk, I’ve been inspired to read everything I can about the Tudors. 

I’ve started compiling a list of books I want to read, and here they are:

  • The Wars of the Roses by Alison Weir
  • The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir
  • The Life of Elizabeth I by Alison Weir
  • Jane Boleyn: The True Story of the Infamous Lady Rochford by Julia Fox
  • The Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII by David Starkey
  • Pretty much anything else by Alison Weir

 I’m a big fan of Alison Weir, and I’ve heard about the David Starkey book, so I’m curious as to what he has to say.  And I want to compare and contrast his book with Alison Weir’s book.  And I think he has a book about Elizabeth I, so that may end up on the list as well. 

I’m not sure if I’ll read any other books, mostly because I’m not sure what other books are out there, but also because I have a good number of books I want to read.  Plus, they have to get their information from somewhere, so I’ll have to check out the bibliographies if I need/want more information. 

I might start reading some historical fiction too, just to get some ideas, and see what other people have done.  I’ve read most of the Philippa Gregory books, which were okay, but there are a few I haven’t read, so those will probably go on the list. 

The nonfiction stuff is probably going to take me a while, since I’ll be taking notes, but I should be able to get through the fiction stuff pretty easily.  It looks like I’ll have plenty to read, but thankfully it counts towards my 100 book challenge, so I’m killing 2 birds with one stone.

Small Steps Are The Way To Go

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Setting small specific goals are really working out so far, so I think I’ll stick with that for now. 

I’ve written 692 words this week, and I’m hoping to add on to that today, even if it’s 100 words.  Last week, I ended up doing around 1000 words or so, and while I’m not neccessarily aiming for that, I still have more words than I would have written otherwise.  There’s nothing really new I can odd, other than Harry and Ron somehow ended up in the underworld, and they most definitely were not supposed to be there.   

The character profiles are also coming along okay.  I didn’t answer every question, mostly because I wasn’t sure of how the character would react.  I always want to fill the thing out completely, but at the same time, if I’m not sure of something, it’s easier to leave it blank and come back to it.  I’m not sure if I’ll ever go back and work on it or if I’ll wait until I actually start writing to go back to it.  Sometimes it’s better to wait and see what unfolds as opposed to planning every little detail. 

I also went to the gym, which was great.  My biggest problem is getting myself there, especially since I spend most of my time at home.  This week, setting a goal (going twice) seemed to work out well, so I will go 3 times next week.

The 100 book challenge is going okay.  I’ve been keeping track of the books here at my blog, plus I’ve been using goodreads.  According to them, I’m 6 books behind, but there’s no doubt I’ll be able to read 6 more books this month.  Plus, I checked out some books from the library, so that’ll help out some too.  I don’t know why I stopped checking books out from the library, but I’ll definitely be doing that more often.

So here are my goals for next week: I will write 150 words for the giant prehistoric chicken, turning point, and a 3rd novel of my choosing.  I will work on the last page of my character profiles that I’ve been working on the last couple weeks.  I already mentioned my gym goal for the week.  And I’ll have 1-2 books read in the next week.

Island Of The Blue Dolphins

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Book: Island Of The Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell

Pages/Format: 181/Paperbook

My Thoughts: It’s been a while since I’ve read it, but it’s still one of my favorite books.  The first time I read it was in elementary school, and I’ve read it several times since then.  After the frustration of reading Beloved, I wanted to read something lighter.

I remembered why I loved it so much in the first place.  It’s the story of Karana, who is stranded on an island with her brother Ramo.  He’s left behind on the island, and even thoug Karana wants the ship she’s on to wait for him, they can’t because of an approaching storm.  He dies, leaving Karana alone on the island for several years.  She takes on a lot of the tasks that were done by the males in her village, like hunting and making spears.

I loved the plot, and how she managed to survive for what seems like quite a while.  The author’s note at the end intrigued me: O’Dell writes that the novel is based on a real woman who lived on an island off the California coast from 1835 to 1853.  She is apparently known as the Lost Woman of San Nicolas and really jumped off the boat despite all efforts to restrain her.  I’m definitely curious about the historical aspects, since the whole novel seems to be based on history.  I may research it at some point, to see how accurate his claims really are, but her skirt of green cormorant feathers was sent to Rome- it doesn’t say where, unfortunately, because I’d definitely want to check it out.

I found her to be a very sympathetic character- trying to survive on the island while waiting for someone to come back and rescue her.  She gets used to being by herself until the Aleuts come back, and she befriends Tutok, realizing she was lonely after they left.  A couple ships come after that, and in the end, she decides to leave the island with her dog and 2 birds.

Rating: It gets a 4 out of 5.  It’s not the best thing I’ve ever read, but I love the story, and seeing her survive on the island.

Some of My Favorite Podcasts

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Today, I’m sharing a few of my favorite podcasts.  I finally decided I needed to start listening to them, since they’re piling up.   

  • Tudor Talk: It’s all about the Tudor Dynasty in pop culture, so it covers the t.v. show on showtime, different movies, and books covering the time period.  It looks like it’ll be going on for a while, so that’ll give me plenty of time to catch up. 
  • Jane Austen Podcast: It’s about Jane Austen, her books, movie adaptations and her life.  I’ve been catching up on this one as well, but I’m taking my time catching up on it.  The woman doing the podcast had to stop doing the podcast due to lack of time, which is why I’m taking my time with it.  It’s too bad, because I’m really enjoying it.
  • Accio-Potter Wizard Radio: It’s a podcast devoted completely to playing wizard rock, which is something I’ve been listening to more frequently.  There are well-known bands like Harry and the Potters and Draco and the Malfoys, and bands I had never heard of before, like The Quaffle Kids and The Hufflepunks.  The band names and song titles alone make listening to wizard rock worth it.  I’ve been catching up on it slowly, since updates are not as frequent as they used to be.
  • The History Chicks: They cover different women, both historical and fictional.  Since it’s relatively new, I only have a handful of episodes to catch up on.  
  • Gilmore Girls Re-Watch Podcast: The hosts are rewatching all 7 seasons of Gilmore Girls, and talking about Gilmore Girls one episode at a time.  I actually might start re-watching gilmore girls right along with them, since it’s been a while since I’ve watched it.

The problem I tend to have with podcasts is it’s hard for me to find something I like- it seems like some of the podcasts that are even mildly interesting aren’t updated, and if they are, it’s updated very infrequently.  Or it’s interesting, but for some reason, I can’t get into it. 

Podcasts are good to listen to, in that I don’t get distracted.  Unless I’m listening to Accio-Potter Wizard Radio, in which case I always want to start singing along.

Beloved

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Title: Beloved by Toni Morrison

Pages/Format: 324 pages/paperback

My Thoughts: This is yet another book sitting on my bookshelf that I started and never got around to finishing.  Having never read Toni Morrison before, I thought it would be a good idea to read at least one of her books.  I found it hard to get into, and hard to follow.  I felt confused for a good chunk of the book, often wondering if I was missing anything.  A few times, I even had to go back several pages to see if I really did miss anything.

It is different from a lot of the books I’m used to, in terms of how it’s written.  It jumps around and the scenes are disconnected, plus there’s a bit of stream-of-consciousness towards the end.  It doesn’t follow the typical, straightfoward narrative that I’m used to reading, which frustrated me for most of the book.  Towards the end, everything started to make a lot more sense, which eased my frustration. 

I’m really ambivalent towards Beloved.  I loved the imagery, and Morrison’s writing style, as much as it frustrated me.  I felt like I was really there, and had a clear picture of what the characters were experiencing.  On the other hand, you definitely need to be engaged with the book in order to “connect the dots.”

I felt really out of my league when I was reading it- parts of it went right over my head, and like I said before, I flipped back and forth to figure out what was going on.  I don’t know if I’m just completely stupid for not “getting it” (like some of the reviewers on Amazon seem to imply), or if it takes several reads in order to truly understand the book on a deeper level. 

I am willing to give it another chance, since I didn’t read it as carefully as I should have.  It’s definitely not a light read, or something you can read in a few days.  I think when I’m ready to read it again, I’m going to read it more carefully, underlining and writing notes in the margins if I have to.

Rating: Right now, it gets 3 stars out of 5.  It was difficult to read, but I loved the imagery and how Morrrison wrote the book.  Yes, her style was hard to get used to, and frustrated me, but at the same time, I think it worked well for the novel.

Spilling Open

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Title: Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself

Author: Sabrina Ward Harrison

Pages/Format: 176/Paperback

My Thoughts: I’ve had this on my bookshelf, and the last time I looked at it was when I first bought it.  It’s a mix of being a personal journal, photography, art, and collages.  I loved it when I first got it, but now, it’s okay.  There are still several things she says that ring true, and resonates with me, but overall, I had mixed feelings this time around.  I found the text hard to read, and some of the pages had too much going on for me to fully enjoy it.

It was fairly repetitive and angsty at times, which didn’t really bother me, since my journals are somewhat similar in that regard.  And since it’s the diary of a young girl discovering who she is, it was somewhat expected.  There’s a fair amount of rambling, iand sn’t really coherent.  That was disappointing, but again, for a personal journal-type book, it wasn’t that surprising either.

I loved some of the quotes she had scattered throughout the book, but found she relied too much on them at times.  It would have been nice to see more of her own thoughts, even if the actual text was disjointed, and didn’t always make sense.  That was another thing I didn’t like- the text was all over the place, and it was hard to connect some of the thoughts together. 

I loved a lot of the artwork and photography, which quickly became one of my favorite parts of the book.  However, it did overwhelm some of the pages, since there was too much to focus on and look at.

Rating: I give it a 4 out of 5.  The artwork was great, and she captures what it’s like to be a young woman really well, which is why it gets a higher rating than it really should have received.  Also boosting the rating is the fact that I feel inspired to be more creative with my own journal.

Get Ready For The Pictures!

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Yesterday, I participated in the Automattic Worldwide WordPress 5k, and I have a bunch of pictures from it!

It took me about 1 hour and 15 minutes- mostly because I’m not in shape at all, so I walked really slow, but also because I stopped to talk a few pictures along the way.  I had forgotten to take a look at the time I started, so the only reason I know how long it took me was because I was listening to a podcast that’s about an hour and a half.  I did stop and take a break, because my feet and my lower back were killing me, and I have the feeling my legs will be somewhat sore today.

A 5k is about 3.1 miles, and I did mine around a golf course.  It has a decent trail around it, and there were markers indicating how far you’ve walked.  I’ve walked around it a few times, and I knew it was equivalent to a 5k, so I didn’t really have to  map out a course or anything.

Unfortunately, there really weren’t much I could take pictures of, but here’s what I did take:

The One Mile Mark

This was the 1st thing that was picture worthy.  At this point, I walked just under half a mile from where I had started.

The "Official" Start of the Trail

This is the “alleged” start of the trail around the golf course.  You don’t have to start there, of course, but I thought it was interesting.  Plus, it’s on the other side of the golf course that I started at, and I didn’t want to drive to this end just to start here.  Besides, it’s at a park, and there were quite a few birthday parties, so it was good I didn’t start there.

One of Two Duck Ponds

This is one of two duck ponds I saw.  And there’s nothing better than seeing ducks on a nice day.

The 2 Mile Marker

At this point, I wasn’t even paying any attention to the markers and how far I had walked, but since there wasn’t any nice scenery, I had to take a picture of something.

Even More Ducks!

This was the 2nd of two duck ponds I saw.  The pond was actually right next to these ducks, but I couldn’t get any decent ones of ducks and the pond, so I settled for just ducks.  My grandpa used to take me to feed these ducks when I was little.  Probably not these ducks, but the ducks by this particular pond.

My Finish Line!

And this was what I saw when I finished.  Again, the scenery was terrible, since there were a couple parking lots, so I settled for the sign.  I really had no clue what to take a picture of, since taking a picture of the golf course with golfers in the background was a little weird.  Taking a picture of the parking lot was out of the question, as was a picture of the golf course restaraunt.  So random sign on a fence was my best choice.

It was really good, though, just to walk, and listen to a podcast.  And I promise that I’ll go to the gym a couple times this week!  Just not today though.  Moving’s going to be hard.