Monday Morning Post: Mash-Up Edition

Finished another short story yesterday. It's called The Loft, and I'm hoping it'll be included in an anthology of horror stories. Never tried to write a scary story before, and I have no sense of how successful I was this time. It's good to stretch, though.
                                                                       (Burnsie the dog discovers his passion for gardening.)
So spending yesterday wrestling with the laptop has me inclined towards blogs with a writing theme for today's mash-up. First, you should check out Sara W. Foster's post
Married To Her Father's Foe. It's a true story from the American Revolution, and I gotta think there's a historical fiction writer out there who'll be truly inspired by it.

Next, you should check out this post by A. Victoria Mixon: 3 Things To Know About Exposition & Telling. Victoria's an editor, writer, and blogger, and I love her posts because she's so smart and she says such intelligent things about writing. This post examines how the contemporary fascination with exposition is effecting what gets published, and in a later post she looks at some of the reasons why. Both of them are worth checking out.

Triberr introduced me to Melodie Wright, who blogs at Forever Rewriting. She's been involved in the A to Z Challenge - blogging on a different letter of the alphabet every day of the month of April, and you should look at her post K is for: keeping faith.  It includes a Vlog interview with NYT bestselling author Beth Revis and it's the most encouraging piece about failure you'll ever see.

This next one isn't exactly writing-related, but Julie Farrar wrote a thought-provoking piece about the Ashley Judd controversy in Who's the Worst Enemy of Women Julie's post contains a link to the essay Ms. Judd wrote about how women get unfairly judged by their appearance at every turn. Given that I'm turning 50 later this week, the whole kerfufle is really resonating, and Julie does a good job of expanding on the points Ms Judd makes.

Then, for something completely different, take a look at Ann Cory's Bawdy Talk - Sweet Saturday Sample . Her snippet's a tease, and I loved it. Her A to Z Challenge posts all show pics of dreamy vacation spots, and I liked this week's Six Sentence Sunday post, too, but it was a little too naughty for my PG rating. You can go there if you like. I won't tell...

;)

Peace,

Liv

Book Addict

Actually, I was going to title this post Book Whore, but didn't want you to get the wrong idea. Honestly, though, when it comes to buying books, I'm incorrigible, and getting a Kindle has made it worse, because now no one can see the stacks that are coming into the house. 
You think I'm kidding? In the last week - since 3/24/12 - I've downloaded samples for the following books:
This Brilliant Darkness     by     Red Tash
The Alchemist of Souls    by    Anne Lyle
Caught (Gemini Men)      by    Jami Alden
Wicked As They Come    by    Delilah S. Dawson
The Indie Author's Guide to the Universe by Jeff Bennington
Midnight's Sweet Kiss      by    Ann Cory
And those are just the samples. They're more like bookmarks, things that caught my eye, reminders of what I want to take a closer look at. And I will take a closer look. 

I also downloaded Her Heart's Desire by Adriana Ryan, and the short story Witch Upon A Star by Deborah Blake, which is a follow-up to her novel Witch Ever Way You Can (a book that totally rocked).

And then, because life is always better when you go to a bookstore, on Thursday night I picked up the following titles at Elliot Bay Books:
Tales of the City                by     Armistead Maupin (because it's a great book and I haven't read it in years)
The Once & Future King      by     TH White (because I've never read it and feel like I should, and I love the King Arthur myth)
The Maltese Falcon             by     Dashiel Hammett (because it's such a great example of a mystery, worth studying, and I've never read it)
The Virgin's Lover              by     Phillipa Gregory (because I recently tried my hand at writing a historical short story and thought I might learn from someone who's really good at it - this is a novel not a short story, so I'll be looking for how she handled the time period)
Discount Armageddon         by     Seanan McGuire (because I love the author's October Daye series and hadn't seen this one before)

Clearly I have a bias towards fantasy & paranormal. I figure if I want real-life drama, I'll go to work. When I read, I want something fun, something that takes me out of the real world.  And if you follow me on twitter, you'll know I frequently tweet that it's raining in Seattle, so I should have plenty of time to lounge around with a book or my Kindle in my hands.

Not exactly

The problem is I'd need about 37 hours in a day to get to all the books I want to read. But I will get to as many of these as I can - along with the 60 or so other books on my Kindle, and the stacks of books around the nightstand in my bedroom. Because there was something about each one that intrigued me. I know how much time and effort went into the creation of every last one, and I may not end up liking all of them, but I appreciate the fact that someone had something to say, and they put it down on paper. Or, e-paper, for us modern kids.
Peace,
Liv

(photo from Cavalier)