Under the Skin

The November after my engagement ended, I did NaNoWriMo.  It was a rotten novel in so many ways--I got to 50,000 words, so I can't actually call it a failure.  A shame, too, because it was just a gorgeous plot and story.  I just wasn't emotionally able to really write at the time--my engagement had ended in mid-September and it was a quite sudden and hurtful end of a relationship.  Maybe I'll go back to the novel some day, but a lot the writing can go away.  However, sometimes, the emotions that I expressed during that month were so very raw and went to deep places of my soul that I don't explore much. One of these concepts that I explored was the idea of your story being someone else's story.  The narrators of my story were the servants of a family, but the story was not theirs--but their lives were dictated by the story of their employers.  I think that this was exploring a minor theme in my own life--trial by someone else's story.  Not really owning your st

Remember I told you how much fun it is to write bad reviews?  Well, exhibit A! Catherine deVault's father is always off on the high seas, while she stays home and takes care of her sickly mother and learns how to be a proper lady from her governesses.  Everyone thinks that Captain deVault's ship, the Reprisal, is simply another British merchant.  But Catherine has surmised the truth--her father is a pirate captain!  When her mother dies, and her father plans to send Catherine to relatives in New England, she tells her father that she knows the truth, and she wants to go with him.  But pirate superstitions about women, and the gorgeous cabin boy, William, prove to make things more complicated. The premise for this book was so extremely intriguing--high seas adventure, strong female characters, historical fiction, pirates, noble pirates vs. scoundrels, coming of age, and secret forbidden love.  I was quite excited to read it, and was disappointed when it was full of ill-

Amazingly, the second mission of the Cupcake Quest resulted in success!  Sweet Tooth Fairy is the king of cupcake places in Utah.  Or maybe queen...I don't know, are cupcake places male or female?  Anyway, Sweet Tooth Fairy has something like nine locations through Utah, and I think they even have one in Arizona now. They won Cupcake Wars at one point, but that can mean two things.  1) They have good cupcakes.  or 2) The other competitors have nasty cupcakes.  I had seen their episode, and I was unsure which category they fell in, because each and every round, someone else made grievous errors (sometimes even more than one person made grievous errors) that got them eliminated.  On the other hand, the judges only had glowing things to say about Sweet Tooth Fairy's cupcakes.  The only criticisms they had in the entire show were: 1) I love your sweet potato cupcake, but I wish there were just a few more pecans and 2) I love the taste of the creme brulee cupcake, but it's jus

I told you that I'd be back in June, everyone!  So, a major reason people don't keep their New Year's Resolutions is that they don't remember them.  Thus, every three months, I shall recommit myself to my New Year's Resolutions.  How are we doing? Health Goals Eat at least one meal every day: We are hit or miss, but I am to recommit myself to this one.  I did pretty well this week, but I also was traveling, which makes me remember. Carry around a water bottle: I was doing really well, and then I stopped doing really well.  Recommit. Writing Goals Finish first draft of novel "War to End All Wars": I have worked on it, but I need to do more. Finish first draft of novel "Passing the Setting Sun": COMPLETE! Complete NaNoWriMo in November : Not yet November. Reading Goals Read at least 80 books: I have read 73...we're going to surpass this one.  5% of total books read must be non-fiction: Currently at 5.4% 7.5% of total book

“Just follow me and run like your life depends on it. Because it does.”  Another round of book reviews is coming your way, all!  I have oftentimes explained that I want to have four or five lives--one where I can go to grad school. One where I stay a medical lab scientist.  One where I get married at nineteen and have nine children. One where I become a high school French/biology teacher. You get the idea.  I have recently learned of another life that I'd love to have.  I have learned that there is such a thing as a bibliotherapist. They help people with mental health issues (especially depression) through a guided reading program.  I'm not very good with people (in fact, one of my coworkers the other day said very gently, "You should NEVER be a psychiatrist,") but I'm very good at recommending books if I do say so myself. And here's one I recommend highly As you all know, I do not review a book that is part of series until I am caught up with the s

“Time travel isn’t a wonder; it’s an abomination.”    “I guess you can never really know what's going on inside another person.”  I once again have a list of books to review.  Darn it.  I thought I'd caught up on that.  (On an unrelated note, I just spent about thirty seconds trying to remember how to conjugate "to catch."  I suppose night-shift sometimes does get to me.  I was thinking "had catchen," for a bit and then it went to "had caughten."  Oh well).   I was trying to decide which book I should review.  I have a few stellar reviews to write, which I'm excited about because I loved the books so much.  I have a few awful reviews to write, which I'm excited about because, as Anton Ego says, "We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read." But I settled on this book, which is in the first category.  Thanks to my Aunt Evelyn for the recommendation.  I have found, in my endless rec