I don’t know how my e-mail gets so out of hand. I check it every day, usually multiple times. I mark as spam anything thing from anywhere I don’t want to see again. I pay my bills when the land. And yet, ninety-two freaking e-mails not counting the ones I had looked at and hadn’t answered yet. The feeling I had when I deleted everything? Priceless. Because THIS time I’m going to keep on top of things . . .
What made you happy this week?
This week I read a cookbook on sandwiches without bread that had really good stuff in it. Also a lot of re-reads: Chase, Stout, Gilbert . . . yeah, I’m not seeing a pattern, either, except “good books I know won’t let me down.” That’s a lot. But I’ve just started the new Time Police book, Saving Time, and so far it’s great (Jane is still a delightful bad ass).
What did you read this week?
ETA: Just finished Saving Time and it was a lot of fun. Needs to focus more on Team Weird and stop bouncing from catastrophe to catastrophe in other character’s heads, but still good.
It’s cocoon season, the part where I put up plastic on the windows, rehang the insulated drapes, and plug in the heated throws. The dogs and cat get fuzzier and I get more interested in cocoa and hot soup.
In other working news, I now have 92 unread e-mails in my inbox, and that’s not counting the other hundred plus I’ve read and haven’t deleted. I see a purge coming, so if you e-mailed me about something and didn’t get an answer, give it to the end of the week and then e-mail again. I think part of my work tomorrow is going to be a Delete All.
What did you do this week?
It’s beautiful here with the rain falling softly. Autumn is the best season. Well, there’s spring, too . . .
What made you happy this week?
This week I read The Last Graduate, sequel to A Deadly Education, and some of the Rivers of London graphic novels. I’m still on the fence about all of them, which is probably just me and not the stories. Too distracted to read.
What did you read this week?
The first thing I did this morning was wake up and try to remember if it was Tuesday or Wednesday. This does not bode well for the rest of the working day. On the docket for today, picking up prescriptions, betaing a friend’s WiP, experimenting with eggs in the microwave, diagramming out Nita for the umpteenth time, scrubbing the kitchen floor.
It’s Wednesday (for sure, I checked). What did you do this week?
I just finished Naomi Novik’s sequel to A Deadly Education, and I have thoughts, but they are not organized. So in no particular order, just off the top of my head as I close the book . . .
SPOILERS BELOW, DO NOT READ ON IF YOU HAVEN”T READ A DEADLY EDUCATION AND THE LAST GRADUATE.
It’s getting colder up here in the northern hemisphere. Days are shorter. Apple cider is everywhere. School buses, those big yellow motarized bricks, are back on the road. The leaves aren’t changing here–this is NJ, we don’t get vibrant falls–but up in Vermont they’re getting cold nights and their usual ridiculous foliage (Vermont just shows off in the autumn, flaunting it’s loud sense of color and maple syrup). There’s always a part of me that listens for the Wapakoneta High School band, something I heard every fall for the first seventeen years of my life: down the alley, across Auglaize street, down the side street, across the river, past the swimming pool and there was the stadium (very small stadium) and the band practicing, faintly but insistent. (Ohio State has its famous “Script Ohio,” so we had the not nearly as famous “Wapakoneta Wiggling W” where each band member stood in place and wiggled like they were trying to get rid of a wedgie. Well, it was a small high school.) It’s funny how a season is always an amalgamation of things: what’s happening in nature (didn’t the days used to be longer?), what’s happening in the community (I grew up in Ohio so that was football), what’s happening in stores (temporary big box Halloween stores, OMG), all of it schmushing together to let you know that Change is happening, kick up your heartbeat, remind you that it’s a new season, time to start over again.
I love autumn. It makes me happy.
What made you happy this week?
It has just occurred to me that I have slowly been easing over into the dark side of fiction. Okay, not exactly dark maybe, but definitely supernatural. I just re-read most of the Rivers of London series, I have the sequel to A Deadly Education on deck, and I am eagerly awaiting the arrival in mid-October of the next Time Police novel. This may explain how I ended up writing The Devil in Nita Dodd.. I also have a lot of plain contemporary novels started, but even some of them have ghosts (good old Alice). Since we’re heading into October and Halloween territory tomorrow, this may just be the universe sending me a sign.
So what have you been reading?
Today I am reinforcing my mail box, painting a sign for my house numbers, and doing another medical appointment. Oh, yeah, and working on a book. Just one damn thing after another.
What did you do this week?