Sometimes I forget how much I love it.

Take right now, for example: I have this idea for this year's NaNo that it will have a quasi-Victorian setting, maybe based on reality, maybe a little steampunk, so I looked up books on Victorian history. For those keeping score, that was when Queen Victoria ruled England, circa 1840-1870. I now own three books on Victorian history, because not only are the books full of information and juicy little tidbits that will pad out my daily word count nicely, but sometimes they're just hilarious. I'm sure that someday people will look back at our time and wonder what we were thinking, because that's what's happening when I read these. And I'm having fun. I like learning. History can be interesting!

But I'm not the sort of person to seek out nonfiction books normally. I have to have a good reason. And research for NaNo is a pretty darn good reason.

This is why I know I could be a professional writer. Because I don't mind the research. It's quite fun to absorb all the bits of information during the research phase then have them suddenly coalesce in a somewhat coherent whole during the draft phase.

Here's to research. May it never get boring.

And here's to me, who got a whole lot of books (and the 2nd season of Heroes), because it's that little thing known as my birthday. Huzzah.

Posted by Jen at 12:33 AM | Permalink

vote for ATTS: ER | Wishlist: {Amazon} |

  The Hound and the Falcon, Judith Tarr and Inside the Victorian House, Judith Flanders
file under: books , celebration , reallife , thoughts , writings

I'm hanging out here in the Denver Airport, waiting for a plane. I was supposed to be leaving right about now, but the plane was delayed two hours getting into LAX, and therefore it will be about an hour and a half late getting here. I know I was going to get home late...but now it's really late.

This hasn't happened to me before, I don't think. I'm pretty sure that all the times I've flown I've never had a delayed plane, so in the grand scheme of things, it's not horrible. It's not like I won't get to sleep in my own bed tonight (though the beds in the Hyatt were pretty darn good), like the person who was suppposed to be on a 5:30 pm flight to Chicago and didn't leave until slightly before 8 and will have to spend the night there. I've got plenty to do (knitting, iPod, laptop--go free WiFi @ Denver, boo not-free @ STL--several books, some of which are personalized with author signatures and of course that little thing called writing) and I don't have to go to work tomorrow, but I do wish I was home. And I'll have to have some food here eventually, which I'm not too happy with, because I've had to buy every single meal since after breakfast on Thursday morning, and I'll be quite glad to go home to actual food that doesn't cost me money every time.

Denvention (Worldcon) was a lot of fun. I got to stalkhang out with Carol Berg quite a bit and I roomed with one of my friends from last year's Archon/NASFiC, so that was cool. Not quite as many writing-centric panels as I would like, and I definitely want to go to World Fantasy now, to compare the two, but this year's WF is out, since it's in Calgary and I don't have a valid passport, so I'll have to wait for next Nov...and eek, it's in Nov, which is NaNo time (eek, NaNo is only three months away) and wow was that a run-on sentence. I'll try to do better next time.

I like Denver. I could live here. But I'd like to be at home.

Posted by Jen at 9:33 PM | Permalink

vote for ATTS: ER | Wishlist: {Amazon} |

  Mischief Managed, HP3 sdtk
  Blood and Iron Elizabeth Bear (bought at Worldcon)
file under: reallife

Yes, I finished another book in less than six hours.

Last year it was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows...this year it was Breaking Dawn, the fourth book in the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer.

I went to the midnight release party at my neighborhood Borders with my friend Josh. It wasn't that big of a deal, but there was a trivia contest with stickers as prizes and a costume contest. Josh had to wear a pink wristband (so did I, to show we preordered and thus got to get in line before some number of people there, but I didn't have to worry about my masculinity being threatened). We sat around and talked about writing and authors and the new Star Wars animated movie coming out, and I had a Vampire's Kiss smoothie (aka strawberry ). Then it finally got around to being 12:01 am and we got our books. I picked up Randy Pausch's book The Last Lecture and another YA book that had come out in paperback, and every!single!one! was on sale, because two were hardcover bestsellers and thus at a discount, AND I had a coupon for the other! Discounts for the win!

Since I'm catsitting for a friend who wants me to stay at her place a few times while she's away, I headed over there instead of home (there were happy kitties to keep me company, so it was all good). Started reading around 12:45 am or so. Found a good place to stop around 4:10, slept for four hours, got back into it around 8:30, and finished around 10:30. So approximately 5 1/2 hours for 754 pages. Yes, I am that insane. At least this time around I slept in the middle

Then Mike and I went to a pool party thrown by one of his coworkers, which was fun, if not exactly the most relaxing thing to do when one is going on four hours of sleep. And now I'm having a late dinner of sweet and sour tempura chicken and rice, and watching Shark Week. Life is good.

A very short review after the jump.

Nothing too spoilery here, but I liked it, mostly. There were some parts where I groaned and thought to myself, "I can't believe the author actually went there" during the just-a-smidge unbelieveable end of the first part, or "wait a minute, did I miss something" during the romantic bits...not that I expected anything graphic, but it's been a long time since the "closing the door" method has been so abrupt. I feel that she tied things up pretty well, though there could certainly be more. Bella is still a Mary Sue character that somehow still manages to get me to feel for her. I'm still a member of Team Edward. I'm sure at some point I'll reread it, but it will be a good long while. If you read the books with any sort of thought process going on in your head you probably figured out how the books would end long ago, and I bet you wouldn't be far off.

Posted by Jen at 9:42 PM | Permalink

vote for ATTS: ER | Wishlist: {Amazon} |