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You Always Play Me In the Cheapest Key
Apparently the way to get myself to post stuff is to announce a break. This time I'll try to give you some actual content. First things first, though; I wanted to post because of another review, this one from Michael Jones at Green Man Review, who says "Once I started reading, I couldn't put it down." Yay!
As mentioned, I'm about to head out of town and away from Internet access for ten days. In the interest of keeping myself honest, I thought I'd post a list of the books I'm bringing (way too many) and the writing stuff I'm hoping to accomplish (way too much) in between splitting wood, mowing the grass, and chasing the dogs around.
Books:
- Half Life, Shelly Jackson (may finish it before I leave, but just in case)
- The Thieves' Opera, Lucy Moore (historical account of two notorious 18th-century London criminals)
- Fire Logic, Earth Logic, and Water Logic, Laurie Marks (Meghan loves these books, and Gavin and Kelly published them)
- Valley of Bones, Michael Gruber (Ysabeau Wilce handed me the first book in this series, Tropic of Night, while I was visiting Chicago; it's marketed as Thriller/Suspense but could easily have been marketed as genre, what with all the Siberian and African sorcery at work)
- The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur, Daoud Hari (for the Africa Reading Challenge, and I'm bringing the other two books I've already finished for that so as to get the blog posts drafted for them while I'm gone)
- Charlie Kaufman and Hollywood's Merry Band of Pranksters, Fabulists and Dreamers, Derek Hill (Derek was one of my Odyssey classmates, and he's long made a chunk of his living writing about film; this one happens to be right up my alley, covering not just Kaufman but Del Toro, Wes Anderson, Sofia Coppola and others)
- Ignatius Donnelly: Portrait of a Politician, Martin Ridge (bio of the Minnesota politican, activist, utopian, literary critic and crackpot)
- The Charwoman's Shadow, Lord Dunsany (I'm hoping I like it as much as The Queen of Elfland's Daughter)
- Disaster! The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906, Dan Kurzman (I really have nothing to add here, except that I somehow doubt any book could live up to that title)
- The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and Other Stories, John Kessel (can't wait for this one)
- The Dead and the Dying: A CRIMINAL Edition, Ed Brubaker and Scott Phillips (Volume 3 of the CRIMINAL series of comics; Brubaker is currently one of my very favorite writers in comics)
- 101 Best Stories of Minnesota, Merle Potter (found this at an estate sale; I predict it will either be a waste of fifty cents or one of the Great Lost Works of 1930's Midwestern Sensationalism)
- Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire, Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden (it ain't Hellboy, but it is intriguing)
If I finish half of the above it'll be a miracle.
Writing Goals:
- Finish the current revision pass on the novel-in-progress. Should be do-able as I am 80% of the way through. Start either the read-through pass or the spot-checks or both.
- Take a few whacks at two broken stories that I've been trying to finish
- Work through the block I'm stuck on with the Secret City
- Brainstorm and maybe start one or both of the stories I need to turn in this fall
- Work on some comics scripts and proposals
Again, there's little chance that I'll make much progress on more than maybe two of those, but putting them down keeps me honest.
As mentioned, I'm about to head out of town and away from Internet access for ten days. In the interest of keeping myself honest, I thought I'd post a list of the books I'm bringing (way too many) and the writing stuff I'm hoping to accomplish (way too much) in between splitting wood, mowing the grass, and chasing the dogs around.
Books:
- Half Life, Shelly Jackson (may finish it before I leave, but just in case)
- The Thieves' Opera, Lucy Moore (historical account of two notorious 18th-century London criminals)
- Fire Logic, Earth Logic, and Water Logic, Laurie Marks (Meghan loves these books, and Gavin and Kelly published them)
- Valley of Bones, Michael Gruber (Ysabeau Wilce handed me the first book in this series, Tropic of Night, while I was visiting Chicago; it's marketed as Thriller/Suspense but could easily have been marketed as genre, what with all the Siberian and African sorcery at work)
- The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur, Daoud Hari (for the Africa Reading Challenge, and I'm bringing the other two books I've already finished for that so as to get the blog posts drafted for them while I'm gone)
- Charlie Kaufman and Hollywood's Merry Band of Pranksters, Fabulists and Dreamers, Derek Hill (Derek was one of my Odyssey classmates, and he's long made a chunk of his living writing about film; this one happens to be right up my alley, covering not just Kaufman but Del Toro, Wes Anderson, Sofia Coppola and others)
- Ignatius Donnelly: Portrait of a Politician, Martin Ridge (bio of the Minnesota politican, activist, utopian, literary critic and crackpot)
- The Charwoman's Shadow, Lord Dunsany (I'm hoping I like it as much as The Queen of Elfland's Daughter)
- Disaster! The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906, Dan Kurzman (I really have nothing to add here, except that I somehow doubt any book could live up to that title)
- The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and Other Stories, John Kessel (can't wait for this one)
- The Dead and the Dying: A CRIMINAL Edition, Ed Brubaker and Scott Phillips (Volume 3 of the CRIMINAL series of comics; Brubaker is currently one of my very favorite writers in comics)
- 101 Best Stories of Minnesota, Merle Potter (found this at an estate sale; I predict it will either be a waste of fifty cents or one of the Great Lost Works of 1930's Midwestern Sensationalism)
- Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire, Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden (it ain't Hellboy, but it is intriguing)
If I finish half of the above it'll be a miracle.
Writing Goals:
- Finish the current revision pass on the novel-in-progress. Should be do-able as I am 80% of the way through. Start either the read-through pass or the spot-checks or both.
- Take a few whacks at two broken stories that I've been trying to finish
- Work through the block I'm stuck on with the Secret City
- Brainstorm and maybe start one or both of the stories I need to turn in this fall
- Work on some comics scripts and proposals
Again, there's little chance that I'll make much progress on more than maybe two of those, but putting them down keeps me honest.