Friday Forays in Fiction: JuNoWriMo

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I've just signed up for JuNoWriMo.

Sigh.  Me who signed up for Camp NaNo in April and ended up with 0 words for the month.  As in ZERO.  Big Fat Ought.

But, if I didn't sign up the likelihood is approaching 100% that there would be zero fiction words by the end of June anyway.  So what the hay?

The novel title: Orbiting Jupiter

Genre: Romance

Blurb:  Juneaux at 27 is still living at home acting as caretaker of her invalid father.  Her ten year high school reunion is upcoming and the talk of the small town is the rumored attending of classmate Jupiter, drummer and leader of the band Orbiting Jupiter which has its own reality show

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Aspirations

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Seriously bad headache.

This afternoon while drinking the last of my coffee I aspirated a huge mouthful.  It came back out through my nose after flooding my sinuses.  Had the worst ice-cream headache for about an hour but now its just a headache. And my ribs feel like the day after the stomach flu.  Ever since the event I've been feeling like I'm coming down with the flu.  Achy, sore skin, headache, chills and extreme fatigue.  A similar thing happened once before when I aspirated acid reflux in my sleep.  Apparently aspirating foreign particles into your lungs puts your immune system into overdrive for a few hours.   Hopefully like last time I'll be fine after a good sleep.

One can aspire.

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89th ROW80 Check-In

A Round of Words in 80 Days
Round 2 2013
The writing challenge that
 knows you have a life

My goals are all time investment and are detailed on the  ROW80 page   I keep track of the time invested with a Google Doc spreadsheet linked on the goals page and also in each check-in along with a screenshot of the most recent days.

These check-in posts will contain any commentary I have about encounters with the goals since the previous check-in and any relevant links.

Below the commentary is my current reading list for the READ CRAFT goal.


Last round I finished the edit for Blow Me A Candy Kiss, the short story I'm planning to use as the experiment in self publishing.  This was on my original Goals when I first joined ROW80 last April.  It is now ready for beta readers.   Anyone interested can say so in a comment or email me at the email in the sidebar.  A link to an earlier draft can be found in the ROW80 Goals page linked under the spreadsheet below.

View the spreadsheet Google Doc directly

View the goals list

In spite of the lifequake I've hung on to nearly all my Ys except for FICTION FILES more often than not tho FREEWRITE has taken a hit since I returned to Mom's on the 11th.  The fact that I did FREEWRITE the whole time I was in Phoenix but lost the habit again when I got back indicates to me that it is the emails and chats with Ed that are taking the place of FREEWRITE.  If I gave myself FREEWRITE credit for those emails I'd definitely have those Ys and I probably should since they are very similar to journaling the only difference being that I edit the emails before I send and to some extent self-edit while writing a little more than when I know I'm the only audience.

Note: I broke this up into themed sections to make updating easier.  Since so much has changed in the last month I wiped most of the old stuff from the Lifequake and Self-Management sections and then added some new pics to The workstation section.

The Lifequake
Self Management
Evolution of the workstations
Fiction Files
Read Craft



THE LIFEQUAKE:

Ed and I April 2nd
5 minutes before leaving

The event I'm calling the lifequake hit me in late January and for the most part of most days I'm accommodating myself to the new realities shaking out from it.  The details are covered in ROW80 #69 check-in. and  this Sunday Serenity and most recently in It's Like This, so I won't keep reiterating the story in these check-ins.

The most important fact affecting ROW80 goals is that my 5 week visit at my Mom's begun in early January has been extended indefinitely.  It has been a huge disruption in itself not counting all the disruptions of life, thought and emotion behind the whys and wherefores.

The latest in the series of aftershocks disrupted things so much I had to drop out of ROW80 check-ins for a month.  I left Mom's in Longview WA April 29 to spend the next 11 days in Phoenix OR with my husband packing up the rest of our stuff and helping him prepare for vacating the house on the 15th.  My sister returned here with a third van load of my stuff on May 2nd and then picked me and a forth van load up on the 10th.  I spent the next two days shuffling boxes and bags and stuff around between van and house and my areas at Mom's.  The four days after that I wallowed in the pain of missing Ed, loosing our house and not knowing when the next visit will be now that there are no more loads to go after and no house to call ours.

Merlin

This trip our cat Merlin returned with me and has been part of the comfort.  He is still being kept in the laundry room until we are sure he has no parasites before he is allowed to share a litterbox with Bradley.  So I've created the ritual of going down to spend time with him after Ed and I end our daily online chat.  When it isn't raining I take him outside to explore the yard on his leash.

He has started to regain the weight he lost while he was sick this winter.  During our last trip in early April my sister took him to the vet and the following week he had surgery to remove rotten teeth and fix his eyelids so his lashes would stop scratching his eyes.  He looks oriental now.  The pic is from several years ago when he was still healthy.

One of my main focuses in the first week home was unpacking and organizing my clothes.  The hanging clothes in the room where my primary workstation is and the folding clothes in the room across the hall which I share with Mom.  

When I first arrived in January I had about ten hangers hanging in this closet and now there are two winter coats in there belonging to Mom and everything else is mine.  My coats, sweaters, jackets and vests are hanging on hooks on the door to the room.

SELF-MANAGEMENT

Reading and crafting corner

The creating of stations to accommodate activities has been one of the themes of my organizing.  It was after the books and bookshelves came back last month that I moved my writing workstation entirely out of Mom's room and turned my corner in there into my reading and crafting spot.  Not much of either is happening in there yet though.  There is just too much unpacking and organizing still to do and the time that might be used for reading and crafts is given to those tasks.

The workstations in the other room are discussed in the next section.

The other development related to self-management is the timer my sister bought me just before she left me alone with Ed the first week of May.  It has two timers, a clock and a stop-watch function.

One of her concerns about leaving me there for a whole week was the tenuous nature of my ability to stay on my med schedule, sleep schedule and food and water intake schedule without outside monitoring.  That is one of the repercussions of an unmanaged mood-disorder.

She had a heart-to-heart with Ed about it in my presence and they elicited solemn promises from me and helped me work out how I might keep on track even on those days when Ed had to work.  The timer coupled with the ritual of writing a todo list every morning was the solution and I stuck to it through the first weekend back at Mom's.  I still maintain the med timer and sleep schedule but I let the todo list drop away during the week I wallowed and have not returned to it.

The week before I left the med nurse had added Ritalin to my day meds to address the issue that makes it so hard for me to maintain the healthy sleep schedule.  The fear that all those 24 to 48 hours and more awake were a symptom of bi-polar has been nearly eliminated and we are leaning toward the theory that its a combination of anxiety and ADD.  With anxiety causing difficulty in getting, staying and returning to sleep and the ADD responsible for the way my brain won't turn back on for 8 to 12 hours after I've slept for over 6 hours which makes me resist sleep when I'm involved in a task or project.

The Ritalin has been a failure and my sister and husband concur.  It did help turn my brain on and give me energy earlier in the day but it also brought back the anxiety that the BP med Metoprolol had removed and left me with lower tolerance for frustration, high irritability and a tendency to meltdown. And after four hours I crashed.  It felt a lot like when I used to drink caffeinated sodas and would crash off the sugar and caffeine.

In other words it put me in a volatile emotional cauldron.  I stopped taking it every day.  I've discovered that it is helpful if what I need to do is primarily physical with little social or emotional elements to it.  Like the unpacking, workouts, or showers.  But it is useless for brain work that entails sitting still like writing or reading.  And only 4 hours?  Really?

I'll be seeing the med nurse again next week and really hope there will be another solution that works as well as the Pseudophed in giving me back my  brain inside of two hours awake and keeping me on an even keel and productive all day.

Meanwhile there have been enough improvements in my ability to function that I've been able to commit to making and serving lunch for me and Mom every day and load the dishwasher after dinner.

Yeah.  It was once that bad!

Last Thursday I began to crawl out of the wallow I fell into the morning I said goodbye to Ed and this week I've returned to posting on the meatier reading and writing themes.  I'm hoping that by this time next week I will have been able to garner some Ys in the FICTION FILES column.  I've had some really stimulating ideas as I daydreamed stories in the last month.  Not all of them are in the FOS storyworld either.  My newer story ideas seem to be leaning toward romances which is not my usual fare.  Hmmm.  I wonder where they're coming from. 


The evolution of the writing and workout room:

2nd Workstation and
Indoor Workout Space

In February a few weeks into the lifequake I realized I could no longer wait until I got home to get serious with my fiction writing but to accommodate it I would need a writing station that afforded privacy, quiet, light, and the ability to move about and make moderate noise without fear of disturbing my sleeping mother.  And I would need to designate a time of day in which I could count on no interruptions.

The time best suited was the hours immediately after Mom heads to bed.  The space was trickier.  But the best bet was somewhere in the room that had once been Mom's office and had become a storage room.  So I rearranged some boxes and created a desk in a cubby behind the stairwell.    I was even able to set up the mini-tramp in there. Tho I had to walk across it to get to my desk, I liked having it there until I fell twice inside a week.

 After the first fall on a Sunday I set my mind to being careful but after the second fall the following Friday I realized careful would not cut it.  Not indefinitely.  Not for someone visually impaired and with such a history of scattered thought and impulsive movement.

After a third incident--a close call--my sister set the tramp on end.  But as I feared it seldom got set down for use after that.  I kept wanting to find the time and energy to rearrange the stuff again to make room for the tramp and a path to my desk.  That became one of the goals as I worked to make room for the stuff coming in from the van the first week of April.

To make room for the tramp I moved my folded clothes into Mom's room and the boxes of Mom's papers under the card table.

Reference Books

The reference books are now on that cabinet above the tramp.  The 1999 World Book set and the Britannica Great Books set I bought from the library in 2005.  And writing related misc.

cubby desk May 21

The cubby desk has morphed so many times.  I continue to tweak things but continue to find it a very uninviting place to spend much time.  I now use this station primarily for scanning, storing office supplies and a paper sorting station.

And the chair, now serving as a box stand for unpacking elsewhere in the room, I've replaced with the exercise ball.   And a stack of boxes that is lower than that high shelf can serve as desk for the netbook but I like the other options better.

standing desk May 21

One of my preferred netbook stations is this standing desk above the mini-tramp.  I can stand on the tramp to write or while text or video chatting with Ed.   But mostly I listen to music or watch videos while working out.

Looks more like a nest

This is my primary writing and Internet surfing station.

I also crochet while watching videos and sometimes read either ebooks or treebooks.

The tramp in this pic is now my own brought from home.

Bradley

The family cat, Bradley has been a pill as I rearrange the two rooms.  He mountain climbs the stuff.  He picks up small things and carries them off.  Twice it was my reading glasses that I wear over my prescription glasses for close work.  He sits on top of the very thing I need to pick up.

Once he knocked my netbook off the desk.  I had an extreme moment of panic before I got it picked up and checked over.

 I do hope that once Merlin is allowed to join the family the two of them can entertain each other.  So far it looks good.  They talk to each other through the laundry room door.  And once when I brought Merlin up on his leash on our way out for his yard exploration they met and touched noses and nobody hissed.  Bradley did raise one paw over Merlin's head and held it there until Merlin ducked his head and slunk away.


FICTION FILES:

My Brain on Story
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I have selected my 2006 NaNoWriMo novel, The Storyteller's Spouse, to give the bulk of my attention to for the duration of this extended stay at Mom's for the same reasons that I started it in the first place:  Story is the way I think and when I need to process something terribly complex and emotionally overwhelming I often start playing with the what ifs and the people involved and the themes in the same way I do with a novel or short story.  Because of the unusually autobiographical nature of this story I'd never returned to it after NaNo that year but many of the same issues are active in this current lifequake so what better time than now to get this one back out?  It had therapeutic value before and probably will again.

The Storyteller's Spouse is also an exploration of story itself and features a married couple the female lead being a novelist and her husband a raconteur with a rep for tall tales, fish stories and war stories and life of the party yarns.  Neither of them have an especially good grip on reality so their POV scenes are exercises in unreliable narrator.

Synopsis: Lor and Bull Teller, married for over two decades, are about to discover the power of story to either create or destroy when a disturbing accusation lands tall-tale-teller Bull in jail where suddenly he has nothing to say just as Lor, author of evangelical children's stories witnesses something that tangles and then snaps the tether of her faith leaving her afloat on a sea of mystery which often feels like insanity.

READ CRAFT:

Currently Reading

What to Do When There's Too Much to Do by Laura Stack (Part of my attempt to organize my life around my priorities. So part of my ROW80 reading list)  What with the lifequake and all I've had to do a lot of reassessing.  Recently I realized that my todo lists are way overloaded even for someone with a reasonably quakeless life.
Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One and Never Lets Go by Les Edgerton
Write Good or Die! edited by Scott Nicholson (a collection of essays by inde authors.  many of them self-published)  
The Act of Creation by Arthur Koestler
What Matters in Jane Austen? by John Muller  Net Galley a NF that purports to answer many puzzles in the Austen novels. Since this discusses writing and techniques of fiction
Trust the Process: An Artist's Guide to Letting Go by Shaun McNiff  In late February I lifted the strikethru I put on this the week I left home in January as I brought it back with me on the 22nd.
Jung and the Tarot: An Archetypal Journey by Sallie Nichols Since I'm reading this for an understanding of character type and the language of symbol understood by our unconscious as well as research for a character who is a Tarot reader
13 Ways of Looking at a Novel by Jane Smiley  This was one of the 24 items I checked out of the Longview library on my sister's card last January and has been the one I've spent the most time with ever since.  Friday's post was a quote post for this one.
The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick.  Found this while spelunking the stacks looking for the Smiley book.  Who knew.  Dick was a mystic.  I've only read one of his novels and a few short stories but now I've got to try to find and read everything!
Mystery and Manners by Flannery O'Connor  This is a reread for me and has had significant impact on the development of my storyworld in the early months of its inception.  My Friday post was about my current encounter with it after checking it out of the Longview library again for the first time in over a decade.
The Right to Write by Julia Cameron.  Also a Longview library book.
The Fiction Writer's Handbook by Shelly Lowenkopf  Review for blog tour  Haven't finished it yet tho so it will remain in the list.

Recently Read:

A Cheap and Easy Guide to Self-publishing eBooks by Tom Hua read this online
Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Leher
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg  Just finished this last fall and wrote an overview of it for that check-in along with my musings on how to apply what I learned..  This is where I've been getting the most help with learning how to recognize a habit, determine if it is desirable and if so maximize it but if not change it.

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Book Review: Finding Lilly by Lisa D. Ellis

Finding Lilly
by Lisa D. Ellis
Publisher: Soul Mate Publishing  (January 22, 2013)

180 pages

In this haunting story, Lisa Ellis takes us deep into the heart of a grieving mother accurately depicting the profound nature of grief and the torque that the loss of a child can apply to a marriage, forcing it onto a new trajectory.

The devastating loss of their newborn daughter throws this Jim and Claire into a tailspin as their different grieving styles create a dynamic that deprives each of the other's comfort.  Unable to tolerate her husband's distant impassiveness Claire leaves to grieve alone in the tiny house attached to a lighthouse that she had encountered and fallen in love with as a child.

It was on the beach nearby that she had first encountered and fallen in love with Jim as well.  So it is unsurprising to find her grieving for her daughter all jumbled up with memories of the courtship as Claire wends her way deep into the dark sadness unsure whether she will find her way back, unsure whether she wants to.

Then, whether the result of her intense grief or the rumored mystical powers of the lighthouse, Claire is joined by the tiny ghost of Lilly making the thought of returning home nearly impossible to contemplate.  But now the all-consuming grief is tempered by the companionship of the child and the opportunity to mother her and tell her the story of how she came to be.  In this way Claire feels her way toward clarity about her past, present and future and the meaning of her life, the brief life of Lilly and her love for Lilly's father.

A love story, an ode to motherhood and a ghost story, Finding Lilly is an emotionally wrenching but very rewarding story that will linger in your heart like the spirit of a loved one.

Be sure and check out the rafflecopter giveaway for a copy of Finding Lilly just below the author bio.

From the Publishers:

When her newborn baby Lily dies suddenly, Claire Edwards runs away to live in a lighthouse she had fallen in love with as a young child. The lighthouse is reputed by some to have magical powers, but Claire isn't looking for a miracle. She just wants an escape from her husband Jim's colder way of grieving, and from their apartment filled with the tiny clothes and stuffed animals they had collected over the past few months. But once Claire is situated in the lighthouse, it begins to illuminate things for her in a new way and she's suddenly forced to rethink her views on life, death, and her marriage. 

What they are saying:

"In Finding Lily, Lisa D. Ellis offers up a lyrical--yet practical--first novel that so accurately depicts not only a woman's first love, but her first loss as well.  As the narrator grapples with the death of her infant daughter, Claire slips between the surreal gossamer world of devastating grief and the unknown turf of the inevitable marital discord that accompanies the death of a child--as represented by that  "invisible line in the bed" between Claire and Jim.
       
Her husband is an attorney, she knows that--but she is still horrified that, even while her "arms still felt the shape of Lily in them," Jim tells her to be "reasonable," saying between forkfuls of homemade cake, "We can have another child soon."

Although she is aware of what she calls "the grateful way he looks at me when he thinks I am asleep," Claire's anger incites her to retreat--alone--to the  lighthouse in the cold of winter.

Her thoughts and feelings about Jim are further clouded when she sees an image of Lily "suspended inches above the frozen sand in the cold air, like a dancer caught at the end of a leap from which she can never land." The real question here is whether Claire's grief--and the apparition of her daughter--will create another loss:  the loss of her marriage.
       
In the end, Claire must decide whether her ethereal child is more real and permanent than the foundation of her marriage.  In so doing, Claire's journey to the lighthouse resonates with the voices of women everywhere who simply want to love, and to be loved, even within the cold grasp of tragedy.  Like Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, a novel more concerned with lyrical introspection than predictable plot points, Finding Lily is a must-read for anyone who has ever pondered the vagaries of human existence--as defined by both men and women". -
Karen E. Peterson, Ph.D., author of WRITE: 10 Days to Overcome Writer's Block


"The author's words paint wonderful pictures as I'm reading. Her characters are very believable. I've never suffered the death of a child, but Claire's handling of her grief makes me feel such empathy for her. Lisa Ellis's descriptions make me feel as though I'm right there at the lighthouse with Claire.  If you like fiction that deals with women's issues, then this would be a great book for you! "- EWF, Barnes & Noble Reviewer 

Lisa Ellis is a writer whose short fiction has appeared in a number of literary journals and magazines. FINDING LILY is her first novel. She has a master's degree in journalism from Boston University and provides health content regularly for hospitals and websites in New England and the tri-state area.

Lisa's Website: www.LisaDEllis.com
Lisa D. Ellis on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lisadellisauthor
Lisa D. Ellis on Twitter: https://twitter.com/LisaEllisauthor

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Follow the blog tour for more reviews, giveaways, author interviews and guest posts: 

http://www.virtualauthorbooktours.com/

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It's Monday! What are You Reading?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Share what you (are, have been, are about to, hope to be) reading or reviewing this week. Sign Mr Linky at Book Journey and visit other Monday reading roundups.

The sections of this template:

Intro (here)
My Week in Review (list of books finished and links to bookish posts in the previous week)
Reading Now (my current reading list broken up into NF and Fiction)
Upcoming (scheduled reviews and blog tours and list of finished books awaiting reviews)
Recently (links to bookish posts in the last few weeks)
New Arrivals: (lists of recently acquired ARC broken up into snail mail, email and Net Gallery)
ARC in waiting (a list that is getting shamefully long)

My Week in Review:

Circumstances required me to back off my regularly scheduled posting several weeks ago now but in spite of the upheaval and various time commitments still ongoing it is time to return to the reading and writing meat of this blog and ease off the navel gazing.

My last IMWAYR? was April 29 the day my sister and I traveled down to Phoenix OR where I stayed until the morning of May 10 helping my husband prepare to vacate our trailer.  I sent a van load of our stuff back with my sister that first Thursday and then we brought another back when she returned for me on the 10th.  For a total of four van loads since the lifequake that hit us in late January made it necessary for me to stay at my Mom's indefinitely.

I have not posted any book reviews or bookish posts since that last IMWAYR?  But I have managed to read almost every day and have finished several books.

Tomorrow I will be posting a review/giveaway in a blog tour for the novel Finding Lilly by Lisa Ellis


Finished reading:

Since my last IMWAYR? three weeks ago, I have finished several books in spite of how terribly busy I was.

A New Song by Jan Karon.  The fifth Mitford book we finished our first night reading after I got back.  Am reading the series aloud to Mom.  We started the seventh, In This Mountain tonight.  The sixth, A Common Life, was really a novella, less than a third the length of the others.
Finding Lily by Lisa Ellis.  The blog tour for this is going on now and my review and giveaway goes up tomorrow.
Legacy by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguie.  The third in the Wicked series.  Read the second the day of the Read-a-Thon.
Spellbound by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguie The forth in the Wicked series.
A Common Life: The Wedding Story by Jan Karon

Reading Now:

Non-Fiction:

Most of these I plug away in at a snail's pace--a couple pages or chapters per week or even every other week as that is my preferred way to read non-fic.  It sticks with me longer. I'm closing in on the finish line for several but as I get close on one I tend to add two or three more. There are some not listed here because I don't read in them weekly or at least bi-weekly.

Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One and Never Lets Go by Les Edgerton (Part of my ROW80 reading in craft list)
What to Do When There's Too Much to Do by Laura Stack (Part of my attempt to organize my life around my priorities. So part of my ROW80 reading list)
Write Good or Die! edited by Scott Nicholson (a collection of essays by inde authors.  many of them self-published)   ROW80 reading list
The Act of Creation by Arthur Koestler   ROW80 reading list
And So It Goes by Charles J. Sheilds a bio of Kurt Vonnegut.  (I've posted about this biography of Kurt Vonnegut several time in a kind of reading journal. It is past time for another.  Part of the fun I'm having reading this is in stopping to read the stories he wrote as the narrative reaches the point where he writes them. Since this is an author bio this will also be on my ROW80 reading list )

This Mobius Strip of Ifs by Mathias Freese (I've posted a reading journal post for this collection of personal essays also.  It is past time for another.)

What Matters in Jane Austen? by John Muller Net Galley a NF that purports to answer many puzzles in the Austen novels. Since this discusses writing and tecniques of fiction I'll be adding this to my ROW80 reading list
Trust the Process: An Artist's Guide to Letting Go by Shaun McNiff So part of my ROW80 reading list. Have finally taken the strikethru off as I retrieved this from home Thursday
Jung and the Tarot: An Archetypal Journey by Sallie Nichols Since I'm reading this for an understanding of character type and the language of symbol understood by our unconscious this will be on my ROW80 reading list
13 Ways of Looking at a Novel by Jane Smiley  This was one of the 24 items I checked out of the Longview library on my sister's card last Thursday.   ROW80 reading list
The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick.  Who knew.  Dick was a mystic.  I've only read one of his novels and a few short stories but now I've got to try to find and read everything!   ROW80 reading list
Before You Say I Do Again by Benjamin Berkley  for Blog Tour Review Feb 8.  The review is up but I'm not finished.  This is a very difficult read for me at this time and irony of the events that fell on the same week I was scheduled to review this book did not escape me.
The Fiction Writer's Handbook by Shelly Lowenkopf  for an upcoming blog tour   ROW80 reading list
Choice Theory: A Psychology of Personal Freedom by William Glasser M.D. a library book
Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson  I own this book.  Was rereading his essay on friendship this week
How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer
Mystery and Manners by Flannery O'Connor  This is a reread for me and has had significant impact on the development of my storyworld in the early months of its inception.  This Friday post was about my current encounter with it after checking it out of the Longview library again for the first time in over a decade.   ROW80 reading list
The Right to Write by Julia Cameron   ROW80 reading list
Boys Will Be Joys by Dave Meurer.  my sister bought this one for me after finding me standing by the book rack reading it while waiting on her to exit the restroom at the truck stop in Rice Hill OR on our trip home last week.
It's Not About You by Max Lucado.  I found this on my own shelves while packing up my personal library.  It was one of the last gifts I received from my Dad in 2005 the year he died of cancer.  It has a lovely inscription in his handwriting on the inside front page.  And I was reminded how I'd promised him to read it.  My bookmark was less than half way through and I could not remember if I'd finished it and just left the bookmark in or not but I doubt it.  So I've pulled it out to put on front burner.
Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years by Diarmaid MacCulloch  I pulled this off my sister's bookshelf about a month ago.  It is over a thousand pages in smallish font.  So it will be on this list for a long time.  I find it exhilarating that my mind seems ready to tackle text that is so dense in info and complex ideas again.  There is only one other book on this list that fits that criteria, The Act of Creation, and I've not pulled it out very often in these last months but am now finding myself yearning toward it again.   Good signs.
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Erotic Romance by Alison Kent.  Also found on my shelves.  I won this in a drawing during the Sweating for Sven writing challenge in 2007.  It made me blush and I kept it hidden in the recesses of my bookshelves but I think I've gotten over that.  Tho I admit it is hard to pull it out and read in it now that I'm back at Mom's.  But since Valentine's Week all my new story ideas have been for romances.  Not my usual thing.  But hey, you gotta take what the muse sends or she'll stop sending.  Setting aside the erotica aspects, this book is full of good story structure advice as well as romance genre specific advice.  I'm exploring the idea of writing a love story.  Hmmm.  Not sure who that is that just said that.

OK Seriously.  It is now time to start knocking some of these NF off as I did for the fiction over the last couple of months.  By limiting my starts of new novels I guess I was just transferring my need for 'new' to the NF list and now I've got too many to give proper attention to in any two weeks.

That paragraph is kept intact from the last two IMWAYR?  and still the list grows....  So here's a more specific commitment: by next Monday i will have knocked at least one of those NF off that list and...AND posted it's review or be about to.

Fiction:

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness  (audio from library)  Was listening to this while working on this Xmas crochet project and have not gotten back to it since Christmas.  I'm going to have to restart it yet again.
The Civilized World by Susi Wyss (another a Tree book ARC that got lost in the mix before I'd finished it.  Have not posted a review for this one either and can't remember when I received it but it had to be at least a year ago before I started packing for our move and likely before 2011 NaNo when I typically stop reading fiction while I'm so intensely writing it.  This is a collection of interlocking short stories set in South Africa and I remember I was quite enjoying it.  I've had to start it over.)
Running with the Enemy by Lloyd Lofthouse blog tour June 6th.  Historical fiction set in Vietnam during the American war there.
In This Mountain by Jan Karon  Started reading aloud to Mom this evening


Upcoming:


___Blog Tours:

Finding Lily by Lisa Ellis on May 21st

Running with the Enemy by Lloyd Lofthouse

___Books I've Finished Awaiting Reviews:

Whenever I'm not pinned to a date like with the blog tours I do very poorly at getting reviews written in a timely way after finishing books and the longer I wait the harder it gets.  This is an issue I'm working on and hope to get a system in place to smooth the track from beginning book to posting review.  But that will mostly have to wait until I'm back home where my time is more my own.  This final week at Mom's and the first week or so I'm back at home are going to be full and unpredictable  So much for that theory.  So much for having anything like predictability anytime soon either.  So I guess that means I have to figure out how to solve this problem in spite of that issue or give up on it altogether.

At Home in Mitford and A Light in the Window by Jan Karon  (the ebook I was reading aloud to my Mom while staying there in March and April. These short little lighthearted chapters are almost like stand-alone short stories with beloved characters and make great bedtime reading for adults wanting pleasant dreams)

The Land of Decoration by Grace McClean
Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Leher.
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg   Part of my attempt to organize my life around my priorities. So part of my ROW80 reading list.   I discussed this in such detail in my mid-week ROW80 check-in post it was practically a review and I'll probably copy/paste much of what I said there into the review.
Never Give in to Fear by Marti MacGibbon  This was a NetGalley ARC but later I picked it up for Kindle when it was free on Amazon.  I began it in Adobe Digital Editions and when that timed out on me switched to the Kindle for PC.  This was a memoir of an addict's decent into the abyss and rise back out again and was quite engrossing.
The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff  a library book
Get Your Loved One Sober by Robert Meyers (Research for a fiction WIP)

Losses by Robert Wexelblatt an ARC
After: The Shock by Scott Nicholson  This is post apocalyptic horror with zombies.    I anticipated enjoying this even tho zombies are not my favorite horror theme because I really enjoyed his The Red Church and I did but probably not to the same degree.  And its continued.
These High, Green Hills by Jan Karon  The third book in the Mitford series.  I'm reading this aloud to Mom in the evenings.  We had one chapter to go the night before my quick trip to Phoenix OR and we haven't got back to it yet.  She got back late from my brother's last night and tonight dinner was late and my sister and I were tied up with filling out forms online.  We will definitely be starting book four as soon as we finish this one.
Pie Town by Lynne Hinton
My Year as a Clown a novel by Robert Steven Williams  an ebook I got free at Bookbrowser and thus consider an ARC
Out to Caanan by Jan Karon  Book Four of the Mitford series.  Am reading this aloud to Mom in the evenings when she is here.  She often spends the weekends at my brother's home in Portland.
Witch by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguie
Curse by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguie
A New Song by Jan Karon.  The fifth Mitford book.  Am reading these aloud to Mom in the evenings.  We started this one Saturday.
Finding Lily by Lisa Ellis
Legacy by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguie
Spellbound by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguie

A Common Life: The Wedding Story by Jan Karon

Recently:

___Reviews and Bookish Posts:


 Dewey's Read-a-Thon

Two blog tours in April:

Defiant Heart by Marty Steere   on April 17th  a sweet YA love story set during WWII

The Happiness Workbook by Jenn Flaa on April 24th  Found this very relevant to my current challneges

And a review for an ARC:

Prophet of the Bones by Ted Kosmatka  sci-fi thriller  a fascinating page turner featuring DNA science and science ethics issues.  Set in an alternate history world in which science has proven the age of the earth to be less than 7 thousand years and religion rules science.

Appearances and Other Stories by Margo Krasne
With these well crafted stories, Krasne creates a hall of mirrors as revelation after revelation of family secrets, hidden agendas and wounded psyches reflect back onto each other revealing how unreliable is perception and thus, ironically, how futile those efforts we invest in appearance.

Creature Features by Tim Rowland  Review Mar 12 Tuesday

The Fiction Writer's Handbook by Shelly Lowenkopf  Review Mar 14 Thursday

The Tragedy Paper by Elizabeth LaBan for a Net Galley ARC I read on New Year's Day

New Arrivals:

By snail mail:
xxxx
By email:
xxxx
from NetGalley
xxxx

ARC in waiting:

Tree Books:

Most of these I left  behind when I left home for the five week visit at Mom's in early January but now that the visit has been extended indefinitely I retrieved them on our February 21/22 trip down to Phoenix

The Land of Decoration by Grace McClean  read this over a year ago now but still need to review.  It's an emotional block due to the nature of the story being so close to personal experience.  I need to get over it.
The Variations by John Donatich
The Inquisitor by Mark Allen Smith   My husband read this and loved it and is after me to read it so he can talk about it.
The Hunger Angel by Herta Muller  Nobel winner!!
Skios by Michael Frayn
How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heti
The Sadness of the Samurai by Victor del Arbo
Me, Who Dove into the Heart of the World by Sabina Berman
Winter Journal by Paul Auster a memoir from an American literary figure that really excites me.
We Sinners by Hanna Pylvaine.   It's another story exploring the impact on family life of a fundamentalist religion.  One of the themes I'm drawn to like Pooh to honey.
Our Harsh Logic: Israeli Soldiers' Testimonies from the Occupied Territories, 2000-2010 compiled by The Organization Breaking the Silence
A Possible Life by Sebastian Faulks
Detroit City Is the Place to Be: The Afterlife of an american Metropolis by Mark Binelli
The Autobiography of Us
The Abundance by Amit Majmudar


Ebooks:

____By email:

After: The Shock by Scott Nicholson  have at least finished reading it now
Troubled by Scott Nicholson
Losses by Robert Wexelblatt  have read but not yet reviewed
My Year as a Clown a novel by Robert Steven Williams  an ebook I got free at Bookbrowser and thus consider an ARC.  Have read.  Was about to post review but then joined a blog tour for the book so will hold off.

____From Net Galley:


A Thousand Pardons by Jonathan Dee
What Matters in Jane Austen? by John Muller  have read but not yet reviewed
Never Give in to Fear by Marti MacGibbon  have read but not yet reviewed
The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton
Unloched by Candace Lemon-Scott
Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy 
by Emily Bazelon
APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur: How to Publish a Book by Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch
With or Without You A Memoir by Domenica Ruta  The 55 days ran out on me before I finished it.  Had actually barely started it so probably no review unless I find it in a library.

The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All by Laird Barron

The Book of Why by Nicholas Montemarano  The 55 days ran out on me before I got far so probably no review until I can find it in a library.  This is a direct result of the lifequake referred to at the beginning of the post.

If anyone reading this states a preference I may let it weigh my decision as to what I begin next from the above list.

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Sunday Serenity #337

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Three days in a row with no meltdowns.

I've been patient with myself.  Pampered myself some.

Allowed for a lot of lazy but no wallowing.  A lot of daydreaming but no dwelling on what's not doable today.

I put some fun stuff on the agenda like watching Dr Who on Netflix while crocheting.  And some tasks geared toward making things easier going forward--like more unpacking and organizing with the focus on clothes and workstations.  Today it was the scanning station and folding clothes.

And of course there were the two hour chats with Ed each day since Friday followed by taking Merlin for walks.

And reading to Mom.

And sleeping.  Still not getting over six each night regularly but I'm no longer going over 24 without once or twice a week and that is a huge change.  I've started putting on a blindfold when I wake up after less than four and trying to go back to sleep and usually do for an hour or two at least.  Once I got a full eight by doing that.  But then I was up against the mental anf physical lethargy thing that follows sleeps longer than six hours.

The Ritalin was supposed to address that but I stopped taking it daily after discovering the role it played in ramping up my anxiety and irritability and setting me up for meltdowns.  It seemed to be OK for when I had physical tasks that also needed mental acuity but required no social interaction and no emotional evenness.  It was useless for brain work that required sitting still like reading and writing.  I meet with the med nurse again next week and hope we can address that.

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Having Lazy Day

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I gave myself a low expectations day.

Did not exactly do nothing but what I did was no pressure and very little 'I don't want to but I have to' things.  The only thing in that last category was having to call in renewals to two prescriptions.  I hate using the phone.  Hate it to the level of phobia.  My sister is still making and taking nearly all of my phone calls but for the prescription renewals that can be handled without talking to a person I'm learning to do them.

Baby steps.

I made it through a whole day without any waterworks.  In fact I think it has been two.  I can't be certain but the last meltdown episode I can remember with clarity was Thursday before dinner.

This morning I spent a couple hours crocheting while listening to news pods.  I'm a month behind on listening to my news pods.  No actually before I started listening two days ago I was backed up all the way to April 3rd.  I reached April 10th this afternoon.

I spent another two hours text chatting with Ed this afternoon.  Hopefully he'll have Internet hooked up at his folks by Monday evening and we can once again video chat.  Miss the sound of his voice.

Right after we said our good-byes, I spent an hour playing with Merlin--brushing and taking him for a walk outside on his leash.  That has become my ritual segue from chatting with Ed.  I go down to the laundry room and share my missing him with the other warm body that misses him.  I hope it won't be long before Merlin can hang with me and not have to be 'in jail'.

Also fiddled in the metadata of my calibre ebook library for a few minutes.  Added some more ebooks to the library as well.

All on my list of Comfort Activities.

I was planning to reestablish my ROW80 check-ins tonight.  But I'm feeling too lazy.  Maybe by Wednesday I'll be ready to get back on that track.

Baby steps.

For the next couple of hours I plan to crochet while watching vids.  Possibly back to the news pods but I am thinking of watching a story on Netflix.  Have not done that since I arrived at my Mom's in January.  There are several TV shows whose next seasons I was waiting for and a couple of them are now available.  One of them is Bones and the last episode of that I watched was a major cliffhanger.

But before I can do that I need to go empty the sink into the dishwasher for my sister.  Am trying to take that on for her.

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