My Brain on Books XV

I am reading for The Office of Letters and Lights the folks who bring us NaNoWriMo today as I love what they are doing for literacy with their Young Writer's Programs and because I've participated in NaNo every year since 2004 and will again next month.  I have been blessed to have it in my life and would like to give something back if only kudos and link love.  I'm putting this plug at the top in hopes some who stop by will check out their site and see all the great things they do to foster love of reading and writing and story in kids. If you happen to be doing Camp NaNo this year you can find me there as joywrite

This post will be organized like a blog inside a blog with recent updates stacked atop previous ones. I may be posting some updates on Twitter @Joystory and the Joystory fb fanpage. But this is where I do anything more than a line or two.  Including mini-challenges unless required to have a separate post..   

Be sure to scroll to bottom of this post for advice on how to ward off those scary nap attacks. You won't be sorry.

Ode to Dewey

by Joy Renee

vote, fav and share for Dewey

We Miss You Dewey

4:00 AM - Wrapping up.  I'm taking Thomas Covenant to bed and will continue to read as long as I can.  Am hoping the activity of moving from my desk across the hall to the bed will revive me enough to hang in until 5.

Will be reading on my Nexus so will also have the option to go lurk on the thon blog and watch a music vid or two...

2:00 AM - After posting the last update I visited the thon hub and lurked for an hour or so and then spent the last several hours reading and browsing among the NF books relevant to my NaNo novel.  Among them:

• Star Trek As Myth: Essays on Symbol and Archetype at the Final Frontier edited by Matthew Kapell (read the intro essay by Kapell)
• The Monsters of Star Trek by Daniel Cohen
• Living with Star Trek: American Culture and the Star Trek Universe by Lincoln Geraghty
• The Physics of Star Trek by Lawrence M. Krauss
• Fans, Bloggers and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture by Henry Jenkins
• Textual Poachers: Television Fans & Participatory Culture by Henry Jenkins
• Science Fiction Audiences: Watching Doctor Who and Star Trek by John Tulloch & Henry Jenkins

Browsing in a bunch of NF in a compressed time frame is one of my favorite things to do.  The ideas from each book cross pollinate and flashes of insight and quirky ideas proliferate. It's obvious how this would be true when the books are on a theme like this but it also works when the selection is random.

Next I'm going to read for a time in From Where You Dream by Robert Olen Butler, one of my top three favorite how-to-write-fiction books which I've been re-reading in preparation for NaNo then for the final stretch I'm returning to Lord Foul's Bane the novel that started my day.

Though I'm awfully tempted to call it a day.  The headache plaguing me since Thursday is finally receding and sleep, which was a struggle for the two nights preceding the thon is starting to seduce me.

But as I write this line there is only two more hours...

Rooster Fillet Bag - removable

10:00 PM - More of the same.  Several more hours of munching, sewing and listening to Area 51.  20 more tracks and 4 more beads.  It's tedious and frustrating work.  No wonder I procrastinated. :)

I keep snagging the thread and my hands on the pins inside and outside the bag.  Snarled thread forces me to choose between picking it apart or cutting it off and starting anew.  The deeper into the bag the more snags and snarls.  Desperately attempting to avoid a second fatal mistake of catching a thread on the crochet with the needle as the whole point of attaching the beads is to make the crochet removable so it can be laundered separately from the bag.

4 beads in 2 hours! Eleven more to go.  That's four beads added to what's seen in the pic I took this morning.  At least they aren't all taking me an hour like the first one did last Tuesday.  My goal is to have this project--along with my husband's birthday present finished last weekend--ready for the mail by Monday afternoon.

But I think I'm going to do something else for awhile.

Altho...I am enjoying listening to Jacobsen read her book and left off in the middle of a chapter--actually mid track--so I may at least finish that chapter before moving on.

Wallet Wannabe

6:30 PM - In the last several hours, while listening to Annie Jacobsen reading her expose on the history of Area 51, I've been alternately snacking and sipping and working to turn turn that flat, misshapen crochet piece to the left into the wallet/cardholder I'd envisioned last Tuesday evening.

Crochet Card Holder

Chalk up one to my campaign to finish what I start.  Although it is actually a small piece of a larger project that was meant to be my Secret Santa gift for last year!  And when I started working on this unplanned wallet, I was likely procrastinating the tedious work of sewing 20 of those beads onto the larger piece.

I'm often watching video while crocheting since I don't have to keep my eye on the work most of the time but not so with the finishing work like tucking tails, sewing, pinning, blocking.  But such things are working out well while listening to audio books.  I have been thinking so for some time but kept...putting off trying it.


12:45 PM - Well that was a mistake.  I chose to stay in bed this morning to read until the house heat came on and took the edge off the chill.  I fell asleep over Lord Foul.  My med alarm woke me at 9:30.  I resumed reading and fell asleep again!  Slept until after 11.

Spent the last hour taking care of nature's needs and moving back into my office with devices, snacks, drinks etc.

I have several hours worth of snacks and drinks gathered now.

I did read enough to advance in the ebook to nearly 50% so I managed to read nearly 20%.

I suspect part of the problem is the mild headache I have today left over from the serious one I had Thursday and Friday.  Reading on the Nexus seems to trigger motion sickness and I keep closing my eyes.

So I'm going to switch to an audio book.  Area 51 by Annie Jacobsen

6:00 AM - Introductory Meme
1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?
Longview WA USA

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?
I have no prearranged stack.  The Thon snuck up on me.  I only learned Thursday evening.  No plan.  No prep.  I'm winging it. But off the cuff... I'm eager to delve into some of the NF books on Star Trek I've collected as research for my NaNo novel.

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?
  I'm winging it with snacks too.  What comes to mind as possibilities are Baby Belle cheese and chocolate, hummus and veggies,  nachos...

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!
I'm a Star Trek uber fan since age 11.  My NaNoWriMo novel next month is about a teenage girl immersed in the online Star Trek fan community, who writes fan fiction.  For prep I'm rewatching all of the Star Trek episodes.  I started with Star Trek Enterprise in September and worked my way through the original series and nearly 6 season of The Next Generation so far. When I was a teen I had no knowledge of a fan community, no Internet and only syndicated episodes of TOS on a vacuum tube black and white TV with rabbit ear reception.

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?
This is my 15th Dewey Thon.  This is the first time I've winged it like this.

5:38 AM - Getting started now.  Was all set to go at 5 but had to restart my computer.

Am kicking off with Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson.  This is a re-read which I first read in the late 70s.  I'm already about 30% in as the day begins.  I've begun rereading the two trilogies of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever in preparation for reading the 4 book series The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever for the first time.  It's an ebook I'm reading on my Nexus.

As I said in last night's post, I'm winging it today as I let the thon sneak up on me and only discovered it was this weekend on Thursday evening.




[I have this scheduled to go live at 4:44.  But if this bracketed paragraph is still here on top after 5 I don't have my eyes unglued enough to check in yet.  I will be here soon as I can.]