![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Etc., Etc., Etc.
Finished reading "Super Sad True Love Story" last night. Still don't know exactly what I think of it. In one sense, it's a fairly simply plot, but it's played out against a future AU scenario that's so easy to imagine, that it all has a unique spin to it.
It certainly has its dystopian attitudes, but at the same time is so damn entertaining to read, that the pages fly by and you keep wondering what's next. (One review of it I'd seen is that it was a near illiterate world, but that's not really accurate. There's no dense faux/bastardized language to wade through. It's fairly straight up journal on one side, with the other POV told through something similar to Facebook posts and IMs, but the bulk of the story is told via the journal.)
Starting the prowl for the next book to read now.
Also ... a couple of years back I did a one week "summer school" course at Oxford through its outreach program on writing. Oxford now is offering everyone who's ever taken a writing class in any one of its various offshoots a short story contest -- 1,800 to 2,200 words. I may have to see if I can hone in on something, just because. It would be good in the midst of all the insanity dealing with my brother's issues to be able to put some effort in writing again.
Speaking of my brother ... Some of you may know he's been in the hospital since Dec. 14. Long story short: Major hernia, major surgery, complications, infections, ICU (six weeks) yadda, yadda. He's been in rehab since March 1 (yay!) although will need longer term rehab at another facility, so I've got this month to get him moved out of his current apartment and put his stuff into storage. Even if he had money to pay for both rehab (which is actually being paid mostly by Medicaid, though he'll have to pay in most of his income -- he's on Social Security Disability) and his apartment rent, he can't move back in there because there are too many stairs.
I remember when he went into the hospital and I thought it would be nice in a week when everything was back to normal.
It certainly has its dystopian attitudes, but at the same time is so damn entertaining to read, that the pages fly by and you keep wondering what's next. (One review of it I'd seen is that it was a near illiterate world, but that's not really accurate. There's no dense faux/bastardized language to wade through. It's fairly straight up journal on one side, with the other POV told through something similar to Facebook posts and IMs, but the bulk of the story is told via the journal.)
Starting the prowl for the next book to read now.
Also ... a couple of years back I did a one week "summer school" course at Oxford through its outreach program on writing. Oxford now is offering everyone who's ever taken a writing class in any one of its various offshoots a short story contest -- 1,800 to 2,200 words. I may have to see if I can hone in on something, just because. It would be good in the midst of all the insanity dealing with my brother's issues to be able to put some effort in writing again.
Speaking of my brother ... Some of you may know he's been in the hospital since Dec. 14. Long story short: Major hernia, major surgery, complications, infections, ICU (six weeks) yadda, yadda. He's been in rehab since March 1 (yay!) although will need longer term rehab at another facility, so I've got this month to get him moved out of his current apartment and put his stuff into storage. Even if he had money to pay for both rehab (which is actually being paid mostly by Medicaid, though he'll have to pay in most of his income -- he's on Social Security Disability) and his apartment rent, he can't move back in there because there are too many stairs.
I remember when he went into the hospital and I thought it would be nice in a week when everything was back to normal.
no subject
That short story contest sounds like a good idea. Have you found a publisher for your children's book yet?
I'm glad to hear your brother is in rehab. Mine is still recuperating from his hernia surgery, he was supposed to be back at work after six weeks but has taken off another two weeks because he's not healed yet.
no subject
And no, I haven't had time to get the publisher thing going again. I'd given myself November off when I did NaNoWriMo, and had set myself a goal of getting more query letters out to agents when the whole thing started with my brother. It's been shoved into the background for a bit. I'm going to shoot to get that done before spring is out, though. Maybe I should give myself a specific deadline to force myself to move it off the back burner.
Super Sad is a near future dystopia, by the way ... kind of Max Headroom's "Fifteen minutes into the future" concept that you can sense is just around the corner.
no subject
It's early days for a rec, since I just started reading The Emperor of Scent: A Story of Perfume, Obsession, and the Last Mystery of the Senses, but it's off to a great start.
no subject
Currently, I've got one of Neil Gaiman's graphic novels out from the library for the NPR "I Will If YOu Will" reading challenge/book discussion. It's good, but obviously won't take that long to get through.
no subject
no subject
no subject
(I have "Stiff" as an audio book and my husband kept teasing me because I'd fall asleep listening to it. He said I had to be missing half of it, but one day he woke me up while I was sleep-listening, and I shot upright on the sofa and blurted out "Corpses and compost share many of the same qualities." :D )