Author Archives: caseykins

A Reading Challenge

Posted on January 15, 2016 by caseykins

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Things have been a bit crazy here, so I’m sorry for the late post.  I’m leaving my job for a new one, and I have been insane wrapping things up, getting thank you letters written, and finishing the baby blanket for my now former boss (who is due in April).  I am excited for the new chapter of my life, though.  I’m sure I’ll write about that soon.

But in the mean time, I have some bookish goodness below.

I’ve decided to do a reading challenge this year in addition to reading 100 books.  There were a ton floating around on Tumblr, and I felt the longing to be participatory.  Besides, I read SO MUCH romance last year that it was really a travesty.  I usually branch out more than I did in 2015, and I think this challenge will get me reading in genres that I don’t automatically turn to.

After perusing all the ones available, I finally decided on this one from Stxry Books  http://www.stxrybooks.com/post/136388267660/stxrybooks-you-can-download-the.  It comes with a fancy printout version and everything, and also includes Poetry, Short Stories, and Graphic Novels – all of which I tend to avoid.

I’m also gonna do the thing where books don’t count for more than one category.  Like, I could put “The Diviners” in Book by a Female, Filled to the Rim with Magic, Scared to Read in the Dark, Involves a lot of Mystery, and Dark and Mysterious cover.  But I will only choose one for purposes of counting it under the challenge.

So here’s what I’ll be reading in 2016. There are only 31 of them, so I’ll still be able to read silly books to my heart’s content.  I’ll let you know how I do:

  • A book you bought long ago, but still haven’t read
  • A book with a character who is similar to you
  • A non-fiction book on something you’ve always wanted to know more about
  • A book by a female author (Lizzy and Jane, by Katherine Reay)
  • A book you never got to read in 2015
  • A book that will be a complete mindfuck
  • A book filled to the rim with magic (Daughter of Witches, Patricia C. Wrede)
  • A book you’re scared to read when it’s dark out
  • A book of which you liked the movie, but haven’t read the novel
  • A book that makes you want to visit the place it’s set
  • A book that’s on fire
  • A book that makes you want to be a villain
  • A classic you never made time for
  • A book that shows a different point of view
  • A book with short stories
  • A book that involves a lot of mystery
  • A book about a person who inspires you
  • A book that makes you want to be a hero
  • A graphic novel
  • A book of poetry
  • A book by an unfamiliar author (Assassination Vacation, by Sarah Vowel)
  • A book published in 2016
  • A book with a dark and mysterious cover
  • A book from a random recommendationalist
  • A book with a surprising love element
  • A book with lots of mystical creatures
  • A book that reminds you of another season
  • A book no one wants you to read
  • A book you own that is the most beautiful thing you’ve seen
  • A book that makes you a complete mess
  • A book you started but never finished
Categories: Book Reviews, Fiction | Tags: , , , , | 2 Comments

Falling In Love

Posted on January 11, 2016 by caseykins

My sister and I tend to get confessional when painting.  Which we did all of last Sunday.  She is moving things forward with her boyfriend – a totally great guy – but has some worries.  As we all do when we commit, I think.  She asked me if Brian and I had ever considered divorce.

I was surprised.  I thought the fact that we had was fairly common knowledge among my nearest and dearest, and my sister is definitely in that camp.  But maybe I shouldn’t be that shocked.  After all, there are a lot of things in relationships that people don’t talk about because they aren’t romantic, they aren’t fun, and they require incredible amounts of sweat, compromise, and tears.   It’s just easier not to say anything.

I wrote the piece below as a final for my Creative Nonfiction class in college.  I’ve tried to edit it many times, and nothing seems to take.  This is the latest.  I know it isn’t perfect, but I think it’s true.  And I think it’s important that we talk about these things, because everyone should know that partnership is hard, despite the fact that it often looks easy from the outside.

It briefly mentions sex.  Fair warning, family members.

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Falling In Love: 

I sat in the passenger seat of our first new car, a white Chevy Cavalier, and tears streamed down my face.  “What are you thinking over there?” I asked my husband of four years.

“I don’t know,” Brian said.  “Sometimes I think it would just be so much easier if I left and moved in with my dad for a while.  I mean, you could do what you want to do and we could not worry about money anymore.  I just, I don’t know.  I’d have a hard time not calling you, maybe we’d get back together some day.  It’s just that right now it’s so hard.”

“Are you divorcing me?” I said.  My voice was small, and I had a hard time thrusting the words out.

I looked across at him, steering wheel wedged between his knees, mop of brown hair tousled, wet lines streaming from his eyes.  I attempted to imagine a life where I didn’t wake up next to him every morning and failed.  I wanted so much to put out a hand, to touch his cheek or knee, to convince him that he needed me, but I couldn’t force my body to move.

“No,” he said.

I breathed.

He pulled me close over the armrest, and I buried my face in his neck.  We cried for hours together in that parking lot in downtown Claremont.  When we arrived back at my mother’s house, our temporary home while we worked out our apartmentless situation, no problems had been resolved, but we both had the conviction that we would fight it out together.

In July, we will celebrate our thirteen year anniversary.  I think of that moment in the car often and realize that we are not the same people we used to be back then, that we are at best approximations of those two who cried together under the streetlamp, the shift console the only concrete thing separating us.  There is a movie I watched in a history class, The Best Years of our Lives, where a daughter in distress accuses her parents of having the perfect relationship and not understanding.  “How many times have I told you I hated you and believed it in my heart?” the mother says to her husband.  “How many times have you said you were sick and tired of me; that we were all washed up? How many times have we had to fall in love all over again?”  I heard that, sitting in a dark room in a plastic chair with my notes before me, and thought yes.

I was fourteen when I met my husband.  We were in high school theater together, both ensemble members with too much time to wait backstage before our cues.  I used to be late to class because we would sit in the halls and talk until the bell rang.  When my best friend told me he liked me, I said “ew!”

I asked him out the summer I turned seventeen.  Brian drove down from college at Cal State San Bernardino to take me to a school dance, because my date cancelled on me at the last minute.  We sat in a single chair together in the hotel lobby.  He pretended my shoe was a telephone.  Brian slow danced divinely, and I had to wrap my arms under his, reaching far to place them on his shoulders.  By the end of the night I knew the fluttery feeling in my chest was love.

Three months later, I lay next to him at midnight on the pull out sofa in his mother’s mountain cabin.  He had clandestinely climbed the stairs once we knew everyone was asleep.  I placed my head in the crook of his shoulder and we talked until dawn.  We knew that we wanted to get married, but we tried to pretend we didn’t, even to ourselves.  Tales of high school sweethearts trapped in loveless marriages with too many children haunted my thoughts; and his as well.

I attended college as a music major, like my mother had, and like my twelve years of piano lessons had trained me for.  Then I waffled to theater, and then officially declared that I was as undecided as I had been all along.  Brian finished his English degree.  I read his stories in my bed alone at night and told him how wonderful he was.  I was the mascot of the University Dance Company, the only person to show up to every performance, cheer them on, and watch Brian turn pirouettes in a strait jacket.

We got married when I was 21, the year I fell thoroughly and completely out of love with my husband.  We rented a two bedroom apartment in a neighborhood that could kindly be described as sketchy.  A row of apartments lined the street, and in back of them was a long alley way full of potholes.  After the alley was a neighborhood of decrepit houses.  On the cinderblock walls, a constant fight was in play between those who sprayed graffiti and those who owned the white paint can.   Things were constantly stolen from the neighborhood, including my car. Brian worked nights and I slept with a previously ornamental sword by my bedside, just in case.  When he was home, we fought.

I don’t even remember what the fights were about, save the first.  That was a terrible row about laundry detergent in which the question of powdered or liquid stood for the family ideology we had each grown up with.  He threw a small paperback in my general direction and it fluttered to the ground in a hail of pages.  I gave him the finger, grabbed my purse, and went to my mother’s house.  I had a vision of fifties matrimony, with dinner on the table every night and kisses in the kitchen.  The fights murdered that ideal.  I considered leaving almost every day, but I knew we would never have three hundred dollars to file for divorce.  There were slim moments of redemption, like the night I made him an angel food cake from scratch for his birthday.  The bright tissue paper from his present caught fire on the burning white tapers I had scattered over the table.  Working out our problems was the only real option left, and sometimes it seemed possible.

We moved into a safer neighborhood a year later.  It took every penny we had managed to save to do it.  On my birthday, we had a total of twenty five dollars in the bank.  Brian bought me a bouquet and we ate dinner on our new patio amidst a fort of brown boxes.  I worked a soulless job as a telephone operator and took jobs designing costumes for the Methodist Church’s children’s theater program.  I dabbled in college again, declaring fashion design and then costuming, then back again.  Brian worked the front desk in the Registrar’s Office at the local college.  Our jobs were five minutes from the new apartment, and we would make dates to tryst at lunch.  Brian would bring home sandwiches and we would tumble into the sheets, eat turkey, and then rush back to work. Kitchen kisses materialized and so did dinners.  Not every night, but often enough that the butterflies in my stomach came out of their coma.  A friend introduced us to the Lindy Hop.  We would spend Saturday mornings in class, and then we would rush home so I could roll up my hair, smear on red lipstick, strap on my vintage wedges, and go back for the dance.  The sharp, full sound of the big band filled the church hall as Brian whipped me around in circles in the crowd and we watched my skirts spin wide.

Brian read Anna Karenina in those years.  He insisted on reading me this quote about marriage: “At every step he experienced what a man would experience who, after admiring the smooth, happy motion of a boat on a lake, he finds himself sitting in it himself.  He found that it was not enough to sit quietly without rocking the boat, that he had constantly to consider what to do next, that not for a moment must he forget what course to steer or that there was water under his feet… it was pleasant enough to look at it from the shore, but very hard, though very delightful, to sail it.”

We visited my sister-in-law for Christmas.  “It makes me sad that you guys had such problems,” she said, “I don’t want to hear about it. You’re the perfect couple.”

My grandfather died when I was twenty five.  I sat by the hospital bed my grandmother set up for him in the living room of their Maine farmhouse and realized that I hated everything in my life except Brian, who was far away in California and had not made the trip.  I could not continue to work at the telephone office and still like myself.  I took a job with Disneyland costuming, and with it a severe pay cut.  I barely consulted Brian, who took a better job with a college in Orange County at almost exactly the same time.

Six months later, we were living in a dank apartment in Anaheim and hemorrhaging money every month.  Our bedroom window opened onto Ball road, one of the busiest in Southern California. The mushroom colored carpet was old and smelled musty, the light was dim.  Our furniture did not fit. I tried to work full time hours, but often an extra shift wasn’t available.  There was little fighting this time, only an icy rage that settled over us.  He worked days, I worked nights.  I spent most mornings crying in bed.

By the time we could get out of our lease, I realized something important.  Brian was the thing that mattered most.  Chasing dreams was fine, but Brian was the center, the needed element.  If I could not fall asleep in the crook of his shoulder, fame and fortune would not satisfy me.  We moved in with my mother.  We contemplated divorce. We rented another apartment, this time in Claremont where we had been happy before.

This apartment had been built in a late 1940’s housing boom, with kitchen cabinets to match.  It was light blue, with scrolling metalwork in white across the screen door in front and the column that held up the porch roof.  It had a vast back yard, in which we held several barbecues and I learned that my black thumb of death was really greenish after all.  I started a job search, sending resumes into the vast hole of the internet, but Disney promoted me and I didn’t have to leave.  I started college again, this time in earnest.

We bought our first house six months ago.  It is a yellow 1970s tract home next to an orange grove, and it has three bedrooms that we’d like to fill with more than just our cats.  The house was just too expensive, once the realities of taxes and flood insurance settled on our heads; and so I cook for hours on the weekends, turning budget carrots and discount chicken into dinner, pickling sketchy leftovers, making my own jam, and sewing or stenciling the furnishings I want.  I light the tapers on the dining room table and pretend the bank account is full enough.  Brian and I have banded together this time in our fight against the world, instead of fighting both life and each other.  The truce has brought great joy amid the stress, and for that I sometimes feel like crying huge tears of relief.

I have hopes that the truce will hold.  If there is one thing thirteen years has taught me, it is that marriage is not about being in love all the time, it is only a stubborn determination on the part of both people to fall in love in perpetuity.

And stubborn determination is something the two of us have in spades.

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Book Reviews: Learning to Write

Posted on January 7, 2016 by caseykins

Books on Writing

I always make a pretty big push to get writing done in the new year.  (I got my first rejection of the year this morning!) In honor of that, I thought I might post a few book reviews on some nonfiction writing books.  The greatest piece of writing advice, though,  is something I was told verbally by Ryan Gattis in his Writing The Novel class at Chapman: In writing, you are not trying to imitate life.  You are trying to imitate your memory of life – and the stuff that goes on inside a person as they are living.  It’s an internal artform.  I think it helps to think about that when you’re deciding which scenes to leave and what to ditch, and where to put the internal dialogue (and why you have to have internal dialogue).

These four book have also helped me GREATLY toward sharpening my skills.  Not just in actually writing, but also in learning to weather the pitfalls of Self that all creative endeavors uncover.  I am learning more and more, though, that there really is no teacher like experience.  Write a ton, and your writing will get better.

But in the absence of writing, there is reading about writing:

Aspects of the Novel, by EM Forster: I guess this book is fairly cliché these days for writing students.  Or so says the website I was just on.  But having never been exposed to Forster’s essays before, I was floored.  He just outlines the decisions you’re making, and the deliberateness with which you have to see everything when you’re writing a novel, in a way that was totally new to me.  I learned buckets, and still swear that I need to go back and read it again.  It made writing a novel seem like a craft, and not like flailing around in sentences until you hit something that works.  Particularly eye-opening were the passages about windows, and the passages about flat characters vs. round characters.

On Writing: 10th Anniversary Edition: A Memoir of the Craft, by Stephen King: the book is ½ memoir, and ½ writing tutorial.  It’s interesting, funny, and it has much good advice tucked between the pages. I felt just a bit better about my own trials knowing that he had a stake on the wall to pin all his many rejection letters to, and to know that he was a starving English professor before Carrie was optioned in paperback.  It was encouraging to hear that even Stephen King, the most prolific of writers, can have a life crisis that would make him stop writing for a while.  And better still to know that writers return to their craft, even if it takes a while.  His thoughts on scene description, adverbs, and editing have stuck with me.  Perhaps my favorite section is the bit of writing he includes before edits, and after edits.  It’s fascinating.  Because of the structure of the book, it’s easy to get through.  Even the instruction part feels like there’s a caring professor coaching you through it.

On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction, by William Zinsser: I heard once that you could teach someone the rules of writing in about 2 weeks if you had the time.  It’s the pacing, the punctuation, the finding your voice that takes the longest, the years of writing.  This book is that “rules of writing” crash course, and it gives you tips on how to maximize your use of language at the same time.  It’s also written well, with clarity, and is easy to get through.  It’s not tied to genre or anything, either, so it’s a good all-around guide.  Even if you feel like you already know the rules of writing, I guarantee you will learn something by reading this book, or be told stuff you’ve forgotten.

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, by Anne Lamott: Another part-memoir, although this one is mostly writing advice.  The book is also a writing student cliché, of the worst kind.  But hear it out.  It’s a cliché for a reason (the reason is, it’s good).  I do not know why or how, but for some reason this book was balm for my crazy-writer soul.  She outlines all the neuroticism, the certainty that you’re failing, the daily struggle with yourself you have to navigate, and somehow makes it all seem funny.  Not just funny, but cathartic.  She’s nuts, in every way.  But you’re nuts too, and laughing at her feels like you’re laughing at yourself, and suddenly it all seems manageable.  Not only that, but it contains a billion good tips for fooling yourself into getting things on paper.  And once you’ve learned the rules of writing, that’s your new biggest hurdle: how to get that butt into that chair, and convince your fingers to start typing.

Books on Writing 2

Those are the ones that have stuck with me the longest.  Want more?  You can’t go wrong with John Gardener’s The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers or Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them (P.S.).  But I don’t find myself constantly thinking of their content as I write as I do with the above 4.

Links are affiliate links.  Happy reading about writing!

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Break Finished

Posted on January 4, 2016 by caseykins

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Brian and I had a, well, interesting break.  We had one giddy day of fun down in San Juan Capistrano.  We took the train down, roamed the Mission gardens, ate lunch at the best little Italian café in the old train station building, and then wandered the kitschy shops before hopping the train home again.  I trounced Brian at Lost Cities, and then he trounced me at Love Letter.

The rest of vacation we spent putting the house in order.  I did massive dishes, put the all-year decorations up after the Christmas decorations came down (thanks Brian!), and cleaned out my closet.  Brian dug up sprinkler lines, marveled at the stupidity and redundancy of them, and then installed a billion anti-siphon valves (okay, just 4) so all the random cut-off lines we found can be useable lines.  I feel a lot of gardening in my future.  In between, there was much catching up with friends, tons of cookies, and a little bit of D&D.

I am NOT ready to come back to work.  It’s times like these I wish I was independently wealthy.

I am tripping along on my resolutions.  One of my gifts was a Kindle, and I am THRILLED with the way it syncs to Goodreads.  So much easier than trying to put them in one by one as I finish them.  I think getting to 100 books will be easier than ever this year.  I have written 3 of 4 days of the new year, too.  Considering a couple of those days were weekends (when I usually don’t write), so that’s pretty good.

It feels right to be back in the swing of things, though, in some ways.  I’m looking forward to the new year, and all the things it will bring.

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2015 Wrap Up

Posted on December 23, 2015 by caseykins

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I am officially off work as of this afternoon, and very excited about it.  Christmas Eve is at my house.  There will be ginger cookies, powdered sugar snowballs, wassail, a heap of presents, and much merrymaking.  There may even be ukulele carols.  I don’t have to return to work until the 4th, which means that Brian and I get to adventure all over the place.  We have a train trip planned to San Juan Capistrano for the day, and I’m sure we’ll do other things as well.

This also means that I may not update until the new year.  Which then means that I should do the end of year wrap up thing now, right?

Right.  Here goes.

First, I want to say thanks to everyone who is following along with this thing.  The blog has grown in HUGE leaps and bounds this year, and it’s all because of your interest.  Every time I log in and look at my stats, I get warm fuzzies in my cold, cold heart (just kidding about the cold heart).  But seriously, you are full of awesome and you make me smile.  Thank you for reading.

I consider this thing not just a blog about bookishness, but also a blog that charts the efforts of a burgeoning writer (in the hopes that what I’ve learned might help someone else).  In that spirit, I want to look at my writing goals for last year.  I don’t think I ever wrote the official goals down on the blog, but I have them in my personal journal.  Here they are:

  1. Read 100 books (via Goodreads)
  2. Have a novel ready to shop around
  3. Make $1000 from my writing in any capacity
  4. Get 5 stories published, have 1 paid for

Those were all pretty lofty.  I tend to think lofty.  I know I won’t make the goal, necessarily, but I also know that by reaching for it I will accomplish more than I would have normally.  The only problem with these is that they failed to take my writing habits into consideration, making them impossible.  I didn’t even write 5 short stories in 2015, let alone get them published.  Here is the breakdown of the outcomes:

The Goodreads challenge is the only one I hit.  I’m currently in the middle of book 109, with another week of vacation left.  I’ll make 110 easily, and maybe more.

My book isn’t ready for publication, nor even for beta-reading.  The structure of the last half of it is SUCH a mess.  All the parts are there, they’re just in the wrong order and not detailed enough.  Some of the beginning also needs to be re-written.  Brian and I know the world so well that we don’t always get that the description of some things are unclear to newbies.  I do have a pitch letter and the first draft of a synopsis, which is the next part of things, and made immense strides towards getting it finished.  I am very close, and still plugging along.  But I didn’t meet the goal.

I had 1 thing published this year.  If you count the fact that Bewildering Stories also added that story to their Quarterly Review you could argue that it was published twice, although that’s a stretch.  I shopped a lot of stories around, got some really heartening rejection letters, and all-around had a great experience.  But you can’t say I made that goal at all.  No stories were paid for.  What I am proud of is that I have done slightly better this year than last.  The Wages of Sin was up and readable for a total of 15 days.  Plenty of Fish got much more attention than that.

This year, I’m prepared to be a little more realistic.  And I think I have a better idea of what realistic looks like.

So… in 2016 I will:

  1. Read another 100 books
  2. Have a novel ready to shop around
  3. Beat or match my previous record for published short stories (2) and/or be paid for 1 short story
  4. Write at least 20 days of each month

Right now, I’m expecting that I will complete everything but number 4, although I will hit 4 most months – I already do when I’m keeping track of my writing like a good girl.  It’s the making myself keep track that’s the problem.  I’ll report back next December and let you know how it goes!

Now go have a Jolly Holiday and consume more sweets than are good for you.  I’ll see you next year.

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News and Book Reviews: Christmas Romance

Posted on December 21, 2015 by caseykins

I had carefully crafted a thing on Romance Novels for Christmas that I wrote for today, but I got some AMAZING news last night that I want to share first.  Bewildering Stories has included my story in their “best of the quarter” list – the Quarterly Review.  I also received the Order of the Hot Potato.  Meaning that the honor of inclusion was hotly debated by the editors.  I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not, but I’m going with excitement that people are discussing my work.  🙂 Also, not bad for my first really published thing.

This was the nicest Christmas present.  Thanks, Bewildering Stories!

And now on to Christmas Romance:

Romance Ladies

I got it into my head that I wanted to read some Christmas Romance over the last few weeks.  The best part about this silly genre is that there are themed things all over the place. Christmas romance of the good kind is prolific if you’re just wanting a sweet falling in love story.  Isla and the Happily Ever After; Carry On; Landline; Dear Mr. Knightly; I could go on…

But what I wanted was a good ol’ Historical Romance Novel with all the tropes that are a part of that genre.  The hot men, the witty women, the tension, the manor houses, the Christmas decorations.  It turns out that this is a VERY hard thing to find.  There’s a lot of stuff out there, certainly, but I was having a hard time stumbling into the good stuff.  I read about a bazillion things, and I finally found some books that would keep my season steamy.  The list is below, so you don’t have to suffer through bad Christmas romance like I did.

I suppose I should also explain something.  I hate Novellas.  I know – blasphemy.  My former English professor would be aghast.  But the main reason I like romance novels is to live in another world for a while.  And “for a while” doesn’t tend to exist in novellas.  There are exceptions, of course, but they are few and far between.  So I also tried to avoid all short story collections and novella collections, although I didn’t do it completely.

Here is the list of what I read.  If you have any other suggestions, PLEASE send them along.

Buy Immediately:

Christmas Ladies: 3 Full-Length Holiday Regencies (Windham Series) by Grace Burrowes:  This is a collection of 3 Christmas novels that were all collected into one e-book.  They’re all full length (!!!) and very well done with plenty of Christmas goodness in with the romance goodness.  I LOVED the first one, and am in the middle of the second.  Best part is that they’re super-cheap right now.  You can’t beat the bargain, and the 3 novels will keep you occupied until Christmas comes at this point.

Worth it:

An Affair Before Christmas (Desperate Duchesses, Bk 2) by Eloisa James: I always love James’ stuff.  I don’t quite know why, but as soon as you delve into that first chapter you just know you’re in the hands of a master.  That was more evident to me after reading all the bad books before this one – it visibly felt like a relief to read the first paragraph.  The beginning of the book and the end are all the Christmas you could desire, but the rest of it takes place outside the season.  Still a fun romp and an excellent novel.

Mostly worth it:

Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor by Lisa Kleypas: The story moved quickly and the ending felt too unfinished, but otherwise the book was excellent. Modern, so be warned.

A Wallflower Christmas (Wallflowers, Book 5) by Lisa Kleypas: I mean, it features the trope where the guy keeps going even after the girl has said no.  And it does it repeatedly.  But otherwise this book was excellent, with Christmas tree decorating, some Dickens, and a well done story line.

Under the Mistletoe (Signet Eclipse) by Mary Balogh: A collection of 5 novellas.  They’re all good, but I’m not really sure why they decided to put all of these together.  In a lot of cases, the stories are so similar that they sort of blended into one another for me without distinction.  I would read The Best Gift and Playing House, and then forget the other 3.

Not worth it:

A Christmas to Remember by Jenny Hale:  I found myself cringing so often at the writing, and at the main character’s attitude toward things.  Like, your life isn’t complete unless you can have children and that’s your only aim in life?  Give me a break, kid.  Interactions between her and the hero also felt awkward and forced a lot of the time.  I did finish it in short order, so that’s saying something about the story arc itself, I think.  But I would skip this one in favor of something less maddening. Also a modern tale.

All links are affiliate links.  Happy reading!!

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From the Text File

Posted on December 17, 2015 by caseykins

Sometimes I forget what Brian and I wrote to each other, and then I’m flipping through old texts for something else and I start laughing.  This gem is one I found this week, from when Brian went to get sandwiches before the Redlands Christmas parade.

 

Me: Are you alive in there?

Brian: Barely.  I’m still waiting for our food.

Me: Sounds good.  I just wanted to make sure you didn’t run off with some hot blonde in a Christmas sweater or something.

Brian:  Kettle cooked or regular?

Me: I prefer my blondes kettle cooked.  But you know, it’s up to you.

Brian: Umm…  I just wanted your chip order.

 

So basically, it’s never boring at home.  Also, I think I’m hilarious.

 

 

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Fall Reading List, 2015

Posted on December 14, 2015 by caseykins

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Well, it is  Finals Week here in college-land.  That means that it’s time for me to post my seasonal reading list.  These are all of the things I have read between July and now, and how I felt about them.  Fair warning: my romance novel habit has become encompassing.  They’re just so fluffy!  When I don’t want to read angsty things, I find those do the trick so nicely.  And I can’t not read.  For as long as I can remember, I have never not been in the middle of something, unless I’ve just finished something.

Yeah, I know.

But the good news is that you get to benefit from my insanity.

I hope you are shaping up to have a Jolly Holiday.  Or have had a Jolly Holiday (since Hanukkah is over…).

The Official Fall Reading List:

  1. Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography by Laura Ingalls Wilder and Pamela Hill Smith: I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone who isn’t a fan of her novels or of history.  It’s basically a rough draft surrounded by a WEALTH of cool information.  Needs a bit of determination to get through, but it’s 100% worth it in every way once you do.
  2. A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Nonfiction by Terry Pratchett: A collection of his non-fiction essays and talks. It’s good.  His wry wit shows through clearly, and he has interesting things to say about his Alzheimer’s.  Ultimately, it’s mostly fluff and opinion.  But it’s good, funny fluff, so…
  3. Rising Strong by Brene Brown: Holy crap. I always feel like her stuff is life changing, but I feel like this one brought me a greater understanding of what’s happening with me. I’ve been a bit depressed for a long time, and it feels like I found the key as to why and how to get out.
  4. When Beauty Tamed the Beast (Fairy Tales) by Eloisa James: Not as good the second time around. I mean, I still liked it.  But the first time I read it I felt like Piers was great and the story was so fresh.  This time his demandingness was a bit much, and Linnet is SO naïve.
  5. A Kiss at Midnight by Eloisa James: So much better the second time around I think. I liked it the first time, but the second I fell head-over-heels for the prince.  Add in rats of dogs, horrible wigs, and an awesomely innapropriate Godmother, and it turns into a very fun romp.
  6. Romancing Mister Bridgerton (Bridgertons) by Julia Quinn: Knowing the surprise ending didn’t ruin it for me at all the second time around, which was nice.  I do like the Bridgertons and all the silly they come with.  Colin and his perpetually empty stomach being one of them.
  7. Minx (Avon Historical Romance) by Julia Quinn: You know, I liked the book. I did.  But it fell into that uncomfortable territory for me where the main hero was a bit too forceful for comfort.  Despite that, Henry really is the best sort of girl and it was fun seeing her get the hero into a pigsty, among other things.
  8. Ten Things I Love About You by Julia Quinn: Yeah, it was a cute premise and all but I found it a bit cheesy. I still maintain that the Bridgertons are her best work.
  9. Just Like Heaven by Julia Quinn: Two childhood friends find out they have a bit more in common when he suffers a deadly injury and has no one to nurse him. There’s a lot of horrible woundiness that I skipped through – the hero gets gangrene and it’s rather descriptive about the treatment.  But otherwise great.
  10. Three Weeks With Lady X (Desperate Duchesses) by Eloisa James: A bit less salacious than it sounds. I liked this one a billion times more the second time around.  The hero is such an ass, but he’s such a handsome, principled ass.  Also, the quippy letters he and Xenobia send back and forth are hilarious.  Bonus points for neither of the main characters growing up rich.
  11. The First Frontier: The Forgotten History of Struggle, Savagery, and Endurance in Early America by Scott Weidensaul: Full of really frightening pioneer stories during the colonial eras, but an interesting read nonetheless. I felt like I got a better idea of some of the fiction books I used to read as a child (Calico Captive being one of them).
  12. The Arm of the Starfish by Madeline L’Engle: You know, I like this sort of espionage world she operates in sometimes. She does it fairly well.  I think her strength is family relationships, and there’s very little of that in here; but it’s still a compelling thriller, even if it’s a bit predictable.
  13. What Happens in London by Julia Quinn: Again with the names. And I seem to be in an espionage mood.  But this one was EXCELLENT.  Very fun and unpredictable.  Although maybe her loose ends weren’t wrapped quite as nicely as I’d like them to be. Proposal at the end was perfection.
  14. Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins: a re-read that I’m finding less captivating the second time around. Perhaps because I know what’s coming and I’m not super excited to get to the soul-crushing parts of it.  You have to love Lola, though.
  15. Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale by Holly Black: a super-gritty and dangerous delve into Faerie Land in the middle of modern day. Kaye finds out she’s a changeling when she moves back home to New Jersey when her mom’s boyfriend gets murderey.  She also becomes the target of a sadistic queen when the queen’s knight Roiben falls for her.  There’s weird human neighbors and much intrigue.  Amazing book.
  16. Ironside: A Modern Faery’s Tale (Modern Faerie Tale) by Holly Black: The sequel to Tithe, and just as crazy as the first. Kaye finds herself trapped between faery wars when Roiben gives her an impossible quest, and the Seelie queen tries to use her against him.  Where has this series been all my life?
  17. Dragonhaven by Robin McKinley: In her fabulously frantic yet real-life voice. It gets a little too much sometimes, especially by the end.  But I do love the outcome of the book so much.  Once Lois is older it starts to feel like actual life again, and it’s nice to watch and be in. Keep with it!
  18. Asking Styles: Harness Your Personal Fundraising Power by Andrea Kihlstedt: A little shorter than I wanted, but ultimately it made me feel like I could make this fundraising thing work for me despite my shyness and lack of teeth. Which I think was the purpose.
  19. How to Marry a Marquis (Avon Romantic Treasure) by Julia Quinn: I liked this one a LOT. I know I said I go to romance novels to escape, but this one dealt with poverty well.  A sweet where the heroine fell for the property manager, who was really a Marquis in disguise. I would recommend, and will probably re-read at some point.
  20. A Night Like This by Julia Quinn: It was the usual thing.  And the usual thing when done by Julia Quinn is awfully well done. It’s weird, because there wasn’t anything I can pinpoint exactly that I didn’t like, but it just didn’t stick with me like some of her others.  I liked it, but I would recommend others first.
  21. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brene Brown: I don’t know why Brene Brown is so amazing for me, but she really is. I thought that Rising Strong was helpful, but I feel like after reading this one I have a whole new understanding of how to become a better, more resilient person.  I also think I have a better handle on why and how others around me are making the choices that they are.  This one felt so do-able. I feel like EVERYONE should read it.
  22. Dear Mr. Knightley: A Novel by Katherine Reay: Oh, so good and sweet and awful and heartbreaking all at the same time. I love Sam so much.  She feels like a real girl, taking refuge from her bad social skills in books and always on the verge of dropping out.  Every small good thing that happens to her feels like such a triumph.  And the ending – !!! – wow.  That’s all I’ll say.  But this might be a new favorite of mine.
  23. Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson: I basically spent the entire time trying not to break out in a belly-laugh when I was reading during my lunch hour or next to Brian as he slept. I love Jenny SO MUCH.  This book is messier than her first, but it doesn’t seem to matter much for enjoyment.  In fact, it may be funnier than her first, the sometimes (okay always) awkward ramblings serving the subject matter so well.
  24. Carry On by Rainbow Rowell: is it bad that this is fanfiction for a series that never existed, and yet I want ALL THE BOOKS RIGHT NOW? It’s perfect, in a way that satisfied all my Harry Potter longings, with much steaminess included as well.  Baz is such a shit, and I’m head over heels for him. For all of them. “So Good” doesn’t even begin to explain how I feel about it. Maybe asdfjkl;!!!!! will?
  25. To Catch an Heiress by Julia Quinn: Good, although a little ridiculous at times. I mean, she lives in his bathroom for a week or so… I don’t know.  It just didn’t seem likely.  But funny and quippy and full of good romance like most of Quinn’s stuff.
  26. Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy: Oh, quite good. I felt like Will’s journey didn’t quite come as full circle as I’d like, but overall it was a good book and unlike anything I had read before.  It dealt not just with boys and body image, but also what happens when friends grow apart.  Worth it.
  27. Landline: A Novel by Rainbow Rowell: I forget how much this one slays me. She gets that whole “married too young” relationship right, and I see so much of Brian and I between the covers here.  I don’t think I’d ever try and convince past Brian not to marry me, though.
  28. Thornyhold (Rediscovered Classics) by Mary Stewart: I wanted my Nano novel to feel a little like this novel.  It’s one of my favorites of all time, and definitely a comfort book.  You have to love the animals, and the house just for Gilly, and her romance with Christopher.  So great.
  29. Enchanted Glass by Diana Wynne Jones: Another story I’d like my Nano novel to feel like. It’s totally different than Thornyhold, but also not.  There’s witchcraft and a magical house that becomes a home.  There’s a little bit more of the fae in this one, though.  Another favorite.
  30. Rose Cottage (Rediscovered Classics) by Mary Stewart: I thought this book was a bit like Thornyhold, which it sort of is, but it’s not really a homecoming book so much as it’s a home-leaving book. At least for most of it.  It didn’t help much with Nano, but I enjoyed it all the same.  Another comfort book of mine, with a very puzzling mystery right until the end.
  31. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel by Susanna Clarke: I picked this up because Neil Gaiman told me to (through an online article – not in person, sadly.) I’m finding it pretty slow going. It starts off as an older novel would, with much telling and exposition.  But I like the characters and it’s an interesting premise.  I even like the fact, a bit, that it feels older than it is.  I’m going to stick with it and see if I don’t love it later.  Because this is the sort that you LOVE or don’t.  Nothing in between.
  32. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: I’ve been wanting to tear apart a couple of books and see if I can’t learn something about the structure of them. This one was a 50-cent wrecked paperback that I bought at the local Thanksgiving rummage sale, so it was perfect.  The tearing-apart stuff is going well, and is SUPER interesting.  Did you know that Jane isn’t even mentioned by name for, like, almost 3 chapters?  I’m trying to figure out why Austin would do that…
  33. The Lady Hellion (Wicked Deceptions) by Joanna Shupe: Pretty darn good, of the regular romance variety. I picked it up because it was named best of the year, and I think it deserves the crown. The PTSD of the main character was a bit of a twist, as was the total spunkiness of the heroine.
  34. Carry On by Rainbow Rowell: Yes, I’m reading it again less than 3 months after I finished it the first time. This just shows you how obsessed I am.  My phone background is now Simon and Baz looking smoldery at each other. ❤  If you haven’t, you need to go read it NOW.
  35. A Wallflower Christmas (Wallflowers, Book 5) by Lisa Kleypas: I almost liked this one. I just have such a hard time with heroes who won’t take no for an answer, even if the heroine is really enjoying it – and this one was FULL of that.  But the arc of the story line was good and the writing was excellent.  I won’t read it again, although I might look up the other “Wallflower” books.
  36. A Christmas to Remember by Jenny Hale: The writing was, well, less than good. Her main character felt wooden, and played into a lot of female stereotypes that I hate (she’s nothing without a family of her own?). But there was something about the story line that wouldn’t let me put the book down, so there’s that.
  37. Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor by Lisa Kleypas: Her writing is so good, with the cinematic description you usually find in literary fiction.  The book went way too fast for my liking, though, and it didn’t feel resolved enough at the end.  Still probably the best of the Christmas novels I’ve read this month.
  38. Stranger in My Arms by Lisa Kleypas: Aside from a bit of disbelief that the main character wouldn’t confront her husband with the main problem but instead run to crappy relatives, I would consider this a pretty perfect romance novel.
  39. Deep Secret by Diana Wynne Jones: I usually LOVE a Diana Wynne Jones book. Even “bad” ones are typically great when compared to other authors.  But for some reason, I just couldn’t get into this one.  Maybe it was because the zaniness was so fragmented among worlds/characters?

All links are affiliate links.  Happy reading!

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Colds, Christmas, and Bookish Gifts

Posted on December 10, 2015 by caseykins

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One of these days I’m going to get around to a real, meaty post about bookish stuff.  I am deathly ill with the cold that’s been going around the office this month.  I was one of the last to get it, and I was thinking that my usual routine of Nyquil and insane amounts of hydration would see me through better than some.  Not so much.  I’ve been floored for 3 days now, and I still sound like I have a clothespin on my nose.

I’ve been consoling myself with Christmas.  Brian and I got the tree up last weekend, actually managed to put Christmas lights on our house, and bought a new angel for the tree.  She’s made of shell, and she lights up.  The pregnant angel – one of mysterious origin who had her little china hands centered over a mysterious bulge in her dress – is no more.  I’ve also been reading a bunch of Christmas-themed romance novels.  Which, frankly, have been terrible.  I don’t know what I was expecting, but certainly something better than I got.  The recommended ones seem to be mostly anthologies of short stories, of which I’m not as much of a fan.  Any recommendations?  Send them my way, please!  I am still throwing off the tired from this cold, so I’m sure I’ll be snuggled up in bed often over the next few days.

Nanowrimo went well-ish.  I won by all official measures (50,000 new words in November), but I didn’t finish the novel.  I’m back to editing other things, although I’m sure Easterbay will become an actual, edited thing someday.

In the meantime, I thought I might put up links so some of my favorite bookish stores for your perusing pleasure.  If you have a bookworm you’re shopping for, but are afraid that they probably already have any books you might consider getting for them, all of these are good options.

Out of Print Clothing: http://www.outofprintclothing.com/.  Between my “American Gods” shirt and my “Little Prince” shirt, I practically live in this stuff on the weekends.  So soft!  I’ve been drooling over their tote bags, too.  You can’t help but love a place that sells a nice Holden Caulfield hat as a necklace, or lets you light things on fire with your “Fahrenheit 451” matchbook.

Sainted Writers: https://www.etsy.com/shop/SaintedWriters.  Who doesn’t need a saint candle to burn to your favorite writer?  I need the Saint Neil Gaiman one STAT!  But we also bought Saint Stephen King for an old professor of my husband’s, and it comes complete with hilarious prayer on the back.

Literary Emporium: https://www.etsy.com/shop/LiteraryEmporium.  Pretty literary quotes with matching baubles, magic notebooks, and other fancy stuff.  They even have cufflinks for the male variety of bookworm.

Other things to consider are bookplate stamps, funky bookmarks, and Moleskine notebooks.  Those are all things I’d drool over.

Categories: Book Reviews, Life | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Upset? Write About It.

Posted on December 3, 2015 by caseykins

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Okay, so I try not to do the political thing on the internet, but I’m giving you fair warning that I’m about to do it, hardcore.

The San Bernardino shooting yesterday affected my family.  The Inland Valley Regional Center is 8 miles from my house.  It is 4 miles from my mother-in-law’s work.  She was on lockdown all of yesterday at the San Bernardino Airport, and it turns out that she knew some of the victims because she worked for San Bernardino County for 10+ years.  The perpetrators holed up in a condo 2 miles from my house, drove down the freeway both Brian and I use to commute home, and then were shot in their black SUV 5 miles from my house.  With 14 people dead and another 17 injured, this is one of the worst mass-shootings in recent years.  Or should I say months?  Because they’re happening a lot now.

Brian and I played it safe.  We both came to Claremont instead of going home, and only left when we knew things were okay in Redlands.  Our neighborhood, while geographically close, is a downtown area and a freeway away from the condo complex.  It was quiet, and everything was normal.

But, I mean, really?  I was DONE with these shootings after the last one, and now I’m not only DONE, I’m angry.  And still no action has been taken.

Nicole Silverberg has put together a handy guide for contacting your congressman.  It’s here.  One of the things she provides is a form letter for you to use if you feel like you don’t want to write your own letter from scratch.  I hope she’ll be okay with me reposting it below.  In addition to greater background checks, Mark Kelly (husband of former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords – shot in the head in 2011) says that creating stronger laws against gun trafficking, strengthening the criminal background check system, and funding research about the causes and impacts of gun deaths can be helpful in preventing these sorts of things.  He has research and statistics to back it all up, too.  Here.

It should not be harder to legally drive a car than it is to get a gun.  Were the two shooters in San Bernardino undoubtedly mentally ill?  Yes.  But there is not “nothing we can do about it.”  In case you need more evidence of that, here’s a handy chart showing that America is the only Western nation dealing with a problem on this scale.  There is a solution, and others are implementing it.

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I’ll be contacting my various congressfolk today.  I hope you’ll join me.

Dear ________________,

I am writing to urge you to support expanded background checks to reduce gun violence in the United States. I am begging you to vote to close the deadly loopholes in our laws that make it too easy for dangerous people to get guns.

Background checks are supported by over 90% of all Americans and are a commonsense tool for keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and the dangerously mentally ill. Background checks on gun sales are the most effective way to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people and help save lives.

It’s time to end the epidemic of gun violence in our country. Thank you for doing what is right for the people of [your state] and the United States.

Thank you,

[Your Name]

Find your Representative in the House; Senate. Or you can use this rather comprehensive list that Nikki Pierce put together.

Categories: Life, Politics | Tags: , , , , , | 2 Comments

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