Some end of the year thoughts

01 - The months just sped by. I can't say I didn't do things but I can't list those things either. I guess the routine of life sometimes make you think you haven't done anything new and it's true. This whole year in comparison to the previous one felt like I didn't do much. I wouldn't say I had been extra lazy but I probably had been. (I may have been watching a bit too much youtube.) I wouldn't say 2024 has been bad but it certainly hasn't been particularly good but at least, I'm still here.
 
02 - On this blog, I posted a lot more than last year. I had thought I would reach 400 posts by now but it looks like I'm not going to make that milestone but I'm okay with that. I really like that I had posted a lot.

03 - I had wrote a lot of fiction and have been updating my writing page with links but I guess people don't bother with that but I like it. I like seeing all the stories I had posted. Sure, they are a bit long and not all polished but I'm proud I posted them and finished them. The link is below the header or go here.

04 - I did read a lot this year, more than previous years but they were mediocre books and yet, I think I had a good reading year. I didn't have in-between long pauses while reading a book like I usually do. But I DNF a lot quicker which I don't know if that's a good or bad thing. If I'm not enjoying a book, it's better to quit right away than to linger on and try to muster interest when there is none. But also, reading only borrowed library books, it's best to return a book and let others enjoy it rather than to keep it and hope to get back to it when I know I wouldn't. I had never really took the full 21 days to read a book. Besides, if I really want to try the same book again, I can borrow it at a later time.

05 - What I failed to do this year is to draw. I had set October each year to draw and to post those drawings but I got lazy. I do have tons of drawings but I just didn't scan them into my computer so I couldn't finish them. I guess if you work digital like I do, it's a bit useless to have your work on paper. I don't know why I was so lazy about it but that's that.

06 - It really would be nice to say I had done or not done other things other than what I listed above but I don't remember them. And I didn't post about them so I couldn't look them up on my blog. My blog is becoming like a record for my various endeavors but what I didn't post about, I seem unable to recall. It's kind of sad to think the only thing I can remember clearly doing is blogging. But without a blog, I'm nowhere on the web.

07 - Here are the final books I had finished reading this year:

The lantern of lost memories by Sanaka Hiiragi, translated by Jesse Kirkwood
What's it about: life & death, memories, photographs
The premise of dead people stopping at an in-between station before moving on sounds intriguing. These three stories are connected by the main character (Hirasaka) and also by other character associations. The first story, The old lady and the bus, was kind of dull. The second, The hero and the mouse, was amusing, and the third, Mitsuru and the last photo, I think is the most interesting as it involves the main character (Hirasaka) who have no memories of his own life and is the host to these dead people. Having no memories seems to make Hirasaka have a mild, almost bland kind of personality which I suppose this makes him the perfect guy for the job.
    As with most translated Japanese books, it is rather reading more American than Japanese which I have always thought is a bad thing. You could only tell this is a Japanese setting by the character and place names. Maybe this is how the author writes and so the translator translated it that way but I'll never know.

Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers (A Vera Wong Novel) by Jesse Q. Sutanto
What's it about: old Chinese woman, tea, food, family, brothers, murder
This was good but it's more about the characters while the murder mystery is an excuse to get these characters together. I think if you like at least one character, you would enjoy this book and I like Vera. She is likable and amusing even if we are told many times she is Chinese and everything she does is Chinese-related and there's no escaping the whole Chinese this or Chinese that all over every page though it's not much about details, more like it's Vera's influence over all the characters. The many points of view is a bit much but I didn't expect any of them to be the murderer and readers wouldn't either and that's how it turned out which I guess is a spoiler but at the same time, people reading this book is not here for the murder.

How is your December going? Are you ready for the new year?

Fiction: A devilish holiday

This month's Words for Wednesday prompts are provided by Wisewebwoman and is hosted at Elephant's Child's blog over here. This week's prompts are: wreath, pine, ribbon, stealth, chimney and/or toboggan, wolf, plum pudding, ambience, blizzard.

Fiction: A devilish holiday
The sunny weather gave the morning an optimistic ambience that Teddy loathed. Last night's blizzard didn't bring enough snow but it made some people cranky and he was briefly cheered by this.
    Today, Teddy was going on a holiday. As he sipped his hot cup of peppermint tea, he glanced over at the plum pudding. He had heard many humans favored that particular dessert during the holidays but he wasn't interested and yet, looking at it made him wistful.
    Wrapped in winter gear as he hated the cold, he appeared in front of a city street covered in snow. It didn't matter where he was, no humans should be unscathed during the holidays where loneliness was abundant and greed was even more destructive.
    By the entrance of Felicity Park, a run-down minivan stopped. The doors slid open and five children all bundled up struggled to get out with their toboggans. The driver, a tall, thin woman, got out and counted heads. Teddy thought she was shabby but the small, floral wreath pin on her coat lapel gave her some elegance.

Worst & Best Books of 2024

I did read a lot this year but mostly mediocre books. Still, it's a good reading year. Here are the books I have chosen to feature as my worst and best reads. (These are not in any particular order.)

~ The Worst ~

01 - Dreadful by Caitlin Rozakis
What's it about: evil wizard with amnesia, fruitless endeavors, lots of egotistic/evil people, lots of dumb servants
What I think: Gav, the wizard with no memory, is basically an idiot until the plot needs him to be otherwise. I don't know why, I thought he's an a-hole who simply can't function without his memory, not that he tries very hard to get it back. So many unfunny things happened but maybe I don't get the humor because I find every scene that is supposed to be funny just awkward and embarrassing. Too much self-introspection and ramblings for me to enjoy bust mostly Gav is a character too annoying to root for.

Fiction: Therapy for the reformed witch

This month's Words for Wednesday prompts are provided by Wisewebwoman and is hosted at Elephant's Child's blog over here. This week's prompts are: ravioli, serenity, marble, bridge, soccer and/or foliage, nepotism, lectern, lantern, gorgonzola.

Fiction: Therapy for the reformed witch
Disa Moore doesn't have anger issues but her boss insisted she visits a therapist for a month or else he'll fire her. So what if she sets a couple of people on fire and turns them to toads? You can't have a former witch to work in customer service at the mall and expect her to be nice when the customers are jerks.
    Here in a large white room, Disa sits on a white leather couch facing the therapist. Miss Cuttings sits with one leg crossed over the other and arms on the armrest of the couch. She is probably in her early thirties, a few years younger than Disa. Everything about the woman screams stress and disorder with her short hair in a ponytail with strands loose around her face, wire-thin eyeglasses slightly askew on the bridge of her nose and wrinkled white shirt and gray pants.  

Blog Post Appreciation

I like the idea of highlighting forgotten posts. So I thought I make a post for that. I could have listed a couple of my fiction pieces as those don't get many views but I'm not going to torture people with long reading but if you're interested in some odd stories, just go click on the 'writing' link below the header. Here are two posts that I thought needed some appreciation:

01 - Book Rants - September 2024 – I wrote book rants/semi-resembles to book reviews as how-to books which I thought was a fun idea for a less rambling post.

02 - The sadness of missing back covers for ebooks – I might have talked about this in a later post but I seem to have forgotten about this post as it was an older one. I still miss back covers when reading ebooks. I think they are needed in order for a book to be complete. I don't understand why they just took it off.

Feel free to leave a link to one or two posts from your blog that you think needs some appreciation. Or if you want, make your own blog post appreciation post with a whole list of posts that you want readers to take a second or a third look.

Fiction: New York Moon

This month's Words for Wednesday prompts are provided by Wisewebwoman and is hosted at Elephant's Child's blog over here. This week's prompts are: arithmetic, daffodils, bicycle, graveyard, sympathy and/or gravy, tugboat, flag, hospital, freedom. Charlotte (MotherOwl) has selected light blue as the colour of the month.

New York Street with Moon by Georgia O'Keeffe

Fiction: New York Moon
It was the view that lured him to buy the place but now all the buildings obscured everything except the moon.
    Drinking hot milk was what he did on weekends. But this Sunday night, he wanted a new habit. He made black tea and sat down on the couch with his hot mug with all the lights off.
    Tonight, the moon was his light. Its light filtered in through the opened light blue curtains. Usually, he would share the view with her - this New York moon with its never fading light. But now he turned his back on it. But he still felt its presence.
    The echo of a train ran through behind him. He took a sip of the tea. The hot liquid warmed him a bit. It was cold walking home from the hospital. Being a doctor was his dream but the job was now arduous and joyless. On the way, he had stopped to watch a tugboat guided a ship toward shore. The ship's flag waved in the wild wind. It had reminded him the only day he had ever sailed. He got seasick but he had never forgotten the freedom he felt being out there while the wind guided him along.

Fiction: You need a dog

This month's Words for Wednesday prompts are provided by Wisewebwoman and is hosted at Elephant's Child's blog over here. This week's prompts are: jail, bar, dump truck, asphyxiate, herring and/or kiwi, bowling, rifle range, permit, daiquiri.

Fiction: You need a dog
Stanley Storm had been getting messages from god since he was ten. They weren't always direct, wise or useful but they would always give Storm something to think about. And they would always come from unexpected places.
    On the Wednesday morning Storm turned 38, he was making vanilla cake like always when something on the box made the crinkle between his eyes deepened. Ever since he turned 30, the messages had not been coming so he had thought he didn't need them anymore. As it was not his usual brand of ready-made cake mix, he had to read the instructions. At the end, there was this: Ask not why your wife doesn't love you, ask why she wanted your passcode. Storm had a sudden memory of his wife, Joy, asking him for the code to his safe in his home office. She had never bothered with such things as he gave her enough each month to buy three cars.

IWSG Dec 2024: Gender Perspective

When I was writing this story, a query came up: If a man is feeling awkward or in some slight discomfort and is sitting down, does he widen his feet or do the opposite? This story is from a male perspective so I'm wondering if I'm right to make him have his feet moved farther apart. When someone widen their stance, they are trying to stabilize their body, hence, this sort of make them a little more at ease. My thinking is, your body would automatically do what is comfortable to you in certain situations. I'm not assuming all males are like this but when I'm writing, I am making the assumption.    
    Some people might have a different opinion on this because everyone's different. Even if we assume from the conventional male perspective, there would be deviations we might not know of. I think a character's perspective, whether it is male or female, cannot always be correct because different people have different ideas of what makes a male or a female. But I am mostly speaking from a conventional point of view.

As a reader or writer, do you think writers get it right when it comes to gender perspectives?
  
[More about the group over at the Insecure Writer’s Support Group blog here]