IWSG Mar 2025: Paper or digital?

I used to write using a pen and on notebooks and notepads and then typed them into the computer. For some reason, the writing seemed easier and ideas seemed to flow better. But then comes the typing and then I realized how hard it is to actually do the typing. I write in linear form but some ideas come up for farther on in a story so they swim alone and then I have to remember to put them in the proper order. After a while, this process just got tiring so I switched to mostly digital.
    I still write ideas, certain phrases and notes on notepads and then type them into the computer but my handwriting is not so great so sometimes I have to leave behind ideas because I can't decipher them especially when I write them in the middle of the night under some faint light.
    Mostly, I do like writing on a computer and also the spellcheck function is really useful. I'm more likely to delete writing (bad, excessive or unnecessary) on a computer than on paper but on paper, I cross out the text, I can somehow still have those deleted text unlike a computer. Of course there is the whole losing documents or even corrupted documents since all my writings are basically computer files so when my computer doesn't work or when my backup drive doesn't work, I can't access them. I can print them out and keep them as a record but that seems like a waste of paper. I think no matter if you use paper or go digital, it's still pretty much the same but I admit, I'm much more organized when writing digitally.
    
Do you prefer to write on paper or digitally using your computer or some other devices?

(P.S. The app I use to write is iText Express  (Freeware for Mac, no PC/Windows version) > link - a very simplistic text app that I have been using for years.)
  
[More about the group over at the Insecure Writer’s Support Group blog here]

Book Rants - Feb 2025

Here are the books I had read and some unfinished reads.

~ Books I read ~

01 - Lady of Ashes (#1) by Christine Trent
What's it about: lady undertaker, deaths, funerals, politics, the queen, war
Sadly this is not entirely about a lady undertaker solving murders as that bit was buried at the end of the book. The main character didn't do much investigating and the killer was caught quickly. This part is just another event along with all other events in the main character's life. There isn't a particular storyline that is focused on too long. You can say this book is stuffed with too many things that what was the best parts (the undertaking, the murders, the train crash) are buried with everything else.
    The boring bits are the politics that involved various people and Queen Victoria who seemed like a caricature - I didn't care much for her viewpoint or the various other viewpoints. I haven't decide if I want to continue the series as the second book also involves the royal family which I really don't like reading about and also many viewpoints.

Blogging from A-Z Challenge 2025

I have done the Blogging from A-Z Challenge every April for almost as long it existed. I think this is a good challenge to sort of challenge a blogger's patience (by posting every day except Sundays for a whole month guided by the alphabets) and their perseverance because so many quit after the letter A. If you didn't plan ahead and wrote all 26 posts, it might seemed daunting to have to write them in a rush to post on time.
    The challenge for me is to keep thinking and writing posts and sometimes a day ahead but most, I write a post the day before I post it. Yes, it would be easier and less stressful to plan ahead but I'm not one to plan anything ahead and even if did write all the posts, I would still end up changing many of them.
    Usually I have no themes so it's random things that I hope entertains readers and maybe some fictions as I can't help but include some but I keep them short. This year, I'm thinking if I do the challenge, I would pick words and talk about whatever comes from those words. But I don't know. It's easier to say to do something than to actually do it. I'm still debating whether to do the challenge or not.
    Anyway, I thought I repost the badges I made for the challenge this year. The theme for these badges is beginning or spring so that's why the little plant and the sun. (I've revised the winner's badge a tiny bit as the word winner wasn't quite balance in the first version.) These are alternatives and not the official badges. You may use these as you like. (Click on them for the large views so you can download.) (More about the challenge here.)

not official badge - version 1

not official badge - version 2

not official badge - winner badge

Do you plan on doing the Blogging From A-Z Challenge this April?

Fiction: Premonitions & Happenstances

This is sort of connected to The Soul Guardian story (part 1, part 2, part 3).

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Fiction: Premonitions & Happenstances
~ January 2025 ~

Penelope Grace stands in the middle of the road as a bus careens toward her while a light drizzle falls. The bus screeches to a halt and Penelope walks around to the side and bangs on the bus door. "Open up!" she shouts. The door swings open. "What do you want?" says the driver.
    Penelope steps inside the bus and leans a little toward the driver. She glances down at his uniform with his name sewn into the pocket and back up to his face. "Mr. Quincy, you must not take the bus onto the bridge. It is unsafe. Please, take the other route," says Penelope, her large green eyes meet his small brown ones.
    "How did you know my name? Never mind. See here, lady, if the bridge is unsafe, I would have been notified," he says.
    In Penelope's premonition, lightning strikes the bridge and causes it to collapse and the bus gets caught in the motion and drag down into the ocean. By the light of someone's phone, she had seen the horror-filled faces as they all drowned. Two hours ago, when she got out of the vision, she was sprawled on the floor of her tiny bedroom and shivering from being in the water even though she hadn't really been there.

Words for Wednesday Prompts - Feb 26, 2025

This February, I am the host for Words for Wednesday. Words for Wednesday is started by Delores a while ago. Now the prompts are hosted by various people on various blogs with Elephant's Child as the coordinator. The aim of Words for Wednesday is to encourage us to write using some or all of the prompts.

This week's prompts are:
1 - premonition
2 - onion
3 - temperature
4 - seventh
5 - weirdo

Charlotte (Mother Owl)'s color of February is Glass Elephant Blue. See the color at Charlotte's blog over here.

You may write your piece in the comments or post it on your blog. If posting on your blog, please leave a direct link to the post so we can all visit you. Have fun writing!

This is my last week hosting Words for Wednesday. For March prompts, River will be providing the prompts and they will be hosted at her blog, Drifting through life.

Fiction: The Soul Guardian 3 (End)

[ Read Part 1 here, Part 2 here ]

~ January 2012 ~

"Hello, Mr. Blue," says Penelope. Anson hasn't accepted the nickname but it's an appropriate title for he always wears navy blue from head to toe. When she first started calling him that, she had glanced at his biker boots and said, "Someday, I'll get a pair of boots like yours." A certain thrill had ran through him but he dismissed it. He doesn't try to remember all that she says but somehow her words stick in his head.
    "Why aren't you up there with her?" says Penelope.
    Anson keeps his eyes up at the five-story building. The falling rain blocks most of his view but he senses the lady's hesitation. Even after all these years, he is still unused to knowing what his charge is feeling and thinking. He lowers his eyes toward the ground.  
    "Oh! I get it! It's only after she suffers does she realize she wants to live. But isn't it cruel? What if she breaks more than a leg? But that's life, right?" Penelope's constant queries irks him and yet, he likes her curiosity.
    "Quick, Mr. Blue! Move that truck so she can land on it! You can save her some suffering!" Penelope is waving her hands wildly between the truck and the falling lady.
    Without thinking, Anson lifts a finger and swipes the air. The gray truck moves and she lands on the roof but the sound is drowned out by the rain. Anson appears on the roof of the truck. The lady's soul sits up from her body lying on her stomach. He taps her shoulder and her soul seeps back into her body. Just a fracture bone in her left leg and yet, for this one decision, she will pay for it in her future.
    What have he done? A guardian's job is to keep the soul safe and not to interfere with their lives, not even to save them some suffering - this Anson reminds himself. He likes to believe every decision is judicious but is it? He looks up at the gray sky. What limitless pain humans give themselves. The danger isn't always outside but what's within. He looks back at Penelope. She is grinning up at him and waving two thumbs up. As he turns away from her, he notes she has grown taller in the past five years.
    As he returns to the ground, Emanuela's voice speaks in his head. "Poor child. Sadly, it matters little where she lands. But you are to extend your guardianship for a bit longer but time matters little to us." Her voice fades away. Anson considers her words. Does time matters when you aren't living?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Words for Wednesday Prompts - Feb 19, 2025

This February, I am the host for Words for Wednesday. Words for Wednesday is started by Delores a while ago. Now the prompts are hosted by various people on various blogs with Elephant's Child as the coordinator. The aim of Words for Wednesday is to encourage us to write using some or all of the prompts.

This week's prompts are:
1 - scumbag
2 - qualm
3 - judicious
4 - limitless
5 - danger

Charlotte (Mother Owl)'s color of February is Glass Elephant Blue. See the color at Charlotte's blog over here.

You may write your piece in the comments or post it on your blog. If posting on your blog, please leave a direct link to the post so we can all visit you. Have fun writing!

Music on my playlist lately - Feb 2025

I don't listen to as much new music as I used to. Before, I would anticipate album releases and even go to the store to buy them (cds) but now nothing. But I do like to listen to new music though most of my favorites artists aren't releasing albums. It's like everyone's on a break or something so the rare releases makes new music all the more precious.
    I might have spent a bit of time at youtube listening to music and watching music videos. There are these things called topics where you can listen to entire albums for free with commercials. If an artist has a youtube channel, you can check out their music by clicking on releases or you can just search for an artist. This is a nice way to listen to samples before you make any purchases.
    Here are three recent albums I have added to my playlist recently:

01 - Bii - With You  (released in 2024)
Language: Mandarin with one song in Korean
Genre: pop/rock/R&B/heavy metal (for the last track)
Listen at youtube here >
The last track (I will survive) is a bit not to my liking as I'm not into heavy metal music and it really doesn't go with the rest of the album. My favorite's so far is glacier and first snow.

02 - Jon McLaughlin - All the things I say to myself (released in 2021)
Language: English
Genre: pop/rock
Listen at youtube here >
This might be a bit preachy (in terms of lyrics) but I still like it. My favorite songs are a break up song, people like you, and how to say goodbye.

03 - Matt Nathanson - King of (un)simple (released in 2025)
Language: English
Genre: pop/rock
Listen at youtube here > or check it out in other places listed here.
I've been a fan of Matt Nathanson for a while and always look forward to his album releases. King of (un)simple is just released last week so I didn't get to listen that long but it is pretty good so far. I stopped listening to track 2 (Pablo Picasso) as I don't like the four-letter f word being used and I really prefer if artists stop cursing in music but that's a preference. The last song (impossible things) and first song (map at the mall) are my favorites so far.

What music have you been listening to?

Fiction: The Soul Guardian 2

[ Read Part 1 over here ]

~ January 2007 ~

Somewhere in the middle of remembering and forgetting, Anson recalls in her future, the child will be named Penelope. He sneaks a glance at the girl and turns away.
    "What's your name?" Her loud voice surprises Anson again. She has been asking and he has been dodging. What does it matter what he is called? Besides, Anson is not his real name.
    The child's body's constant attempts to wake from her deep sleep causes her soul to wander and as her guardian, she would always find Anson until her soul settles in place. Her constant appearance puts a dent in his calm and yet, he cannot deny her presence makes him curious. But as she will not remember him when she returns to the living, there is no need to interact with her any more than necessary. He must return her, however cruel it may be.
    They appear at the hospital where the child has been moved to a large room full of other children. Anson gives her soul a gentle tap and she slips back to her body. She is still a tiny form from her years of starvation but he notes she has grown a little in two years. He gives her a second glance and leaves.
    Thoughts of his old life trickles through his mind. Childhood with absent parents. Working through medical school. Residency at a small hospital which he gained much needed experiences. It would have been followed with a fellowship at a prestigious hospital. All gone in just five minutes by a single act of imbecility. The abruptness of it all had made him angry but he had lived a thorough if incomplete life and that should have been enough.
    Anson can't help but think of his damaged body lying in a small white room and being kept alive by machines. As long as his body lives, Anson will always be tethered to it. If some day, his body is released from its hold, he would move on to a new life or so he believes. After many years as a guardian, he has stopped wondering about his fate.
    Unlike Anson, most soul guardians are untethered to any bodies. They have what some might called ghost bodies as they are neither alive nor dead. All souls return to their bodies, move on to the next life or become a soul guardian. There is one exception - runaways. Runaways are souls who have gotten away from their bodies. Sometimes they lose connections with their assigned guardians and this make them lose their way. If they are tethered to a body, that body will die after 49 days as no runaway can ever survive without a body and no body can ever survive without a soul. Runaways are rare and only the oldest of guardians have ever encountered them.
    If Anson's guardian hadn't showed up in time, would he have been a runaway and lost himself and then faded from existence? Anson moves away from those thoughts. He has work to do.
    A woman opens her car door just as a guy stabs her, pushes her to the pavement and drives the car away. The woman lies on the ground with blood soaking her coat. Anson stands over her. In her state between delirium and sobriety, she sees him but her eyes does not linger on Anson. She pulls out a phone from her coat pocket and presses the screen. The voice on the other line speaks but the woman loses consciousness. Anson bends down toward the phone and gives the street name and the necessity for an ambulance.  
    A few moments later, Anson stands beside the stolen car where the thief had crashed it into a pole. The thief's soul detaches from his body and Anson forces him back with a hard push. The kid, perhaps seventeen or older, opens his eyes briefly before slumping his head on the wheel. Anson waves a hand at the car and the alarm screams. Lights flicker on in the surrounding shops. In this late hour, a few people comes out and rushes toward the scene. Anson silences the alarm before leaving.
    In another street, Anson appears. A woman with short, silver hair with a youthful face passes by him. She gives him a nod and he returns it. Her name is Emanuela and she was once Anson's guardian. As guardians, they can simply send thoughts to each other even across a great distance but Emanuela rarely likes to do that nor does she likes to talk.
    When Anson first met her some nine years ago, Emanuela had simply said to him, either he stay with his body or become a temporary guardian. Since then, she has spoken little to him.
    Perhaps the passing of years has made Anson more introspective but Anson does not seek the company of other guardians although they all sense each other's presence. Though his work is solitary, Anson does not mind it. After all the chaos of living, he prefers it.
    Penelope appears but Anson keeps his eyes averted from her smiling face.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

This week's Words for Wednesday prompts are: cruel, return, sneak, solitary, middle. More Words for Wednesday over here.

Words for Wednesday Prompts - Feb 12, 2025

This February, I am the host for Words for Wednesday. Words for Wednesday is started by Delores a while ago. Now the prompts are hosted by various people on various blogs with Elephant's Child as the coordinator. The aim of Words for Wednesday is to encourage us to write using some or all of the prompts.

This week's prompts are:
1 - cruel
2 - return
3 - sneak
4 - solitary
5 - middle

Charlotte (Mother Owl)'s color of February is Glass Elephant Blue. See the color at Charlotte's blog over here.

You may write your piece in the comments or post it on your blog. If posting on your blog, please leave a direct link to the post so we can all visit you. Have fun writing!

Fiction: The Soul Guardian 1

~ January 2005 ~

Another soul forgotten. How easy for humans to abandon each other. At this late hour, in this dark alleyway dumpster, there are few humans passing by. Even with a light beaming down on her, she goes unnoticed.
    Anson kneels down by the child and places a hand on her small form curved in a fetus position. His warmth will do little for this young one. The child's soul appears beside him. He straightens up and looks her over. Such a fragile child but she cannot leave, not yet. Anson doesn't like it but it's not his decision.
    She tugs his hand. Anson pulls away and points to her body. "You belong there," he says in a calm voice. He gives her a gentle tap on her shoulder and she seeps back into her body. He whistles. A dog's bark echoes. Taking a few steps back, Anson eases into the shadows.
    A doberman steps into the light follow by a woman holding onto the dog's leash. Quickly, she assesses the situation and takes out her phone. Anson leaves before the dog can react to his presence.
    Further down the streets, Anson continues his walk. A quaver sweeps over the land - a chorus like cries of lost children echoed lightly in the air. Anson stops. A sinking feeling like he has missed something comes over him. The sound vanishes bit by bit. All soul guardians can hear and feel this disquiet every one hundred days but no one knows what it truly means. Anson lets out a breath.
    With a single thought, he can move from place to place but that is a rather dull way to travel. He prefers to use his body and keep the human habit. He has no worries about time and yet, everything he does depends on time. A second, a minute, might mean the difference between living and dying.
    He soon comes to a three-story house. Inside, a man is pounding his fat fists into a woman. She falls onto broken bottles on the floor. Her fingers find a large piece and she shoves the shard into the man's right thigh. He collapses to the floor. His soul appears beside his body. Beady eyes look from his body to Anson. Anson gives the man a hard shove, sending his soul back into his body. Without thinking, Anson presses a foot on the man's wound making him scream. After a few seconds, Anson releases his foot. It isn't his place to punish. The man falls unconscious.
    The woman scrambles away from the man, not even noticing her bare left foot is bleeding. Long years of violence has unstrung her. She trembles but her eyes remain dry as she shifts her body into a tight ball. Anson places a hand on her shoulder. The warmth from his touch provides poor comfort. She continues to sit and stare. In a few moments, she will call the police. Anson leaves. It isn't pleasant to linger. The man will continue almost without any regrets while the woman will be haunted for the rest of her life.
    Out in the open night air, Anson takes in a breath though he doesn't need it. His next assignment is far away. He must travel by thought. He appears inside a collapsed building where two men and a woman are crawling their way through an air duct to get inside. Their headlamps light the space and their dirt-covered faces. Anson leaves them and appears inside an open area. Under a pile of fallen ceiling, a boy and his brother are unconscious. Beside them, their mother lies on her stomach, dead, like the others in the semi-darkness. One of the boys is clutching an mp3 player. Anson flicks his fingers and the player's screen brightens. He chooses a slow song and turns up the volume to the highest level and then he waits. Later, he watches the boys being carried out but he doesn't stay.
    The night is long. But as he starts walking toward his next assignment, the little child from before appears beside him. He presses his lips tight. He must be resolute. She must go back. He turns around and the child follows.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

This week's Words for Wednesday prompts are: abandon, vanish, quaver, unstring, poor.  More Words for Wednesday over here.

IWSG Feb 2025: Plot Pet Peeves

Reading is a preference which I have to remind myself whenever I read something pretty dumb. Here are some of my plot pet peeves:

01 - When the protagonist is knocked unconscious or taken away so he/she is not a witness to an important event and neither is the reader until afterward — I only read maybe three books with this but it's still annoying because there seems to be no reason for it and if there is a reason, it isn't all that great. If the protagonist doesn't witness an event - okay fine but if the reader doesn't get to witness it either - why? So maybe in a book where readers only get one point of view it makes sense he/she wouldn't witness something when they are not there but this doesn't mean they can't get another character to tell about the event in a detail manner instead of a summary.

02 - When a character delays in telling another (mainly the protagonist) something important or hide something that could have an impact on the whole of the story or clear up a huge misunderstanding — The whole I want to protect him/her is not really much of an excuse because eventually this something will get out in the worst kind of way to make the protagonist suffer more. Once in a while, having characters tell each other secrets (sooner rather than later) is not such a terrible thing. I get so annoyed when things get dragged out for too long.

03 - A small subplot (such as a petty crime) is talked of throughout a book and then is dropped/dismissed after a while with little or no explanation — If you open up a problem, however minor, talk about it throughout the book, it should have a resolution and not a one-sentence dismissal or completely forgotten.

04 - Bad guy/villain coming back from the dead for the third or fourth time — I'm not talking about fake deaths, I'm talking about a character dies and then gets resurrected in a way that they are the same. I know some villains are so good (or loved by readers) that they get resurrected but I hate that. If a bad guy is killed off, he/she should stay dead. What purpose is it to bring back dead bad guys except to prove that the good guy will only be better if he/she battles with the same bad guy or prove how incompetent the good guy is at killing bad guys?

05 - A character (maybe the bad guy/villain or even a main character) gets minor or no punishment after they admit their wrongdoing — Some of them even get forgiven which I have always found kind of wrong especially if someone tries to kill you, forgiving them seems like saying it's okay, I don't mind dying, blab, blab... There should be consequences to people's actions, some type of punishment or karma especially if they did something terrible or wrong.

What are some of your plot pet peeves?

(I got this plot pet peeves idea from Pages Unbound over here. I couldn't comment on that post because I have no wordpress or facebook.)
  
[More about the group over at the Insecure Writer’s Support Group blog here]

Words for Wednesday Prompts - Feb 5, 2025

This February, I am the host for Words for Wednesday. Words for Wednesday is started by Delores a while ago. Now the prompts are hosted by various people on various blogs with Elephant's Child as the coordinator. The aim of Words for Wednesday is to encourage us to write using some or all of the prompts.

This week's prompts are:
1 - abandon
2 - vanish
3 - quaver
4 - unstring
5 - poor

Charlotte (Mother Owl)'s color of February is Glass Elephant Blue. See the color at Charlotte's blog over here.

You may write your piece in the comments or post it on your blog. If posting on your blog, please leave a direct link to the post so we can all visit you. Have fun writing!

Books Rants - January 2025

I spent the month mostly eating chocolate to kind of celebrate my birthday and watching a bit way too much youtube and reading.  Here are the books I read this January.

01 - Gathering Mist (Timber Creek K-9 Mystery #9) by Margaret Mizushima
What's it about: K-9, handlers, animals, search & rescue, missing child, light romance
Thoughts: Mattie (the main character) is working in a different town and the usual cast of characters other than Cole (the other main character), is not around. I suppose this is to widen Mattie's world to maybe change the direction of the series, I don't know, I just know I would prefer they stay in her small town. I still enjoy reading about the dog Robo and Mattie, the handler. The wedding at the end is a bit mushy, too emotional and I probably would skip it if it wasn't part of the book. If this is the final book of the series, it's a good send-off.

Books Unfinished - Jan 2025

I used to not talk about books I didn't finish because I didn't think it's worth mentioning but now I think it's a good way to sort of find out what I don't like in books. Or just to share the hatred, outrage or the sometimes snarky discontent. I'm always interested in what makes a reader put down a book.
    So maybe I shouldn't have chosen these books to read but once in a while, I go a little mad and decided to read outside my comfort zone so this is the result. Here are a few of my unfinished reads lately.

01 - Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies by Catherine Mack
What's it about: a book tour, arrogant authors, details of what people are eating and drinking, vacation-like sceneries, maybe a murder
Quit at: 25% or more
My thoughts: Let's explore the reasons why I quit reading this book:
    (1) The annoying narrator/main character. Maybe I don't like rich, successful women who don't have problems but decided they do because being rich and successful apparently is a problem. So she is being blackmailed but it sounds like she could have stopped it by paying a lot of lawyer fees but she prefers to pay her blackmailer instead.
    Maybe her attempt to sound quirky, knowledgeable, sincere, kind, chic, modern, and even pitiful, annoyed me. I think she sounds like a teenager pretending to be an adult. The way she uses the four-letter f word freely makes me wonder if she's trying to sound like she's tough or something. Also, using the word thick a lot and often to describe someone's hair because every single person she sees and meets have thick hair because goodness, we can't have people with different types of hair.
    Maybe this should have been told in the narrator's younger sister's perspective because there is too much of the narrator's thoughts and commentaries and not enough of the actual story. You can say, the narrator is full of herself so much that she spills over the edge and that's why there are footnotes to her thoughts.
    (2) Reads like an annotated book with footnotes only you wish that person had withheld their judgement and kept to the facts and not sounded like she's writing to familiar strangers trying to over explain her thoughts. The footnotes sounds like frivolous things an editor would have cut out. Here are a few footnote examples:
    I've have always wanted to write that.
    I'm feeling very prose-y today.
    ...yep, I've been saving that one, too.
    So we're clear: I'm not plagiarizing. I cited my source twice.
    Spoiler alert: It's not going to be fine.
    Does these footnotes sound like they are worth reading? There are 236 of them while the book is slightly over 340 pages.
    (3) The murdered victim is not Conner Smith (I only remember his name because he is mentioned every few seconds). He's a successful and probably professional blackmailer as he blackmailed the main character for 10 years and also he's her ex-boyfriend. They kept hinting he might get murdered but the final victim wasn't him.    
    The way he is told and described by the main character, he sounds like an arrogant playboy and despite being a detective, he needs the main character's help to find who is supposedly trying to kill him - why? The main character comes off as unwise (or maybe too stupid) to be a sleuth but they said she is because she solved some crime which her books are based on.
    (4) The sometimes flowery and sometimes inane writing. Examples:
    "...the paintbrush trees reach toward an inky, starless sky."
    "That first plate of pasta I had yesterday was like a sexual experience."
    (5) The humor. If there's humor here, I didn't find it. The main character tries to be funny but she just sounds cliche and awkward.
    (6) Not much of a mystery, more like a reality show gone bad or a bad romantic comedy trying to fit in a mystery. So much drama around all the characters and yet, still very dull. If they all got killed at once, that might have been better.
   (7) The notes, articles or whatever they are called in between the chapters (though there are not a lot of them). I called them extended footnotes. They supposedly told a couple of back stories, promoted the fictional author's books and something else (see below).
   (I didn't read this far but I saw this when I was browsing to see if it's worth continuing.)  In one of these extended footnotes after chapter 22 titled Breaking the fourth wall, the  fictional author talks to the reader and describes the so-call process of writing a book and a recap of what the reader just read. Basically you can read this part and skipped chapters 1 through 22. The main character being an author must use her author prowess to help the reader read this book. Also, telling the reader it's their turn to solve the mystery annoys me because some of us read so we don't have to solve problems. And there are footnotes with this - why? I suspect there would be more reasons to stop reading if I kept on so I stopped.

02 - A Curious Beginning (Veronica Speedwell #1) by Deanna Raybourn
What's it about: a modern-es arrogant woman and an arrogant man wandering around England and doing a lot of talking, maybe a murder mystery buried somewhere
Quit at: 10% or more
My thoughts: Any time there's a main female character who is so confident and self-righteous, that she thinks everyone, including other women, are beneath her, then, it's a book I don't want to read. The main character has an unknown origin which I just went meh as there is no reason why her character shouldn't have a known background other than to make her sound mysterious. I read a spoiler of what her background is and I have to laugh because it sounded so unbelievably stupid.
    The writing has a romance-like undertone that I don't like. At one point, she was breathless in reply to a simple question even though there was no reason for it. What? And the murder? Judging from the reviews, it seems the murder was pretty much background noise while the main character and another main male character run around England bickering/bantering/whatever and pretending they are solving a murder but are really just meandering and prolonging who knows what, maybe their would-be romance?
    The main character brags about being promiscuous but not in her home town because she's a lady. What arrogance. Does she really believe people won't gossip about her just because she keeps her habit outside of the country where she resides? It's not like these gentlemen she slept with doesn't travel or perhaps they make some promise not to seek her out because everyone knows all men keep their promises. Yeah, sure. And also hunting butterflies because she's a scientist seems like an excuse for her to go aboard and seek out men. I'm not against women fulfilling their desires but what was she trying to say? She wants to be thought of as a proper lady but just in the place she resides?
   [I don't believe the next thing I'm talking about is a spoiler as this happen very early in the book but just a warning.] In one scene, when she got home and her house was ransacked and instead of going to the police, she decides to confront the thief who is still in the house. He turned out to be a giant man and almost kidnapped her if not for a gentleman whom she later decided to take up his offer of going away with him to save expenses. She almost got himself kidnapped and then she decided to go off with a stranger - is she so confident in her abilities that she thinks she wouldn't get kidnapped (again) or murdered? Would it be rude to give her the title, intellectual bimbo, which I define as a smart woman who makes dumb decisions. I gave up. It's more enjoyable to read the negative reviews than to read this book.
 

03 - The First State of Being by Erin Entrada Kelly
What's it about: Y2K, 1999, time travel, middle-grade worries, poverty
Quit at: 45%
My thoughts: It started fine but then it got a bit boring. I guess I'm just not that interested in a kid during the 1999 and in near poverty. It was slow paced and not much happened or perhaps it was because I didn't get to the more exciting parts?
    In between chapters there are stuff you read in textbooks about things involving time travel which should have been fun but it was monotonous plus dialogues from people in the future which frankly adds very little interest to what's happening in the main story.
    It's ordinary life with hints of time travel and if you don't care about the main character and what's going on with his life, which I don't, it's a boring read. I read a small spoiler which told me I wouldn't like this book if I continued so it really is better to leave it.

04 - Drowning: The rescue of Flight 1421 by T.J. Newman
What's it about: plane crash-land into water, rescue, slow-moving human dramas
Quit at: 47%
My thoughts: Once all the exciting stuff happens in the beginning of the book, the boredom level dropped when they go back and reveal some tragic past which slows down the book but then it slowly re-builds up again. The bit about the parents who had lost a child years ago while their other child is on the crashed plane just irritated me because do we need all that depressing past hanging over the story? Supposedly this makes the reader care more about the survivors but for me, I find my concern for these people dropped significantly when I read this past tragedy. The way the story unfolds with coincidences that I knew I would encounter, it becomes less exciting to read.
    While reading this, I realize I really prefer watching disaster movies rather than reading them. In the movies, you can easily get over the slow-moving human dramas while in book form, you feel like you're slugging through them. I guess I'm saying I have no patience for this book no matter how fast-paced at times.

Have you unfinished any books lately?

Fiction: Stoned thieves, traffic jams & other catastrophes

This month's Words for Wednesday prompts are provided by Elephant's Child over here. The previous week's prompts are: common animal phrases. The ones I used are chicken hearted and bat an eye. Last week's prompts are: ancient, life, water, melody, lied and/or medal, speaker, cords, paper, false. I used the first half of the prompts. This week's prompts are: kiss, hope, grinned, dark, shock and/or high, places, fiends, Friday, why. I used both sets of prompts.

Fiction: Stoned thieves, traffic jams & other catastrophes
They were scheduled to pick up three bodies. It was a dark, cold, Friday morning with a high chance of a storm. With Freddie in the passenger seat and looking placid, Max drove, gripping the steering wheel tightly. His mind kept drifting toward the back of the van where three bodies will be placed in their individual compartments.
    Freddie called their profession body movers which Max thought was appropriately accurate. He still couldn't fathom why the 29-year-old Freddie wanted to do this type of work. She often joked it was so someday she could personally manhandle her ex-husband and maybe hide his body so no one would find it. Max was never certain if she was joking or not.

Seven Things: There may be ramblings

01 - I changed my blog's header but I doubt anyone noticed. I would always notice if someone change something on their blog but that's an occupational hazard. Anyway, I just like a change, like a redesign or maybe a re-adjustment of what I have been using. I think if you are to redesign something such as a blog header, you should either use the same elements or do something completely different. I prefer to use the same elements so even if people don't notice the change, they are reminded what's unchanged and the unchanged usually helps to familiarize you even if you don't know it or so I believe. So here's the old and the new for you to compare.

12/2024

01/2025

02 - Every time I updated Firefox, there is some new feature to remove or hide or some feature is suddenly too apparent or suddenly unable to disable for reasons I can never understand. Updates are for improving not to add things to annoy people but maybe they are trying to improve but maybe for people other than me or why else I hate everything they keep updating?

IWSG Jan 2025: What if you never finish?

What if you keep writing and writing but never finish any of the writing projects you had started? Even given all the free time, the one thing I'm not doing is finishing. From time to time, I can work on a project for days, weeks even months and then it just fizzle out. Mostly, the motivation is just not there. When I get struck and stop writing, I kind of forget to continue.
    It's easier to start than to finish - at least, it seems to me. I guess you can say I lack motivation and because there is no one chasing me to finish anything, I got lazy. I have way more unfinished stories than finished ones. But finishing isn't the end because there's more editing and more re-writing so maybe I'm avoiding that? Who knows? Maybe I will finish most of my writing some day.
    
Do you worry you'll never finish your writings?

[More about the group over at the Insecure Writer’s Support Group blog here]

A list of things I might, maybe, do

I don't do resolutions but I like the idea and also having something written (or posted) sort of makes you think you can do them. So I made a list of things I might, maybe, do:

01 - Blog more, bitch less or Bitch more, blog less
02 - Figure out how to squeeze 15 more hours into each day
03 - Be 1% less lazy
04 - Enjoy existing
05 - Realize no matter what I do, I can't change the way I am
06 - Stop lying to myself about liking doing the laundry
07 - Watch less youtube by at least 0.000001%
08 - Do some exercise other than staring at a screen
09 - Read more blogs
10 - Be 1.5% more busy

Is there anything you want or going to do this year?

Happy 2025!

May your new year be filled with good health, new joys and good fortunes. Happy New Year!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Note about this art: white fortune cat is for happiness; tree for growth; stars for dreaming; books for knowledge; cup of tea for relaxation; four-leaf clover for luck and tangerines for good fortune and wealth.