What I read -- June 2021

LHC #123: "The Monster of Elendhaven" by Jennifer Giesbrecht. Enormously fun. This read like the best kind of fanfic.

LHC #124: "Absolutely nothing to get alarmed about: The complete novels of Charles Wright" by, shockingly enough, Charles Wright. Is it three novels? Kind of. Somehow I got the idea in my head that the library website was lying and the book was 624 pages, not 387, and was intimidated. The language is so rich and dense, to tally worth the effort.

LHC #125: "Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach" by Kelly Robson. Shorter than I expected, and quite charming.

LHC #126: "Invisible Countries" by Joshua Keating. He's an editor at Slate, so that's probably how I heard of this book. I read a lot more on Slate before they limited me to a few articles a month at about the same time I lost my job, and now I'm just bitter. The chapter on Akwesasne seemed really important, considering how Canada is dealing with repercussions of residential "schools" right now. Canada does not come off well here. The structure was kind of boring, but this book was totally my jam. A good read.

Moraine

So a couple of days I thought I was done with this short story, and I wrote the last line of the story. I even dated it (that's how I can tell it's over). It was a little long, at 6600 words (I was aiming for 5000). But then I was walking to work, and I thought, "My, that was a lame ending. My endings are all crap." So yesterday morning, I scribbled out the date and wrote a bit more. And this morning I wrote a bit more again, and I dated it and called it done. And still, that ending seemed lame. So a few minutes later, in the last paragraph, I scratched out "the Oak Ridges Moraine" and wrote in "that stupid moraine". Much better. Now I can move on. But in the meantime, I was doing a little research about the Moraine, and I discovered that EGTourGuide lives on it. Only by one or two hundred feet, but I thought it was funny. Good for you, EGTourGuide, with all those excellent plants growing on that substandard soil, where in the olden days (you kno...

In progress: August 2024

Wind/Water/Salt Chapters 39-51: Still n eed to take up comments and revise. Persephone (probably not its real name): Continued to think thoughts. Short Stories: After posting that short story from last month onto the workshop, I picked one of those short stories I'd started and forced a plot onto it. Critted 5 Got back 4 Submissions 0 Out there 0 Rejects 0 Knitting Cathar (self). Started month with two inches done above the armholes. Listening to audiobooks, I finished the fair isle portion, cut the steeks, and set up and knit the neckline. Just the endless finishing now. Blushing Cloud (Knitty S/S24). Started the month with (still) three inches of back done. Socks take priority. Elbrus socks (Knitty first fall 2024). Finished. Elbrus socks II . Started the first. Pole shorts (Joan McGowan-Michael). I knitted these several years ago, but the...

Word of the day: Wendigo

I first encountered this word a few weeks ago on Leah Bobet's blog , but I skipped over and paid it no nevermind. Anyway, it caught my eye again today when I was reading a short story . So I googled it. In November, I did like an hour of research of first-nations (specifically ojicree ) mythology when I was writing the zombie karate novel. How did I not find this? How did I not learn about wendigos (wendigoes?) when I was learning mythology in high school English? And manitous? One of my friends goes to Camp Manitou every summer. How did I not know? Was I asleep? Is this proof of my ADD which no one else agrees I have? What? I'm not needing to culturally appropriate or anything, but it would have been cool to know. Also, this is awesome: http://groups.google.ca/group/alt.fan.heinlein/msg/0920b2f01ac0a248?hl=en . Not sure I ever finished a Heinlein novel. I know I didn't finish "The number of the beast" on account of I found it totally sexist. When I was 15.

Robynettely

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