Dana Swier Huff's Blog, page 93

2010 Reading Challenges

I finally had an opportunity to peek at my feed reader and discovered two interesting book challenges for 2010. I plan to participate in both challenges, given I have the time. I have just discovered I will be teaching a fifth class (and yes, five different preps) next semester, and I will be taking a difficult grad school course. I must find time to read, however, even if it's just listening to audiobooks in the car because I need it to feed my soul.

The first book challenge I'll be...

Bookish Updates

The Christmas holidays mean I'll have some time to read. As I indicated in my previous post, I wasn't getting into We Have Always Lived in the Castle, so I've set it aside. I really have been wanting to reread Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, so I downloaded it to my iPhone using the Kindle app. I have to say, it was like magic. I clicked a button, and when I opened my Kindle app, there the book was. I have used Stanza and Classics on my iPhone, but this is my first Kindle experience, so I'll...

Struggling with Books

I admit I'm struggling to finish a short book. It isn't that I don't like it. I just can't get into it enough to want to pick it up. Worse, I keep thinking about other books I want to read, and then I tell myself I need to finish that one first. The end result is that I'm doing very little reading.

I think I'm going to set aside We Have Always Lived in the Castle for the time being. It's too short not to finish at some point, but I'm just not that into it for right now. I've read too far to...

NaNoWriMo Update

I have tried on a couple of occasions to record a podcast about A Question of Honor, but I find myself embarrassingly forgetful of some details. I opened it up today, for instance, and I discovered that I had completely forgotten a character in the book. My reaction was "Oh, that's right. Now I remember who that was." Kind of embarrassing. I think I need to refresh my memory on some details before I record more podcasts about the process of writing that book.

My NaNoWriMo novel Quicksand is...

Dracula

While I didn't finish Dracula in time to meet the deadline of the R.I.P. Challenge, I did finish it within days of the end of the novel's action on November 6 of some indeterminate year. One of the things I've noticed about reading a book like Dracula, around which a cottage industry of adaptations, homages, and even an entire genre have sprung, is that the story in the actual book becomes altered to the point that the reader had different expectations. For instance, I had the idea that the c...

Countdown to NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo begins at midnight! I would love for you to follow my project. I could use the encouragement.

I already have a title, despite saying the podcast I shared in the last blog post that I'm not sure titles usually come—or even should come—before the writing. The title was too perfect, though. My project is called Quicksand after the real town in Kentucky where my grandmother was born and where my novel will be set. I am telling a sort of hybrid of my grandparents' lives in the Great...

Question of Honor Podcast #1

On the way home from dropping my daughter off to stay with her father for the weekend, I decided to record this podcast using my iPhone. I didn't edit it much, and as such you can hear some mild road traffic and the windshield wipers slapping every now and then, but I think it works. It's informal—just me talking about some elements of writing my book. With NaNoWriMo beginning this weekend, I have been reflecting on the process of writing the last book I completed, and I really wanted to...

R.I.P. and NaNoWriMo Update

I am not doing well with the R.I.P. Challenge. Despite a strong start in which I finished half the challenge in short order, I have stalled toward the end and have not been reading much. I am blaming my iPhone. I have too many cool apps now, such as the Scrabble app, which have taken me away from reading. I am not at all certain I can finish my remaining two books, Dracula and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, without some serious focus over the last week. I'm reading Dracula on the...

NaNoWriMo 2009

I must be crazy.

I'm a full-time wife, mother, and English teacher and half-time grad school student, and I really don't have time to write. On the other hand, I do feel like I have a story that needs to come out. Well, a couple actually, and I haven't decided yet which one I will write.

In other news, I discovered that NaNoWriMo purges your account if you haven't logged in for over a year, and my old account is now gone, though my previous username was available.

Post © Dana Huff

NaNoWriMo 2009

R.I.P. Update

I am putting Joe Hill's short story collection 20th Century Ghosts aside. It's not that I don't like it; I just want to read a novel. This decision means I have to select a book to replace it in the R.I.P. Challenge. I took three books off the shelves and couldn't decide, so I had Maggie choose for me again, and she thinks I should read Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle. The cover is really cute, and I know she's a good writer, so I will go with Maggie's choice. Of course, ...