Katherine Nabity's Blog, page 180
October 16, 2015
Pinned: Dewey’s 24-Hour Readathon! (October 2015)
Details: Dewey’s 24 Readathon
I’m pretty bad at sticking to lists, but here are my Possibles:
Saturday
Time: 15:22
Book: The Miser’s Dream by John Gaspard
Pages read since last update: 19, total for the day: 338
Food & Drink: Half a Rockstar with some vodka (my back is annoying). Water (I’m not totally nuts.)
Notes: Football, Twitter. The enemies of reading. But fun. :)
Challenge: Pumpkin Spice or Naw?
Important #readathon question: Do I like Pumpkin Spice? You bet I do. #TeamPumpkinSpice http://t.co/WbwNzufRrO pic.twitter.com/2dLPUEHVy3
— Katherine Nabity (@Katen) October 17, 2015
Time: 14:04
Book: Finished Distant Waves
Pages read since last update: 65, total for the ‘thon is 319
Food & Drink: Pumpkin spice pudding, water.
Notes: While listening to the Nebraska football game.
Time: 12:26
Book: Distant Waves by Suzanne Weyn
Pages read since last update: 31, total for today is 254
Food & Drink: Fun-sized Kit-Kat and water.
Notes: Took another little nap on the couch. Hoped to finish Distant Waves by the time the football came on, but it didn’t happen. It’s all good!
Time: 11:03
Book: Distant Waves by Suzanne Weyn
Pages read since last update: 33, a ‘thon total of 223
Food & Drink: Still working on my water and pop.
Notes: The text of this book is set in Minister Light. It’s a very nice font.
Challenge: Halloween Preparation
Share your creepy Halloween read with the world.
The best creepy read I’ve had in a while is Glen Hirshberg’s Motherless Child. I guess I would describe it as a fast-paced rock-and-roll vampire road trip. Vampires and rock music. They go together like chocolate and peanut butter…
Time: 10:13
Book: Distant Waves by Suzanne Weyn
Pages read since last update: 47, total of 190
Food & Drink: Having my Party Pizza brunch right now. Water. Dr. Pepper 10
Time: 09:04
Book: Distant Waves by Suzanne Weyn
Pages read since last update: 29, total for the ‘thon 143
Food & Drink: Zucchini sticks with a little seasoning. Water.
Notes: Blythe is my favorite character in this book.
Challenge: Goodreads Road Trip Challenge (if you don’t have Goodreads)
Write a short postcard to a friend (or to another of the book’s characters who wasn’t invited on your cross country odyssey) telling them what’s up with you and your new fictional BFF.
Thad, you’re a heartless beast. Here I am with Janey in London, and she sees nothing of it. All she can do is think of you. The only acceptable excuse from you is that Mad Tesla accidentally shot you into the future or to Mars or some such. In all seriousness, write. You own Jane that. ~K
Time: 08:11
Book: Distant Waves by Suzanne Weyn
Pages read since last update: 39, today’s total is 114
Food & Drink: Fun-sized Twix and (wait for it…) coffee and water.
Notes: Had a little nap on the couch. Sadly, my back is annoyingly achy today.
Time: 07:02
Book: Distant Waves by Suzanne Weyn
Pages read since last update: 38, total for the ‘thon is 75
Food & Drink: More coffee, more water.
Notes: I do really like dawn.
Time: 06:04
Book: Distant Waves by Suzanne Weyn
Pages read since last update: 37
Food & Drink: Chai Spice coffee, Thick & Fluffy Eggo with PB & J, water.
Notes: I’d forgotten that Tesla is in this book too!
Time: 04:56
Notes: I said that this season I wasn’t going to worry about getting up on time. So, this is the first year that I’m up on time!
Challenge: The Pre-Party Post
1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today? Tempe, AZ in the US. I’m hoping for a cool day.
2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to? The Miser’s Dream by John Gaspard. It’s the third in a series of mysteries featuring a working modern-day stage magician.
3) Which snack are you most looking forward to? Totino’s Party Pizza! (Don’t judge…)
4) Tell us a little something about yourself! Haven’t had enough coffee yet for this question. ;)
5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to? I’m not going to worry about staying up the whole time. Chances are in two hours, I’m going to go back to bed. And that’s okay.
Friday Night
My “stack” is ready. The snacks are prepared. Now, I need to distract myself with writing until I’m tired enough to sleep.
I’m not going to sweat my start time tomorrow. Like only playing one day at an ultimate frisbee tournament, sometimes I need to limit my fun for my own good. Lately, I’ve been waking up by 8am, so I’ll probably be starting sometime in hour 4.
(Below is my template for tomorrow, all ready to go!)
Time:
Book:
Pages read since last update:
Food & Drink:
Notes:
Challenge:
October 14, 2015
#ROW80 ~ October 14th Update
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley,
~Robert Burns, “To a Mouse”
A quick Wednesday update: I had big plans for Sunday. My haywire immune system had a totally different, non-compatible plan. It happens.
Writing
Goals for Week 2+:
Write First. Five days out of seven, sit down and write for at least an hour before noon. – A-okay for Mon. & Tues..
Sunday: I have the story pretty blocked out. I’m going to go back and add place-holders for scenes I haven’t written. The problem with some of these scenes is that they’re conveyance of information type scenes and I haven’t come up with good ways of writing them. I hope to add 1.6-2K by the end of today (Sunday). – Yeah, this didn’t happen on Sunday. On Monday, I added the scenes place-holders, updated the reference doc, and wrote 1200 words. I like Mondays. Tuesday, while finishing the scene I started on Monday, I realized I’d done something bone-headed in my plot and started fixing that and a couple other things. 600 words for the day.
By EoD Wednesday – Finish edits.
Thursday/Friday Monday/Tuesday: Finish up what scenes I can. Have Eric read on Friday/weekend if he’s available.
Finish updating reference document. – Done! Now to keep it up as I write.
Not necessarily this week: I was/have been confused about the marital status of one character. He was probably still on his first wife in 1915. Need to change that in One Ahead #1 and in current.
The Publishing End
Goals for Week 2+:
Do the usual check-ins. – A-okay Monday & Tuesday
Finish spiritualism fiction shelf.
Set up week-in-advance promo stuff for Lucinda at the Window. – Scheduled today (Wednesday)
Exercise
Goals for Week 2+:
Get some sort of cardio (30+ mins) three times a week. Unfortunately, there’s no league game this week. But maybe Eric and I will start running intervals again. – Nothing yet, but I’ll be going out to play ultimate frisbee in a couple hours.
Check out the goals of other ROW80 writers and give them a little encouragement!
October 13, 2015
Three More Short Reviews
I’m enjoying a less rigid blogging structure. And I’m having fun with all the great blogging activities during October!
“Hildie at the Ghost Shore” by Paula Cappa – I’m a fan of Paula Cappa’s blog. She’s a well-read aficionado of supernatural fiction. And she’s also a really good writer. “Hildie at the Ghost Shore” covers a lot ground. The setting, the magic, and the mystery are vivid and compelling. Hildie is an old woman, a lace maker and a caster of runes. She does not take her work lightly and neither does the stranger who appears one morning asking about the fate of his daughter. The I’m looking forward to reading Cappa’s novel Greylock in the near future. (Maybe even this readathon weekend!) Check out all of Paula Cappa’s works at Amazon: Right now “Hildie” is available for free!
Pushing Daisies (2007) – The facts are these: Before Bryan Fuller re-imagined Thomas Harris’s magnum opus with the visually stunning and dark Hannibal, he created and produced a bright, quirky show with no less than the Lazarian dead at its heart. On one hand, Pushing Daisies is a sweet tale of true love between Ned the Pie Maker (Lee Pace) and his childhood sweetheart Charlotte “Chuck” Charles (Anna Friel). On the other hand, there is Ned’s gift: the ability to touch a dead person and bring them back to life. The catch? If Ned touches the person again, they’re dead for good, and, if he doesn’t, someone else nearby dies. This might not be a problem if his reunion with Chuck hadn’t been as part of Investigating her murder with PI Emerson Cod. Despite the saturated colors and imaginative visuals, a certain amount of glee is evident in the design of the murder victims. As a whole, the short-lived series danced back and forth on the line between cartoony and disturbing. It’s probably the most technicolor RIP around.
Tragic Magic by Harry Leat – With a cover like that, I’d hoped to have a stronger RIPX read. Harry Leat was mostly known as a magic publisher and dealer, and Tragic Magic is a bit of a mixed bag. There’s some poetry, a few stories, a handful of tricks, and a lot of commentary about the magic industry circa 1924, including a lengthy essay on the use of doves in magic acts. One observation: all the illusions that Leat describes have a very strong narrative structure. Actually, it goes beyond that. What he describes are staged vignettes that don’t really rely on the magician’s persona. They’re more like one act plays that involve magic tricks.
October 11, 2015
Deal Me In, Week 41 ~ “Goodbye to All That”
Hosted by Jay @ Bibliophilopolis
“Goodbye to All That” by Harlan Ellison
Card picked: Ten of Spades
From: McSweeney’s Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, ed. by Michael Chabon
Thoughts: Coleman is searching for the Core of Unquenchable Perfection. The Intellectual Center of the Universe. The Foci of Conjunctive Simultaneity. In lesser words, Shangri-la. Just when he thinks that he will die during a Himalayan storm, the weather calms and he sees above him
…what appeared to be a golden structure rising from the summit, its shape a reassuring and infinitely calming sweep of dual archlike parabolas.
Before Coleman is the ultimate test. One wrong word and the wisdom of ages will be withheld from him. The custodians also want to know, would Coleman like that super-sized?
“Goodbye to All That” is not a standout piece by Ellison, but it is far from being the least enjoyable story in this anthology. Trivia: Ronald Coleman played the lead in the 1937 film adaptation of The Lost Horizon, the novel which originated Shangri-la.
#ROW80 ~ October 11th Update
Not my most engaged or motivated week ever. I wasn’t feeling too spiffy on Tues/Wed. My writer brain was AFK so I worked on my Python class instead. From Thursday on, I lost myself in the hole that is EverQuest2. So easy to goof-off when the writing is hard but the fun is easy.
This week, my other MOOC starts, Photography: A Victorian Sensation. And Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon is on Saturday. How much I participate will depend on how much work I get done this week.
Writing
Week 1:
Write First. Five days out of seven, I pledge to sit down and write for at least an hour before noon. — Three days out of seven, but Tuesday was pretty weak.
5K on One Ahead #2. — I am at 2,045 right now (Sunday morning).
Update reference document. And update the Abbott Family document. — Updated family document and started work on ref document.
Goals for Week 2+:
Write First. Five days out of seven, sit down and write for at least an hour before noon.
Sunday: I have the story pretty blocked out. I’m going to go back and add place-holders for scenes I haven’t written. The problem with some of these scenes is that they’re conveyance of information type scenes and I haven’t come up with good ways of writing them. I hope to add 1.6-2K by the end of today (Sunday).
Monday/Tuesday: Finish up what scenes I can. Have Eric read on Tuesday/Wednesday.
Finish updating reference document.
Not necessarily this week: I was/have been confused about the marital status of one character. He was probably still on his first wife in 1915. Need to change that in One Ahead #1 and in current.
The Publishing End
Week 1:
Do the usual check-ins. Start setting up the spiritualism/seance fiction list over on Riffle. — I checked in probably five days of seven and started that list.
Goals for Week 2+:
Do the usual check-ins.
Finish spiritualism fiction shelf.
Set up week-in-advance promo stuff for Lucinda at the Window.
Exercise
Week 1:
Get some sort of cardio (30+ mins) three times a week. — Went for a run on Tuesday and played ultimate frisbee on Wednesday and Thursday.
Goals for Week 2+:
Get some sort of cardio (30+ mins) three times a week. Unfortunately, there’s no league game this week. But maybe Eric and I will start running intervals again.
Check out the goals of other ROW80 writers and give them a little encouragement!
October 7, 2015
#15in31 ~ Three Short Reviews
I will be honest: I might be attempting #15in31—reading 15 books in the 31 days of October—but I’m going to be choosing some short works. My reviews? Maybe as short.
A multiple exposure picture (by photographer Dickenson Alley) of Tesla sitting in his laboratory in 1899.
My Inventions by Nikola Tesla ~ Nikola Tesla is one of the most famous and most innovative inventors of the 19th and 20th centuries. A lot has been written about him (one of my favorite books of 2014 was Bernard W. Carlson’s biography), but I hadn’t realized that Tesla himself had written about his life. My Inventions is a collection of articles that were originally published in Electrical Experimenter magazine in 1919 when Tesla was 63 years old.
Tesla is actually pretty readable. Well, at least I thought so, but I *am* used to the company of engineers. These articles were also much more about the inventing than the inventions. Tesla does think very highly of himself, obviously with good reason most of the time, but somewhat incongruously at other times. For example, knowing how wildly over-budget some of his later projects were, I’m skeptical of his claim that he was able to perfectly design an apparatus in his head, without the need for testing.
My Inventions by Nikola Tesla is available online for free!
Left: An older Joseffy with Balsamo, the Talking Skull.
Right: An illustration from the book – Joseffy performing a not entirely accurate Rising Card trick.
The Marvelous Creations of Joseffy by David P. Abbott ~ I got in the mood to read Tesla because I was in the mood to read about Joseffy. Joseph Freud, known by the stage name Joseffy, was a magician and mechanician in the early 20th century. He too was an inventor, not on the level of Tesla, but with a number of patent to his name outside of being a wonder-worker on stage. Published in 1908, The Marvelous Creations of Joseffy is a short treatise on the magician’s signature tricks written by David P. Abbott. It’s an outlier in the world of magic books. It describes the tricks without exposing them. (Most magic books of the era, written by magicians, did explain the methods behind tricks. Fellow magicians have to learn their craft somehow!) Additionally, the book is illustrated with photographs, but they are slight exaggerations of the actual tricks and sometimes don’t really match Abbott’s descriptions. It’ss a level of misdirection which can probably only be appreciated by magicians.
This is a reread for me. Abbott is the subject of my fiction and Joseffy is probably going to make an appearance one of these days. Joseffy was a bit of a mad scientist and I’m sad that he’s relatively unknown outside of magic history circles. As I noted on Twitter, after reading about Tesla and Joseffy all weekend going back to a book about Houdini seemed rather bland. The Marvelous Creations of Joseffy is also in the public domain, but the version I read is part of House of Mystery, the complete works of David P. Abbott, collected and commented on by Teller and Todd Karr.
When I’m Dead All This Will Be Yours! by Teller ~ Speaking of Teller, half of the magic duo Penn & Teller…
If it weren’t for Eric, I wouldn’t own this book. Never a browser, Eric took a seat in the humor section at A Novel Idea bookstore in Lincoln, NE to wait while I shopped. I’ve been mostly scouring bookstore for books on magic and Nebraska history. “Nothing,” I stated, ready to leave. “There’s a book by Teller,” he said, pointing. “Where?!” I said, blind.
Of course this book was in the humor section. It isn’t about magic at all. At least not *that* kind of magic. Instead, it’s a quiet and funny little memoir about Teller and his parents. At the age of 50-ish, Teller learns that his father, an artist, tried his hand at cartooning in his younger days. This discovery leads him through his parent’s boxes of art and letters from the 1920s, 30s and 40s before he was born. It’s a charming little book that I was happy to snag. And I didn’t realize it when I bought it, but my copy is signed!
October 5, 2015
#ROW80 ~ Round 4 Goals
Check out the goals of other ROW80 writers and give them a little encouragement!
What is ROW80?
A Round of Words in 80 Days is the writing challenge that knows you have a life. Check out all the details at the ROW80 site.
Goals for Round 4
Writing
As of late, I’m pretty bad at setting measurable goals. Last round, I decided to set my goals on a weekly basis, keeping in mind what I’d like to have done at the end of the round. That worked pretty well. I’ve also rediscovered that I kind of like the stress that comes from procrastinating. Weekly goals allow for that, somewhat. I’m also going to stick with checking-in mostly on Sundays. Monday is the beginning of my work week. I just don’t have much to say by Wednesday.
Currently, I’m working on a series of short historical mysteries (20K word count range), series titled “One Ahead.” The main character is David Abbott, a magician who really did live in Omaha, NE at the beginning of the 20th century. Aside from being an accomplished magician, he was a debunker of fraudulent mediumistic practices.
My Big Writing Goals for Round 4:
Publish One Ahead #1 – It’s currently in Eric’s editing queue.
Finish a good draft of One Ahead #2 – I’m already at the 10K mark. I’d like to have a first draft done by the end of the month.
I have no plan to participate in NaNoWriMo. Unless it’s a super crazy plan like writing a magic-related flash fiction piece a day… Or, I might make a concerted effort in November to finish the collection of David Abbott’s Open Court articles that I was putting together. But no formal NaNo.
Start One Ahead #3
Goals for this week: [Edit 10/05, 10:56]
5K on One Ahead #2. That will put the novella at 15K and nearing the end of the first draft. I’m probably going to need to confer with Eric this week or at the beginning of the next week.
Update reference document. And update the Abbott Family document.
The Publishing End
Eric and I have recently moved our titles primarily to KDP Select. I have a couple of promos scheduled for the future, and there are always peripheral social media things that need doing.
My Big Publishing Goal for Round 4:
Keep engaged, keep things going. I’m an introvert and this promo stuff is not my jam. It takes effort.
Goal for this week: Do the usual check-ins. Start setting up the spiritualism/seance fiction list over on Riffle (this being a *very* peripheral activity).
Exercise
In the past, I haven’t set goals too far afield from writing, but I need to work on my activity level. I like to eat and I’d like to not have to buy new jeans in the near future.
Totally Measurable Exercise Goal for Round 4:
Get some sort of cardio (30+ mins) three times a week.
Ideally, at least two of those will be my game of choice: ultimate frisbee. Now that the weather is back to reasonable, I’ll probably do some running. I’ll go work out at the community center if my knees/back aren’t feeling very bouncy.
That’s it. No reading goals (those are covered everywhere else on this blog). No blogging goals (aside from going back to my simpler schedule). In general, the other thing I worked on last round was trying to do…less. While I want to sign up for ALL THE FUN THINGS, I don’t have the energy. And as much as pretend that I have obligations to read or blog or flit around the internet, the only thing that really matters is getting the writing done. So maybe, I do need one really measurable writing goal:
Write First. Five days out of seven, I pledge to sit down and write for at least an hour before noon.
October 4, 2015
Deal Me In, Week 40 ~ “Weaving the Dark”
Hosted by Jay @ Bibliophilopolis
“Weaving the Dark” by Laurie King
Card picked: Queen of Clubs, appropriate for one of this anthology’s few female writers.
From: Trilling Tales, edited by Michael Chabon
Thoughts: In the midst of a lot of very popular YA fiction, I occasionally lament the lack of middle-age stories. I want tales of characters with pasts full of the mistakes made when they were young and, instead of the absent parent, the very present in-laws or the aging parents. Sadly, I suppose this might make for “depressing” fiction… Or not.
Suze has been an adventurer all her life, dealing with all life’s difficulties by leaving the situation for one that’s more dangerous, more emotionally charged. When recently out of an abusive relationship, Suze went backpacking around the world. Faced by the death of her mother, Suze took up skydiving. Unfortunately, now 48 and struggling with glaucoma and her lover’s stroke, Suze has been hobbled. She has to rely on the Christian charity of young Courtney to visit Janna in the hospital and to do most of the shopping and cleaning.
But Suze isn’t entirely useless. She weaves, and while all her rugs and hangings are now monochromatic, they are intricate in their textures. And Suze also decides to solve the mystery of the digging she hears in the woods outside her house at night. That’s were this story turns, not to the “inspirational,” but to the “everything is going to be okay.” Suze, despite everything, can still get things done.
King excels at using description that avoid sight. She also conveys the situations that Suze is confused by as well as the one’s she’s comfortable in. I did feel like Suze’s background had been bolstered to make her current actions more reasonable. I’m not sure if that makes sense from a reader point of view… Writers often go back to add details, but the trick is to make it seem like those details were there all along. Some of Suze’s adventures felt more like credentials.
About the Author: I knew the name was familiar, but I couldn’t place it and I knew I hadn’t read anything by Laurie King previously. Ms. King is the author of the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series of mysteries which have been on my will-eventually-read-some-day list.
Is This Your Card?
It’s possible I’ve posted this trick, this video in fact, before. Or maybe I’ve watched it so many times that I don’t remember what I’ve posted at all. Whatever the case, it’s a good trick and applicable to queens of any suit. And if a magician is going to do patter, let it be patter like this.
October 1, 2015
Review ~ Psycho
Norman Bates loves his Mother. She has been dead for the past twenty years, or so people think. Norman knows better though. He has lived with Mother ever since leaving the hospital in the old house up on the hill above the Bates motel. One night Norman spies on a beautiful woman that checks into the hotel as she undresses. Norman can’t help but spy on her. Mother is there though. She is there to protect Norman from his filthy thoughts. She is there to protect him with her butcher knife. (via Goodreads)
Norman is 40-something years old. He’s overweight, has bad eyesight, and an interest in the works of Aleister Crowley and P. D. Ouspensky. He’s a bachelor who lives with his mother and owns the Bates Motel. Mary Crane, on the run after stealing $40,000 from her employer, finds Norman to be odd. He fixes sandwiches for her, but becomes loudly angry when she suggests that maybe his mother would be better off in a hospital. To calm down after his meal with Mary, Norman has a few drinks. Unfortunately, Mother has other plans.
Anthony Perkins as a clean-cut, dishy 28 year-old Norman Bates.
If you know the movie, you know there are a few differences between the above and the more popular version of the story. The skeleton of the story is the same, but I have to say, the screenplay is a much tighter, more effective way of telling the story.
This is a reread for me and this time I was looking at whether Robert Bloch’s Psycho had the marks of Gothic fiction. It has some of the elements of Gothic: the house (which is less prominent in the book), the family secrets, the insane relative kept away from the public, but it really only sidles up to Gothic. It instead takes a bit of a detour into the post-modern pursuit of psychology. Still, maybe that’s what Gothic is in the 20th century…
Publishing info, my copy: Tor, mass market paperback, 1989
Acquired: Probably at a Waldenbooks in the 90s.
Genre: horror
Pinned: Crazy & Imperiled
Image by Abigail Larson
Peril the First
Motherless Child by Glen Hirshberg
Peril of the Short Story
“Ligeia” by Edgar Allan Poe
“The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe
“The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe
“The Little Maid at the Door” by Mary Wilkins Freeman
Peril on the Screen
Penny Dreadful and Arthur & George
Aliens3 and Event Horizon
About #15in31
(Haven’t read anything yet!)
Possible TBR (for either event)
Psycho by Robert Bloch
The Witch of Lime Street by David Jaher
The Miser’s Dream by John Gaspard
The Marvelous Creations of Joseffy by David P. Abbott
The Spirit Portrait Mystery, its final solution by David P. Abbott
The Spirit World Unmasked by Henry Ridgely Evans
Tragic Magic by Henry Leat
Chemical Magic by John D. Lippy, Jr.
My Inventions by Nikola Tesla
Experiments with Alternating Currents of High Potential and High Frequency by Nikola Tesla
The Cormorant by Stephen Gregory
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
The White Castle by Orhan Pamuk
Distant Waves bu Suzanne Weyn
The Five Jars by M. R. James
The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
A Spirited Manor by Kate Danley
Dead Man’s Hand by Icy Sedgwick
Mason Queensbury in the Parlour of the Occult by Patrick Casey
Hildie at the Ghost Shore by Paula Cappa
