H.S. Stone's Blog, page 8

NaNoWriMo 2020 recap

After taking a year off from the challenge, I participated in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) again this year. Instead of trying to write 50,000 words in November, I set a more realistic goal of 15,000, which meant an average of 500 words per day. I'm happy to say that I reached my goal... and then some! I finished the month with 20,037 words.

November started off strong for me. After the first ten days, I was on pace for over 20,000 words, but then a mid-month slump set me back....

NaNoWriMo 2020

It's November, which means National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is upon us again! After skipping NaNoWriMo last year due to a hectic work schedule, I'm back at it this year. It's not that I have more free time now, but I'm approaching NaNoWriMo differently than I did in the past. In the first three years that I participated, I was able to reach the 50,000-word goal by the end of the month. The next two years (2017 and 2018), I didn't. 2018 was particularly disappointing because I only wrote ...

The Stand

While rearranging my bookshelves one day in an attempt to create more space for books (a topic for another blog post), I came upon a copy of Stephen King's The Stand. I don't remember when I bought it or why. However, when I saw it this time, I had an urge to read it. I've heard many Stephen King fans say that it's his best work, and if I'm not going to read it now, will I ever? 

The copy I own is the Complete and Uncut Edition in paperback format, weighing in at over 1,400 pages. As if I didn't ...

First person present tense

There used to be a time when I would only read stories written in the third person past tense point of view. Most books are written that way, so it wasn't a challenge to indulge my preference. On the occasions when I read a book with a first person point of view, the narration threw me off because I wasn't used to seeing the story take place through the eyes of a single character. It was even stranger to read a story written in present tense because past tense was how I thought stories were "sup...

I miss being around physical books

 
It's been over five months since I've last visited a library or been inside a bookstore. That's more than five months where I haven't been surrounded by physical books, and I miss them. I might go as far as to say that I miss being around physical books the way some people miss being around their friends during this pandemic. That's not strange, right?

Thanks to the Libby app, I've still been able to borrow e-books from the library, but e-books aren't the same as physical books. Also, I can't ro...

Admitting defeat

For the past two years, I've been working on a novel. It was going to be my first thriller, a different genre than the YA I normally write. I chose it because thrillers are my second favorite genre to read, and I had an idea that I thought would make for a great story. After chipping away at it for so long, I'm finally setting it aside. Giving up on something is hard for me. I'm the type of person who insists on finishing what he started, even if he doesn't want to. I don't stop projects before ...

A new reading goal

In April, Goodreads published a list of the 40 most popular mysteries of the past five years. I was surprised to find that I had read almost half the books listed. Many of the others were books that I want to read but haven't had a chance to yet. Given how my NY Times Bestseller reading challenge is going, I decided to add a new reading goal this year: read as many of the 40 most popular mysteries as I can. I won't add any restrictions regarding the authors of the books, and I won't necessarily ...

The problem with my NY Times Best Seller Reading Challenge

At the beginning of the year, I posted that I'd be embarking on a new reading challenge to read at least one NY Times Bestseller each month by an author whose books I hadn't read yet. Since these would all be bestsellers, I thought I'd discover some great new authors. Five months and five books into the challenge, the results aren't encouraging. I've liked only one of the five. Wading through the others reminded me of the books I was required to read in high school English classes, i.e., I...

How the pandemic is changing my life

 
For those like me who live in Northern California, it's been a month since we started sheltering in place. It was rough at first, even though I'm a boring person who didn't go out much even before COVID-19. However, I still went to the office for work, exercised at the gym, visited the library, and dined in restaurants. I've done none of those things for the past month. While I'm becoming more used to the shelter-in-place routine, things are still different than they were before.

I...

Benefits of a pandemic

We live in scary times. The coronavirus has dominated the headlines the past few weeks. People are dying around the world. Sports events, conferences, concerts, and other gatherings are getting canceled. The stock market plunged. Disneyland closed. While there's certainly a lot of negative impact from this current pandemic, I wanted to take a look at some of the silver linings.
Public places are less crowded - I do hope that businesses that are currently suffering from the pandemic see a...