anything you want from me i'll do
I am amused - and pleased - at the headlines about the Mets' rookie pitchers Matt Harvey and Zack Wheeler after they won both games of a doubleheader yesterday in Atlanta - 'pair of aces' and 'dynamic duo'. I didn't see Harvey's game (he took a no-hitter into the seventh, and only a mistake by the first baseman kept it from going longer) but Wheeler managed to get over some early wildness and work through a couple of tough innings to get the win in his first major league start. I try never to get my hopes up when it comes to the Mets, but this could be the start of something good. Not this season, which is pretty much done for already, but next year and the year after that.
In other sports news, I guess it's good that the Rangers hired Alain Vigneault? Maybe they will actually learn how to play offense again, especially on the power play? I guess we'll see.
***
Reading Wednesday!
What I've just read
Since last we spoke, I finished When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead, which I enjoyed immensely, possibly because I was 9 years old in 1979 when the story was set, and also obsessed with A Wrinkle in Time (okay, no, technically it wasn't until 1980 that I read/loved/used the L'Engle books for all my book reports etc. but close enough for these purposes) so Miranda felt really familiar to me. It reminded me more of The Young Unicorns in terms of L'Engle's books, and also From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, so I think nostalgia plays a large part in loving this book, but I think it does a good job with a young narrator, so that you as the reader know stuff she obviously doesn't. So the big twist isn't really a surprise? But still, I liked the book a lot.
I also read Emilie and the Hollow World by Martha Wells, which was also highly enjoyable, though I was shocked when Emilie said she was 16, because she comes across as no older than 13 at most, and the book reads more like a middle grade than a YA to me, and she spends a little too much time eavesdropping and tagging along before she really gets in on the action, but still, enjoyable steampunk hijinks, and recommended if it comes into your hands.
And as I mentioned the other day, between books, I reread Devil's Cub, which is my favorite Heyer. There are certainly some iffy things in it - not just the class issues, but also Vidal's treatment of Mary early on (he forcibly abducts her and there is some violence involved) - but then she threatens to vomit on him and he ends up holding the basin while she pukes, and also, she shoots him when he threatens to rape her, so. I realize that that does not really make up for his treatment of her early on, but I do still love the book.
What I'm reading now
Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt, which became available (along with three other books) from NYPL almost immediately after I said I had no more library books out. *snerk* I'm about halfway through and I find it a really enjoyable/fascinating thought experiment - it's an alternate history where 99% of Europe was wiped out by the Black Plague, so China, India, and the various Islamic empires are the major powers in the world. I'm not particularly emotionally invested in the characters, mostly because even though technically they are the same souls reincarnated over and over again as new people (or tigers, in one case), I feel like I have just enough time to get really attached before they die and come back as new people. It's an interesting way to tell the story, because it allows Robinson a much broader canvas to tell his story - he's not stuck in 8th c. China, he can move forward as the characters are reincarnated to play out his alternate history. Right now, I feel like I am in a combination of the Enlightenment and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution (I guess? They are doing a lot of MATH & SCIENCE! and weapons manufacturing). But sometimes I just want to stick with the same people in the same bodies. I would have read a whole novel about lady restauranteur I-Li, for example, or the lady Katima.
I'm enjoying it but we'll see how it goes, since I'm only halfway through.
What I'm reading next
Well, in addition to The Years of Rice and Salt, I also have Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt, Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen (as recced by one of you), and The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker from the library, since they all became available at once. Oops? And The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman, which I had forgotten I'd pre-ordered, but which doesn't have a due date, so it'll have to wait.
I'll let you know how that all goes. *snerk*
***
I feel like it is time for a wsip roundup, even though I don't think much has actually changed.
Right now, I'm currently paying attention to four stories, though there is a fifth that rotates through when I think about things that I want to happen in it, so:
I'm cutting because I feel weird about talking about these right now. I don't even know. I love talking to other people about what I'm writing - it really helps me stay excited and also work out problems, but sometimes I feel like I shouldn't talk about what I'm working on here, for a variety of reasons, including what if I never finish? what if someone else is writing the same thing? what if nobody cares? and, the main one, what if the story I describe here, that I think I'm writing, is not the story I actually end up writing and so this looks ridiculous and grandiose compared to what actually gets posted? That last one is the killer, because it is pretty much par for the course for me.
I mean, I think at least two of these stories are very much only of interest to me and maybe two other people, but I still want to talk about them, because I'm kind of excited, which hasn't happened in a while with writing, which has mostly been a slog for the past few months.
ANYWAY.
(note: all titles are provisional until the stories are posted, but I work better when I have one at the top of the page.)
1. "In the Shadow of Two Gunmen," which has been getting most of my attention, is the MCU/DCU crossover where the League of Assassins purchased the Winter Soldier, and Jason helps Steve and Natasha get him back. There are three main things I am interested in with this story - 1. the Natasha/Talia confrontation, 2. the part where Jason is jealous of how Steve responds to discovering that Bucky's alive, and 3. the part where Steve calls Bruce out on not hugging his formerly dead sidekick(s). I've got 2600 words of basic set up, but now I have to figure out the plotty stuff, which as you know, Bob, is not my strong suit. I have to hope my desire for this story to exist in the world will keep it going, since I've been working on it pretty regularly of late.
2. "A Kinder, Gentler Machine Gun Hand," which is another MCU/DCU crossover, this one where Steph and Bucky hook up over waffles. Right now, I'm wavering on how much Bucky should learn about what happened to Steph before she became Batgirl, so it's kind of in a holding pattern where I write and then delete superfluous banter until I figure that out. (This is the title most likely to change.)
3. "Where There's Smoke...," the one where Steve is a terrible cook and Bucky is jealous because he thinks he keeps setting the kitchen on fire because he has a crush on one of the firemen. There is a lot of mutual oblivious pining and also hot firemen. I've pretty much got this mapped out in my head (and notes), but I haven't managed to sit down and write it except for the ending, which is not usually how I work so I'm a little bemused.
4. "Where things that don't match meet," which is the Steve/Darcy fake dating one that has been hanging around for over a year and inches forward only a couple hundred words at a time. But I added two new scenes to it in the past couple of weeks, so that's good. I mean, fake dating! There is no bad there, right? I don't know why the story is so recalcitrant. Sigh. (this title also might get changed, depending on how the rest of the story goes.)
5. "Let's do some living after we die," which is the Steve/Bucky combo road trip/nightswimming fic. This at least has a structure, which makes things easier on me, but it's been relegated to second string status since the others have started demanding my attention.
There's a few others on the list, but these are the ones I'm actively working on now.
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/577593.html.
people have commented there.
In other sports news, I guess it's good that the Rangers hired Alain Vigneault? Maybe they will actually learn how to play offense again, especially on the power play? I guess we'll see.
***
Reading Wednesday!
What I've just read
Since last we spoke, I finished When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead, which I enjoyed immensely, possibly because I was 9 years old in 1979 when the story was set, and also obsessed with A Wrinkle in Time (okay, no, technically it wasn't until 1980 that I read/loved/used the L'Engle books for all my book reports etc. but close enough for these purposes) so Miranda felt really familiar to me. It reminded me more of The Young Unicorns in terms of L'Engle's books, and also From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, so I think nostalgia plays a large part in loving this book, but I think it does a good job with a young narrator, so that you as the reader know stuff she obviously doesn't. So the big twist isn't really a surprise? But still, I liked the book a lot.
I also read Emilie and the Hollow World by Martha Wells, which was also highly enjoyable, though I was shocked when Emilie said she was 16, because she comes across as no older than 13 at most, and the book reads more like a middle grade than a YA to me, and she spends a little too much time eavesdropping and tagging along before she really gets in on the action, but still, enjoyable steampunk hijinks, and recommended if it comes into your hands.
And as I mentioned the other day, between books, I reread Devil's Cub, which is my favorite Heyer. There are certainly some iffy things in it - not just the class issues, but also Vidal's treatment of Mary early on (he forcibly abducts her and there is some violence involved) - but then she threatens to vomit on him and he ends up holding the basin while she pukes, and also, she shoots him when he threatens to rape her, so. I realize that that does not really make up for his treatment of her early on, but I do still love the book.
What I'm reading now
Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt, which became available (along with three other books) from NYPL almost immediately after I said I had no more library books out. *snerk* I'm about halfway through and I find it a really enjoyable/fascinating thought experiment - it's an alternate history where 99% of Europe was wiped out by the Black Plague, so China, India, and the various Islamic empires are the major powers in the world. I'm not particularly emotionally invested in the characters, mostly because even though technically they are the same souls reincarnated over and over again as new people (or tigers, in one case), I feel like I have just enough time to get really attached before they die and come back as new people. It's an interesting way to tell the story, because it allows Robinson a much broader canvas to tell his story - he's not stuck in 8th c. China, he can move forward as the characters are reincarnated to play out his alternate history. Right now, I feel like I am in a combination of the Enlightenment and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution (I guess? They are doing a lot of MATH & SCIENCE! and weapons manufacturing). But sometimes I just want to stick with the same people in the same bodies. I would have read a whole novel about lady restauranteur I-Li, for example, or the lady Katima.
I'm enjoying it but we'll see how it goes, since I'm only halfway through.
What I'm reading next
Well, in addition to The Years of Rice and Salt, I also have Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt, Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen (as recced by one of you), and The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker from the library, since they all became available at once. Oops? And The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman, which I had forgotten I'd pre-ordered, but which doesn't have a due date, so it'll have to wait.
I'll let you know how that all goes. *snerk*
***
I feel like it is time for a wsip roundup, even though I don't think much has actually changed.
Right now, I'm currently paying attention to four stories, though there is a fifth that rotates through when I think about things that I want to happen in it, so:
I'm cutting because I feel weird about talking about these right now. I don't even know. I love talking to other people about what I'm writing - it really helps me stay excited and also work out problems, but sometimes I feel like I shouldn't talk about what I'm working on here, for a variety of reasons, including what if I never finish? what if someone else is writing the same thing? what if nobody cares? and, the main one, what if the story I describe here, that I think I'm writing, is not the story I actually end up writing and so this looks ridiculous and grandiose compared to what actually gets posted? That last one is the killer, because it is pretty much par for the course for me.
I mean, I think at least two of these stories are very much only of interest to me and maybe two other people, but I still want to talk about them, because I'm kind of excited, which hasn't happened in a while with writing, which has mostly been a slog for the past few months.
ANYWAY.
(note: all titles are provisional until the stories are posted, but I work better when I have one at the top of the page.)
1. "In the Shadow of Two Gunmen," which has been getting most of my attention, is the MCU/DCU crossover where the League of Assassins purchased the Winter Soldier, and Jason helps Steve and Natasha get him back. There are three main things I am interested in with this story - 1. the Natasha/Talia confrontation, 2. the part where Jason is jealous of how Steve responds to discovering that Bucky's alive, and 3. the part where Steve calls Bruce out on not hugging his formerly dead sidekick(s). I've got 2600 words of basic set up, but now I have to figure out the plotty stuff, which as you know, Bob, is not my strong suit. I have to hope my desire for this story to exist in the world will keep it going, since I've been working on it pretty regularly of late.
2. "A Kinder, Gentler Machine Gun Hand," which is another MCU/DCU crossover, this one where Steph and Bucky hook up over waffles. Right now, I'm wavering on how much Bucky should learn about what happened to Steph before she became Batgirl, so it's kind of in a holding pattern where I write and then delete superfluous banter until I figure that out. (This is the title most likely to change.)
3. "Where There's Smoke...," the one where Steve is a terrible cook and Bucky is jealous because he thinks he keeps setting the kitchen on fire because he has a crush on one of the firemen. There is a lot of mutual oblivious pining and also hot firemen. I've pretty much got this mapped out in my head (and notes), but I haven't managed to sit down and write it except for the ending, which is not usually how I work so I'm a little bemused.
4. "Where things that don't match meet," which is the Steve/Darcy fake dating one that has been hanging around for over a year and inches forward only a couple hundred words at a time. But I added two new scenes to it in the past couple of weeks, so that's good. I mean, fake dating! There is no bad there, right? I don't know why the story is so recalcitrant. Sigh. (this title also might get changed, depending on how the rest of the story goes.)
5. "Let's do some living after we die," which is the Steve/Bucky combo road trip/nightswimming fic. This at least has a structure, which makes things easier on me, but it's been relegated to second string status since the others have started demanding my attention.
There's a few others on the list, but these are the ones I'm actively working on now.
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/577593.html.
people have commented there.