Friday Reads 5.24.13 ~ On Writing

So, I am still reading Steven King’s ON WRITING. Kinda. “Still reading” as in “have not yet finished.” I have also moved on and read other things, too. I read GAMING FOR KEEPS, the ebook I reviewed last week. (And which is up for one of two prizes in my birthday/wedding/I-forget-what-blog-milestone contest. Go enter! I’ll wait.)

Then I tried to get back to the King book. I figured that I’d promised to get the GFK review up before the book’s release date on June 10th. But I’m still in the early section of ON WRITING, and while it’s fascinating stuff, I didn’t want to read a biography when I picked up the book. I wanted to read a craft book about, you know, WRITING.

So I wandered again. I’m now reading, and enjoying, the third Wishcraft mystery, THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE WITCHY. (By Heather Blake. Fun series.) And much though I want to read the other book, I just don’t think I’ll be getting back to it anytime soon. Maybe I’ll skim the early parts and read the later section on the actual craft of writing. Maybe I’ll develop a new appreciation for the book as a whole next week, once I start up my ROW goals again.

But you know what? My fiction TBR pile is so enticing right now. Maybe I’ll just put this book aside for a while longer until I feel like reading a biography. I do have the next writing craft book I want to read lined up already. Maybe I’ll move on to that one instead.

Contest Time!

Today is Wednesday, and Wednesday is normally for knitting WIPs on this blog. However, today we’re going to do something different.

Today I want to celebrate my birthday hobbit-style. Or I suppose I could celebrate my wedding hobbit-style, since I have two prizes to give away. (No, I did not get married on my birthday. And no, I’m not telling you the actual dates of either. But we’re celebrating both today on the blog.)

• For the birthday: this is not a milestone birthday for me, but it is a birthday. And I kinda like birthdays, especially now that so many friends are on Facebook. People come out of nowhere to wish you a happy birthday on FB when it’s your birthday, and it’s nice to touch bases with old friends even for just a moment twice a year.
• For the wedding: we got married in the Disneyland area (surprise, surprise) and spent our “reception” inside the parks. It was great fun, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. I know we did! If you want more details than that, I’m not really feeling like sharing them here just now, but if you let me know in comments I’ll email you with a link where you can read more about it. I just don’t currently want that information up on the blog. This is also why the pictures in this post are not of us, but of scenery.
• For the hobbit-style celebration: as you may recall, hobbits give other people presents on their birthdays, instead of receiving presents themselves. Well. It seems there was a blog milestone a short while back, and though I forget what it was, I remember that I had promised a contest.

So, in order to celebrate ALL THE THINGS, I am holding a giveaway on the blog now. There will be two prize packs up for grabs, since there are two major events. One features knitting, one features reading. You can enter the contest for one or both of these prizes.

Knitting prize includes: a skein of yarn picked by me, along with some other fun goodies.

Reading prize includes: an ebook copy of the story I reviewed last Friday, Seleste deLaney’s GAMING FOR KEEPS, along with some other goodies. (The ebook will be sent electronically, while the rest of the things will be sent by mail. I will be in touch after the winner is selected to determine the best ebook format.)

Sound fun? And how do you enter? There are three ways. Here’s how:

1. Comment on this post specifically stating that you are entering the contest AND which prize(s) you want to be eligible for. Congratulatory comments, while appreciated, are not automatically assumed to be contest entries.

2. Re-Tweet the contest information. Please provide a link to the tweet in the comments on this post so I can go cheer you on.

3. Mention this contest in your blog and post a link to your blog in the comments on this post.

The winners will be selected by a random number drawing. The same person cannot win both prizes unless there are no other entrants. As with any contest, I reserve the right to modify the rules or end the contest early, blah blah blah. All the legal stuff that you’ve heard before. You know.

The ebook is due to be released on June 10, 2013, so that’s how long this contest will run. ALL ENTRIES MUST BE RECEIVED BY MIDNIGHT PACIFIC TIME ON 6/10/13 IN ORDER TO BE ELIGIBLE FOR THE CONTEST.

Ten on Tuesday ~ Pic-i-nic

Today’s Ten on Tuesday prompt is “10 Things You Would Bring on a Picnic.” This is a fun topic, though I haven’t been on a picnic in a while. It shouldn’t be too hard to remember my favorite picnic items, though.

1. Knitting. I bring my knitting almost everywhere, and a picnic is the perfect place to knit. I have to admit, though, it can sometimes get you in trouble. I got a surprisingly nasty sunburn on my ankle once because I was sitting in the same position knitting my Icarus shawl one spring, and I hadn’t thought to put sunscreen on my legs because I was wearing jeans.

2. Something to sit on. Blankets, towels, cushions, even tarps. But the grass is often damp, and I’d rather get the blanket damp than my pants.

3. Water! Even if we bring something else to drink, it’s too easy to get dehydrated without realizing it when you spend the afternoon outside.

4. Burger or hot dogs or something to grill. I know that picnics don’t have to include a BBQ, but the picnics I’ve been to most often were essentially an excuse to get together at a park and BBQ on someone else’s grill.

5. Grilling supplies. Charcoal, utensils, etc. These are sometimes the hardest things to remember, since you can never be quite sure which of your kitchen implements you will end up wanting. We usually go to one extreme or the other: we either end up improvising something, or bringing the whole kitchen with us.

6. Potato salad! BBQ or no BBQ, no picnic seems complete without a potato salad.

7. Music. While not strictly necessary, it seems my favorite picnics have all had some kind of boom box providing tunes.

8. Sports or games of some kind. Granted, my favorite game is watching the other picnic goes play the games while I knit, but still. Most people like to play soccer or volleyball or horseshoes or something while the burgers cook.

9. Sunscreen. Even if YOU remember to apply it at home, SOMEONE always forgets.

10. And last but most definitely not least, FRIENDS! No picnic (in my mind) is complete as a party of one.

Seleste deLaney: Gaming for Keeps

Gaming for Keeps
By Seleste deLaney
(contemporary fiction/romance)

Any time I am asked (or when I do the asking) to review a book, I somehow feel that I need to spend more time on my write-up than I do when I review a book for fun. That is the case with my latest review. I finished reading Seleste deLaney’s GAMING FOR KEEPS a couple of days ago, and instead of jumping into the review with the enthusiasm fresh from reading the book, I decided to sleep on it.

The next day, my enthusiasm hadn’t changed. I figured maybe I still needed more perspective, and gave it another day. Still no change. What that tells me is that this book really is that much fun.

So, the basic premise is that a couple of people who have played an MMORPG together but have never met in person go to a convention hoping to meet each other, and end up hitting it off in person as well as they do online. The conflict? He is a real-life spy, and there’s a psycho planning to kill a bunch of people at this convention. He has to figure out how to stop the bad guy, save the girl, and still keep his secret. Unfortunately, she has bad experiences with online dating, and is very leery of secrets.

I went into this hoping it would be as fun as it actually was. I was expecting a lot of geeky references, and I got them. (I’m sure there were several that I didn’t catch, too, since I haven’t played an MMORPG before. I do play RPGs on the computer, but I play solo instead of online.)

The one thing I was expecting that I didn’t get was more of a fantasy/paranormal element. Both the good guys and the bad guys are 100% human. No vampires, no demons, no elves – except of the role-playing kind. Normally, I prefer paranormal fiction. Straight fiction without that fantasy element doesn’t interest me as much. However, between the RPG and the spy stuff, this was pretty close to fantasy without actually adding anything paranormal.

The lack of fantasy creatures didn’t diminish my enjoyment of the book at all – if anything, it made me enjoy it more, because it was all fresh. There were no hidden magic powers waiting to save the day. No evil spells or curses the bad guy wielded which made you wonder how the normal-seeming good guy had any chance at all. It all made sense in the world we already know, so I wasn’t pulled out of the story to decipher the mechanics of a plot device.

This is already a pretty long review, so I’m going to add a few bullet points of things I particularly enjoyed:

• The sex-in-the-shower scene. Without going into details, I can just say that I’ve had experiences very similar to this one. It made me laugh, and it made me believe. Nicely done.

• I loved the description of the costumes. There weren’t many of them, as the costumes weren’t part of the story apart from when they were on the main characters, but they were fun to read.

• In-game descriptions. Awesome stuff. You can tell Seleste has played before. Even though I don’t play MMOs, there are enough offline RPG similarities that it resonated with my experiences.

• Geek references. I’m only just getting into Firefly (I know, bad geek girl) because I lacked TV service when it aired, but I loved the quotes they threw around. Same with LOTR.

If you think this is a book you might enjoy – and if you read my blog, chances are decent that you enjoy geeky stuff – then keep an eye out for a contest. When this is released next month, I plan to host a contest to give away a copy of the ebook.

(For full disclosure, I received a review copy of this ebook from the publisher. But I only begged to be sent a review copy because the book was not yet available for purchase. I will be giving away a copy to pay it forward, since I would have purchased this ebook for myself if I was not given a copy.)

WIP Weds 5.15.13 ~ Mitt WIP

I don’t feel like writing much just now. So, we’ll combine a WIP Weds and a Wordless Wednesday for today’s post.

I will give you a few words, though. These pics are if my latest knitting project, the Kujeillen mitts. They’re the KAL for the month in the Fingerless Gloves Fanatics Ravelry group. More details will come later, when I feel like writing.

Friday Reads 5.10.13 ~ eReading

So, I ended up sneaking an eBook in there between my planned books. Mostly because I read it while also reading ON WRITING – it’s hard to say you’re reading something “next” when it’s really simultaneously.

The sneaky book in question was an eBook, PRETTY SOULS by Julie Patrika. It was really enjoyable for me, as it’s a contemporary paranormal young adult action/mystery book with hints of (teen-appropriate) romance. It hits a lot of my enjoyment buttons, and I had fun reading it. (Now I just want her to get the second one published, too.)

However, the book is not the purpose of my post today. I’ll be writing a real review of it later, but today I want to talk about eBooks vs. paper books.

Do you have a preference? If so, why?

For me, I have no preference. I like both for different reasons. Nothing an eReader can do will ever replace the new book smell (or old book smell) and the feel of physically turning pages. I love seeing my bookshelf full of books, knowing that I can pick up any one of them and be transported into another world.

On the other hand, by using the various eReader apps on my smartphone, I can carry dozens of books with me in my pocket, anywhere I go. I am never without reading material. (And for a bookwyrm, that is a VERY GOOD THING.)

I can’t imagine my eReader ever completely taking the place of my real books, but I also can’t envision going back to life without one. I like both too much to give one up.

WIP Weds 5/8/13 ~ Eliina

Today I want to show off the Eliina shawl, because while it’s gotten a little repetitive and sometimes boring to knit, I do love the way it’s turning out. There’s only one problem: it’s really, REALLY hard to see the progress in pictures.

So instead of showing progress, I took some sunlight photos of the shawl that show off what I love about it most: the color changes. The other pictures I’ve taken of this shawl look good, but it really looks best in the sun.

It’s been fun watching the colors change. There are so many different long color repeat yarns these days! I love them. One interesting thing for me has always been determining when the sequence repeats. I haven’t found it yet with this one. That could be because it’s a cobweb weight yarn and the skein has so much of it (look at the below picture – I have tons left still!), or it could be that I have become overwhelmed with the size of this thing and haven’t seen the repeat because the width of the stripes have changed, throwing me off. I don’t think so, though. I think it just hasn’t repeated yet.

I am enjoying this shawl. I will enjoy it more when it is finished, but for now it’s at least an enjoyable way to pass the time knitting something I don’t really have to think about. The part I really don’t want to think about is how much yarn is left, and how much more time I could potentially spend knitting this thing.

I’ll just get lost in the pretty colors and try to focus on that.