March Books, Part 1

Yes, it's official. I am not very good at keeping up with these updates. Nonetheless, they are being done, and I suppose that's the main thing. More to the point, they're all being done in the subsequent month, so I suppose they're not even technically late... Oh dear - why on earth do I have blog-absence guilt?

Anyway, without further ado, here is the March update:

March Books:

9. Coraline (graphic novel) - Neil Gaiman (adapted by P. Craig Russell)
10. Shadow Games - Glen Cook
11. Gifts - Ursula LeGuin
12. South of the Border, West of the Sun - Haruki Murakami
13. Voices - Ursula LeGuin
14. Let the Right One In - John Ajvide Lindqvist

Coraline: I've always liked Neil Gaiman, and I've been trying to get more into reading graphic novels/comics, since everyone always assured me that I was missing out on some awesome stuff by sticking mainly to books. So when I saw this one in the university library, it took approximately 3 seconds for me to grab it and borrow it.

In a nutshell, the book is about a girl called Coraline, who is spending her school holidays being quite thoroughly bored by her circumstances. Then she finds her way into an alternate world, her parents disappear, and everything get delightfully creepy and weird. I enjoyed it a lot, though I have to admit that one of the things I found most entertaining about it is really unique to my particular circumstances. The main character is a dead ringer for my brother's girlfriend (who for the record is thankfully not 11, but is of small stature and frequently gets mistaken for much younger than she is). And I mean dead ringer - right down to the facial expressions and the clothes that she's wearing. When I opened the book, all I could do was stare in amazement for a good few minutes. The similarity really was eerie, and went one to entertain me no end once I stopped being creeped out by it!

I very much enjoyed the story, for the same reasons that I enjoy most all of the Neil Gaiman that I read - it's a wonderful blend of weird humour, totally unsettling creepiness and raw imagination. I don't have very many intelligent things to say about its adaption into graphic novel format, since I haven't read the paperback version, but I definitely enjoyed the story in this form - the illustration went a long way to really enhance the creepy, slightly claustrophic atmosphere of the story. And yeah - Coraline looks like Lauren, which made me laugh...

Would I recommend this? Definitely, if you like comics, or if you like children's stories that are genuinely creepy and don't patronise. Or if you're a Neil Gaiman head like me. Just you wait until I get up to the April update...

Shadow Games: I'll keep this one brief, because this book was the sequel to the Glen Cook books that I reviewed for January, and most of what I said about the first Black Company books can also be said for this one. I enjoyed it, and have definitely grown fond of the characters by this point, but I think I'm going to take a break and read other things before I continue on with this series (there are still many books that follow on from this one). One day though...

Gifts and Voices: I love Ursula LeGuin - I think she's fantastic. So I really have no idea why I don't read her stuff more often. Really. I loved Wizard of Earthsea, but I never bothered to finish the sequel. I've dibbled and dabbled in some of her other books over the years, and enjoyed them well enough, yet it had been ages since I'd actually bothered to devote my full attention to them. Because I am an idiot, you see.

Gifts and Voices are the first two books in a trilogy - I'm on the third one now. And they're just wonderful. I won't get too bogged down in the ins and outs of the plot, because while the stories are great, these are books where the broader themes and the writing style had more resonance for me. These books, to me, were a lot about time, history, origins and familial legacies - and they explored a lot of these ideas wonderfully, especially with regard to individual freedom and responsibility. I've always loved both reading and writing stories that look at the past (near and distant) and the way that it shapes the present, and the way that it shapes the people that live in the present.

I suppose you could really say that all stories worth reading are about these things, but these books accomplished it better than most, all the more so because they did it so simply. I've already blathered on this year about how some books have a simplicity to them that makes them almost fable-like, even though the themes they explore are complicated. Well, that's what's going on here again. Especially with Ursula LeGuin. I can't believe I'm about to use these words, so cliched are they, but her writing really does have something magical about it. She can write in two sentences what would take another person five - there's just something rich about her words. She really is a pleasure to read.

Would I recommend these books. Yep. Wholeheartedly, to anyone who likes their stories pure and unadulterated.

South of the Border, West of the Sun: This was a reread, because it's quite short and I really love Haruki Murakami. I've just been prattling about how some authors can take the complex and make it sound so simple. Well, the thing that I like about Murakami is that he takes poetry and really abstract stuff and makes it really modern, really contemporary. His characters are just normal people, steeped in pop culture like the rest of us. His books are about real life as much as they're about the supernatural and the surreal. I dig that.

I don't have as much to say about this one, since it was more a reread on the side (really just to remind myself of whether or not a friend would like it) than a grand new undertaking, but I do love this book. Oh, and I find the prospect of 'hysteria siberiaca' fascinating, and wish I could find more about it.

Would I recommend it? I suppose. It's not one of the more popular of Murakami's books, but I definitely enjoyed it, and if you like quirky books that mix observations of real life with the weirder, more unsettling aspects of human relationships, then you'll probably like this one.

Let the Right One In: I'm one of those people. I read this after seeing the movie. But I suppose I can at least hold onto some pretense of lit-snobbery, because at least it was the Swedish version I saw, and not the English version that's currently being made.

Some people are calling this the Swedish version of Twilight, though really only because it involves adolescents and vampires - and the kids in this one are much younger than in that series (for the record, I haven't read the Twilight series, and don't really want to. Mostly because it looks kind of silly and people who have read it have assured me that I wouldn't like it, but also because I'm scared that if I did read it, a small part of me would enjoy it, and then I wouldn't get to be a literary snob who makes fun of Twilight any more... Yes, I'm lame, I know. And it's kind of odd that someone who loves Harry Potter as much as I do is still holding onto thoughts like this).

Anyway, this is indeed a book about vampires. Or vampire really. A Swedish vampire, who becomes friends with the boy who lives next door. It's a vampire book, but it's definitely different from most of its genre. For a start, as one astute viewer of the film pointed out (and the film is quite a faithful adaption, both in plot and theme), the vampire is definitely not the most unsettling character in the tale. It's as much a book about how frightening and dangerous real people in real situations can be as it is about creatures that drink blood. It's also about love and friendship, more so than you might expect, and not in a corny or cliched way. It also doesn't restrict itself only to positive manifestations of these feelings.

I definitely liked it. It's probably not for everyone, and definitely not for the sqeamish (this book is choc-full of violence, death, pedophilia, bullying, etc), but it is a good book. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who liked the film.

Whoops - I just spilled tea on my lap. So much for pretense and snobbery.

I'm going to make a run for it, before the Internet eats any more of my morning...

Figures...

Hmmm. I think that the only consistent thing about inspiration is that it always seems to strike at the most inconvenient times.

Usually when I have an assignment due.

Stupid reality. Stupid law school.

Finished!

As with the previous one, this post is a little bit tardy, but I finished the story I was working on!

Yep. Finished! On Friday, March 13th. The final count was 148,846 words, which is obviously way too long, but that can be remedied. It's not perfect, but it feels amazing to have it finished, for a great many reasons.

In some ways I suppose that it's surprising that I didn't get on here right away and write some kind of victory post, but in a way it almost felt too big for that. I might have done so if it were only a story that I'd just finished writing, like the one before it was. But this particular piece had a lot of personal stuff tangled up in it as well.

I started it around a year ago - it took me a long time to write by my standards. And during that time my life turned into some kind of crazy nightmare, and then got turned upside-down in the process of remedying the problem. When I started this story, it was pretty much the only thing keeping me going. Now is not the time or place to get started on the debacle that was my marriage, but long story short, I was so miserable that having a task to immerse myself in was a huge help - indeed, it was pretty much the only thing that did help. Then I finally started getting my life back on track again, and writing took a back seat for a while. It was still there, and I was still pottering away on it, but not as feverishly as before. It's only been over the last couple of months that I'd really started to get properly back into it again.

So now it's finished. And that it amazing. Not just because I've written another story (as amazing in itself as that is), but because of what it got me through, and how far I've come since I started it. Finishing it, it was like something was ending, but like something new was starting, because I was putting something old to rest. I laughed, I cried, I drank whiskey, ate chips, and stared out of the window. It felt good.

Finished. Nothing short of amazing.

Belated February Books: Summary and Reviews

Well, I suppose this makes me disgraceful, doesn't it? Nearly two months with no update - for shame, Anna! The up-side is that I haven't updated in so long because I've been so busy - and the busy has included reading and writing. But more on that in a moment (especially the latter).

For a start, here is my rather belated summary of my February endeavours for the 52 Books in 52 Weeks challenge:

February's Books:

6. The Business of Writing - Raymond Flower
7. Black Flower in the Sky - Chong Ki-Sheok
8. Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood

Not a prolific month for reading, I'll admit - but it is the shortest month of the year, so I'll now proceed to crank that out as an excuse. At least as far as genre is concerned, it was a more diverse month than January was.


The Business of Writing: I actually own quite a few books on creative writing. My late mother, a journalist, spent a lot of time trying to get into fiction writing, and I ended up inheriting a lot of the related books that she owned by default, because nobody else in the family is a word person. I'd flicked through them before, but this was the first one that I'd ever actually sat down and read from cover to cover.

I wasn't really sure what to expect - obviously I love to write, and I definitely want to improve my skills, but I wasn't sure how helpful I'd find a book on the subject. This apprehension was probably based mainly on my past experiences. I'd taken a couple of writing subjects as part of my Arts degree, and found them, for the most part, totally unhelpful. Neither of them taught me nearly as much as I've subsequently learned simply from experience (i.e. just writing, and then rereading over it with a critical eye and seeing what the strengths and weaknesses of the piece were). So I wasn't sure if it would be a similar story with this book. Thankfully, that wasn't the case.

The Business of Writing isn't particularly long, and I think that that works well - it doesn't spend hours lecturing you on the kinds of habits that you need to develop, or the particular technical skills that you need to cultivate. Rather, it gives some more general information on topics (some advice being more firmly suggested than others), and then talks about the strategies of various famous writers. The motto of the book, if it could be said to have one, seems to be "different things work for different people - go and find what works for you!" And I think that's a good approach to take - and perhaps this is the reason why I got so little out of creative writing classes that I've done in the past. It was a good read in its own right, a very practically-minded book, and I definitely enjoyed reading it, and found it useful! Yay!

Would I recommend it? Definitely - to writers, would-be writers, and more or less anyone who is interested in the writing process. I enjoyed this one a lot.


Black Flower in the Sky: This one was a book of poetry, written from the perspective of a Korean living in Hiroshima in World War II. Yep, you can see from the outset that this isn't going to be uplifting... The poems trace the main character's life, starting from his marriage and then moving through the events of WWII, and then the aftermath. I picked this one up in the library on a whim, because I've done a lot of research essays on the bombing of Hiroshima, and year before last I actually went there - definitely an amazing experience.

The poems themselves were interesting - some of them were a little lost on me (though that may have been issues with translation), but when they did "click" - they were amazing. I liked a lot of the imagery that was used. Ha - sorry, I've never been someone who's read much poetry, so I don't have very many intelligent remarks to make when it comes to the appreciation of verse. It was an interesting, very moving read at any rate.

Would I recommend it? Well, it's not for the squeamish, as you might imagine. Not that there's any explicit or gory descriptions in there, but there is a lot of material that some might find confronting. That said, I do definitely think that it's worth reading, especially if you have an interest in that particular dark corner of history.


Oryx and Crake - Disclaimer: I am a Margaret Atwood junkie. A complete and total one. I know that some people tend to find her an acquired taste, but I adore her and remain absolutely enthralled by her books, no matter how many times I pick them up. I tend to reread this one (as well as The Blind Assassin, which I'm sure will be reviewed here at some point) at least once a year, so much do I love it.

This is a prime example of a case in which I think assigning a genre to a book would be limiting rather than informative. I suppose that you would call Oryx and Crake 'science fiction' or 'futuristic' if you had to assign it a category, but there is So Much More To It than that, because it's as much about human nature and interaction as it is about future technology. The book basically consists of the main character (one of the few remaining survivors of a disaster that has wiped out most of humankind) relating the events that have led to the present while he continues trying to survive and make sense of everything that has happened.

I'm sure that this kind of plot has been used a million and one times, but I couldn't care less - this books pulls it off fabulously. I think for me it's all the social and cultural references and commentary that make this - all the little oberservations of the quirks, preoccupations, perversities and obsessions of humankind make it unnerving and endearing at the same time. If you're the kind of person who gets a kick out of laughing at advertisements (I most definitely am this kind of person, for the record), then you will likely dig this book in a big way. Even though it doesn't play a huge role in the story, I also love the way that language and the humanities are treated in this story - as an English lit/history major, and someone who deeply loves word-wrangling, I couldn't help but laugh and relish it.

Anyway, I could talk all day about this book, but I won't, because it's sunny and I want to go outside! Would I recommend it? Short answer: Yes. Read this book - it is awesome. Or it is if, like me, you're a cynic with a weird sense of humour who is thoroughly unnerved by some aspects of modern society.


So, that's February sorted. Not technically late I suppose, since March hasn't finished yet. But I definitely could have been more prompt. Oh well - I haven't been writing here because I've been writing elsewhere instead. But as I said earlier, more about that later...

January Books: Summary and Reviews

As previously mentioned, this year I'm doing the "52 Books in 52 Weeks" challenge with the lovely people on my internet-drug-of-choice Ravelry. I don't think any elaboration as to what it's all about it called for - the title of of the group is pretty self explanatory.

I didn't do a lot of reading in January, considering that I'm on holiday and (theoretically) have a lot of time on my hands. Though then again, perhaps it makes sense - I haven't been commuting very much, and that was when I used to get a lot of my reading done. At any rate, while it didn't feel like I spent a lot of time reading, I'm still very much on track as far as the target goes.

January's Books:

1. Assassin's Quest, Robin Hobb.
2. The Black Company, Glen Cook
3. Shadows Linger, Glen Cook
4. The White Rose, Glen Cook
5. Threshold, Sara Douglass

Why yes, I am a tragic fantasy nerd. Thank you for asking!

Assassins Quest: First off, the context: this is the final book in the Farseer Trilogy. I'd read the previous two while travelling around Europe, so only had the final one to knock off in the New Year. This was a re-read too - I've read these books twice before. That said, it probably won't come as much of a surprise when I say that I love this series quite, quite madly. I don't go in for picking favourites, but they would definitely feature on any 'top 5' list that I were forced to concoct. Hands down one of my all-time favourite fantasy series.

This is probably the point where I should explain why I love this book and its fellows so much (shouldn't be too difficult since I'm always trying to convince everyone I know to read them - I was doing in last night in fact). The books have a lot of strengths, but I think that the standout for me is the characterisation. This has to have been one of the first series I read where (dare I risk falling forever into the dark pit of into ten-year-old lingo) I actually liked the protagonists and wanted "the bad guys" to "lose". I have to admit, when I read a lot of books it's actually the reverse that I'm feeling - especially within the fantasy genre, where all too often the 'hero' characters are either one-dimensional or fleshed out in such a cliched way that it makes me want to roll my eyes five times per chapter. Not the case here. When I read this book for the first time I learned to love the characters dearly, and that hasn't changed on rereading.

The plot is excellent as well - it doesn't read like somebody's Dungeons and Dragons game, for a start. It manages to develop in a way that is intriguing without becoming hopelessly convoluted as too many books in the genre tend to do (I hate having to constantly flick back several chapters as I read just to refresh my memory as to who this person was, or what happened in this particular place, etc). It's well paced, goes on for just the right length, and comes to a satisfying conclusion.

I'm not going to sit down and give a number/star rating for the books I read this year, nor do I think I'd even be capable of such a thing. It's just going to come down to whether or not I would recommend them. In this case: a thousand times 'yes'. If you like fantasy, you should read these books (as long as you don't mind them raising your standards much higher from that point onwards), and if you're one of the people who rolls their eyes at the genre and thinks that it's all about elves, magic swords, fireballs and poor writing (you know who you are), you should read these books to see just how wrong that opinion can be. Okay, I'm going to shut up now.

The Black Company series: These three books are the first part of an ongoing series - plucked randomly off the bookshop shelves on a whim just before I headed off on holidays. I do not normally do this. Though it might sound odd coming out of the mouth of someone who in fact owns hundreds of books, I'm enough of a broke student that I don't tend to buy books when I haven't read anything by the author before - or at least not unless they come highly recommended by someone whose opinion I trust. That's what libraries are for - and if I really like a book, often I'll buy it after having read the library copy. Anyway, I bucked the trend for these books, and I'm glad that I did, because I enjoyed them quite a lot.

The plot basically follows a mercenary army, and I found it refreshing because like the previous book discussed, it breaks out of the fantasy mould quite a lot, albeit more through the characters and the way that the story is told than through the actual plot. The banter and other interaction between the characters was what made this one for me - it was a pleasure to read, and felt a lot more realistic than in other books. I found myself feeling affection more for the ways that the characters interacted with each other than for who they actually were - that sounds like a criticism but it isn't.

The plot was good too - it kept me and my short attention span reading, and that's saying something. Speaking of said attention span: it appreciated the way that the chapters of the last two books were quite short. In general really, these books do not waste time. Things happen and they happen quickly, with not a lot of dawdling around in between, so if you're into action, these are great. I also got a laugh out of the way that the author tackled the issue of morality in the story (through the main character's musings on the topic) without getting too bogged down and preachy about it. I also loved the weird, deadpan humour.

In summary: I'd definitely recommend this one, though not to everyone - it's probably somewhat of an acquired taste, due to its style, sense of humour and at times somewhat "blokey" nature. It was right down my alley, though.

Threshold: I just finished this one this morning (yes, I know that it's February now, but I started it in January so I'm counting it here), so it's still fresh in my mind, and because of that, I'll probably go on for longer than I should about it. I should probably start off by saying that of all of the books I read last month, I got through this one far and away the fastest, even though it was not the shortest, and I didn't have any more time on my hands than I had when I read the others. I had less in fact. But that's the kind of writer that Sara Douglass (another one of my all time favourite fantasy writers) is: her books are totally compulsive. Perfect binge reading fodder. I have an incredibly short attention span at times, yet I simply cannot put her books down.

There's a bit of a story behind this one actually. Without getting too bogged down into the rest of the author's books, the plots of Threshold, Beyond the Hanging Wall (another stand-alone book), and two of her other trilogies, all form the origin of the series that she is working on at the moment (does that sentence make grammatical sense? Don't ask me!). I had read all of the other books, and indeed also what had been written of the current series, but I had never read Threshold. I'd passed it a few times in the library, flicked my eyes over the blurb and felt a bit ambivalent about it. Another time I was tossing up between it and Beyond the Hanging Wall - I went with the latter because I thought it sounded more interesting. Last year I was in the bookshop and I must have felt wealthy, since I decided to invest in a copy, figuring I'd get to it eventually. And then it sat on my shelf for a few months while I read other things. But a few days ago I finally picked it up, thinking that it was finally time. Threshold and Anna - together at last. I have to say I loved it.

The thing that I like so much about Sara Douglass' books, aside from their aforementioned addictiveness, is that they're so easy to read in every other sense of the word as well. I don't want to say that they're simplistic, because plot-wise they aren't, but it almost feels as if they are because they're written so clearly. You don't need to puzzle over what the hell is going on, or struggle to recall the relevance of some earlier event/person to which the author keeps alluding: everything makes sense at the right time, there's no confusion, and you can just sit back and enjoy watching the story pan out in front of you. I guess if you like demanding books this might not be quite your cup of tea, but it works for me. This was pure and simple and vivid and wonderful, with no wasted words.

The characterisation was good too. I wasn't head-over-heels thrilled with the main character (that's not to say I didn't like her - I just didn't adore her madly), but I liked all the others. I found some of the character development a little abrupt in some ways, but that's probably because I've just come off the back of reading a bunch of trilogies, where the writers have had three books to drag these things out torturously slowly. It didn't bother me too much, anyway - even if the characters weren't as complex as some I'd encountered lately, I liked them better anyway, so it didn't matter!

Lastly, I very much enjoyed reading a satisfying stand-alone fantasy book. It had definitely been a while. Sometimes I tend to veer away from them because I find them so unsatisfying, in terms of both plot and character, but this was definitely not the case here. I got everything I needed from a story, but in one book instead of three, four, six, etc. Lovely. Only problem is that now I want to reread all of her other related books again, which is going to make the rest of this challenge a little repetitive for all those watching at home... Oh well...

Would I recommend it? Short answer: yes. Once again, it might not be everyone's cup of tea, especially if you like your books intellectually taxing, or if you tend to go in for multi-book series. And it wasn't particularly revolutionary in a lot of ways. But I found everything I want in entertainment right here - no question.

Incidentally, the only down side to all of this is that after finishing the book I remembered that I hadn't checked in at the author's website in a while. I did so, and found out that she's spent the last few months fighting ovarian cancer (at which point I spent a few moments feeling thoroughly guilty that I hadn't read the site earlier - man, but the internet does weird things to your conscience). Now I'm having to sit very firmly on my hands to curb the overwhelming impulse of my not-so-inner obsessive knitter to make her a hat. Because that's a normal reaction upon finding out that someone you greatly admire is ill...

And now I'm definitely going to shut up. Jeez - this post is enormous! I had been intending to do a monthly review of the books I was reading, but looking over this I'm now thinking that perhaps fornightly might make for more managable blog posts! Oh, and yes, I know that the reviews here are all positive. No, it isn't odd. Is it so weird that I pick books that I think I'll like? Don't worry - I definitely don't like everything that I read. Hopefully there'll be a scathing review at some point in the future...

Crossing Genres Assignment #2

And here's the second installment (see last entry for the explanatory whatnot):
Disclaimer: it's a little longer, and I use a couple of naughty words in it *gasp*

Morning Tea:

I woke up, and wondered why I was awake already. Oh yes, that odd tension again – I knew from instinct alone, even before memory kicked in, that today was a day when I would be ordered to do things. Not just things, but Things. Of the immoral, illegal, and usually somewhat messy kind. The Supervisor was coming to see me, and he was coming today. To give me my details of my mission. Shit – where had the last week gone?

I rolled out of bed none too gracefully, and was greeted yet again by the view of the Riverview Hotel that my window afforded. I’d be stationed in this flat for the last three weeks, watching and waiting for more information. I had suspicions of course, as to why I was there – I knew very well who was scheduled to stay there in the next few days, and there’s no such things as coincidences that huge. Not in my line of work. I knew full well what it was that I was going to be asked to do – I just wasn’t willing to admit it to myself. If I thought too hard about it, then I’d be too scared to move. This was my first major job.

But no point in letting thoughts stray down that path. The Supervisor first. I had to get ready for the Supervisor. Bugger me but I should have kept this place cleaner, I thought as I hastily picked up dirty clothes from the floor and sent them arcing across the room into the laundry basket. Some of Michael’s discarded underwear revealed themselves in the process. Whoops. Glad I found those – the Supervisor has never approved of mixing business with pleasure, but with Michael stationed only two floors below and the tedious but tense boredom of the last few weeks, well, these things happen. Still, clumsily dealt with. And what kind of person in our profession forgets their underwear? After stacking up the scattered books, I tugged the bed-sheets into some semblance of neatness. Right, bedroom fixed.

I stumbled out into the main room of the tiny flat. Thankfully there wasn’t that much to clean up here – the bedroom had been my chief headquarters for time killing, and of course the only way to keep up my watch of the hotel entrance was the window there, so the living room had been mainly neglected. I don’t think that the television had been on once in the entire time that I’d been here. A quick straightening of the couch cushions would about do it. Now, onto the kitchen.

The kitchen itself was neat enough – I think that every on-duty assassin must live on a diet consisting mainly of takeaway meals and breakfast cereal, because heaven knows that there’s not much time to spend cooking – but it wasn’t the cleanliness that I was concerned with. It was the contents of the fridge. The Supervisor’s love of routine was legendary throughout the whole organization. If the old bloke was deprived of his morning tea and biscuits, then things could turn unpleasant, and I didn’t sit in this hole for the last three weeks, twiddling my thumbs, only to be dropped from the job now. White with one sugar was how the tea had to be. In a scrupulously clean cup - I recalled in time to give the waiting porcelain receptacles a bit of extra attention. Three biscuits, and ‘none of that sprinkled, chocolate chip kiddy bullshit’, if I recalled correctly from a co-worker’s recounting of a past dressing down. That was fine - I had some perfectly sober looking shortbread. The Supervisor’s tastes were austere. I’m surprised he even took milk and sugar in his tea.

I opened the fridge. Shit. There was no milk. I looked again. Still no milk. Double shit. I closed the fridge and rocked back on my heels. I looked at my watch. Only 8:30am - I still had time. It was risky to be seen in daylight this close to the job at hand, but I didn’t see what options there were. I scanned my eyes around the kitchen, hoping in vain for some alternative. There was a small carton of soy-milk sitting in a corner. I tried to picture the Supervisor’s reaction to soymilk, but suspected that nothing I could conjure would quite be able to match his contempt. He is always relentlessly articulate in his contempt. The shops it was then. The best I could do was look inconspicuous.

Five minutes later I was ready. Long coat – slightly out of season, but not so much as to attract notice. Hat and scarf, knitted by my mother. I always wonder what she’d think if she knew the jobs on which I’ve worn them. At least she picked unobtrusive colours this time. Bright primaries don’t mix well with subterfuge. My hands were shaking as I dutifully fixed all the locks on my door. Wouldn’t do for someone to get in by accident. I made my way down the stairs, all ten flights of them. I had reconciled myself weeks ago to the lift not being a valid option. Long flights of stairs are another occupational hazard.

Just before I got to the back exit, I ran into Michael entering in off the street. Awkwardness abounded for a few seconds. “Where are you off to?” he asked with a frown. “Supervisor visiting today. I’m out of milk”. It was a little embarrassing to admit. More than a little, actually. He didn’t say anything in response, only held up a grocery bag. A carton of milk peeked out cheerfully through the plastic. “I’ve got enough to share,” he said, and I threw my arms around him in sheer relief before he even had a chance to lower the bag again. After a moment, I came to my senses and pulled away, just in time to see him blushing slightly. “Come up then,” I muttered, and we ascended the stairs, both relieved to have a task to set ourselves to. People in our business don’t tend to be big on social skills.

He decanted some milk into a small jug and stashed it in my fridge. “Good luck today,” was all he said before leaving. I let out a breath and sat down at my miniscule kitchen table. Milk obtained. Supervisor’s whims catered to. I got up restlessly, wandered back to the bedroom and sat on the floor, back against the bed, looking out the window. The Riverview Hotel loomed large and implacable, filling the view completely. Morning tea sorted. Now all there was left to do was wait, and think of all of the hundreds of other things that could go wrong.

Crossing Genres Assignment #1

Okay, so here's my first attempt at one of the writing challenges from the Ravelry '52 Books in 52 Weeks' group (since I was a lazy bum and never got around to writing something for the first challenge).

The instructions:
Step 1: Pick a short story topic. (ie walking to the store, going to class, picking up milk)
Step 2: Pick two or three genres of writing style (ie romance, horror, fantasy, mystery, humor, etc.)
Step 3: Write your short story in the style of each of those genres.

Anyway, I kind of latched onto the milk thing, so both of these are about waking up and realising that you need to get some milk. I decided to go with fantasy (gee whiz, what a surprise), and something that ended up some kind of weird blend between a spy novel and satire. Here's the first one (I'm posting them separately as to avoid another Enormous Blob Post of Doom):


Fridge:

I was woken up earlier than I would have liked. It was my day off – the first in too long – and I would have liked to have slept on for a more fittingly indulgent amount of time. It was going to be hot today too – and I wanted to enjoy being lazy by choice before the heat forced it on me. But the Fridge had other ideas. That bloody Fridge…

Shuffling out of my room, picking my way across discarded clothing, I made my way towards the kitchen. Not that it was strictly necessary to do so – the Fridge has ways of making its wishes known, so I already knew what was bothering it. It sat regally in the kitchen, humming away busily to itself as if it didn’t really care for whatever reason it was that I had come to see it. I leaned my head against the cool white expanse, so it couldn’t possibly ignore me any more. Milk, the Fridge said. Rather to the point this morning – the Fridge can be very articulate when it chooses, but obviously today was not one of those days. “It’s hot,” I grumbled in response. “The shop around the corner isn’t open yet, and it’s too hot to walk all the way to the supermarket”. Milk, the Fridge insisted. I could sense that it was also none too pleased about the power bill that I’d stuck atop its face with a magnet shaped like a smiling octopus, but at least it wasn’t actively complaining about that yet.

I put the jug on to boil. “I have everything I need for my breakfast right here,” I pointed out. It was true – I always take my tea black, my toast with honey, and all required ingredients were present and accounted for. If it was possible for a major appliance to give you a dirty look, then Fridge would have accomplished the feat at that moment. I did my best to ignore it and sat at the table, jiggling my teabag up and down in the mug and eyeing yesterday’s crossword, for all the world as if Fridge wasn’t there at all. The impatience in the air was palpable.

Fridge tends to demand a certain respect. After all, it has lived here for longer than I have, so apparently that puts me lower in the pecking order. It was there when I moved in originally. The landlord hadn’t made any mention of it, but when I staggered into the kitchen under the weight of a rapidly disintegrating cardboard box full of cutlery, there it was. One less new thing to arrange, I had thought after a brief inspection had shown it to be in fine working order, if none too clean in the vicinity of the vegetable crisper. I had later inquired about its presence to the landlord, who had simply shrugged and said that it had been there when the last tenant moved in, so presumably it was from the tenant before. She didn’t seem puzzled, so I resolved not to be either. Perhaps this kind of thing happened all of the time. Turns out it doesn’t, but it hasn’t been a bad arrangement. When the Fridge isn’t being a stroppy pain the arse.

“What do you want milk for anyway?” I finally asked – the tension in the room had grown too much, and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to enjoy my tea and do the crossword until Fridge had been placated. What kind of Fridge doesn’t even have milk? It’s a staple ingredient. The thought was indignant, but tinged with a little bit of embarrassment. I grinned, somewhat unkindly. “Getting self conscious, are we?” Fridge’s fan motor skipped a little, as if it flinched. Then it gathered itself to retaliate. In a single second my mind was suddenly saturated with reminders of how hot it would be that day, as well as a singularly vivid image of what all of my perishables would look like if Fridge were to decide that it felt like taking the day off. Vegetables wilted, cream curdled, iced tea icy no longer. It did not sound pleasant.

“Fine, fine,” I grumbled, swigging the rest of my tea down in a hurried gulp. “You win”. I felt Fridge positively oozing smugness as I stumbled into the living room, threw on an old t-shirt and began pulling on my sandals. The feeling continued as I fumbled for my purse and keys, and didn’t abate until I had closed the front door and started off down the street. The sun was already hot, and it was well over a kilometer to the supermarket. Stupid Fridge. Oh well, I thought with a smile. Revenge would be had. Fridge still hadn’t discovered the Tupperware-encased leftovers of my brother’s valiant but unsuccessful attempt at cooking osso bucco that I had banished to the back of one of its shelves. Two weeks ago. I looked forward to that moment with childish glee as I tramped down the street, grocery bag in hand. The heat suddenly seemed less oppressive.

Apparently, I'm smarter than I thought...

A side effect of today's exercise in narcissism that I hadn't forseen: I now have no urge whatsoever to go on and on about myself. I've purged it - it's all out of my system. I don't know how long it will last for, but it's probably a good thing!

The other amusing this is that I keep having to restrain myself from going back and editing the post, or writing a disclaimer along the lines of "Watch out - I'm going to talk about myself for ages and it will be boring!" The old piece of social advice goes tells us that people love to talk about themselves, and I suppose that's true. But it's interesting to try and think of a way to phrase it that might make it interesting to others. I don't think I did that here - it was too thorough, so perhaps next time I'll try and write the most interesting summary of myself that I can in, say, 250 words. That would be a challenge.

In other news, I felt like I should start talking about some of the writing I was doing. "Proper" writing (though who knows what constitutes proper) outside of the blog. I was rather pleased last night - I hit the 100,000 word mark on the story that I'm writing at the moment. This is a good and a bad thing. It's good because, obviously, I've put in a sustained effort (no mean feat given my pathetic attention span) and written an extended story. It's bad because it is definitely not finished yet and I suspect it's going to end up far too long. Though this isn't so awful, because I already knew that it needed a vicious prune, as I was still coming to terms with plot things when I was writing it - a few things are probably now superfluous and can be removed with a minimum of griping on my part. Pleasing.

The grander goal of course (as stated on the Ravelry writers group, so gosh darnit, you know I mean business) was to finish this piece by the end of January. I am now doubtful as to whether or not this is possible, but I'll keep on aiming anyway. It's definitely doable if I get on a roll. And on that note, I'm going to get back to it. 101,319 words and counting...

Something vaguely self-centred...

I'm still really deciding what kind of things are going to be posted here. Obviously it's a place for me to cheer and wave my arms in the air when I finish writing projects, and I'll be posting updates on my progress in the '52 Books in 52 Weeks' challenge too. Once I actually start working on them, my responses to the writing challenges will be posted here as well. But what else?

I've been musing over this question, and I'm still not sure what conclusion I've come to, if any. Obviously, anything I post here is going to revolve around writing or reading, but I'm not sure what limits to place on this. The pieces of writing that I've found either pleasing to read or exceptionally well written have come from so many places that I'm not sure if it's useful to place limits on what gets posted here. So I'm thinking that perhaps I'll just post lots of different kinds of writing here, with the one requirement be that I've actually written it as well as I can. On my other blog I'm all too guilty of rambling on for too long, inserting brackets into anywhere that they'll fit, and sometimes even resorting to dot point and one word sentences. Not here.

It does admittedly seem a little bit strange to say that I'm going to try and post well written things here, as you'd think that such a thing would be a more or less universal aim. But increasingly I'm finding that that isn't the case, with me and with others. Often people's blogs seem to dissolve into bad punctuation, oddly formed sentences, and sometimes even some strange variation on the text message vernacular. Um, LOL? All good in context, but that context is not going to be here. In this space, I plan to strive for (and probably frequently fall short of) better writing, no matter what the actual content of the text is.

Since I have to start somewhere, I decided that writing about me was as good a place as any. A little vain perhaps, but let's be honest: most people enjoy writing about themselves. It's still early days in the blog, so I suppose it's not entirely out of place.


Well.


My name is Anna. Not a name I've ever been particularly attached to, but it's the only one that I have. I'm 24 years old, though not too far from 25. All those north of that mark will probably start laughing from this point onwards, but the prospect of reaching this point scares me a little, because it sounds like an age that implies more responsibility and experience than I seem to have accumulated thus far. That's not to say that I haven't had a lot of varied experiences - only that they seem woefully inadequate because despite them all, I'm still chronically (and joyfully) juvenile and ignorant in a great many ways.

Of course, I've seen and done things. A lot of things, in a great many places. It's rare that I find someone my age who has travelled to as many different countries as I have, though I must admit that I definitely don't remember a lot of the destinations - my parents got me started young. By the age of 6 I had already been to more places than most people will ever see in their entire lives. The list only expanded as I got older, and it's still growing - I don't think it's in my nature to ever stop wanting to see different places. On that note, I was one of those kids who always wanted to do everything. I read too much and had far too many hobbies. I was always nothing short of vigorously encouraged on both of these fronts, something that I'm still incredibly grateful for. All said and done, I think that I had the kind of childhood that most people can only dream of.

Of course, life has also been a bit of a bastard in other ways. If I've racked up more good experiences than other people my age, the same can be said of bad ones. By the age of 16 I'd already lost one parent. I finished high school at 17, having a lot of knowledge but very few friends to show for it - for a variety of reasons, I've not always been good at playing nicely with the other children, so to speak. I got married at 23, and had the relationship dissolve messily only few months after my 24th birthday. Perhaps dissolve is the wrong word - I ended it, though not before enduring treatment that I cringe to remember now. The less said about it the better really. I've not always been a happy person. One hand would be insufficient to count the different counsellors I've meandered back and forth from over the years, wondering when one would successfully crack the code of my head. All this said, I don't think life has treated me unfairly. Far from it. I still consider myself one of the luckiest people I know. Most of the bad things were just consequences of my own choices, and I can live with that.

So now here I am. Anna at age 24. I live in Melbourne, Australia - my most beloved city, which I suspect will always be home, no matter how many places I visit. I attend the University of Melbourne, and have done for far, far too long. At the moment I am one year off completing a law degree. Before that it was an arts degree, double majoring in history and english literature, with an honours year devoted to the Black Death and medieval medicine thrown in for good measure. Given this, it's probably unsurprising that I find it hard to comprehend an existence beyond study.

However, despite all the time spent at university, I'm not a particularly fast learner. My attention span is short, and it can take me a long time to comprehend new ideas. I often forget things not long after I've learned them, much to my frustration and embarrassment. It all amuses me quite a lot in some ways. People often expect me to be so ferociously intelligent (I suspect it's an assumption based on the fact that I'm in law school), that I really do wonder how they're going to react when they realise that there really isn't anything particularly exceptional inside my skull. Perhaps this sounds too self deprecating, but I don't think so. I have other intellectual strengths, and I am very proud of them - they're just a little less tangible. My imagination, for example, is a force to be reckoned with.

On the employment front, there is not much of interest to say. Uni has (or should have) taken priority throughout most of my life, so the jobs I've worked haven't been particularly exciting ones. I've worked in a bakery, a pizza shop, a pet shop, and as a tutor. Also for one hour in a call centre - one hour being all it took to convince me that I would never voluntarily return to that place. They have nearly all been customer service jobs, which is probably a little odd given the fact that I am not a people person. For some reason though, I'm good at customer service. Excellent, actually. I just hope to escape it one day.

As previously mentioned, I still have too many hobbies. The most prominent - at the moment, anyway - are writing and knitting, but I also read a lot, bake, grow carnivorous plants, practice calligraphy, swim, dabble in sewing, and draw. As well as about a thousand other things. Heaven knows it probably all detracts from both my studies and my personal life, but I wouldn't change it. I am never, ever bored.

My social life is not a particularly stellar one. I have the usual amount of acquaintances, but few people I would call friends. I've never been much of a people person, for all that I continue to make valiant attempts at it. In all honesty, the opposite sex generally don't seem to take that much interest in me either - though it should be noted that at the time of writing this, there is a certain individual who would say otherwise. Regardless of his wishes though, I am most resolutely single, and expect to stay as such for quite some time.

I suppose all that's left to talk about now is my temperament. It's the trickiest thing to describe though. I'm quiet, except when I'm loud. I'm reclusive, except when I'm overbearing. I'm optimistic, except when I'm depressed. Thankfully, I think that that about covers the more contradictory elements of my personality. I have a sense of humour - I refuse to say a 'good' sense of humour, because I'm not really sure how to define 'good' in this context, but I definitely have one, whether it's good or otherwise. There are very few things in this life that I can't laugh about. Indeed, humour is essentially my coping mechanism, as various poor mortified people have discovered when I loudly poke merry fun about hardships of mine that a normal person simply would not find funny. Still, in my opinion, if you can laugh at something, then you can live through it. And sometimes the only way to salvage any kind of good from a situation is to find something humorous in it, no matter how perverse the humour is.

I'm definitely cynical, though as previously mentioned, I'd call myself an optimist too - I don't view the two as mutually exclusive. I'm very opinionated, though I don't tend to subject other people to my thoughts on controversial topics unless I have been invited to. I like to think that I'm a person with a strong code of ethics. I am one of the most stubborn people you will ever have the misfortune of meeting - I'm still not sure if it's a fault or a virtue, because heaven knows it has served me well over the years. That said, I am open minded too. I like variety, in all things: I don't think that you need to only associate with people who are the same age, subculture, or political leaning as you, nor have I ever understood why anyone would feel that way. I'm generous - though I sometimes regret it afterwards. I probably have a tendency to be self centred, though in all honesty, who doesn't? I am sometimes too paranoid for my own good. I am sometimes a nervous person, though when push comes to shove, I am brave enough to get through it. Of everything though, I think that the thing I like best about myself is that I take pleasure in small things. I enjoy life, am grateful for living it, and on good days I find a small measure of peace in that. It sounds pretentious, but I can't think of any other way to articulate it.

Well, that's me - and that's definitely enough now. And I for one am thoroughly sick of hearing about myself now. I'm off to go and write about someone a little more interesting.

The auspicious first post...

Yes, I know deep down that really, I need another blog like I need a hole in the head. Well, perhaps that's a little extreme. I need another blog like I need an asparagus flavoured ceiling fan. I just don't. But the problem is that I don't like to dilute my craft blog too much with that other craft I practice - that persistant one that involves all those delightful words. And my Livejournal is more a place for my (lack of a) social life than it is a forum for me to wax lyrical about which of my characters is being a misbehaving tool this week. I had considered a blog for this pesky conceit of mine for a little while, but I'd happen across other people's writing blogs from time to time and find them for the most part tedious at best and narcissistic at worst, and then I would once again discount the idea.

But the writing - it takes over and seems to think that it needs a place to be rambled about. And then I decided to do the 52 Books in 52 Weeks challenge on Ravelry, and it feels odd to be directing people to my knit-blog for that when there is really bugger all by way of reading/writing content on there. And now we've got writing assignments, which I think will be a lot of fun, but once again, I don't really want to post them on my knit-blog (or at least not now that it actually has - gasp - readership, albeit small). So I succumbed. Here, ladies and gentleman, from this point onwards shall dwell: the word-blog.

This isn't entirely a bad thing, I suppose. For a start, it means that I no longer have to brag to the people who subject themselves to my other internetty endeavours when I hit 50,000 words on a story I'm writing. I can post it here and save them the trouble of scratching their heads and saying to themselves, "Wait, Anna was writing something? When did that start?" My various random hobbies vie for my attention enough in my actual life - they don't need to compete for space on the wide open and fertile plains of the internet.

It also means that I won't need to keep all of my writing-centric ramblings locked away on wordfiles on my harddrive, or banished to battered notebooks that never seem to escape the recesses of my bag. The problem with doing things this way is that when these diatrabes are kept private, with no intention of ever being otherwise, I get repetitive, lose any motivation to be concise, and generally my thoughts end up chasing themselves around in circles. The whole 'writing my thoughts on the piece that I'm writing' thing stops being as helpful as it was originally, and starts being confusing and self indulgent. Probably bad habits to be falling into.

However, the main benefit of the word-blog that I can see is that it might actually force me into better habits. You see, I have this quirk. Like many people, I am a procrastinator. I have trouble helping it, although it should be noted that I'm getting better as I get older (she proudly proclaims at the ripe old age of 24). And one thing that I've noticed is that the more people I tell about my intentions, the less likely I am to put them off or not fulfil them at all. A muttered "I'll do it when I finish this chapter", grumbled over my shoulder to a single member of my immediate family, is much less likely to be followed up on than a proclamation to a group of friends, or a declaration to the inhabitants of LiveJournal land that I am going to undertake something. So, in keeping this word-blog, I'm hoping to scare myself straight and actually write everything I'm intending to. See, I have to do it, because if I don't the Internet at Large will think worse of me. All the billions of people who could potentially happen across this blog (though of course won't) will parade through my mind, saying "Oh, that Anna, she never follows through on what she says she's going to do", and lo and behold, I will magically become Productive... Or that's the plan anway.

So. There's the justification. Of course, one can justify a lot of things. Hey, I'm a law student - I'm supposed to be good at this kind of rubbish. Now, let's see if I can actually live up to all of these good intentions. Time will tell, I suppose.