Star Wars, NaNo and The Middle

Last week, I did something that I've been putting off. I finally showed Emily Star Wars.

I had been putting it off because Star Wars was my first real fandom. I was born in 1977 and my dad loved Star Wars. I grew up playing with Star Wars toys and one of my early memories is going to see Return of the Jedi in the theater. I wanted Emily to love it, or at least like it, so I kept putting it off and putting it off.

She really enjoyed it. We've only gotten through A New Hope but hopefully this weekend we will watch Empire and Jedi as well. Her favorite character is R2-D2 and she actually quote Star Wars to me out of the blue yesterday making my geek heart soar.

I do have a confession to make though. As a kid, I never really liked Empire Strikes Back too much. The majority of the movie is either Luke and Yoda training or everyone else running and hiding. To kid Mandy, all of this was boring. The best parts of the movie to kid Mandy were Hoth and Cloud City. I still loved Empire, but I loved A New Hope and Jedi more.

As an adult, I can see why Empire is so great. But childhood preferences still linger. As I was thinking about this, I came to a realization. Middles are hard and I'm not super fond of them.

I'm taking part in National Novel Writing Month for the 8th or 9th year. NaNo is where you try to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. I'm writing the middle book of my trilogy and the words have not been flowing. I came to the realization that the words might not be flowing because it's the middle!

I'm sure all the words will come out and I will continue to watch Empire Strikes Back. But it is funny how childhood preferences can hold over to adulthood.

Cyrus Darian and the Technomicron – A Steampunk Novel

Image: Goodreads.com

Steampunk has become a very popular genre as of late so it isn’t a surprise that there have been a lot of steampunk books coming out. I like steampunk, but I haven’t had a chance to read many of the books. Because of this, I jumped at the chance to review Cyrus Darian and the Technomicron by Raven Dane.

Cyrus Darian and the Technomicron tells the story of Cyrus Darian, who is alchemist and necromancer among other things. He finds himself on quest to find the Technomicron, a book that is shrouded in mystery and magic. There is an interesting set of secondary characters who help and hinder Darian on his quest.

This book is set in late 1800s London and it is very steampunk. I liked that there were consequences to the steam power as it was often pointed out that London was under a thick cloud of smoke at all times. The descriptions of the world were very detailed which was good and bad. It took me a little while to get into this book because of all the details kind of bogged down the beginning.

I was glad that I stuck with it because Cyrus Darian and the Technomicron was very interesting. I did find that I liked several of the secondary characters, such as the Demon Prince, Beliel, better than the main character. The character of Cyrus Darian had many layers but most of those weren’t extremely likeable.

But it ended up being a very good book in the steampunk genre. I would recommend Cyrus Darian and the Technomicron to anyone who likes reading steampunk historical fantasy.

Note: I received a copy of this book for review purposes.

Goals for 2014

Now that Christmas is over with, thoughts turn to the new year that is almost upon us. I’m really hoping that 2014 is better than 2013. This year had a lot of down moments though the bright spot was Disney. Next year, we are hoping to have fewer issues and just save in case anything comes up.

A lot of people make resolutions for the new year, but I prefer to think that these are goals. The theme of my goals for 2014 is to finish all the things. I have a lot of unfinished projects and I’d like to get them done.

The first one is finish the 2nd draft of my novel. I’ve been finding it hard to find time to write. I work in the morning and then after work I often feel drained because of my chronic pain. But I really need to make time to finish this novel if I ever want to be published.

The second is to finish Emily’s cross stitch Christmas stocking. It’s one of the biggest cross stitch projects I’ve done and I’m a bit sad that I didn’t finish it in time for this Christmas. But I now have plenty of time to get it finished. I do hope to have it finished early in the year because I have three costumes I want to make for this year’s convention season.

The third is finish Couch to 5K. This one may prove to be the hardest. I’ll run and get pretty far though but often I’ll have a pain flare and end up too sick to do anything but work and take care of Emily. Our tree is where the treadmill is so I haven’t run in quite a while. As soon as we take the tree down next week, I’m starting from the beginning and really going to try to get through the program all the way this time.

These are my main goals for 2014. There are other things I want to accomplish like making three different costumes and organizing my office. But these three things are a holdover from 2013 (and before) and I’d like to be able to move forward.

War of the Seasons Book 1: The Human – A Fantasy Novel

Image - www.ailionora.com

The Human is the first book of the War of the Seasons series byJanine K. Spendlove. This book is an engaging fantasy novel that follows a young girl named Story as she journeys to a strange new world and the quest she embarks on to save it.

I love fantasy books, and the ones that involve someone from our world going to a fantasy world are some of my favorites. I think this may have something to do with the fact that I would love to find myself magically transported to a magical world.

The Human is this type of book as it follows 17 year old Story as she finds herself in the world, Ailionora, after falling in a cave while spelunking. She gets drawn into this strange, new world finding that she is in the middle of an ancient feud that exists between the elves and faeries of Ailionora.

Story is quickly joined by an elf named Eirnin. This book, in part, revolves around the relationship between these two characters as Eirnin helps Story along her way, teaching her about Ailionora as they go.

This is a tale that has many levels. On the onset, it seems like most fantasy novels, but it does have a deeper layer as Story tries to discover who she is, what her strengths are and how to deal with extreme loss. I enjoyed this book immensely.

Note: I received a copy of this book for review purposes.

Writing, NaNoWriMo and Chronic Pain

There is nothing else I would rather do than write. Unfortunately, I’m not to the point where writing pays any bills. Some days, I can eek out a blog post or some writing between calls while doing my day job. But some days it’s just too busy.

Once I get off from work, I tend to nap especially on days that my pain level has been high. On those days, once I wake up I try to do housework type things or just rest depending on how bad the pain is. The pain usually makes it hard to think so I have a hard time getting any writing done in the afternoons and evenings.

Despite this, I try and do NaNoWriMo every November. This year, I’ve only written about 3500 words, but it’s good to be trying to write on a daily basis again. I’m not working on a new story but instead working on the 2^nd draft of my already finished novel. I’m really hoping to have the 2^nd draft finished before the end of the year so I can start finding beta readers.

Someday I’ll be a published author. Chronic pain just makes it harder to try and get the words out.