Bethanie's Brain

Ah, yes, well part of it anyway. Do not be deceived by its present length -- I expect it to expand. (And please feel free to suggest stories, books, tales, sagas, etc. that you loved or have heard were really great.) Anyway, The Plan - and I have to have A Plan, because if left to my own devices, I will read nothing but fantasy - is to alternate a fiction with a non-fiction. Why not just give in and stick with fantasy and nothing but fantasy? Well, I could do that. But I really want to read the non-fiction on my list and in order to do that I have to set up the fiction books as Rewards for reading the non-fiction, because otherwise all the shiny fiction will somehow find its way to the top of the pile and then it will be September and summer will be over and I'll still have a stack of non-fiction sitting there forlornly beckoning... You think I'm kidding? Exhibit No. 1: Let's take the Oliver Sacks book, Uncle Tungsten . I think I bought it at Christmas, which means I...

I know. It's still spring. But my final exam is Monday, which means summer starts for me as soon as I hit "Submit Quiz", get the news, and calculate my final grade. :D And I am So Fucking Sick of cramming my brain full of stuff I have to know, that I have actually formulated a plan to spend all summer cramming it full of stuff I want to know just 'cuz . Specifically, I am talking about Bethanie's Fantastic Summer Reading List . Yaay for summers!! Yaay for reading!! I plan to post The Official List here and check in with it and check things off and comment and review and contemplate and theorize and otherwise generally wallow shamelessly in my neglected and now-towering TBR pile. So. Be looking for the Fantastic List sometime next week and feel free to suggest any Must Reads on your Fantastic Summer (or Other) Reading List in the meantime (since I just know you're sitting there on the edge of your seat with nothing better to do...). And we now return you ...

It's here! It's here!! IT'S HERE!!! Witch Ember is here! It arrived this afternoon and I was so busy I never even checked the mailbox, and was shocked and delighted when The Husband brought it in this evening. Yahoo! I'm delivering it straight to the TBR pile. I'm gonna be good -- I'm not even gonna crack the cover, 'cuz I'm not allowed to read it until after my final on May 4th and I don't want to be tempted and .... Say! Check out those maps!! Uh-oh... .

I did it. I had to. I couldn't stand it anymore. John Lawson's Witch Ember just sounds too awesome, and it finally popped up used on Amazon at a price I could afford, so I raided the emergency funds (books are an emergency, yes?) and ordered it. So there. And so what if I won't have time to read it until after my effing A&P class comes to its gruesome and excruciating end in May. And so what if my freelance workload is scheduled to pick up right about then. And so what if my stack of Absolutely-Positively-Must-Read-This-Summer books is already taller than I am. So what! Witch Ember goes to the top of the stack as soon as it arrives, and if it's here, it gets cracked open the minute I'm done taking my final on May 4th. So there! .

OK, like I said several posts previous, yapping about how great my own characters are gives me the willies. But in the spirit of CC101, I will do it anyway. :D OK, I'm not really going to talk about how great they are, but I will tell you the story of how two of my characters came to be. First, let me introduce Fenn and Kesera, the two main characters from my very own Novel #1 (of spaghettified plot fame...). Fenn is Prince Charming with a tragic past and a drug problem. Kesera is a bi-racial damsel causing distress (to pretty much everyone around her). I like them a lot. They are very patient with me, thankfully, so perhaps someday, when I become capable of plotting my way out of wet paper bag, I will manage to get their story told. :) Anyway. The story of the way they came about as characters is sort of interesting (at least I think so), so I thought I'd share it. It goes like this: I saw this movie, King Arthur , which I absolutely hated almost every minute of (despite t...

I think my favorite thing about reading is being in a character's head. Nothing is quite like it. Movies, for instance, are great and I love them, but they can't ever come close to the experience of almost being someone else that you can have when you're reading a story in a well-written, really tight POV. My favorite example to give of this is Greg Keyes' Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone series. It's a great, great series and an amazingly told story. Four books follow a handful of characters caught up in a battle between good and evil. In a nutshell: there are kings, queens, princesses, knights, demons, aliens, assassins, religious cults, magical creatures, and dangerous secrets as old as the world. (Yeah - it's awesome.) What I really love about it, though, is how the POV switches between the 4 or 5 main characters - a young, very headstrong princess; her mother, the queen; a knight in the queen's service; the "holter" in charge of the king's fo...

Yes, it's me again with yet another entry for the Character Clinic! I feel like I'm being totally obnoxious posting this much. Oh, well. :) This post is another in honor of Joely and her fabulous idea, because it was she who introduced me to all the wonderful characters in Lynn Veihl's Darkyn series. She held a contest, see, and I won a copy of Twilight Fall . Yaay! Winning is good, but being introduced to a fabulous series of books you never knew existed is even better. I liked them so much, I went out and bought them all, and now I am merrily foisting them on everyone I know. :D Anyway - the characters are what make this series so interesting and keeps me coming back. (That and the writing is really, really excellent, which pleases the editor side of my brain no end and is probably a topic for a whole other post, but whatever.) The characters are memorable, because they are so vividly portrayed -- each one has a very distinct personality. More to the point of my post...

Another entry for Joely's Character Clinic : These are my three favorite characters from the book "Wizard War" by Hugh Cook, which was published in the UK (and possibly Aus and NZ) as "The Wizards and the Warriors". Fabulous book, fabulous author, freakin' shame that it's out of print, in my opinion, and freakin' CRIMINAL that most of the rest of the books in the series Wizard War is part of never even got published in the US, because it's some of the best magic, world building, characters, and plot EVER and .... Erm, anyway.... back to the characters... Miphon. I love Miphon. And not just for his green eyes, I promise. Miphon is a wizard of the order of Nin, a weak-ish order of wizards in his world and "lives as as traveling healer with no fixed abode". He is often called a 'pox doctor' and regarded with something just above scorn by his colleagues (two other wizards of more powerful orders), but we instantly like him as soo...

Entry Number One in Joely's Character Clinic : Well, since I think Joely is so clever for thinking this Charcter Clinic thing up, I thought I'd start off with one of her own characters! Hah! Gregar. Ah, Gregar... where to start? Well, I'll start with where you can find him: Gregar is a character in Joely Sue Burkhart 's book The Rose of Shanhasson . (Go on! Go get it! You'll be glad you did, I promise!) I always love a conflicted character (as you'll discover in coming posts...) and Gregar is definitely that. He is driven. He has a mission and a duty, and he is honor-bound to fulfill them. However, in his secret heart of hearts lurks an undeniable need that conflicts so deeply with all that honor, that Gregar would pretty much rather die than allow himself to have it. Excellent stuff. And oh my, let's not forget: he's dead sexy and dark and wickedly dangerous -- in other words, three of my favorite things! :D In all honesty, though, what really mak...

(This one's a rambler, guys, sorry. This is what happens to Bethanie when she is subjected to all work and no play...) I've been meaning to post about ebooks - at length - forever. Of course, my life is such a vortex of unending activity, I have yet to really get around to it. And since I'm in the middle of cooking supper, I don't really have time now either, but I must put in a plug, because I'm so... oh, I don't know, giddy , I guess, over my latest discovery/acquisition/experience. :-D Here's the story: I've had a Palm OS PDA for years and years and years. I've upgraded from a Handspring to a color Handspring to a Tungsten E and - finally, a year or so ago - to a Treo. I love them - love them, love them, love them . I mean, I'm practically evangelical about them. Really. Don't get me started on how great they are unless you have 30 or 40 minutes for me to show you mine and all the wicked nifty things it can do. Including my all-time fa...