Blue-Footed Musings

Seeking Recommendations

Posted on 02/13/2022 by chick

Here is a crazy idea: I’m going to write a romance novel.

Why? Mostly because I need a quick writing project to build my writing muscles back up. Plus, Hallmark Publishing is having open submissions next month, which is what prompted the idea, and conveniently it also provided a deadline. Strictly speaking, I’d only need three chapters to submit, but I’d like to finish the book by the deadline, because I don’t want another unfinished project on my desk (like I don’t have enough of those already!).

I understand the basics of how romances work. I’ve read more than a few over the years, though not so much recently, and I’ve watched many of them on the screen. But the genre is vast, and I don’t know everything I need to know about it, so I ordered some how-tos. I also downloaded a romance e-book so that I could immediately start reacquainting myself with the form. I picked one with a Christmas theme, because I like watching Hallmark Christmas movies. It seemed like a relatively safe choice.

I started reading the book last night, and it soon reminded me of why I don’t read romances anymore. Most of them stink. The stories are boring, the characters are cardboard, and the writing is ghastly. This is not me being overly picky. When it comes to romances, I’m eager to be entertained. All I want is for two characters who are reasonably likeable to engage in some believable dialogue while circumstances conspire to throw them together, pull them apart, and then bring them together again for a happy ending. The circumstances don’t need to be extraordinary. They just need to be interesting, and almost anything can be made interesting with a little spin. The formulaic plot structure doesn’t have to drag the quality down. If anything, it should liberate the writers to spend more time on getting the details right. And flashy language is not required. Simple, grammatical English will suffice.

That’s not asking a lot, and I don’t understand why the books of this genre tend to be so bad given that the bar is set so low. It’s incredibly frustrating to me, both as a reader who would love nothing more than to curl up with a good romance novel, and as a writer who wants a good model upon which to build one. I know that some authors have managed to get it right, at least often enough to keep the reading population hopeful, but I don’t have time to read through dozens of bad ones in the hopes of finding a few that are good. I could definitely use some recommendations.

So, have you read any good romances lately?

Posted in Writing | 2 Comments

Reading Report: Mid-February 2022

Posted on 02/12/2022 by chick

I finished reading The Dreadful Tale of Prosper Redding (Grade: B+) near the end of January, allowing me to get started on my February reading a little early (hooray!). In this story, twelve-year-old Prosper Redding, born into a powerful and wealthy family, finds out that his inheritance comes with a major downside: there’s a demon inside of him who will take possession of his body on his thirteenth birthday. I enjoyed the conversations between Prosper and his demon, Alastor, as they vied for control over Prosper’s life, but I didn’t connect much with the rest of the story. It felt sort of childish, which would be an unfair criticism to lob at a children’s book, so let’s just say that the problem was me, not the book. Livia read it before I did, and she liked it enough to read the sequel.
Note of interest: from Prosper Redding I learned that in Iceland a “skúffuskáld” (translation: “drawer poet”) is someone who writes poems and doesn’t try to publish them. Writing poetry strictly for personal pleasure is apparently a common pastime in Iceland. Nice.
I am currently reading Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler. The title is a reference to a Biblical parable (Matthew 25:14-30). In this parable, a rich man is about to go traveling, and before he leaves, he gives his servants some money in the form of talents (according to www.biblegateway.com, “A talent was a monetary unit worth about twenty years’ wages for a laborer.”). Two of the servants invest their money and, by the time their master returns, they have made more money. The master praises them. The other servant hides his talent away, and upon his master’s return, he is rebuked, his talent is taken from him, and he is cast into darkness. The parable doesn’t make much sense to me, TBH, but the point is, whether it was fear or laziness or prudence that made that servant hide his talent, he got screwed, and one meaning to take from it is, I guess, “Use your talents wisely.” I probably won’t know exactly what Butler was getting at with the title until I finish the book. Because Parable of the Talents is the sequel to Parable of the Sower, I’m not going to say any more about it for now, because I don’t want to spoil anything for my friend who hasn’t read Sower yet.
Parable of the Talents is interesting, but also slow-going and grim, so I took a short break from it to read Still Life by Louise Penny. You wouldn’t think a murder mystery would offer a break from grimness, but a single murder that has a rationale is a lot easier to deal with than multiple, senseless acts of violence.
I finished Still Life by Louise Penny and gave it an A- grade. In this mystery, a popular former schoolteacher is killed in the woods of a small town in Canada, and Inspector Armand Gamache is called in to solve the case. I gave the story a high grade, but I’m not going to lie–it had some noticeable weaknesses, including a constantly shifting point of view, a sort of weird and mean side plot about a rookie homicide agent, the inspector’s attention to a detail which didn’t seem to warrant it (and which was, of course, a major clue to the murderer’s identity), plus some other odds and ends that didn’t quite ring true. The story succeeded in spite of all those things, testament to other positive qualities of the novel. Honestly, though, I think what I loved most about it was the author herself, whose general attitude seemed kind and upbeat. I will probably seek out more books from this series at some point.

Posted in Reading | Leave a comment

Diagnosis

Posted on 02/11/2022 by chick

A few months ago I noticed that I was having some trouble reading small print. The problem was with my right eye. I figured that it was a cataract, because cataracts are common in my family, even among non-elderly folks such as myself. But, I knew that there were all sorts of things that can go wrong with eyes, and I didn’t want to make a foolish assumption. I was overdue for an eye exam anyway, so I decided to visit the eye doctor.

I had my appointment yesterday. Yes, I may indeed have a cataract forming in my right eye, but that’s not what’s causing my vision loss. The problem is something called degenerative macular retinoschisis. My retina is splitting apart, right in the middle of my field of vision. Actually, I have retinoschisis in both eyes, but it’s less pronounced in the left eye and located away from the macula. The doctor showed me the pictures that he had taken of the insides of my eyes. The macula is supposed to look like a cool blue dot, as it does in my left eye. In my right eye, it’s a big red disk. Well, shit.

When I got home, I consulted Dr. Internet. There wasn’t too much information available, and some of it was difficult to understand, but here is the impression that I got–

Retinoschisis is relatively common in people with myopia.
Usually it’s not a big deal, because it’s located in a place where it doesn’t cause much trouble, as is the case in my left eye. It is less common for the macula to be affected.
Unfortunately, the condition causes irreparable nerve damage, but it may be possible to prevent further vision loss with a surgical procedure.

Though this condition can progress rapidly, it doesn’t happen overnight. The eye doctor said it’s probably been going on for a while. I recall now the conversation that I had at my last eye exam. That doctor told me that there was a cataract in my left eye. I asked him if that was what caused the shadow I sometimes saw while reading, and he said that it probably was. Now I wonder.

Obviously this condition sucks but, on the bright side, it’s is only affecting my vision in one eye, and I still see well overall (20/20 with my glasses on, says the new eye doctor). So there’s no cause for immediate alarm. I have an appointment to see a specialist next month, and I guess I’ll learn more then.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

It’s Still Snowing 1/29/22

Posted on 01/29/2022 by chick

It just keeps snowing, snowing, snowing. There was a travel ban in effect in RI until 8 p.m., and I think it may have been extended until midnight. I don’t mind. I have nowhere to go.
I talked to my mom and my mother-in-law today. All is well in Momland. Life is a little tougher in Dadville, thanks to snow removal, but the Dads are said to being doing OK, too.
I have brought into being an imp who sits in my brain and warns me whenever he thinks I’m jumping to conclusions or being judgmental. He’s a very busy little demon.
I feel like I’ve done nothing today, but it’s important to note that I cleaned all the mail off my desk, attempted to pay a bill online (not my fault it didn’t work), did some laundry, sharpened FIVE whole pencils (yes, five!), and threw some stuff into the recycling. I am practically the Queen of Accomplishment, yes?

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

This Snowy Morning

Posted on 01/29/2022 by chick

As I’ve learned the hard way, the number of posts in my drafts folder is an indication of my mental state. The higher the number, the worse the state. Earlier this month, the number was in the thirties, possibly the highest it’s ever been. So I spent a lot of time over the last couple of weeks cleaning out the folder, and now there are only two drafts, the lowest it’s been in years. I don’t know if this will help my mental state, but it is at least a good sign.
When I woke up this morning I could not remember what day of the week it was, so I wasn’t sure if I should get up immediately or go back to sleep. When I finally figured out that it was Saturday, I was relieved, until I remembered that we were supposed to get a blizzard today. I didn’t want to wake up to a blizzard, so I went back to sleep. In my dreams, the blizzard had arrived but the snow was not sticking. The air was white with falling snow, but the grass was still lush and green.
Green grass in the middle of winter? Dreams are crazy.
But I’m awake now, because one cannot sleep all day. The storm really is here and the whole world has gone white. The wind is huffing and puffing and trying to blow the trees down. It may be succeeding. I just heard a sound from outside that was likely the crack of a falling tree limb.
It’s frigid in my office, and I’m enjoying the cold for a change. But, because there’s the possibility of losing our power today, I’ve turned the space heater on. When we lose our power, we lose our heat, and if that’s going to happen, I’d rather start out with a warm room than a cold one. I should do a load of laundry and run the dishwasher again soon, just in case.
I don’t feel like doing anything, though. There are four pencils on my desk that need to be sharpened. If I cannot do at least that much today, then there is no hope for me. The power just flickered, a message to get a move-on and do the things that need doing.

Posted in Crazy Me | Tagged snow | Leave a comment

Thoughts 1/28/22

Posted on 01/28/2022 by chick

There’s a snowstorm coming our way. I’ve looked at the snow menu and I’m ready to place my order. I’d like the Snowball Snow, individual portion (just enough to feed one Snowman), served medium-cold, with a side of light breezes, please.
I’m in no mood for . . . anything. I’m not happy with any book, any TV show, any hobby, any task, any anything. This is the most blah I’ve felt in a long time. I feel so blah that even my adjectives have blahhed into blahness.
I keep telling myself to do something every day that I don’t want to do. It doesn’t have to be some big, horrible task. It could be a small, easy one. I figure that if I do a small task every day, eventually I’ll run out of them. Then I’ll have none left but the harder tasks, but they’ll seem easier, because I’ll have worked my way up to them.
One seemingly small thing that I need to do soon is to go through the stack of magazines on my desk. If I don’t handle it soon, it’s going to get out of control. It reminds me of a great scene from The Good Place, a show which I enjoyed back in the days when I was feeling less blah. In that scene, a character was consigned to a prison cell for all eternity with nothing to entertain them but a stack of The New Yorker. The character said something like, “Aw, come on. You know I’m never going to read them,” and even has they said it, another magazine dropped onto the pile. I laughed and laughed, because that was such an accurate representation of what it’s like to be a subscriber. You haven’t had a chance to look at the last one before another arrives, and no matter how much you think you ought to read them all, you never will. You couldn’t, even if you had all the time in the world. It’s a Sisyphean task.

Posted in Crazy Me | Leave a comment

Reading Report: Late January 2022

Posted on 01/27/2022 by chick

I finished two books in January: House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune and The Walker in Shadows by Barbara Michaels.

I am currently reading The Dreadful Tale of Prosper Redding by Alexander Bracken.

February is Black History Month, and I have selected What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours by Helen Oyeyemi and Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler to read next. Yes, it might be better if I tried to discover a new author instead of returning to Butler’s work, but I wanted to read the sequel to Parable of the Sower, and this seemed like a good time for it.

Posted in Reading | Leave a comment

Thoughts 1/26/22

Posted on 01/26/2022 by chick

Both of my puzzle ideas from last year have been approved. The smaller one will get used first. It was created as a replacement for something else, so there is already a space waiting for it to fill, and my boss wants to make the replacement ASAP. The puzzle that it’s replacing will go to puzzle Hell, where it belongs, and there will be great rejoicing!
I used to have a ton of binder clips. I’m not sure what happened to them all, but last week I realized that I was down to one. One measly binder clip. I went online to buy more, and I was shocked at the cost. Such high prices for such cheap bits of metal! It took me a while to find a reasonably priced combination, but I finally did, and most of the clips arrived today. Now my cup of binder clips runneth over once more.
Covid numbers are finally down in Rhode Island and in the country as a whole. The country peaked at just over 800,000 cases per day, and now it’s down to about 650,000 cases per day, which is still a big-ass, scary number, but clearly an improvement. The Covid map at The New York Times is no longer the single dark purple of a fresh bruise. It’s starting to turn splotchy, suggesting that maybe the bruise is starting to heal. I am not over the stress of it, though. I haven’t kept my worry over the Omicron surge at the top of my thoughts, but it lurks, always there, every day. It’s like an endless spin of the roulette wheel. Every minor physical complaint from the kids feels like a token of doom. I am so worn out from it.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments