According to Goodreads — my only real authority on anything reading-wise — I read 64 books in 2014. My first thought upon seeing that was, “Bummer. I didn’t read the 100 I set out to read.” My second thought was “Whoa! 64!” I also made a pretty good dent in what I dub my Complete…
Read more The Year In Reading 2014 and Onward to 2015
King Henry VI, Part 2 by William ShakespeareMy rating: 3 of 5 stars The Henry plays — and a great deal of Shakespeare’s history plays — were written prior to 1594. These are Shakespeare’s early attempts and a lot of critics have pointed out: it shows. Henry VI, Pt 2, is definitely rough. There are…
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I’m trying to read Shakespeare’s works in the (generally) agreed upon order in which they were written. That means there’s a lot of histories up front. Right now, I’ve finished the Henry VI trilogy and am moving on to Richard III. And, really, the only thing clear to me is Shakespeare’s historical presentations are quite questionable.…
Read more The Original Pronunciation of Shakespeare
Because I’m a little insane, I’ve decided to give myself some challenges this year. (I don’t like to call them “resolutions” because then I won’t do them. I rebel against that kinda shit.) So, instead, I’ve decided that I will do a writing challenge, an acting challenge, a blogging challenge, a reading challenge, and a…
Read more Challenges 2014: EPIC Edition
2013 has five weeks left in it. Back in January I set myself a Goodreads goal to read 100 books this year. By October, I’d fallen so far behind the pace that there was no way for me to hit my goal. I was something like 30 books behind and it would take me the…
Read more Missing Your Goal Doesn’t Mean You Didn’t Accomplish Anything
Last month, as you guys know, was National Novel Writing Month. Millions of writers across the country set pen to paper/fingers to keyboard in order to write an entire novel in a month. Which is a crazy idea, when you get right down to it. Partly to recover from this last bout of ridiculousness, and…
Read more Time to clear the stack:JenRidReadMo
Ah, Tuesday. Time to be held accountable. Here’s what I was up to: 1. Writing. Woo-whee! Finished a chapter and am half through another, for a grand total of twenty-odd pages this past week. Since I figured out the schedule that I need to be on, I’ve been sticking to it pretty consistently. Of course,…
Read more Tuesday Post of Accountability! Writing! Yeah!
It’s Tuesday again! And every Tuesday you will be subjected to regaled by the writing progress I have made over the last week. But! I insist that I not be the only one exposing myself sounding off. Let your comments reflect what kind of suffering butt-kicking you have done too! And now we get to…
Read more Tuesday Post of Accountability!: Reading Should Count As Writing
I dont’ think anyone can talk about Rita Mae Brown’s work fairly without discussing the “animal angle.” I’ve never written a story or a novel from the POV of an animal. Mostly because I, personally, have never been inspired to do so. However, Rita Mae Brown has made quite a lucrative career from writing from…
Read more The Animal Angle
I admit it. I just started reading Murder Most Frothy. Upon opening the book I was confronted with *gasp* a brief prologue in which the anonymous killer is shooting the hapless victim. I got through the first couple paragraphs (paragraphs about gun models, bullet calibers, etc.) and had the immediate thought: Cleo Coyle is a…
Read more Jenny is a Sexist