Babble, books, puzzles, and a fanfic essay (written by someone with more braining than me)

[selenay]

The weekend was largely spent veging out, for once. I spent Saturday morning taking down the last of the Christmas decs and stashing them under the stairs, did a bit of writing...and then huddled up with a book for the rest of the day. It was lovely, even if my reading material was about the history of cholera.

I needed something slightly brainless on Sunday morning, due to recovering from a migraine, so I dragged out a puzzle and put on some podcasts. It's been ages since I last faffed around with a puzzle, and I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed it. This might be my project for a while, but I'm already trying to work out when I'll next have a couple of hours free to continue working on.

*sigh* I have a feeling that I'm going to be buying more puzzles. I do have a bit of a softness for the Thomas Kincaid designs.

My brain returned enough yesterday to finish the cholera book, so that's all good. And even though I only actually wrote new words on Saturday, I did make a ton of notes on a potential new novel idea. I've got a broad outline of what I want it to do, some characters, and a list of stuff I'd need to research in order to write it, anyway. I've made all the notes and firmly put it into the idea queue so it can ferment a bit.

There's a blog in my head post on DS9 season 3 and why it's an important turning point for the show, but that's best written on another day. When I have enough brain for it.

Instead, I'll leave you with a new essay by Foz Meadows on fanfiction, which I thought was fascinating and thought provoking and worthy of much discussion.

Comments

[fyrdrakken]

I haven't put together a puzzle for ages and ages. I have some pretty ones sitting around as yet untouched, and a few years back I got partway through a butterfly puzzle before I had to go back to work and wound up putting the chunks back into the box. It's fairly incompatible with knitting, and that's what I mostly have in my hands when I have free time (or a Kindle, or both simultaneously), so I'd need a lengthy stretch off work before I'd really be tempted.

Ooh, cholera. About a year ago I read The Ghost Map -- if you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend it.

[selenay]

Knitting is what I do to keep my hands occupied when I'm watching TV. When I'm listening to podcasts and audio books, it never seems to work as well, so I usually save those up for driving. But I ended up with a massive backlog, and rediscovered puzzling as a good thing to do while listening to that stuff.

Reading is something that's incompatible with anything else, but I do spend a lot of time doing it...

The Ghost Map is sitting on my shelf, to be read soon! I bought the just finished one, The Medical Detective, because I couldn't get hold of The Ghost Map and it seemed like a decent substitute. Then it got sent to me for my birthday :-) I plan to read it and contrast its approach with The Medical Detective, to get a fuller picture. I find with non-fiction, it's often good to have more than one view on a subject, due to authorial bias.

[fyrdrakken]

Podcasts I listen to at work (it's a workplace where pretty much everyone spends their shift with earbuds in) and audiobooks I tend to avoid because I'm more visually inclined. I knit in front of the TV (and hit pause if I'm in a really fiddly spot that I need to focus on), but if it's plain stockinette I can do it while reading (so long as it's a hardcover that can hold itself open on a bed or table in front of me, or a Kindle). I make a special point of always having at least one plain stockinette project on the needles available for reading (or in semidarkened movie theaters) or just generally when I don't have the mental energy for a more fiddly project.

I just searched on "Medical Detective" and several books came up -- who is the author?

[selenay]

It was by Sandra Hempel - its LibraryThing entry is here, if this helps track it down: http://www.librarything.com/work/2567626/book/112173559