Sonic-Con 2020 on My Radar!

When I first heard of Sonic-Con 2020, I didn’t know what ‘sonic’ meant.  I had to look it up.  The exploration led to this result: “of or relating to sound”.  I’d heard of Comic-Con, but what was Sonic-Con?  I was intrigued to follow the link to the website and was excited to see names such as Katie Leigh and Phil Lollar (if you grew up with Adventures in Odyssey, you’ll know why).  Later, I got the chance to listen to Audio Theatre Central’s podcast featuring an interview with Sonic-Con’s initiator, Chris Nelson, and was able to learn more exciting details.  It’ll be a three day convention of all things audio drama with very reasonable prices, depending on how soon you book in advance.  (Please listen to ATC’s episode 123 as they ask practical questions and provide all the necessary information.)  I’ve pretty much set my heart on going to this first-ever audio drama forgathering in Lynchburg, VA in March 2020!  And the best part is it will be all family friendly!

 

Non-Fiction Books I’m Liking (Summer 2019)

Strong, simple, sassy female writers this summer!

Distinctly You, by Cheryl Martin~ I had never heard of this author among the Christian living books before but the subtitle, “Trading Comparison and Competition for Freedom and Fulfillment” spoke to me.  I am not half finished with it yet but I am finding the simple prose and reflection super helpful.  It has already begun turning over some rocks in my life for God to work more healing.  I appreciate that Cheryl Martin is so honest with her life and never paints a picture of a spiritual person who has it all together.  You can check more of her quiet, precise voice in the following videos: 

Part 1 / Part 2 

The Money Plan for the Young, Fabulous and Broke, by Suze Orman~ I’m one who finds Dave Ramsey a bit too intimidating for me.  This was a freebie book that I picked up as a breakfast read.  What had I to lose?  An older book (pub. 2004), it’s advice is still classic.  The book is written for an audience in their 20’s, but she includes readers who are a little older and late-but-better-than-never to the party (like me).  Suze has a fun, simple style that doesn’t turn condescending and that is refreshing!  I found her explanations of things like Roth IRA’s easier to understand than a Dummy’s Guide to Investing I had tried to read earlier.  One of my pet peeves about financial advisors is boiling their message down to: “Just don’t eat out so much!”– as though all people who are broke are so because they visit McDonald’s every week.  It’s annoying and assumptive.  But Orman doesn’t get that way.  This book is a keeper and I would like to check out more of her stuff.  So if you think you’ve tried financial guidebooks before and gave up, maybe you should give one of her books a try. 

 

January 2019 Word List

I am going to try something new.  I don’t know how this will go or if I will keep it up, but I thought I’d share a fun reading habit I’ve been doing lately.

As recently mentioned, I tried a couple reading groups on goodreads to sort of spice up my reading life.  The first one (The Seasonal Reading Challenge, in case you’re interested) contained challenges where you had to find books that fit into certain categories, like genres, page totals, book cover art, and titles or author’s names that spell out certain words.  This would probably appeal to folks who don’t know what to read next or who want to expand their reading comfort zones.  I did not make it very long in this group mainly because of my strict adherence to my own lists.  The second group also has rigid rules but they do have one particular challenge I’m liking: word scavenger hunts!

Every month (and other alternative timelines), they provide new scavenger lists of up to 50 words to look for while reading whatever you choose to read (for example, the current list includes the word “bells”).  If I come across that word while reading, I mark it down.  It’s fun to see how many I can find by the end of the month.  This works well if you have more than one book going at a time like me, or read very fast.  I do it along with another person I know and we compare lists to see who found the most words.

I have found that one of the benefits of practicing these scavenger hunts is that I pay much more attention to the particular words I read.  In addition to the monthly lists, I also participate in a long-term Color Word list and am enjoying the wonderful descriptions I come across.

My findings don’t qualify to enter in the group forum because they have a few more rules than I care to follow, so I will just log it in my own post here.  But for those interested, the goodreads group is called “The Lost Challenges”.  There are far more reading games than just hunting for words and they may appeal to you more.  Are there any reading challenges you’re enjoying in this new year?

1. Bean ~ I am really a stickler on this, and it is not just because I am trained as a bean counter and like all the boxes checked.  [The Power Formula for LinkedIn Success]
2. Bears
3. Beef ~ For those readers who are old enough, think of the Wendy’s commercial from the eighties in which the elderly ladies asked “Where’s the beef?” as they looked at a tiny hamburger patty dwarfed by a massive bun.  [TPFfLS]
4. Big ~ Walking out into the rain as though it were not there, she moved through the downpour with a monumental and unhurried measure, her big head lifted.  [Gormenghast]
5. Boys ~ Yet for all that, Titus was conscious of always being watched: of a discrepancy in the attitude of the officials and even at times of the boys.  [G…]
6. Bulls ~ Of a sudden the dusk, knocking as it were a certain hollow note to which their sweet ribs echoed, they were in the air– a group of herons, their necks arched back, their ample and rounded wings rising and falling in leisurely flight: and then another and then another: and then a night heron with a ghastly and hair-raising croak, more terrible than the unearthly booming note of a pair of bitterns, who soaring and spiralling upwards and through the clouds to great heights above Gormenghast, boomed like bulls as they ascended.  [G…]
7. City ~ The arrow flies continuously around the city at breakneck speed without landing on a specific target.  [Rhythms of Rest]
8. Cloud ~ Lost in the flying clouds the craggy summits of Gormenghast were wild with straining hair– the hanks of the drenched rock-weed.  [G…]
9. Comedy ~ In tragedy and comedy and satire and farce– in anything that is worthy of the stage,– conflict is at the root.  [Respect for Acting]
10. Court ~ His hunched shoulders, his pallor, his dark-red eyes had never encouraged intimacy even supposing he had ever courted it.  [G…]
11. Crown ~ Now he was climbing a slope of reddish sandstone; now he was skirting a rock-face whose crown overhung its base and whose extensive surface was knuckly with the clay nests of innumerable martins; now the walnut-covered slopes from where, each evening, with hideous regularity a horde of owls set sail on bloody missions.  [G…]
12. Cubs
13. Deep ~ “I would like to show you what I have found, away to the south, your Ladyship, where the granite domes are elbow-deep in moss.” [G…]
14. Dibs
15. Dish ~ And then one day, while drying the dishes, of all things, God stripped away my greatest illusion.  [RofR]
16. Fields ~ But, dark as was the day, it had no power to suppress the craving which had been mounting for weeks– the craving to ride and ride when the rest of the world lay in bed: to drink the spring air in giant gulps as his horse galloped beneath him over the April fields, beyond the Outer Dwellings.  [G…]
17. Food ~ A mingling of wet, scrubbed floors, unaired rooms, and food for a hundred people always steaming on the stove.  [Dear Enemy]
18. Fountain ~ An impromptu theatrical gathering of young children splash in the nearby fountain, hiking their pants above their knees until it becomes a nuisance.  [RofR]
19. Friendly ~ But there was nothing on fire except the tobacco in his pipe and as he lay supine, the white wreaths billowing from his wide, muscular and lipless mouth (rather like the mouth of a huge and friendly lizard), he evinced so brutal a disregard for his own and other people’s windpipes as made one wonder how this man could share the selfsame world with hyacinths and damsels.  [G…]
20. Gate
21. Grow ~ And so, at her funeral, the majority of the mourners were gathered there, to pay their respects to the memory not so much of Mrs. Slagg, as to the legend which the tiny creature had, all unwittingly, allowed to grow about her.  [G…]
22. Gym Shoes
23. Hotdog
24. Jewels ~ Their peurile ambition and vanity– and their only too obvious longing to assume, one day, the roles in which they were always seeing themselves, the roles of ladies, great and splendid, bedecked with jewels, precluded any such idea as suicide.  [G…]
25. Lake ~ It is seven years since he watched from the attic window the procession far below him wind back from Gormenghast lake, where Titus had come into his Earldom, but nothing has happened to him during the long years apart from the annual arrival of fresh works to be added to the coloured carvings in the long room.  [G…]
26. Lincoln
27. Loop  ~ Steerpike uncoiled himself of the rope and looped it over a nail in the wall.  [G…]
28. Mother-in-Law  ~ It’s the third week of Advent, and my mother-in-law, Geri, left Phoenix and is flying on windwings heading east.  [RofR]
29. Museum ~ Instead of wandering through a museum or sightseeing somewhere different, I lose myself in watching people give themselves permission to playfully rest.  [RofR]
30. Navy ~ One boy wades unabashedly in his underwear and a striped navy sweater.  [RofR]
31. Park ~ From a park bench, beneath a canopy of ancient trees with long tendrils swaying from Spanish moss, I hear the distant sound of an ambulance siren and birds chirping in the various “dialects”.  [RofR]
32. Pier
33. Pioneer
34. Pizza ~ We cook every night except Fridays when we eat pizza (and it’s amazing), and we don’t really do processed snack food.  [Slow]
35. Pop ~ Now consider that you are surrounded by cracked and peeling walls and ceilings, have wrinkled pop posters pasted to the walls, walk on bare floorboards, and sit on a rickety stool at an oilcloth-covered table in front of a lumpy burlap-covered studio couch, drinking beer from a can to the accompaniment of the Beatles and a leaky faucet, while you look out of the streaked window at a fire escape against a blackened brick wall.  [RforA]
36. Props
37. Ribbon ~ Their curls bounce beneath felt hats trimmed in dark satin ribbon  [RofR]
38. Sears
39. Second ~ (Bought them second-hand from Doctor Brice in the village, who is putting in, for the gratification of his own patients, white enamel and nickel-plate.)  [DE]
40. Shore  ~ From the high-rise hotel, I stare over the vastness of sky meeting water and wonder over what God is planning for us beyond the horizon, on the shores of England.  [RofR]
41. Shoulders ~ It was more like the shadow of a young man, a shadow with high shoulders, that moved across whiteness, than an actual body moving in space.  [G…]
42. Slider
43. Sports
44. Style ~ What she lacked was the power to combine and make a harmony out of the various parts that, though exquisite in themselves, bore no relationship either in style, period, grain, colour or fabric to one another.  [G…]
45. Taste ~ But he tasted the sharp fruits of the quick bridle-wrench which had freed him from the ostler.  [G…]
46. Tower ~ It played with sere flags, dodged through arches, spiralled with impish whistles up hollow towers and chimneys until, diving down a saw-toothed fissure in a pentagonal roof, it found itself surrounded by stern portraits– a hundred sepia faces cracked with spiders’ webs; found itself being drawn towards a grid in the stone floor and, giving way it sang its way past seven storeys and was, all at once, in a hall of dove-grey light and was clasping Titus in a noose of air.  [G…]
47. Town ~ “I am so glad you were able tos pend a little time with our ladies while you were in town.” [RofR]
48. Washroom
49. Wet ~ The face was wet.  [G…]
50. Windy

 

 

Quote for March 15, 2017

 

Is Your Reading Boring?

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

If you’re in a situation where you’re called on to read out loud, but it’s not your forte and you feel like shrinking and hiding, then here are some great tips from speaking skills specialist and YouTuber Jade Joddle.  I have learned a fair amount from watching some of her videos over the last year or two and thought I’d pass this simple video along to those who wish to improve their reading skills.  This can come in handy if you’re part of a book club, bible study, or poetry reading event.

 

 

Writers to Read (Moody Program)

Hi, all!  I wish I hadn’t slept too long on listening to this program on Chris Fabry Live! on Moody Radio.  I just listened to it and heard enough interesting thoughts to write a three page document of notes!  Featuring the guest Douglas Wison, author of The Case for Classical Christian Education and Writers to Read (both of which I will be looking for at the library sometime), the discussion revolves around his latter book in which he suggests nine specific great authors to read and why.  Books are always a great discussion, but I actually had to laugh out loud a time or two while listening to this!  🙂  Please don’t wait too long to listen, as it expires Sept. 17.

 

Non-Fiction Books I’m Liking (Spring 2016)

I’m talking all things job/career related this spring with these non-fiction reviews!:

Voice Acting for Dummies, by David and Stephanie Ciccarelli~ I’m currently in the middle of this book, but I want to mention it because it really is a treasurehouse of information for anyone who is interested in doing anything voice over-related as a hobby or career.  If you are a complete newbie to this special industry, you will have pretty much most of your questions answered with the user-friendly chapters.  If you’ve been in the audio world for a while, you may be able to learn some new pointers as far as marketing and technique go.  We can always learn new ways to improve!  As an aspiring voice over artist, I was so pleased with this reference material, that I returned it back to the library without taking any notes from it—I want to buy my own copy!

How to Write Powerful College Student Resumes and Cover Letters: Secrets That Get Job Interviews Like Magic, by Quentin J. Schultze~ I’m guessing that one point or another, whether in the past, or currently, or sometime in the future, almost every person will be looking for a job.  There is lots of information out there about how to go about crafting a dynamic resume, but not all of it is helpful.  Most is repetitive and is what everyone else is following by rote.  How can you stand out from the crowd?  I heard this Christian author interviewed on the radio a few years back and was impressed with what he had to say about resumes.  The advice he gave callers made a lot of sense and people came away from it feeling excited (at least, I know I did… and I wasn’t even looking for a job!).  Now I am borrowing a copy of this book and taking notes for myself.  I am finding that he has tons of advice that anyone can utilize, not just college students.  While I haven’t yet concocted my ‘powerful resume’, I feel confident that by applying the suggestions in this book will make for a pretty convincing one. *Note–  Schultze has also written a more recent book entitled, Resume 101.

 

Looking Ahead in 2016

Happy New Year’s to everyone! Are your 2016 reading lists all made out and ready to go?  Do you have reading goals set for this goal?  Are you excited about what new things you will discover through the world of books throughout the upcoming year?

I enjoyed concocting a reading plan soon after Christmas Day, as is my end-of-year tradition. This year, I’ve planned more vintage classics to read.

I’ve also decided on a different reading goal for myself. Instead of choosing an X number of books to accomplish, my resolution is to reignite my love of reading again.  As mentioned in earlier posts my enthusiasm has rather dwindled over the last year and half.  I believe I may have figured out the cause, though it is still puzzling and strange to me. I moved around a year and a half ago and have not felt ‘at home’ ever since I changed location.  In the past, I’ve so enjoyed getting cozy with a book when I had a room, a nook, or someplace special that I had created to read in.  I have not had this in my new home.  I know we all go through phases where our interests wax and wane, but for someone who blogs about reading and who wants to narrate someday I feel the need to get into a good groove again.  So, this year I plan on repainting my bedroom, and be a little more purposeful in decorating.  Hopefully this will help me enjoy my surroundings enough to feel inspired to delve into fictional worlds!

I also will be rearranging my daily schedule in order to hopefully make time for more reading. I have found that when I feel I’ve done a good day’s work, I feel ready to sit down to read at the end of the day.  When I’ve been busy with appointments and other activities, I have a hard time winding down in the evening to feel much like reading.

Have you ever gone through a slow period in your reading adventures? How did you overcome them?

 

A Book-Lover’s, List-Lover’s Guide to Reading

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving!  Now we’re headed on for the end of the year and facing a new one to come.  Christmas hasn’t arrived yet, but this is about the time I start thinking about what sort of goals I want to set for myself in the new year to come.  Do I meet all of my resolutions?  No, but at least I can say that I think I improve in certain areas over the course of the following 12 months.

One of the things I look forward to near the end of the year is making my To-Read fiction list.  This is where I sit down and peruse my notebook full of titles of fiction, curating a list of which ones I will aim to conquer reading next year.  This event is a much-anticipated one, since it appeals to the list-lover in me!  It also gets me excited about all the new stories I will be encountering, and gets me motivated to start over and accomplish my goals.

I’ve never been one to just go to the library and randomly pick out whichever fiction book appeals to me at the moment and come home with a stack.  There’s nothing wrong with doing that, but it’s just not me.  I like to plan, scheme, aim, look forward to, time, get excited about, wait, then read.  This makes for more of an experience!

You can make your own list however you like.  But for fun, I’ll share with you the system I’ve developed for myself over time and how I make it work for me:

First I sit down with my To-Read notebook (read article about it here). Starting with Page 1, I go through in order and write down any books I’ve still yet to read until I’ve made a list of 72 titles.  That’s right, 72.  Will I get all of those read?  Goodness, no!  That’s too ambitious for me as I’m no speed reader, but you’ll see why I choose that many in moment.

I may look up some of the titles on goodreads (or even create my list on there to begin with) to refresh my memory on what some of books are about and re-decide if it’s really one I want to read after all.  Some of these titles have been in my notebook ever since I was a teenager and my tastes have somewhat changed over the years.

I never write down a book by more than one author for a given year.  I like to have as much variety as possible.  Gorging too much on one author’s particular style would become boring to me.  So I skip a title in my notebook if it’s a repeat-author.

If I come across a list of books in a particular series, I’ll write down the first title, but skip the rest of the books and save those for other years.  Some may not like to do this because by the time they get around to #2, they may find they’ve forgotten what #1 was about.  But I don’t really worry about this for myself.  (I can always go back and read my book reviews on this blog, after all!)  If I have already read some of the books in the series in the past, then I just go with the next in chronological order.

Once I have my list of 72, I then make out a list on a different sheet of paper that looks like this:

January:

A-1)

2)

3)

B-1)

2)

3)

…and so on for the rest of the 12 months.  Again, in reality I cannot finish 6 fiction books in one month, but are you still with me?  Next, I reassign my 72 titles to my new list, choosing which month to put them under according to what season I think I would most like to read it in (you can read my article on this topic here).

The letter A stands for the first half of every month (for ex., Jan. 1-15).  B, obviously stands for the latter half (16-31).  Since most of the books I read are titles I want in particular, my small local library usually doesn’t have them in its collection.  This is why I utilize the interlibrary loan system so frequently.  Unfortunately, I have to wait for a while, usually 1-2 weeks after I’ve place an order in the state library system, so I plan to order it in advance of immediately needing it.  When do I do this?  I estimate that about the time I’ve reached the halfway marker in my current fiction novel, I will need to order the next one on my list to give it time to arrive.  That way I’m not in agony after I’ve finished one book, waiting for the next.

This is where my special system comes in handy!  When it’s time to choose which book to order/check out next, I reference my list.  What time of year is it currently?  Let’s say I’m ordering a book now, which makes it November B on my list.  I start with B#1, which is: “Arsene Lupin, Gentleman Thief,” by Maurice le Blanc.  Oh, fun!  Now I can order it.

Usually this book will keep me preoccupied for abt. 2 weeks, unless I’m being particularly slow-pokey.  The next time I’ll be ordering a book from my list will probably be when it’s December A (which would be: “Nightbringer,” by James Byron Huggins) .  But let’s say Arsene Lupin was a fast read and it’s time to order my next book and it’s still November B.  That’s when I look up Nov. B#2, which is: “I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree,” by Laura Hillman.  But wait.  What if it’s unavailable in the system for whatever reason?  Not to worry, I’ve prepared for this.  I just go on to Nov. B#3: “The Amazing Interlude,” by Mary Roberts Rinehart.

See?  It all makes complete sense now, I hope!  For list-makers, this process is a joy that will probably take an afternoon and we will savor it the whole long while.  For others who like to live more randomly, they will probably have given up on this blogpost a long time ago and are nursing a headache.  🙂

What are some of your methods for determining what to read?  Share them with me, I’d love to know!

 

Free Online Course Study on C. S. Lewis

November seems to be a month full of birthdays of some of our greatest authors of all time.  Authors like Stephen Crane, George Eliot, Robert Louis Stevenson, Louisa May Alcott, Bram Stoker, John Bunyan, Margaret Mitchell, William Blake, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Voltaire, Margaret Atwood, Oliver Goldsmith, Madeleine L’Engle, Jonathan Swift, Mark Twain…  But my favorite November-born author is of course C. S. Lewis, whose 117th birthday will be on November 29.

For a limited time, courtesy of Hillsdale College, you can click here and sign up for a free online course studying this famous Christian author, philosopher, teacher, and apologist.  The course is entitled, “An Introduction to C. S. Lewis’ Writings and Significance,” and is taught by Larry Arnn, Michael Ward, among others.

I hope you enjoy this offer, and I look forward to benefitting from it in my spare time as well!