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Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Top 10 Books...

There was a meme going around Facebook last week were you would list 10 books that had stayed with you in some way in your status line. The rules were to not think too hard about it, and not take more than a few minutes, and they didn't have to be 'great works' - just books that had touched you in some way. Then you had to tag 10 friends and the person who originally tagged you so they could see your list.

Anywho, here's my 10 books:

1. The Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder

2. The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley

3. Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey

4. The Dark Tower by Steven King

5. A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

6. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

7. The Once and Future King by TH White

8. Harry Potter by JK Rowling

9. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

10. When She Woke by Hillary Jordan

What are your ten books? Go ahead and include them in the comments or in your own blog for me to see.

On other fronts, I haven't done much writing. We've just been so busy at work (I know... I know... I'm beginning to sound like a broken record about work) that I barely have time to go on breaks or eat lunch, and I racked up about 14 hours of overtime during the last pay period - most of which happened during the weekend - and I already have six hours of OT this week!

I did manage to jot down some scenes for the Descendents in the notebook, but that's about it. And of course they were all scenes for book two.

And now, time for WIPpet Wednesday!

WIPpet Wednesday is led by KL Schwengel. To participate, just post a part of what you're working on that somehow relates to the date. For example it could be twenty lines from chapter eleven, or eleven paragraphs from chapter twenty. Then just enter the url to your blog at this linkie.

Since today is 12/18, here is 15 lines (1+2-18=15) from an upcoming scene in my fanfic, Between Two Worlds. It's a rough draft, but I thought it might be appropriate because it takes place during the summer solstice, at a party celebrating the solstice at the Faire, and the winter solstice is coming up in a couple of days. Domick has asked Norah for a dance...

She placed her hands on his shoulders and started to sway to the music - however she quickly stopped after realizing that Domick was not moving. He stood there, stiff as a board, looking at her with a confused expression on his face. “What?”
“What are you doing?”
“Dancing.”
“You call this dancing?”
“Well, yeah. It’s what we did at all our formals and proms. I mean there’s also the bump and grind you see at the clubs, but this isn’t really the music for it.”
He made a sound that was part frustrated growl and part disbelief. “This is not dancing.”
“Okay. What were you expecting? A country dance like what the nobles did earlier today?”
“No.” He reached up and took one of her hands in his. Norah stepped back, assuming that the dance was over, but he wrapped his arm about her waist, pulling her closer to him. “Follow my lead.”
“What?”
He stepped backwards and then to one side. Norah stumbled in her attempts to follow him, and stared at the ground between them to make sure she didn’t trod on his feet. She was also aware that everyone was now watching them as he led her through what she assumed was a waltz. He brought the hand holding hers over and bumped it under her chin, forcing her to look up at him. “My eyes are up here.”
“Sorry. I’ve never done this before.”
“It’s easy.” He smiled down at her, counting as he led her through the steps. “One, two, three. One, two, three.”
She glanced down again and he made a tsking sound.
“Sorry.”
“Just trust me.”

To read more WIPpet Wednesday updates, go here
To read more ROW80 updates, go here.

14 comments:

  1. Ooh, geeze...narrowing it down to ten is tricky but here's an attempt in no particular order:

    1. The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett; particular favorites are the books centered around the City Watch and the Witches.
    2. Up Front by Bill Mauldin, -- a non-fiction book about the author's experiences as a cartoonist for Stars and Stripes during World War II. One of the best books I've ever read about military life.
    3. The Republic Commandos series by Karen Traviss -- Star Wars tie-in novels that are some of the best military fiction I've ever read.
    4. The Benjamin January series by Barbara Hambly -- takes place in 1830s Louisiana and centers around a free man of color, Benjamin January, who is a musician and a surgeon who solves mysteries.
    5. The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare -- story of a young woman in the 1680s who leaves Barbados after the death of her grandfather and travels to Connecticut to live with her unsuspecting aunt and uncle. Wonderful story about fitting in and being your own person.
    6. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
    7. Grunts! by Mary Gentle -- a very, very, very darkly comic novel about what happens when a group of orcs get their hands on a cache of magical cursed weapons...that turn out to be modern weapons.
    8. In the Presence of Mine Enemies by Harry Turtledove. An alternate history about a world where the Nazis won World War II, it follows a small group of surviving Jews as they attempt to remain hidden.
    9. Carrie by Stephen King
    10. Confessions of a D-List Superhero by Jim Bernheimer -- ok, I just started listening to this last night, but I'm seriously grooving on it.

    Honorable Mentions: the Feed saga by Mira Grant, Parasite by Mira Grant, the Union Dues stories of Jeffrey DeRego, Watchmen by Alan Moore, the Age of Apocalypse storyline by Marvel Comics, the Exiles series by Marvel comics, and probably a dozen dozen dozen more books.

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    1. I remember reading The Witch of Blackbird Pond when I was younger and loving it. To Kill a Mockingbird was another story I read when I was younger - but I had to read it for school so I didn't enjoy it as much as I probably would've if I had read it on my own.

      I need to look into the Discworld series. Friends have been telling me I should read those for years and I just haven't done it yet!

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  2. Very nice! This flows very well. As well as Domick dances. :) I can hear him quite clearly, "This is not dancing." LOL

    UGH! I hate OT. I used to get quite a bit of it. Now I'm lucky and it's 40 hrs and out. My hubby has been steady OT but his is all during the week and only rarely affects the weekend. Looks nice on the paycheck but sure reeks havoc with a life.

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    1. Thank you!

      Lately my OT has been mostly on the weekends with a couple of hours here and there throughout the week.

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  3. A top ten of books... ACK!

    Well, top of my list would have to be Lord of the Rings (I reread the book over 50 times)
    then we'd have:
    2: Lisanne Norman's Sholan Alliance series (all eight books)
    3: Sherri Tepper's - Beauty
    4: Andre Norton's Crystal Gryphon series
    5: Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
    6: Destiny's Lady by Maureen Peters
    7: Little Minx (don't laugh... this little kid's book was one of my first loves of the reading world... enough so that I went and got a copy in my twenties just to relive the childhood joy)
    8: The Black Swan by Nancy Springer (one of my first introductions to the world of adult fantasy)
    9: Almost ANY Nancy Drew/Dana Girls story published BEFORE 1940 (afterward the stories just weren't as good)
    10: and another 'don't laugh" but The Color Kittens and Train to Timbuctoo 'Little Golden Books'... They bring back memories of my beloved Great-Aunt and now have the added joy of times spent with my son...

    And as for your WIPpet... Yeah, dancing is such a personal thing. :-D

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    1. I have a confession to make - I never finished reading the Lord of the Rings. I got up to where Aragorn was crowned King and the hobbits were heading back to the shire, and then I sat it down to do something and never picked it up again. I so need to remedy that.

      Dancing really is a personal and intimate thing to do - too bad Norah's too worried about stepping on Domick's feet to enjoy it ;)

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  4. Lovely snippet! You've created a vibrant world here!

    I smiled at your #1 book choice. I, too, spent many a long hour reading those as a child. Perhaps I should read them as an adult to re-experience them.

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    1. Thank you!

      I've been wanting to go back and reread those myself, but my copies are hidden away at my Mom's house someplace for safe keeping :P

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  5. Ah, the waltz. It really is easy. :-) And far more dance-like than bump and grind.

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    1. The waltz is fairly easy when you compare it to country dances from Elizabethan England. I never understood the bump and grind thing, even when I was younger and that was the thing to do.

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  6. I love this little scene. Especially since my spouse does not dance.

    Ten books....let's see...

    The Velveteen Rabbit; Alex:The Life of a Child (Frank DeFord); Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand); The Wheel of Time series (Robert Jordan); A Creed for the Third Millenium (Taylor Caldwell); Walk Across America; The Dance of the Dissident Daughter (Sue Monk Kid); Stranger in a Strange Land (Robert Heinlein); Anger (Thich Nhat Hahn); James Blish's Star Trek original series novelizations - which I could read even though my mother didn't allow me to watch Star Trek at home.

    Think I will do a blogpost on these in the new year! =)

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    1. My husband isn't a big dancer either - he used to be a few years ago. When swing dancing was making its big comeback he used to hang out at a couple of local clubs, but not anymore, which is sad, because I really like swing dancing.

      This book meme really is amazing, especially because I keep thinking of more and more books that I could add to the list!

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  7. Love the snippet! His dancing sounds so much nicer than what happens at school dances. :)

    Ten books, off the top of my head? Oy. This is going to be biased in favour of recent reads, unless they REALLY had an impact on me:

    East of Eden, John Steinbeck
    The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C.S. Lewis
    Throne of Glass, Sarah J Maas
    The Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling (can't pick just one!)
    Call the Midwife, Jennifer Worth (not fiction, but it is stories)
    The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
    Bag of Bones, Stephen King
    On Writing, Stephen King (actually, it doesn't say "fiction," does it?)
    Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt
    Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Rebecca Wells

    Yay, I did it! That was fun, thanks. :)

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    1. Thank you!

      Loved Throne of Glass, but I haven't read the sequel yet. Also really enjoyed the Hunger Games as well.

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