Rain and mud and beautiful things

The rain, rain, rain came down, down, down this weekend. But that didn’t stop my family and I from heading out to Loch Lomond and taking a short hike. It was a grey, chilly day by a beautiful lake, tromping through slightly muddy trails and watching my niece and nephew jump in puddles.

My favorite part was when my niece put her finger to her lips and said, “Shh. We have to be very quiet. Because of the water.”

Loch Lomond1

Loch Lomond2

And because, apparently, I have all the time in the world (haha), I’ve signed myself for the March Around the World movie watching challenge, in which I am meant to watch 30 movies from 30 countries. So far, I’ve watched: Monsoon Wedding (India), Suspiria (Italy), The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (Australia), Ida (Poland), Blue is the Warmest Color (France), and Heavenly Creatures (New Zealand).

What I’m Reading

Turns out the missing page within Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton (that I mentioned last week) turned out to be not missing but transposed. Apparently, page 19 comes after page 22 in my edition.

Other than the little page weirdness, Tooth and Claw is turning out to be a good read. It kind of reminds me of something like Charles Dickens, but with dragons instead of people. An interesting aspect of the society is that it’s perfectly normal for dragons to eat other dragons, either as an inheritance from family member that have died or to cull the weak, whom they don’t feel are worthy of surviving. I’m curious to see how this family of dragons strive to make their way in society and try to build a wealth for themselves, although I suspect at least one of them is going to fall into tragedy.

What I’m Writing

Due in part to the immense amounts of movie watching and, in part, to my inability to focus on any one project at a time, I didn’t manage to complete anything last week. Being indecisive about which short story to work on is a sure way to fail to finish any short stories. Although, I did manage to jot down a few scenes and notes in the hopes that I might actually finish something this week.

Goal for the Week:

  • Finish one story and/or one poem draft.
  • Submit something.

Linky Goodness

SFF in Conversation: Talking Novels with Haralambi Markov, Sunil Patel, and S.L. Huang

Why is Elizabeth I, the most powerful woman in our history, always depicted as a grotesque?

Benjamin Crouse comments on the friend-zone and how it diminishes the value of friendships as a whole.