Author: Lenady

Thankful Not-really-Thursday – Only Two Days Late!

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So this has been a ‘I’m not blogging right now’ week, evidently. It’s been a weird one all around, with a massive amount of quarantines at school, and subsequently distance learning going back into affect, and needless to say my mental energy has been elsewhere. More on that in a minute. I really did want to do this at least however, even if it was a little off, timing-wise. So, here we go with my thankful list for this weird-ass week.

Cabbage Patch Girl
I haven’t been out all that lately (going back to the whole covid ramping up thing), but I did take one trip out this past weekend and had a bit of luck. I was prowling around a venders mall and found a cute little cabby in pretty good shape. The elastic on her dress is worn out and I’ll have to fix her toes on one foot, but she’s adorable, with a brown yarn ponytail (yes, she’s a Coleco) and brown eyes. I’ve got her all cleaned up now, drying in my bathroom and waiting to be named.

Weird Little Cookbook
At the same place that I got the little cabby girl I found a really weird cookbook- so of course I got it. Weird cookbooks are totally my thing. It was printed by an army/navy wives organization called Jango and almost all of the recipes were originally hand-written by their contributors before being printed.

Of course, this makes a few of the recipes rather difficult to decipher, but I’ve never seen another recipe book quite like it so it’s worth it.

Another Completed Draft!
Yeah, this is the reason for my blog going quiet this week. My brain decided to latch onto the last rough patches of my book and just ram the final edits in- draining all my creative energy and keeping me up at insane hours at the same time. All of this took place over the period of a couple of days in, essentially, three marathon sessions, and I think I’m only just now recovered mentally. It was a rush, that’s for sure.

New Music
This is probably in no way surprising to see here. Finding new music always makes me happy. I’ve found, through the years, that the right song sets my writing off like nothing else. Sure enough, “Meet me in the Wood” by Lord Huron fueled a lot of the creative surge this weekend.

Of course, I’m still drifting around in the Good Omens fandom at the moment, and I found a song inspired by the show and it’s so absolutely pretty and sweet and the writer/performer is so talented and great. Come With Me by Chxlotte is turning into one of my faves and the other stuff I can find by her is is wonderfully good too. I just wish she had more out there.

Old Gods of Appalachia
Of course, that’s not all I’m listening to. It’s not every day one finds an Appalachian cosmic horror audio drama, but I ran along Old Gods of Appalachia and holy cow is it good. It’s created by Appalachians so it has this weird verisimilitude- it feels Appalachian, which, let me tell you, isn’t always something you find when it comes to stories set here. I’m not very far in at the moment, but I’ve enjoyed every minute of what I’ve listened to.

Hot Tea
It’s late fall, and my classroom has been like an iceblock this week because the heat doesn’t work for some reason, so a hot cup of tea has been a welcome warm-up at home. It was never as much a thing in my family. Iced sweet tea was almost always in the fridge during the summer, but we never had an abundance of earl gray or such sitting around at home. I found out, this week, though, that my Mamaw was a hot tea fan- though she didn’t usually drink it since everyone else was drinking coffee. Now, every time I brew up a cup of tea I feel a bit of connection to her.

Thankful Thursday – No! Bad brain. Bad.

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So, it’s been a week, in that it has literally been a week since the last Thankful Thursday post, and the fact that this week has been one of those weeks, if you get my drift. Not gonna sound quite so cheery today, but it is what it is. Some weeks are easier, or harder, than others, but there’ll always be silver linings and little spots of sun- it’s just sometimes more difficult to find them. Regardless…

It’s Thursday-
Week’s almost done. Despite what I just said it’s honestly not been a bad week. Not great, but not bad. There honestly hasn’t been much, outside of my own head, to complain about for the majority of the time; mostly just a bunch of bad brain days pushed on top of each other. That hasn’t made that time any easier. I’m very happy to have the weekend within reach.

Fanfic Authors-
Lately, I haven’t had the energy to do much by the time I get home- reading being the exception. And I’m not going to spend that valuable resource by pushing my way through Dune. I need the written equivalent of comfort food. Thank god for fanfic writers because I swear there have been a few fics this week that have saved my sanity. 

McDonalds-
Say what you will about the place, its an easy dinner, that let’s me not think. Decision fatigue’s been bad this week, so it’s nice to just pull through, order a chicken sandwich and be done with it.

The Election is Over! –
With the exception of the inevitable recounts, the hellishness that was waiting for the results to be declared is finished and we can move on with our lives.

Library time-
We’ve been doing research in the library this week. I love research days. They’re chaotic and a lot of times I feel like I’m running all over the place and it’s exhausting, but I love helping students find their info and put order to their thoughts. 

Writing progress!
I’m one chapter (and a bit) away from finishing this draft of my book, and I’m so much happier with it now, but I’m happy to be able to hand it back over to my beta readers. I’m really looking forward to seeing what they make of my changes.

Book Review | Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman

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Title: Good Omens
Authors: Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman
Publication date: 1990
Length: 412 pages
Genre: fantasy-supernatural, humor, horror
TW- racism, sexism, homophobia, slurs, maggots, violence, gore, blood, death,  corpse, language, referred to sexual content (fade to black)

Despite my love for this book I’ll be the first to admit, it’s a headache to try to sum up. Essentially though you have a mixup of cosmic proportions when the anti-christ goes missing, a witch with the only completely accurate book of prophecies ever written, and an angel/demon duo who would rather be drinking a nice glass of wine thank you very much can we stop with this whole apocalypse thing already? 

The humor is on point. I rather doubt anything touched by Terry Pratchett could fail in that regard. I don’t often laugh aloud while reading, but there are several parts of the book where I couldn’t help myself. The humor is wonderfully weird and smart (not high-brow by any means, but smart), absurd and wry.

Just because it’s a funny story however, doesn’t mean it isn’t, at times, messed up and creepy as all get out. One of the authors is, after all Neil Gaiman, and his signature darkness is all throughout the story. The horror elements aren’t overwhelming, but they’re used efficiently, like an unexpected dagger. 

The fact that they balance their two styles so well is one of my favorite things about the book really. 

Now there is one thing to keep in mind- not a criticism, but rather an observation. If you dislike bouncing around from character to character- preferring one central protagonist- this might not be a book for you. The story is fast-paced; there are a lot of players here and a lot going on. Gaiman/Pratchett managed to balance all the voices wonderfully, but in doing so they never dwell on a single part of the story for overly long before moving on to another perspective.

Long story short, I love this book. Funny and creepy and weird, it’s a unique story. It’s written by two of my favorite authors and it’s like having the best of both worlds. If you’re a fan of either Pratchett or Gaiman you need to try this book out.

Thankful Thursday – Cold Mornings

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New EP from Bring me the Horizon
Post Human: Survival Horror– what a name for an EP. I found it on election day and it’s felt rather fitting- synced right up with my headspace. Sometimes you just feel like screaming.

The Penumbra Podcast
I’m up to date on The Magnus Archives and Nightvale, but I had The Penumbra Podcast lined up- still warming up to their style of standalone eps (I’m more of a connected narrative person) but I’m really enjoying Juno Steel so far.

The bared outlines of mountains
As much as I miss the color of summer, there’s something cool about the hidden shapes being revealed once the leaves start coming down. Exposed curves and lines and structures coming into view for the first time in almost six months.

Crisp air
There’s something special about those first cold breaths you take in autumn- cold enough to still be jacket-comfortable but chill enough to wake you up a little. The first time your breath appears in white puffs, imagined dragon smoke racing from between your lips. 

Familiar stories
I’m still creeping through Good Omens at the moment. I’m enjoying it more this time around than I have in a while. Perhaps more so than when I first blazed through it.

Book Review | I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak

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Title: I Am The Messenger
Author: Markus Zusak
Publication date: 2002
Length: 357 pages
Genre: Ya, contemporary, speculative
TW: weapon- gun, abuse-verbal (from parent), strong language, rape, abduction, violence, blood, sexual content, threatened murder, alcohol, gambling, death imagery-hanging

I have found, at times, that anticipation can be my worst enemy when picking up a new book, especially when written by an author I’m familiar with. That was, unfortunately the case here.

I Am the Messenger is the story of a 19 year old cabdriver whose life seems to be going nowhere. That changes, however, after stepping out of his comfort zone and helping to catch a bank robber. That event is not a one-time deal, as he would have preferred, suddenly sucked into a series of tasks sent to him of playing cards- a person to help or hurt- but either way to make a change.

I loved the writing style of the book, which some however may not be as fond of. It’s a little outside of the norm, with short sentences and paragraphs, the result being that the story can move quite quickly at times. In addition, the author’s descriptions are colorful without being flowery. 

Additionally, Zusak does wonderful job of getting the reader into the protagonist’s head, Ed having very clear voice. The protagonist pulls the reader along in his questions of what exactly is going on. The question, however, is will you like it there.

Ed’s thoughts, concerning his best friend and crush Audrey are sometimes icky at best with the all-too-often appearing thought of ‘she’ll sleep with anyone else, why not me?’ Following that up eventually with ‘I’m doing all this good stuff; I deserve something’. A lot of his interactions with women feel strange throughout. 

A lot of the interactions in general feel off, and not quite real. The secondary characters closest to our protagonist are mostly fine, but past that a lot of them start feeling very cookie-cutter. To be honest, I kept waiting for some sort of reveal letting the reader know that it’s all been in his own head, or the people are actors, or something similar. There was a weird twist ending, but it wasn’t that at least.

Perhaps it was partially to do with the fact that I absolutely loved The Book Thief but I felt a little let down by this book. I know it’s best not to compare the two, but seeing what Zusak can do made the flaws in this story stand out all the more, though I Am The Messenger does have a certain charm of its own.

Thankful Thursday – Jack-o-ballot

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Still not quite over the bug from last week, but I’m still trucking- or at doing me best to at least. Here’s the things that have made life doable since last Thursday.

No Covid
I officially got tested before letting myself out in the public again and the bug I had last week was just that. A nasty bug. Probably a head-cold gone bad. I’ve been a little tired this week, but it’s most loosened its grips on me. The cough’ll hang on until the middle of next month, but that’s cough-variant asthma for you sometimes.

Jack-O-Lanterns
Finally got the chance to carve jack-o-lanterns. I never did get to decorate properly for Halloween due to coming down with a bug right at the beginning of Fall Break, But I’m fairly happy with the jack-o-lanterns me and the hubby carved this year. And at least this way they’ll look fresh for Halloween proper- rather than nearly falling into on themselves like they’ve done in some years in the past when it was an overly warm October.

My Ballot is Cast
Voting was easy, and I was able to get it done without much fuss. Even in a small rural area, I at least have to stand in line for a few minutes, but that wasn’t an issue. I was in and out within ten minutes all said.

Back into the Swing of Things
I think I’m slowly finding my groove again, with the whole long-term sub thing. The first week was rocky, for several reasons, but I’m starting to feel like I’ve got my feet under me again, at least some of the time.

Fast Food French Fries
Granted, as previously said, I’m still tired. Especially with the whole recovering from the crud thing. So grabbing something through the drive-thru for dinner tonight was a relief. I swear, fast food fries never taste so good as when you’ve given up on having any maintainable level of energy.

Book Review | Selected Poems & Tales by Edgar Allen Poe

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Really, what sort of an introduction can you make for Edgar Allen poe? His horror feels, at times, ubiquitous. It’s difficult to escape references, at least this time of year. Still, that exposure seems reserved, commonly for a select few stories and poems. This is, admittedly, an older anthology of his poems and stories- one I’ve had for a good many years but had yet to read cover to cover, instead picking out bits as they caught my interest. I wish I had been less picky before now.

If you are familiar with the work of Edgar Allen Poe, you’ll know it’s wordy, but ultimately elegant, his horror a creeping thing, claustrophobic and unsettling, with themes including insanity, premature burial,illness, and the unknown. There is plenty of that in this anthology, with ‘The Raven’, and ‘The Masque of the Red Death’, and ‘The Tell-tale Heart’ all included, but you’ll also find some of his other writings, his science fiction and mysteries. Almost all (with perhaps the exception of two adjoining stories) flow into each other, connected by some thread or theme within the pieces, making the collection a journey rather than a patchwork quilt.

Secondly, the quality of the book itself is very nice. It’s a large one, not something you’d carry around in a book bag, but due to that the font is a very accessible size and the illustrations are large enough that details aren’t lost. It’s a sturdy text, cloth-covered hardcover with glossy pages. Additionally, the forward by Neil Gaiman isn’t the dry and academic prose one normally expects from a ‘classics’ anthology, but rather something readable in and of itself.

One thing that can be said of Poe, however, is that his writing is not always the most accessible. His narrators run the gamut from academics to sea-farers to madmen and certain pieces feel the weight of those narrative choices. They can be overly-verbose and rambling at the worst of times. Heck, the verbosity is often just as prevalent in his easier stories. Sometimes you just want to dip into the story, take the narrator by the collar, and growl ‘get on with it already’. This anthology held several stories that left me feeling that frustrated.

Still, as a whole, it’s a nice grouping, with a nice variety to choose from. If you are a Poe fan looking for a new anthology, you’d be well-served if you managed to find this collection.


Thankful Thursday- Pod People and Pale Blue Eyes

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Well, this has been a week. A rather exhausting one. I don’t have much energy for writing today, and I’m not about to go into the whys, but I wanted to put this together anyway. 

Fall Break
Thankfully, I’ve had some time to recover from all the not-good this week. It’s fall break and it’s been nice to have a bit of an escape. 

I Passed
There’s nothing like getting a good score on a test- especially when you’ve been waiting on the results for over a month. It was an English Praxis test- my subject area, so I wasn’t too concerned overall- still it’s nice to not have that hanging over my head.

Good Omens
Finally, a year after its release, I’m watching the show and it’s so good! I always forget how much I love that story, until I get back into it again, though typically before now that just meant rereading the novel. 

The Velvet Underground
I love finding new music- something that shouldn’t be too unexpected if you’ve read these posts of mine before. And thanks to a post from Neil Gaiman I’ve found myself diving into the work from a rock band I’d never paid much mind to before. 

Old Horror Movies
I’ve been indulging in some older stuff- 70s and back, and I really appreciate the lack of jump scares and gore. The atmosphere and set up is what I really like- the creeping sense of wrongness. That sense of foreboding and rising paranoia. I’m thinking it’s the same reason I enjoy horror podcasts so much.

Book Review | The Collection by Bentley Little

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Title: The Collection
Author: Bentley Little
Publication Date: 2002
Length: 449 pages
Genre: Horror, short stories
TW– weapons, violence (extreme), gore, cannibalism, dismemberment, decapitation, death, murder, blood, corpse, death of an animal, pregnancy, birth, sexual content, incest, molestation, rape, domestic abuse, child abuse, slurs (mental capacity, little people, ethnic), racism, sexism, ableism

Well, turns out my luck from last week hasn’t held out. When I saw this book at a thrift store a couple of months ago I was rather excited- it’s not every day you see a horror anthology around my neck of the woods. There were a few reservations- I’d tried one of Little’s novels a couple of years back and his style of horror just didn’t do it for me. Still, I figured that short stories and novels were different enough beasts that I might really enjoy this. You can probably already tell how that went. 

The collection is just that, a collection of unrelated stories- only bound together by their genre- horror, or perhaps in some cases dark speculative fiction. You’ll find stories ranging from the discovery that George Washinton was a cannibal, to a sex-cult surrounding a tire-iron once touched by James Dean, to revenge-filled zombies. Despite the description, that last one is probably one of the most down-to-earth stories in the bunch. 

I will say, despite my issues with the book, there’s one thing that Bentley Little has in spades, and that’s imagination. The book is full of fantastical scenarios and bizarre what-ifs, implausible though they may be (i.e. George Washington’s thing for human flesh). If you can let go of your suspension of disbelief well enough there are some really interesting ideas that he played around with here.

That if, however, is a big if. A humongous if. Because it seems to me that Little doesn’t really know when to quit. The strongest stories, in my opinion, were the ones that didn’t try to be scary, because it didn’t feel forced. While at times Little has a good handle on his horror, often he winds up in wtf-land, and not in the good way either, hopping straight out of the realm of horror and winding up in the absurd instead. Now, I admittedly like absurd, most of the time, but this book elicited more eye-rolls from me than anything else. There’s only so many stories you can read with cannibal-cults and incest and sentient rapist pillows before it’s all just too much. 

This is, I think, partially due to the fact that I never felt myself invested in the characters. And while I know it can be difficult to build that connection in the amount of space a short-story lends, everyone felt vaguely cookie-cutter-ish. They rarely seemed to lose the sense of being figurines, moved around solely for the sake of the plot. 

So, that being said, if you’re already a fan of Bentley Little’s style of horror, you may enjoy this one. If, one the other hand, you prefer your horror a little more subtle or insidious, or just not full of some of the items mentioned in the trigger warnings section, you may want to go elsewhere. 

Thankful Thursday- Relief and Exhaustion

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And Thursday rolls around again. It’s been an eventful week, to say the least, and my brain feels vaguely like cotton candy right now, so let’s just start before my brain shuts down on me completely due to lack of sleep.

One More Chapter Down
On the book front, I finished the edits on another chapter, and I’m actually pretty happy with it. I finally feel like the end of this round of revisions is within sight. Of course, my progress might be a little stuttery again for the next bit.

Sub work
Why, you may ask? And also, why am I so tired? Well, I managed to get a longer-term subbing job. I try not to mention work too much, It has a way of taking over my brain if I let it, and I need a space where I can completely shut it out, but I’m happy for the stable-ish in-the-same-room-every-day experience. And knowing that I’ll have a job for the day. I swear, sometimes waiting around in the morning, waiting for a phone call, is one of the worst parts of subbing. 

Frozen Pizza
Of course, with long-term subbing comes a lot of exhaustion. And it is for that reason that I am very thankful for frozen pizza. Dinner in fifteen minutes, and I don’t have to stand over the stove. Can’t beat that. 

My Best Friend
Because when the stress inevitably gets the better of me she’s one of the only people who can get my brain to shut up and quit being such a jerk.

New music
Another thing that keeps me sane. Good music. I haven’t had much of a chance to listen to the rest of Talkie’s stuff yet, but “Fuzzy Disco” was the ‘weather’ on a Nightvale episode, and I’ve had it on repeat since I heard it early this week.