I don't function well in the mornings so I forget to grab a bag and a book a lot. Or even just a book. XD
(Or my face mask. XP)

and that's also why i keep a mask in my bag and an extra in my car. XD

I do that. Minus the car. But I'm not awake enough in the morning to remember to grab my bag.
Ex: this morning my brain was all "grab mask, then work". Then my boss sent a text. Then my brain said "respond to boss, then work" so I forgot my mask. XD

whoops!

everyone in my family has "their spot" at the table. we don't always eat at the table, but when we do, that's where we sit. i actually have two spots, but that's because when younger daughter's boyfriend is over, he sits next to her, so i move over a seat. anyway. if i have things that i need to remember to bring with me in the morning, i put them at my spot. my glasses are there at night, so if it's that important, i put it under my glasses. i'm usually pretty good at remembering to check my spot, also, my bag is on my seat, so there's that too. :)

I mean...I always hang my bag on the back of my bedroom door (which is always open because cats), so I basically have to walk past it to get out of the apartment every day so....idk. I could put it on the floor in front of my door, but I'm so used to stepping over the kitties that I'd probably just step over it. XD
I'm so not a morning person.

heh, yeah, i get that too.... XD

i'm still not a morning person either, so...

Have read another book! Lol. The key to reading a lot of books? Read short 300 page or less books. XD
Now to try to finish a few others...

heh, yeah, i get that. my current book is just over 150 pages! XD

and i'm done White Fragility. i'm done with it too. racism is stupid.

anyway, on to a classic, Stranger in a Strange Land. woot!

so i tried reading the classic Stranger in a Strange Land. i plodded my way to chapter 12 and then returned it... as my post above shows, i started it around July 31st or so, and wow, it was just not grabbing me.

on the other hand, it took me three days to read the most recent Warriors book, Veil of Shadows.

so that's book #23. last year i read 45, so my goal this year is at least 46.... so i'm 1/2 way there. i don't think i'll get to 46, but ya never know... XD

Yeah, that book (Stranger in a Strange Land) was tough for me too. It's just a drier read than I anticipated so I had to be in the right mood to really get into it.

Kinda thinking of removing The Brothers Karamazov from this year's reading list because there's no way I'm getting through it plus finish 2 other 900+ page books and a couple 500+ page books plus do crafty things.
And I haven't really read more than a couple pages in it since 2020 started anyway.

i have a memo app where i list the books i want to get from the library (as well as books i want to buy for myself too), and i've put Stranger in a Strange Land back on there with a note to start at chapter 12. i mean, it was kinda starting to get interesting. so we'll see how it goes.

i also have the books in the Poldark series on my list, as well as some other random books in the series i'm reading (The Hollows, Stephanie Plum. Warriors) that aren't out yet.

the Poldark books are at the library, as well as the two books the series You was based on, so those are on my list... ooh, i might go for those once i'm finally reading my last library book i have out (it's only 2 now! woot!)

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/...a_Dime_123.png

i've finished the Parable of the Sower, and am onto a collection of three Warriors stories. then it's Parable of the Talents, the sequel to Parable of the Sower. I've heard there was supposed to be a third book, so i wonder if Parable of the Talents has a cliffhanger. i'll find out soon enough....

Yay!

I have finished absolutely nothing! But may start working my way through some fiction novels by a local author so discuss whether we should have them in the gift shop at the next gift shop committee meeting.
XD

oh yaay! local authors can be fun! :)

I'm hoping they're pretty easy reads since I only have about 2 weeks until the next meeting. XD
But I'll also have several afternoons free to read them (at least 2 Tuesdays, next Monday, and maybe a Sunday as well)

yaay that you'll have time to read! :)

i have some of my time after my weekend retail job back to read - now that it's not as icky and humid outside again, i can order my lunch at a fast food place that has outside tables, and read during lunch. :)

Lol. Reading...in between work and playing Animal Crossing Wild World with Derpy. XD

Reading outside is the best!

hehe awesome.

i do like reading outside. :)

It probably doesn't bode well for this local author, that I had to put the book down 12 pages in and brace myself because all I could think was "oh dear god, someone hire this woman an editor!" right?
It's like she ran spellcheck, fixed any spelling issues, and went ahead with printing. (She's self-published so I don't actually know how much editing was done, if any, but it needed more.)

oh fun!

(and by that i mean yikes!)

And don't even get me starred on all the punctuation. XP
So many unnecessary question marks and semi-colons.
*slams head against the wall repeatedly*

that definitely sounds like a big "oof"

The plot/story, itself, has promise, but it just really needed a lot of editing first.

Not everyone is a particular about grammar and punctuation as I am, though, so today's average reader may not notice it as much as I do.

even if you're self-publishing, you really ought to have correct grammar, even if your audience might not care so much about it.

Already less than 100 pages in and I don't know how much more of this book I can read. The author plays fast and loose with not just grammar, but punctuation, and paragraph/page spacing/formatting. Like she's afraid to put more than 2-3 sentences per paragraph, there are random page breaks for no reason, she just kind of slaps chapters in wherever they fall, whether it's on a new page or the middle of a page. And the characters feel half-developed. Like, I keep having to ask "is this character 14 or 40?" and having to backtrack because suddenly something will be mentioned (like childhood nicknames) with no previous mention or display of said nicknames or character having uncharacteristic taste in music based on age, until a couple pages later we get an explanation as to why/how they were introduced to the music they like.
(Ex: Main character greets best friend, using friend's full name, suddenly we get a rambly introduction of how they decided toncall each ither by the first letter of their names as a sort of nickname even though they just displayed exactly the opposite, followed by sporadic, at best, use of mentioned nicknames.)
And a lot of the dialogue and inward thoughts are just clunky and...awkward. I literally want to take a red pen to this book and just make notes and corrections, but it's kind of a loaner so I can't.

oh yikes, that sounds like a trainwreck of a book, honestly. :O

but if you're curious, my writing style is kinda rambly sometimes too, with short paragraphs and random page breaks. (it's the "my NaNos" link in my sig.)

to be fair, i've read some published works where, if the chapter stops in the middle of a page, the way it's typeset is there's a space, and then the next chapter starts - instead at the top of the next page. it's really weird, and i don't like it, but that's the way it was typeset.

I mean, I'm okay with rambly and short paragraphs to an extent but like...this woman breaks up something a person is saying or thinking into multiple paragraphs. For no reason. She has random page breaks in the middle of chapters. For no reason. She skips vital information when we need it, only to add it a page or more later on.

I've never actually read your nano stuff (if I recall the plots/genres of them just don't appeal to me), but I'm 99% sure it'd be better than this.

I'm sure I've already said this, but it looks like she typed it out, ran spell check and said, "okay, good enough! Let's slap a cover on this!"

i think you did say that, and i'm pretty sure i said "yikes!" but i'm gonna say it again after reading your first paragraph - YIKES.

as for my NaNos, fair enough. the link is an index that has the blurb/summaries on them, so if you ever want to take another look, that's what that link is. :)

I feel like after muddling through this, I have no excuse for not checking out one or two of yours. XD

I'll have to check out the summaries again because I can't actually remember what they were.

fair enough.

i'm starting to uh... plan (says the panter) something for this year already...

I mean, now is definitely a good time to start planning. XD

On the one hand, I almost want to try NaNo again this year, but on the other hand, I know that, in addition to my busy schedule, November is (usually) an insanely busy month for my retail job so I just won't have time.

planning? what's that? i'm a pantser, i write by the seat of my pants.

no, that's not entirely true. did i ever post my bridge analogy? it might be over in the nano thread.

november is always busy in retail. black friday is evil.

Yeah, my boss has already put up a message saying there be no time off/vacation allowed between November 1st and December 26th.
So that's gonna be fun.

oof, that's rough.

in the past when my retail job has been open thanksgiving night (6 to 11?) it's been on a voluntary basis. i've never volunteered, no thank you. and friday, my availability starts at 9, so when the manager tries to schedule me at 8, i'm like nope. but since we reopened at the beginning of june, every day seems like the xmas season. *sigh*

Thankfully we're not open on Thanksgiving night, but EVERYONE works Black Friday, ngl though, last year was pretty quiet and I don't anticipate this year getting that crazy either.

Yeah, we had big surges of business when covid first hit, then it died down a little around may/early June, but then the governor finally made masks mandatory in all businesses and wenhad another big surge of business, but it's kind of dying down again. Still mostly busier than normal, but not quite holiday levels.

i wonder if we'll be open, when a lot of the larger retailers will
actually be closed (because of covid, not for some other reason).

oh, we're still quite busy... but i also only work there fri, sat, and sun... so i don't know what the weekdays look like.

Yeah, I'm kind of curious to see how black Friday is handled here. I feel like it won't be too bad since the Canadian border is still closed and that's where a lot of our seasonal rush comes from, but I imagine we'll have to have someone monitoring the door to limit the number of people inside at a time or something.
Idk it's just a weird year all around really.

oh yeah, 2020 is a weird year, that's for sure

I remember in Jan/Feb I was all "oh, 2020's gonnna be great, I'm gonna get my finances all sorted out and then get my life in general all sorted out!" Now I'm just the "this is fine" dog meme.