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Oct. 28th, 2024 05:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatAfter a rough night, with little sleep, and a sinus vertigo headache from hell - I decided to call in sick.
I did it from my bed at 5:06 am in the morning. At that point I had clocked maybe three hours of sleep. I didn't get to sleep until 1:11 am according to my smartwatch. And was woken up around 4:40 am by a sinus vertigo headache from hell. (Basically - a nauseous sinus headache (can feel the sinus pressure and drainage in the head), where I feel dizzy, and can't walk.) I lay there for a bit. And finally decided, frak this - I'm calling in sick. It's why I set up the FMLA in the first place for the vertigo headaches and dizziness. Which is associated with sinus issues, medication interactions, and diabetes, also possibly menopause. God knows, the Doctors don't.
Then played another meditation on my phone, and eventually fell back to sleep. Woke up around 9 am, with no more than 6.22 minutes, I'd spent 8 hours in bed, but clocked only six hours total. I lay awake for a long time last night. Insomina is the worst. I know you are supposed to get up and do stuff - but it's hard to do, when I know I'm getting up at 5:45 am in the morning. Going to try to get to bed earlier tonight. No internet past 8 pm.
Spent the day in my sweats, lounging shirt, fluffy socks, and glasses doing basically nothing - but watching television. Didn't eat all that much either.
Binged all of S1 of The Lincoln Lawyer on Netflix. Also watched the soap, which is heating up in its soapy way. They are killing off a major soap opera character this week, lots of melodrama in store.
I've not seen much television of late - busy. But it was nice to veg and not think today. Just crash. And I'll have time to crash next week.
Scheduled Bone Density test for spine and hips for next Tuesday, around 11 AM, which I have off. Now I just need to schedule a hair appointment for next week, do the colonguard, and get the vaccines scheduled. COVID first, then in December, shingles. I also should probably do the pneumonia (now that they've opened it up for folks under 65). I'll check with my doctor first on that one.
Going up state to see my Brother and his wife on Friday, and will be returning on Sunday. With any luck the subway won't be too screwed up over the weekend. Then I have Monday - Wed off to get stuff done and pretty much crash.
***
On book front? I finished Riley Sager's "Home Before Dark" (I think he might be a British writer? Or it all took place in Massachutus? I don't know.) The book was okay? Not as well plotted as I expected. And it's a plot driven novel not really a character driven one. Most best-selling fiction is plot driven, particularly mysteries and thrillers. He skirts more towards psychological thriller/horror than actual horror. Or mystery. There's no romance at all (which was fine, I didn't really want one and it wasn't appropriate anyhow). It's kind of a book within a book? And we spend most of it trying to figure out how much of the book inside the book is actually real? That's part of the mystery, the other part is figuring out who killed a teenage girl, and why the heroine is in danger and from whom. An actual person, a ghost, the house, etc.
I liked the mystery aspect of it. And was kind of relieved that the supernatural bits weren't real. But, there were a lot of plot-holes, and some parts of the plot didn't quite work or hold together. It needed a better editor, I think? I also noticed a lot of typos, something I've been picking up on more and more in traditionally published novels and print publications and onzines by people who should not have typos. Now, anyone posting on DW? Yes, typos are par for the course. We're not necessarily proof reading closely and no one else is necessarily editing our posts, unless we're doing it professionally. But for a professional writer, who has access to editorial support, to be making typos and lots of them???
Also, the traditionally published books aren't cheap. They cost between $10-16 on Kindle and more in hardcover and paperback. So, there should have been more than one line edit and copy-edit.
I was a little disappointed by sloppiness of it. I'd have hand-waved it - if the writer was a first time novelist or indie published, but he's a best-selling writer, with a lot of novels to his name and along the same lines as folks like Dean Koontz. The plot should have been tight, and everything neatly tied up with no typos. I shouldn't be wondering about dropped bits here and there. Editors have gotten very sloppy in the 21st Century.
The book felt a bit rushed to me in places as well. I don't highly recommend it. There's other, better books, regarding this genre out there.
Also, it's not that memorable - I'm forgetting most of it already.
Flipped over to Withered Hill - which I talked about in another post. It's a little slow going at the moment, but creepy and engrossing. We'll see if I stick with it. I actually find the independently published books from Reddit more interesting than the best-selling fiction, in that they take more risks with narrative style, and the writing is weirdly tighter. Not necessarily cleaner.
And working my way through Fate's Edge on Audio Book. These Illona Andrews novels are long. I do enjoy the characters, they tend to be more character driven than plot-driven, which I prefer. Plot-driven novels have a tendency to be rather derivative of other novels - mainly because you can't really come up with a new plot. There aren't any. It's all been done. Multiple times. But you can come up with new ways that a given plot will affect characters or how they will react to it, and what they'll do. And the more developed the characters are - the more the reader cares. Plot driven tends to not develop the characters that well, and often sacrifices them to the plot, so that they become pawns to it. Also, plot driven tends to be more predictable and less memorable because of that. Characters should always come before plot. Withered Hill feels kind of plotty to me, so we'll see if I continue, while Fate's Edge is character driven and more engaging as result.
I did it from my bed at 5:06 am in the morning. At that point I had clocked maybe three hours of sleep. I didn't get to sleep until 1:11 am according to my smartwatch. And was woken up around 4:40 am by a sinus vertigo headache from hell. (Basically - a nauseous sinus headache (can feel the sinus pressure and drainage in the head), where I feel dizzy, and can't walk.) I lay there for a bit. And finally decided, frak this - I'm calling in sick. It's why I set up the FMLA in the first place for the vertigo headaches and dizziness. Which is associated with sinus issues, medication interactions, and diabetes, also possibly menopause. God knows, the Doctors don't.
Then played another meditation on my phone, and eventually fell back to sleep. Woke up around 9 am, with no more than 6.22 minutes, I'd spent 8 hours in bed, but clocked only six hours total. I lay awake for a long time last night. Insomina is the worst. I know you are supposed to get up and do stuff - but it's hard to do, when I know I'm getting up at 5:45 am in the morning. Going to try to get to bed earlier tonight. No internet past 8 pm.
Spent the day in my sweats, lounging shirt, fluffy socks, and glasses doing basically nothing - but watching television. Didn't eat all that much either.
Binged all of S1 of The Lincoln Lawyer on Netflix. Also watched the soap, which is heating up in its soapy way. They are killing off a major soap opera character this week, lots of melodrama in store.
I've not seen much television of late - busy. But it was nice to veg and not think today. Just crash. And I'll have time to crash next week.
Scheduled Bone Density test for spine and hips for next Tuesday, around 11 AM, which I have off. Now I just need to schedule a hair appointment for next week, do the colonguard, and get the vaccines scheduled. COVID first, then in December, shingles. I also should probably do the pneumonia (now that they've opened it up for folks under 65). I'll check with my doctor first on that one.
Going up state to see my Brother and his wife on Friday, and will be returning on Sunday. With any luck the subway won't be too screwed up over the weekend. Then I have Monday - Wed off to get stuff done and pretty much crash.
***
On book front? I finished Riley Sager's "Home Before Dark" (I think he might be a British writer? Or it all took place in Massachutus? I don't know.) The book was okay? Not as well plotted as I expected. And it's a plot driven novel not really a character driven one. Most best-selling fiction is plot driven, particularly mysteries and thrillers. He skirts more towards psychological thriller/horror than actual horror. Or mystery. There's no romance at all (which was fine, I didn't really want one and it wasn't appropriate anyhow). It's kind of a book within a book? And we spend most of it trying to figure out how much of the book inside the book is actually real? That's part of the mystery, the other part is figuring out who killed a teenage girl, and why the heroine is in danger and from whom. An actual person, a ghost, the house, etc.
I liked the mystery aspect of it. And was kind of relieved that the supernatural bits weren't real. But, there were a lot of plot-holes, and some parts of the plot didn't quite work or hold together. It needed a better editor, I think? I also noticed a lot of typos, something I've been picking up on more and more in traditionally published novels and print publications and onzines by people who should not have typos. Now, anyone posting on DW? Yes, typos are par for the course. We're not necessarily proof reading closely and no one else is necessarily editing our posts, unless we're doing it professionally. But for a professional writer, who has access to editorial support, to be making typos and lots of them???
Also, the traditionally published books aren't cheap. They cost between $10-16 on Kindle and more in hardcover and paperback. So, there should have been more than one line edit and copy-edit.
I was a little disappointed by sloppiness of it. I'd have hand-waved it - if the writer was a first time novelist or indie published, but he's a best-selling writer, with a lot of novels to his name and along the same lines as folks like Dean Koontz. The plot should have been tight, and everything neatly tied up with no typos. I shouldn't be wondering about dropped bits here and there. Editors have gotten very sloppy in the 21st Century.
The book felt a bit rushed to me in places as well. I don't highly recommend it. There's other, better books, regarding this genre out there.
Also, it's not that memorable - I'm forgetting most of it already.
Flipped over to Withered Hill - which I talked about in another post. It's a little slow going at the moment, but creepy and engrossing. We'll see if I stick with it. I actually find the independently published books from Reddit more interesting than the best-selling fiction, in that they take more risks with narrative style, and the writing is weirdly tighter. Not necessarily cleaner.
And working my way through Fate's Edge on Audio Book. These Illona Andrews novels are long. I do enjoy the characters, they tend to be more character driven than plot-driven, which I prefer. Plot-driven novels have a tendency to be rather derivative of other novels - mainly because you can't really come up with a new plot. There aren't any. It's all been done. Multiple times. But you can come up with new ways that a given plot will affect characters or how they will react to it, and what they'll do. And the more developed the characters are - the more the reader cares. Plot driven tends to not develop the characters that well, and often sacrifices them to the plot, so that they become pawns to it. Also, plot driven tends to be more predictable and less memorable because of that. Characters should always come before plot. Withered Hill feels kind of plotty to me, so we'll see if I continue, while Fate's Edge is character driven and more engaging as result.
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Date: 2024-10-30 12:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-30 05:48 pm (UTC)