A Book Problem

Uhm. Hi.
My name is Marcella. And I have a book problem. Maybe more than one book problem. I mean. Look. It was one thing being a book addict when buying books mostly meant going into a bookstore, right? After walking out with more books than three people could carry and vowing to never set foot into a bookstore again without someone - ya know - responsible along, I could control the addiction.

But then E-readers, amIright? It's like the Universe conspired to hand book addicts a new improved way to sneak binge their substance. Even if e-reading isn't the quite the same tactile experience as the much harder to conceal dead tree versions. So there's that.

Add into it that I can't tell you how big my TBR pile is anymore. It - uhm - escaped me. No, I have a good excuse! Hush. You know about the living on the boat thing - and that while that happened all of my books went into storage. Yeah. They're still there. In boxes. The boxes are actually in my bedroom now, but I can't take the books out and pile them up in teetering TBR towers cause we're in temporary housing, right? So I sneak out one at a time, read it and then tuck it back in. All while adding new books to my digital TBR pile, AND when my B-day and the holidays roll around, clearing out my book wishlist with dead tree formats, well. I have no idea how big the TBR pile is. I don't even track the books I read on GoodReads any more. I found it was changing how I invested in a book knowing I had to write up something about it.

Yeah. Still a book addict. There's one cracked open beside me while I type. Craft book, but a book nevertheless.

My goal for the coming year (our lease on this place is up in November and we'll be looking for a longer term lease option in less of a cliff-dwelling type arrangement) is to actually unpack and sort my physical TBRs.

Dunno that there's any help for the digital ones. Kindle seems resistant to file organization. At least on my dinosaur of a Kindle.

But yeah. That's my story. I have a book problem.

PS: Happy Friday the 13th! Remember to superstition safely! Also, fewer than 100 days until Halloween, y'all. Break out the spooky.

My To-Be-Read List

My to-be-read list is shamefully large.  I have SO MANY books on my shelf that I have every intention of reading.  I really do.  But I haven't done it yet.

This is why I'm completely understanding whenever someone tells me that Thorn or Murder or Holver Alley is on their TBR list but they haven't gotten to it yet.  I get it.  This is how we all operate.  We have to make choices with our time, and for me right now, that involves drafting Shield of the People, going over the final proofs of Way of the Shield, reading and critiquing the pieces for the ArmadilloCon Writers Workshop, and also taking care of the rest of my life so I don't collapse in a heap of unhealthiness.

(My knee went out on me last week, which made life challenging.  Back up to snuff now, though.)

That said, I am currently re-reading.  Namely, I'm re-reading The Belgariad, as I haven't read it in almost a decade, and diving deep into it on Twitter with the #BelgariadRead hashtag.  Come check it out.

"How big is your... to-be-read list?" she innuendoed.

"So, how big is it?"

It's not like I'm blushing or anything, but did you really ask that question? I mean, this is personal. But here we are, and you did ask. I struggle to answer.

"I mean, it's sizable."

You raise eyebrows.

"Biggish, then. Biggish and not showing any signs of shrinking." To my shame. "It just grows, and I can't seem to stop it."

Okay, you can giggle here, note that warning about calling a doctor if these things go on longer than four hours, and float off in a puff of innuendo. Go ahead. 

Except no, you're still here. Waiting.

Fine.

My to-be-read list is how big? SO big that ...

... clocking in at 702 ebooks on my Kindle queue alone, if those were holdable, sniffable books I had to store, I would no longer have a kitchen. Possibly would not have a house and would be relegated to a she-shack in the back yard. (With a reading nook, naturally.)

... even with all those titles offloaded to digital, the paperback stacks collapsed the shelves in my closet. (Poor closet.)

... I no longer remember which were loaners, which were freebies, and which I bought. So, if you loaned me a "you have to read this book!" book, forgive me. (And remind me of the title. I'm sure I'm getting to it!)

And the worst, most difficult confession of all:

... if I've read about ten pages and am not completely and absolutely invested in a book, I'm probably not going to finish it. That's the sad truth. It's probably going right back into the "maybe later" aka TBR pile.

I guess this is why folks say a book's opening page has to be gripping. There are just too many options out there now for entertainment. Such is the embarrassment of riches for a reader these days.

Of course, then I wonder what my own opening pages look like, and finally -- finally! are you happy now? -- I blush scarlet. 

Because I get the punchline to this very unfunny joke: My next book best start off with a dead body in a car chase, because I'm not alone in having more books than eyeball time. Snagging a reader's attention and holding it is the only way any book is going to move from TBR to keeper shelf.

TBR Piles: Not Yet A Hoarder

How long is my TBR list?

Um...

~opens door to den~

~hears growling~

~closes door~

~slinks away~

5 shelves stacked double-deep and iced. There's a stack atop the paper cutter. One beside the printer, and one on the printer. Two cubbies partially full. Probably twenty on my kindle. For the most part, I have my TBR contained to one room. So, yeah, I, um, I have some books I need to read. I haven't kicked into hoarder mode yet, so I keep adding to the pile. Somebody has to keep the dragon happy, right?

The Cityscape that is my TBR list

Heh heh heh

So this week's topic is "how big is your To Be read list?"

I don't know that words can properly express, really. Still, as a writer, I must try.

Okay, so let's go with a little history. Long before I was a writer I was a voracious reader. Back in the day I could knock out  book a day on top of after school jobs and school itself Not homework, let's not be crazy here). I mean I read a LOT. And somehow, deep in the recesses of my brain, my mind kept up with the assumption that as soon as I got a hang of the writing thing I could do it again.

When I started writing I did interviews for White Wolf Magazine (now long gone, sadly) and one of the people I interviewed was best selling author Rick Hautala. Rick was a very well read and very talented man and one of the questions that I normally asked was "What do you like best and east about being a writer?" His response was, to paraphrase, "I Like being my own boss. I also hate that, because I'm a dick when it comes to being an employer and I make a lot of demands of myself." He paused fro a moment and said, "Really, what I hate the most is I never have time to read anymore."

I thought that was the silliest thing I'd ever heard, and more than a little sad. i mean, how could anyone not have time to read? Am I right? What a tragic concept!


Yeah....

So I've moved many, many times in my life. For the longest time I moved at least once a year. I went to seventeen schools before I graduated high school and after that my family moved a few more times before I went my own way and had my own life. I stayed stationary for most of twenty years and then, after my wife passed and my world changed again, I moved on.

I rented a four bedroom house in Georgia to accommodate my books. Most of them had either been read before or were waiting their turn. Okay, at some point the house also took in two family members and one of the rooms became my office. Eventually my landlord wanter the place back for personal reasons and I decided to move on. When I chose to move to New England I had a lot of furniture and a ton of books.  I gave away a lot of the books I'd read before, when I finally decided that, after a decade of not even being removed from their boxes, I had to accept I wasn't likely to get around to reading them.

Next house? Four bedrooms over two stories. The second story was supposed to eventually become my library. I never got around to buying bookshelves, so, that didn't work. Landlord decides to sell and I move again. The Salvation Army got more books. Enter the new place: Lots of storage room and a whack-job of a landlord.  Four months later Im moving again, and still more books are carved away. It hurt, because some of them I had only recently acquired. Now I'm in two bedrooms and I have a wonderful lady as  roommate.

And so I tightened the book belt again. But, hey, I bought bookshelves!

y current  To Be Read pile is only around 600 physical books. That's down almost three hundred. They are stacked in front of my printer stand, in front of my bookshelves on my bookshelves and in my car. My office overflows with books.

My Kindle has around 400 more books.

I lament that there is never enough time to read these days. Rick nailed it on the head, as it were. The busier I am as a writer (and working thirty or so hours a week), the less time I have for the simple, joyous, act of reading.

I remain an optimist. They stay until I read them.

Even if I die first.

What I really need is a vast, sprawling mansion. Most if it would be converted into a library, just as soon as I got around to buying shelves.

The TBR -How Do You Deal?

Our topic at SFF Seven this week is How long is your TBR list? The answer for me is easy to give:

299

The "TBR" is the To-Be-Read list. I know exactly how many books are on mine because in the fall of 2015, I started a spreadsheet to keep track of it. A brilliantly conceived effort, my spreadsheet tracks format (paper, ebook or audible), date acquired, WHY I thought I wanted to read it, and even assigns a  priority.

Like many brilliantly conceived plans, it works moderately well.

It does help me to know if I already own a book - one of the primary purposes of the list, as I'd found I had books in both paper and digital format - and I use it to keep track of high priority reads. I use it A LOT to recall how something ended up in my possession and why I wanted to read it - except for the occasional book that I forget to log in. This is particular bad when I buy books on my phone in the bar during conversations that I don't remember weeks later.

The other way the list doesn't work is that it never goes down. I'd had this grand idea that I wouldn't acquire ANY new books until I read the ones I already have.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Instead, I started out with 298 books on the list when I first cataloged them all. Today it's at 299. The list hangs around 300 most of the time, fluctuating up and down. It's not because I'm not reading. I've read 80 books so far this year - I keep track of that, too, moving them off the TBR onto the read spreadsheet once I start them - and last year I read 107.

Clearly I read pretty much at the rate I acquire. Likely I should clear out a bunch of these books that have languished in the pile since October of 2015. Do you all do that - eventually give up on books that never escape the TBR pile?

Also, I've started a podcast! First Cup of Coffee. Just me, sharing my first cup of coffee of the day along with various thoughts on writing and life. They're short and informal. Here's the first one. 

Rubber Band Boat Races

Given that this week’s topic is recipes we make for parties, I can only laugh and say “Round Table pizza” or “Kentucky Fried Chicken.” I do not cook and especially not for parties.

We used to have some pretty fantastic parties in our ‘starter’ house, which came with an old swimming pool. My late husband was an engineer and so were most of his close friends, so he hit upon the idea of holding an annual rubber band powered boat regatta. There was a LOT of intense rivalry, let me tell you, and people held practice runs and trials leading up to the event every year. My spouse published a detailed series of rules and specifications and the designs grew more sophisticated over time. We also did pool volleyball and had other fun and a good time was had by all.

Two of the entries

We made sure to give trophies for other categories than just the fastest boat. Memory fails me at the moment but we probably did things like ‘Best Looking’ and ‘First to Sink’. Designing a rubber band powered boat is a lot more complicated than you might think! And the rubber band quality was important to success. And of course vast quantities of beer were consumed during the event.

I think we did the parties for three or four years and then we moved to a place with no pool. The first year in the new house, which was in the foothills, we had a bottle rocket powered car race, the 'Carnival of Speed', but it just wasn’t as much fun, the home built wooden track required seemed to have built in factors which made whoever was in a certain lane always the winner and oh yes, there was a brush fire danger we’d failed to factor in but quickly realized as the first heats were underway, rockets sparking like mad. Water hoses at the ready! I believe we only did this for two years (it was a long time ago, folks) and then we stopped. Just not as much fun, not as much participation, all good things must come to an end.

The rocket cars 

Switching subjects, I have a new release! Book four in my Sectors New Allies Series, DARIK.

The blurb: Nicolle James is far from her home in the human Sectors, kidnapped by alien scientists to be the subject of horrifying experiments.  Her only hope might be a mysterious soldier she’d glimpsed outside the laboratory fence. She’d managed to sneak a few words of conversation with him when her captors weren’t watching but now the aliens were taking her inside the lab to begin the experiments.

Darik, a warrior of the genetically engineered Badari pack, is on a solo recon mission to check out a mysterious new lab high in the mountains. His orders are strict – do not engage. But when he has a chance meeting with the woman who might be his mate, he vows not to abandon her, orders or no orders.

Can he get inside an underground lab, find Nicolle and rescue her without getting captured himself? And when he learns the lab’s deadly secrets, can he get word to his pack about the new dangers?

Because the ruthless alien scientist running the experiments wants to get her hands on him too and will stop at nothing to achieve her goals.

Buy Links: Amazon    iBooks    Nook      Google     Kobo

NOTE: Photos are Author's Own. Book cover by Fiona Jayde.

Bringing the "No Way Am I Turning On the Stove" Party Food

Florida has utterly changed my definition of 'party food'. If you can't throw it on a grill or eat it raw, I am NOT standing over a hot stove, much less adding to the AC load by adding heat to the living arrangement. Not to mention that I transitioned to a whole food/plant based diet AND there's celiac in the family so I don't eat gluten. Most of what I take to a party is what I can eat so no one else has to worry about what I can and can't have. (Why? Hereditary super high cholesterol. Can't take the statins. This dropped my numbers by 50 points without meds. The MD has stopped trying to shove pills at me. Pass the plants. Woo.)

So. How about a colorful, refreshing Asian-inspired salad?

Cucumber-Carrot Salad

Peel and slice 2 carrots thin. (Spiralize or grate if you like.)
Peel and thinly slice a cucumber. (Spiralize if you prefer - don't grate. It turns to mush.)
Clean and slice 2 green onions
Throw these all in the same bowl. You can add other veggies that suit you, too, just slice them as thin as possible.

ADD:
3 TBSP Rice Vinegar
2 TBSP Mirin
1/8 tsp garlic salt (or to taste)
Pinch of Red Pepper Flakes - this is to your taste

Toss your veggie salad and refrigerate for 2-3 hours. If you're really ambitious and you want this at it's best, make it the day before you mean to serve it. The recipe leaves me with a lovely subtle burn in my mouth, so adjust the pepper flakes and the amount of green onion to your taste.

You can eat it as is, or top a nice green salad with this and pour over a little of the dressing. Either way, this is cooling and refreshing and addictive. Have a great, fabulous holiday!