Fiendish Friday : Nero Wolfe

I suppose it was an eon ago now that I was talking to my step mother who suggested my Dad was very much obsessed with Nero Wolfe and that it would make a great Christmas present for him. I popped over to A&E and due to a random unexplainable mistake, I ended up with two copies of Season One of Nero Wolfe.

Eventually I got around to watching the copy I kept for myself.

Love, love, love the music. Amazing big band sound.

The actors and actresses actually know how to act. They do. And here’s how I explain that. I watched the entire first season. And I didn’t catch it. It wasn’t until part way through the second season that I realized there are only maybe a dozen actors total. They play a variety of roles. Some playing more than one role per episode. And yet, I didn’t catch on for hours and hours of viewing because they could actually ACT. That is hard to come by these days.

I keep meaning to read the books the series was based on. But part of me is shying away from the books. What if they ruin the beauty of this show? What if the books aren’t very good? Or what if they are amazing and I can’t watch the show anymore because it doesn’t live up to the books?

sigh. And really, don’t let me get started on Timothy Hutton…

Best of me…

So I see that a best of the year post seems to be a popular thing to do this year but I never like to follow the crowd, so here’s my version of that. My five most popular blog posts, based on likes and comments combined, the five posts that did the worst, and the five posts I actually liked the best, er make that seven because I couldn’t pare it down any further, what can I say, I amuse me.

Your Favorites -Comments and Likes-in order of popularity

1. Nano 2015 – The End

Love and support makes for a happy Nano Winner.

2. It was beginning to look a like lot Christmas

Everyone loves a free give away. My book is still a free download through today. Pop over to Amazon and grab it while you can.

3. Nano 2015 #4

You meet the deputy: he’s practically a mute and totally unimportant.

4. Nano 2015 # 19

Fun excerpt of the my 2015 nano novel and a bit of grousing about people with obscenely high words counts. LOL

5. Nano 2015# 1

We discussed names for my lead detective, who is smoking hot. I forgot how cute he is.

Your Least Favorite Posts by Lack of Comments and Likes

 

1. Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies, tell me lies (0)

Why I haven’t been editing or blogging and the death of ABNA. boohoo.

2. Client=Fool? (0)

Is repping yourself a good idea? Should you indie publish or get an agent and go the traditional Route. This was good information.

3. Virtual Book Tour (1)

I explained what a virtual book tour was and asked if anyone wanted to host a stop on my tour.

4. I tried (1)

Laptop ate my changes. I actually thought this one was funny.

5. Come Monday (1)

Why Norwescon was a game changer for me.

 

 

 

 

And Finally, my Favorites based on how long it made me smile when I read it today – in no particular order. 

 

Why I love my husband

This one should be self explanatory.

It is my son’s sixth Birthday

reasons I love my kiddo.

The pitfalls of writing over a long period of time

Made me laugh heartily when I reread it this morning. I am a goof.

People are strange when they’re friends

Amusing anecdotes about beta readers.

Anyone caught discussing books

 

Pure me.

Nano 2015 #25

Laughed my bleep off.

Just smile

Barring my soul for the masses for the first time.

Happy post Christmas. We took down all our decoration yesterday. They’d been up over a month. It was time to get read for the future. (Yes I am alluding to a 2016 goals post that is coming up shortly.)

How long do you let Christmas linger?

 

 

 

Nano 2015 #16

If I get any more tired I may actually fall asleep at my laptop. It has been a seriously long month. I hadn’t realized how much more effort it would be to help out the MLs this year. Making six Nano events a week is a pull. I don’t know how the real MLs in my region do it.

Words today: 1385

Time: impossible to estimate

Total words: 25009

Estimated completed: dec 2

 

and what is with the new format on wordpress?

Tomorrow is July 1

No, I’m not turning into a calendar app.

July 1 kicks off Camp Nanowrimo. I was excited when I remembered that just a few short minutes ago and I ran off to check out my cabin. Oh dear god, they are all children. Literally, the average age is young enough to be my child, and not even like I had them in high school, could be my child but….AGHHHHHHHHHHHH

The question is not can I be the adult here and over look their young young young status.

I think it might be can I be enough of a child to play nicely with others….

Silence is Golden

Or so they say. Have you been enjoying my radio silence? Say no please. Lol. My ego needs the love.

I’ve been traveling northern California visiting the friends and family we left behind when we moved to the Pacific northwest. Spending not nearly enough time with the only thing I miss about California, my people.

I have managed to get some words into Scrivner, (500) although I’m still behind. Shrug. 18 weeks to make it all up right?

Soon we’ll head across that sandpit known as Nevada to see friends in Utah. No they’re not Mormon but her husband enjoys having us visit because he has two women cooking for him and refilling his wine glass. Lol

I’d like to think I’ll get more writing done there but somehow I doubt it. At least I spent some time playing with my pics in Photoshop. And I settled on both a title and a cover design for the spy novel. All good progress in my book.

The Versatile Blogger Award – Thank you!

I would like to thank Sheri for nominating me for this oh so prestigious award. Check out her blog here https://sherijkennedyriverside.wordpress.com. She posts about the wide variety of art forms she embraces.

So 7 Things About Me:

1) I moved to Washington less than two years ago. Until that time I lived the vast majority of my life in Silicon Valley. I knew I didn’t like it there but I had no idea how much until I moved here and relaxed years of tension. Moving to somewhere where you know no one allows the space to reevaluate your life and the way you live. You can make changes. I made changes.

2) I started writing when I was a child. I entered one contest in elementary school and was the only child not to get at least an honorable mention. I took that very much to heart and stopped submitting my work anywhere. I was in my 20’s when I took a creative writing class. At the same time I decided to try my hand at blogging. The entire experiment lasted only a few weeks but during that time I posted up a short story I wrote for my class and a friend of a friend of a friend bought said short story with my time to convert it to a screen play for a short film. It never got made into a film.

3) I’m married with one adorable six year old son.

4) I spent most of my working years in the tech field. I’ve been a project manager, desktop services manager, corporate videographer, and a desktop services tech – inhouse.

5) I have a degree in history. I had plans to teach. Then we moved here. Teaching is very much a who you know game at the community college level. I don’t know anyone here. I needed a new plan. Currently I use my degree to backstop my novels.

6) I credit my kiddo with bringing me back to writing (and my cuz David). Nanowrimo came along at just the right time. I needed something for myself after struggling with an undiagnosed ASD two year old all day. Once we moved here Nano plugged me into an amazing group of writers who have become some of my favorite friends.

7) I love games. In fact some might call me compulsive about games. LOL. Board games or card games as long as they have at least equal parts strategy and luck, the more strategy the better. I actually spent a cruise to Hawaii, the at sea portion, learning to play bridge and playing bridge. laughing at myself.

The Versatile Blogger Award is given in recognition for the great commitment, diverse talents and generosity shown by bloggers here in our community. There is so much creativity on display that it is difficult to reduce a list to only a few, but for those nominated, it is hoped that it will motivate them as well as celebrate their work to date.

Here are the rules:

  • Show the award on your blog
  • Thank the person who nominated you
  • Share seven facts about yourself
  • Nominate up to fifteen blogs
  • Link your nominees’ blogs, and let them know

If you’re reading, you’re nominated.

Reader Tag Game

Yesterday a fellow blogger and nano writer posted this to his site with his own answers. My thanks for giving me something to post today. https://thephantomchild.wordpress.com  if you want to check him out.

1) You have 20,000 books on your TBR. How in the world do you decide what to read next?

I don’t have 20, 000 books on my TBR list. In fact I try not to have a TBR list. I read based on what appeals to me at the moment I want to read. Even when I am researching like a mad woman, my TBR only includes those books I am actively pursuing from the library, ie on a wait list for or have ordered them to my branch.

2) You’re halfway through a book and you’re just not loving it. Do you quit or commit?

I never say quit. What actually happens is I put it aside. I actually have a pile under my bedside table for these books. I pretend I am going to pick them back up some day and read them through. In reality what happens is they sit there partly read until they collect dust (this is assuming they are not public library books)and then I get irritated with the clutter and move them up to the library. There they sit until I realize I have run out of room on my shelves and then they get purged for trip to the used book store where I sell them back for more books to read. If they are public library books then they sit half read until the next week when I go to library and quietly return them.

3) The end of the year is coming and you’re so close, yet so far away on your Goodreads Reading Challenge. Do you quit or commit?

I don’t have a Goodreads Reading Challenge. It sounds suspiciously like a TBR list. I don’t do those.

In fact I don’t even have a Goodreads account. Shhhh, don’t tell anyone.

4) The covers of a series you love DO. NOT. MATCH. How do you cope?

blink, don’t even care. If the words are good, nothing else matters.

5) Everyone and their mother loves a book you really don’t like. Who do you bond with over shared feelings?

laughing. I rarely find myself reading what other people do. For example, Monday at my son’s co-op another mom saw my book and went “oooh, Death by Chocolate, that sounds delicious.” So I show her the whole cover, where she reads that it’s actually about a Victorian serial killer who used chocolates as her delivery mechanisms in Brighton. Her face fell. “I thought it was a cook book or something.”

6) You’re reading a book and you’re about to start crying in public. How do you deal?

Books rarely make me cry but if they do, I go for it. Why not. Most people don’t think twice about what others are doing anyway.

7) A sequel of a book you loved just came out, but you’ve forgotten a lot from the prior novel. Will you re-read the book? Skip the sequel? Try to find the synopsis on Goodreads? Cry in frustration?

God this is embarrassing to admit but…even when I remember exactly what happened in the previous books, I still read the whole series over again prior to reading the new book. Yes, I read all the Harry Potters each time a new one came out before I read the new one. Each time.

8) You do not want ANYONE borrowing your books. How do you politely tell people nope when they ask?

Um, I actually love to loan my books out. I keep a list of who has what, so I can be sure to get them back.

9) You’ve picked up and put down five books in the past month. How do you get over your slump?

This is also mildly embarrassing to admit but when I am in a “nothing reads good” slump, I read Agatha Christies until it passes. Sometimes it takes me reading every mystery she ever wrote. But it always works.

10) There are so many new books coming out that you’re dying to read! How many do you actually buy?

I only buy that which I cannot get at the library. Or that which I cannot live without once I have read it from the library.

11) After you’ve bought the new books you can’t wait to get to, how long do they sit on your shelf until you actually read them?

laughing, they don’t. If I’ve actually been waiting for something to release, I’ve usually pre-ordered it and will clear my schedule to the best of my ability to binge read it. If it’s a sequel I will have already read all the others to be waiting when the UPS guy knocks on my door with my new book.

If you feel like answering these questions will fill a hole in your blog this week or you just want to laugh while you write, I did, then consider yourself tagged. Answer on my friends.

We All Know the Feeling…

I immediately flashed back to Revolution. It was a TV show I binge watched the first season of on Netflix. I loved it. I loved the slow pace. I loved how each episode focused on a character and gave you their back story, what they were doing when the black out occurred, how they survived since then, a little window into how they became who they are in this post power universe. The second and final season came out just before I had surgery last fall. I saved it. Saved the season to watch while I was recovering. And then each day I would think about starting that second season and decide against it. What if the second season wasn’t as good as the first? What if it was? How soon would I go through the episodes and be left with no more. I knew the show had been canceled and so the second season was all there was.
Would you believe six months later, I have only watched the first episode of the second season. It was kind of a disappointment. I think about watching more every now and again, but I hate to ruin what is still, in my mind, a great show with further lack luster episodes. oh the humanity….