As you might know from my most recent post, I just finished A Storm of Swords. This puts me at least a whole season ahead of HBO's Game of Thrones, which should help me to avoid spoilers. Now, I can get back to the business at hand: reading planetary romance, starting with the John Carter of Mars books.
... except that my plans have changed.
You see, I set out to read planetary romance as a form of research in preparation for NaNoWriMo, but my thoughts on the novel that I was to write have transformed it from throw-away adventure into magnum opus. It feels as weird as it sounds. Anyway, that means that I'm shelving it until I get more practice at this whole novel thing. So, what do I do now?
Thanks to cthulhuchick on twitter, I've discovered that one John Maddox Roberts wrote a series of mystery novels that take place in ancient Rome. Throw-away comment about vampires in ancient Rome? You're becoming a throw-away novel about vampires in ancient Rome.
New problem: I know nothing about ancient Rome, and it's about the end of August. This is not enough time to learn about ancient Rome and fully outline a novel! What do I do?
I'm basically looking at two options now:
1. I re-attempt last year's novel.
2. I skip NaNoWriMo this year.
Unless I get a story idea about a subject with which I'm already familiar, these are my two options, and they're both looking about equal right now.
So, my reading schedule, at the moment, is some SPQR, some Barsoom, and some H.P. Lovecraft.
Showing posts with label Lovecraft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lovecraft. Show all posts
Friday, August 31, 2012
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Current Reading
Since I blogged about something that I read recently, I thought that I might blog about what I'm planning to read in the near future. So, here we go.
- A Clash of Kings - I've been wanting to start into A Song of Ice and Fire for a while now. Now that I've read A Game of Thrones, I want to see what happens next. This will also help give me a better buffer against spoilers, which only really became an issue with that HBO series; I don't know whether it will press into the territory of the later books, but I'd rather be safe about it.
- A Princess of Mars - This is mostly because I've recently acquired an interest in the planetary romance genre. Most references to that genre seem to relate the Barsoom series as among its defining works, so I thought that I'd give it a whirl.
- Dune - I saw this classified as planetary romance, as well, and I've been meaning to read it for a long time, anyway.
- a collection of brothers Grimm fairy tales - At one point, I picked up three books of fairy tales. I've finished two of them, but I still need to read this one. Of course, original fairy tales from the brothers Grimm are also of interest to me, anyway.
- the complete works of H.P. Lovecraft - This has been on my long-term to-read list for quite a while. Discovering The H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast gave me a new motivation, and also an order (chronologically by date written), though I've fallen behind.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Sudden Short Story 13
He walked at an easy pace through the cemetery, until he saw it. He paused for a moment, to consider things.
"Providence, indeed.... It seems that I was too late, after all. Too late? I'm not even sure any more. I suppose that I had this notion that I could save you from yourself, but now, even I am not immune to the inexorable march of time."
He sat down, his floor-length dark grey trench-coat passively saving him from the slight discomfort of sitting directly upon the wet grass, while seeming to match the skies which oddly had yet to rain.
"She only goes forward, now, you know. It's the perfect paradox, too: The only solution lies in the direction that I cannot travel. I guess that you were right in that no one can escape all the monsters, in the end."
He laid himself down upon the grass, looking up at the dark sky. Overcome with a new feeling, he closed his eyes for a few minutes, though he remained awake. Some minutes in, he spoke again:
"You know, normally, by now, I'd have some sort of clever insight to get myself out of this situation. It takes some getting used to, I'd say."
There was quiet again for a few moments.
"I still don't have anything. I suppose that there's not much point in giving status updates to a tombstone, though. Then again, I don't suppose that there's ever much point in it, but I seem to have picked up some strange habits lately."
He took yet another lengthy pause, before speaking again: "I sometimes regret it, showing you those ... strange vistas, I suppose. I suppose that there was something gained from it, of course, but I can't help but think that you'd have been the odd one out, the one who would have been happier if I'd never shown up at all. And I further suppose that that's the one thing that we always accumulate: regrets, the downside to living so very, very long...."
A few drops of water began to fall from the sky. "I suppose that that's my cue to go," he said, standing. "I think that I'll skip the war. I've had enough of wars for now. Maybe I'll just skip right to the Arab Spring. We'll see."
And with that, he returned the way that he came.
"Providence, indeed.... It seems that I was too late, after all. Too late? I'm not even sure any more. I suppose that I had this notion that I could save you from yourself, but now, even I am not immune to the inexorable march of time."
He sat down, his floor-length dark grey trench-coat passively saving him from the slight discomfort of sitting directly upon the wet grass, while seeming to match the skies which oddly had yet to rain.
"She only goes forward, now, you know. It's the perfect paradox, too: The only solution lies in the direction that I cannot travel. I guess that you were right in that no one can escape all the monsters, in the end."
He laid himself down upon the grass, looking up at the dark sky. Overcome with a new feeling, he closed his eyes for a few minutes, though he remained awake. Some minutes in, he spoke again:
"You know, normally, by now, I'd have some sort of clever insight to get myself out of this situation. It takes some getting used to, I'd say."
There was quiet again for a few moments.
"I still don't have anything. I suppose that there's not much point in giving status updates to a tombstone, though. Then again, I don't suppose that there's ever much point in it, but I seem to have picked up some strange habits lately."
He took yet another lengthy pause, before speaking again: "I sometimes regret it, showing you those ... strange vistas, I suppose. I suppose that there was something gained from it, of course, but I can't help but think that you'd have been the odd one out, the one who would have been happier if I'd never shown up at all. And I further suppose that that's the one thing that we always accumulate: regrets, the downside to living so very, very long...."
A few drops of water began to fall from the sky. "I suppose that that's my cue to go," he said, standing. "I think that I'll skip the war. I've had enough of wars for now. Maybe I'll just skip right to the Arab Spring. We'll see."
And with that, he returned the way that he came.
--- Author's note: Yes, I know: I suck at descriptions.
Monday, August 4, 2008
I must not be named!
Well, I just took a mythos-related quiz online, and here are the results:
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Which Cthulhu Mythos character/God are you? created with QuizFarm.com | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| You scored as Hastur You are Hastur! Thought to be Cthulu's half brother and rival or the king in yellow, Hastur comes from Carcossa on Hyades. You confuse people and often make those you meet crazy. No one really knows what to make of you and do you even really know what to make of yourself?
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Yes, apparantly, I am him-who-must-not-be-named, though really it was close, as you can see from the scale thingies.
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