Friday, April 20, 2018

Ghost Stories

I've been thinking about ghost stories lately. Or rather, I was thinking about what are the kinds of books and stories I like to read (I was pulling together a list of recommendations for a friend), and as I did so I realized that I've read a lot of ghost stories.

And then I realized that a lot of my story/book ideas involve spirits of some sort. Or different ways of being haunted. Or communication with the dead. Or... ghosts, I guess. I had just never thought about it that way before. Huh.

Anyway, I thought I'd share some of my recent favorite ghost stories with you. These are in alpha order, short stories first, then books. With an essay in between!

Presque Vu - Nino Cipri, Liminal Stories
Old Habits - Nalo Hopkinson, Uncanny Magazine
Postcards from Natalie - Carrie Laban, The Dark Magazine
If A Bird Can Be A Ghost - Allison Mills, Apex Magazine
Twilight Travels with the Grape-Paper Man - Sara Saab, The Dark Magazine

How To Talk To Ghosts - R.F. Kuang, Uncanny Magazine (the essay)

I didn't offer any commentary on these because I find short stories are kind of like poetry for me in how I respond - there's either something I respond to immediately or there isn't. I thought all of these were lovely, all made me think, all of them pinged my heart.

On to the books!

Here I'm not going to comment (much) because these books give me SO MUCH FEELING and GOOD THINKING I wouldn't be able to contain myself. I'll just point out the level of romance / sexual explicitness so you know to avoid (or pick up).

KJ Charles, The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal
          Ah, I'm not sure how explicit this is? I don't remember. There is on-page sex, and there is a relationship between the main characters, but the book is not a romance, it's interconnected ghost stories. That will break your heart.

Alysia Constantine, Sweet
          Both a romance and explicit. (Warmish, not hot. Well, I suppose that depends on what you're used to.) And heart-breaking.

Stacia Kane's Downside Ghosts (Books 1-3)
          Again, I don't remember how explicit this is. The relationship develops over the course of the books but it wasn't the main focus of them, the mysteries were. For a long time I didn't realize there were more than the three books - the story line at the end of book 3 felt complete. I did later pick up book 4 but it didn't seem to be adding anything new to either the world or the characters so I stopped. But the first three were great.

Cassandra Khaw, Hammers On Bone
          Monsters meets film noir. Marvelous. Oh the language.

Amir Lane's Morrighan House Witches series
          There is also a prequel novella, Rise. Relationships, yes, sex, a little, not not not romantic. In a review I described the first book I read of these as a hot mess - but a compelling, winds around your mind and heart and throat kind of mess. I started these as e-books but then bought them in print so, mess or not, they clearly speak to me in some way.

And last but so very much not least, Jordan Castillo Price's Psycop series. Yes, a romance (and definitely sexually explicit), and also murder mysteries, and, as the series continues, possible conspiracy as well. Great characters who change and grow over the books.

Overall, a treasure of stories too good to save for Halloween.

And please pass on your recommendations!

Annie

Monday, April 9, 2018

It Must Be Spring, I'm Setting Goals

Even if it is currently snowing AGAIN.

I've gotten twitchy about setting goals publicly over the last year, especially ones to do with running, but things have been going well the last couple of weeks (slow, slow, but still improving) and I've begun to set my sights forward.

So I think I'm going to shoot for the Hot Chocolate 15K in November.

I've run this before and enjoyed the race. It's a good distance, at a good time in the year. No time goals this time around, I just want to be able to work up to that distance again and have a race on the calendar.

And in non-running goals, I've signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo this month. You may remember that National Novel Writing Month (November) is a world-wide writing challenge of 50,000 words for the month. Camp NaNoWriMo happens twice a year, in April and July, and you set your our challenge for the month, be it time spent or words or pages or even specific projects.

I've set my goal as 15,000 words for the month. I've done a lot of research and revising and transcribing over the last four months but very little new material in that time, and it's been hard to get started again. Excruciatingly hard. Then Camp NaNo came up in a couple of different Facebook groups I'm in - I hadn't even been aware of it prior to last week - and I thought this might be the challenge I need to get back into a regular writing (vs. revising/research) habit. So far it seems to be working. (Cross fingers.)

Hmm... perhaps I need to set some kind of challenge for myself for the garden?

Not happy about today's snow,
Annie

Monday, April 2, 2018

Music To Enliven My Monday

After watching NBC's "Jesus Christ Superstar" last night and having the music in my head every time I woke up, I needed to drive it out. (But Brandon Victor Dixon as Judas was amazing!)

FYI, none of these are videos, just the music.

Started with a little Jesse y Joy for the car ("Ay Doctor!")

Then, since I have the day off (one benefit of working for a church), I ran home after dropping the boys off at school and these came up on my iPod:

Stevie Wonder's "Signed Sealed Delivered" - this may be one of my favorite songs ever:

Neneh Cherry and The Thing's "Dream Baby Dream":
I used to have a playlist that I called "trance", just for long distance running, when I wanted to lose myself in something long and rhythmic. Then I realized I loved all those songs too much to just listen to them on long runs, and I mixed them into my usual running playlist. I got to see Neneh Cherry at Pitchfork a couple of years ago and it was one of my favorite performances ever. She didn't do this one, though, she wasn't performing with The Thing on that tour. This is another song that builds and builds and builds and then... just fades.

Then I finished out my run with "Despacito", but I won't share the clip for that, since I'm aware that some people have gotten tired of it by now (not me!) and there's no need to make it anyone's ear worm.

And then I wanted to share a new band for me, Bang Data. Apparently they did music for the TV show "Breaking Bad", but I'm always a few years (or more!) behind with TV. This is "El Pacino":

Now, since I'm home by myself, I can play Juan Gabriel and Lila Downs all day without anyone complaining.

With a song in my heart,
Annie