Reading and Writing (and 'rithmetic)

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Reading this.  Wonderful!! If you haven't read this, or Kit Whitfield's earlier novel, Bareback (UK title) (aka Benighted in the US), you are missing out.  Are they literary? Genre? Scifi? Fantasy?  Dunno.  Bareback is about werewolves, and In Great Waters about mermaids (or deepsmen, in the book's terminology).  That's simplistic, given the quality of the writing and storytelling.  I came across her first book by accident, and bought the second in hardback, Because I Couldn't Wait... and when I've finished this one, I'm going to read Bareback again.

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I'm playing this game again.  Just under 1700 words a day, to reach 50,000 in the month.  NaNoWriMo is a great way to get yourself writing, fishing out things you didn't even know were in your head, getting you writing every day.  It's not too late to start... I plan to carry my (work-supplied) baby laptop around everywhere this month, so I have No Excuse (and don't have to transcribe my sometimes 'orrible scrawl).  Some of the kids are NaNo-ing too (with a smaller goal through the Young Writer version) and so I hope to encourage them and be motivated in my turn.

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'rithmetic? 1700 words a day.... I didn't make it the first year I did NaNo; last year I managed just over 51,000 words, and this year I've got an idea I want to chase - not sure entirely where it's going to go, but I'll find out...

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And I've read and enjoyed Diana Gabaldon's latest, An Echo in the Bone, and now wonder if it will be another four years before all the loose ends get to be explored further...  The audiobook (yes, it's on Audible, hurrah!) has just been loaded on the iPod and I'm sure I'll notice things I missed on that first fast read.  At over forty hours, you can see why I like a download rather than CDs, and not only to avoid postage but to avoid the tedium of transferring them to iTunes.

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