Zie

So in between all the excitement of shopping, I've been reading two very good books. The first one is called Illuminae. It's science fiction novel about two teens who's planet is destroyed and are then caught in the middle of a war.

It is told through files, IMs, and other classified documents. It is like nothing I've ever read before, to be frank, and I am totally hooked. The characters are coming out through the texts and it's really cool because you don't learn the characters in the same way you would in a traditional novel.

You have to rely on the writing and exchanges between the files. Kady reminds me a lot of Cassie Sullivan from the 5th Wave or Tris Prior from the Divergent series. Ezra well, Ezra is definitely Zombie aka Ben Parrish from the 5th Wave. But these are good comparisons because all of those characters were 3 dimensional, and you really learned to care about about them all.

The second book is called Roseblood by AG Howard, author of the Splintered trilogy. It is a re-telling of The Phantom of the Opera, and I gotta admit, it's a little harder to find my groove in this one. I love it, though. I'm glad I'm not rushing to read it. Even if I read it slowly, I have other books I'm reading faster, and I might still make my goal.

Tonight, we went to a birthday party next door, and it was sort of bittersweet. I found out they were moving to Dade City, and that's pretty far for someone who can't drive. Jim did agree to come and get me sometimes if I wanted to hang out or do stuff with his son Beau.

I found out that my copy of Puyo Puyo Tetris shipped from Fingerhut, but not Splatoon 2. Starting to get a little worried. Hoping it ships by Tuesday. I had to order things on Labor Day weekend. Even my Switch got pushed back to being shipped on Tuesday, but that was because someone messaged my seller to try and tell him to send it to New Jersey. What the hell. Thankfully the seller messaged me to verify. And we got it all straightened out.

Time to get ready to go to sleep, and hope I'm feeling better by tomorrow. Can't call anyone at least till Tuesday because of the holiday. Goodnight, everyone!

So frustrated with money these days. So my Google Play allows me to use PayPal, right? I have PayPal set to use my Credit Line instead of my bank account. Stupid PayPal used my bank account, and now I'm -41 again in the damn checking account. It's too late to request a refund from Google. And since they already retracted one fee, I doubt the bank is going to do it again. Things are going to be super tight next month, that's for sure. Any extra money will be used for food only.

My friend Jeanette stayed the night last night. Not sure that's going to happen again for a while. Turns out when we're not crafting, we basically have nothing in common. I was content on my laptop, and she wanted to talk to her fiancee all night. -sigh- Oh well, at least we tried it. I'm sure Howard will be here around 12 or so pick her up because he apparently missed her a lot. (I have a sneaking suspicion it was the other way around, but I'm going to let her tell me it was Howard.)

Still tinkering with an idea for Blake from my Witch School series. I want to write like mini-webisodes for him. But I'm trying not to write anything in the series except the main story in November, so we'll see how that goes. If nothing else, I can finish the atrocity that is the current incarnation of the Roba Fan Novel. I really hate how it's come out, and if I didn't like certain parts of it, I'd scrap the whole damn thing.

Honestly, I might have to go back to the original origin story because it's just not working. Every time I've tried to change Victoria's origins, it ends up in a colossal failure. But that would mean a possible re-write of Snake in the Grass (for Victoria's origin story), Return to Me (for her introduction to Espa and the family), and No Vacancy (for her and Christien's romantic relationship. )I'd count Entrapment except I outright hate that story, and wish I had never come up with it. But it is probably the reason that Wyatt at least was created in the first place. Okay, there is at least one element to the story that I did like, and that was the death of Johanna, Victoria's real world best friend who died protecting her from Marik's yami. But other than that, the crap with Duke, and everything that followed it, I could do without. So maybe a new story dealing with Jo's death, but leaving Duke out of it would be in order.

On the other hand, that is a lot of work to re-work. 14 years worth, and I don't know if I have that in me. I love the Robas, and I love Victoria, but there has to be a point in time where I draw the line. And that just might be it. Still...I really want to rewrite Into the Lion's Den, and make it the dramatic story I know it can be. Now that I've seen 'Phantom' on stage in person, I know what Wyatt would need to do to be the right kind of 'Phantom' for Victoria. I just have been having trouble writing the new origin story, and that's what is holding me up on 'Lion's Den'.

The thing is, I know the endgame of the entire saga. Victoria and Christien do get married, and they end up moving out to Vegas to get away from the carnival, and Victoria takes up professional classical singing ala Sarah Brightman. That certainly doesn't help me now though. -sigh-

In other news, I finally started The Chemist by Stephenie Meyer. Yeah, she actually wrote a new book, and so far, it's boring the every loving crap out of me. I've got two more chapters before I give up on it. So she has two more chances to prove she can pull this off. And I've got two more chances not to be completely disappointed. I'm worried though that I might be negatively biased by Meyer because of the things she's done in regards to her Twilight fans, and just in general, the lack of communication with readers overall. With social media being what it is, you'd think that would make people reach out more, but she has been so reclusive that I really didn't even know about The Chemist until I got an alert from Amazon last week.

My friend lockedgroovementioned that I might not like her anymore because of the many different authors and styles I've read since The Host was released. And all of them were of better quality writing than Stephenie Meyer's earlier work. I still feel like The Host was way better written than the Twilight Saga was. Was it perfect? No. But it was still an improvement in my opinion. She can still spin a story. I've always said that. Now I just wonder if I've grown up, reader wise, and expect more? Hmm.

Anyway, I'll probably have an answer about continuing the book after Chapter 3 by tomorrow. Today after my friends leave, I start Passengers by Alexandra Bracken (one of those said better authors), and I want to read more in Roseblood and Unhinged. Yes, I am reading 4 books, and that's because I am 7 books behind in my Reading Challenge. Time to play major catch up.

There's a lot going on besides what's been going on with me and the Nintendo Switch. Here is the biggest of the things on my mind. My brother Daniel may potentially lose his job if he can't find a car. If he loses his job he's going to be out on the street. If that happens, Mom will probably have him, Ashley, and the baby move in here. That will take away my craft room because of course I would give it to Alicia. Baby is obviously more important than any crafts I would do.

They ensure me this is not something I can really help with, but I still worry because he's going to be invading my life again, and there are going to be food fights and everything else. Cal is upset about it because he's made it no secret he never really wanted me to move down here with them. I can understand, honestly. It's not like I Chose to be disabled. I didn't want to be living with my parents forever. But that's just how things are.

In other news, I am 60% of the way through Splintered. Maybe if I read to Chapter fifteen tonight, I can read the last six chapters tomorrow. Morpheus might get some play by tomorrow night if I am diligent about finishing.

My right foot has been acting up again. The pain I was having last December is back. Just what I need. I'll be calling the podiatrist Monday. I was given a referral back in April, but it had cleared up. Now it's back, so I'm going to take care of it now and see what happens.

Well, that's all I"ve got for now. I'll talk to you guys tomorrow.

Debating a name change here. I know, shocking, right? But I've been thinking about this for a long time. I love the Robas, and that is never going to change. I will always love Christoria. I will ship it until I take my last breath. But I am ready to entertain a new interest for a while.

That interest is Alice in Wonderland (or as it's known in the literary world, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass and What She Found There). I still haven't figured out what the journal name will be, but I'll probably buy a renaming token and then change it when I do.

Lately, I've been doing a lot of reading on re-tellings. That is, the novels I'm reading are retellings of classic stories. The first series I read like this was Wicked. I still need to finish it, I'm aware. The next series I read was Dorothy Must Die, and as you've probably guessed, that series is a sort of re-telling of The Wizard of Oz.

Currently, I am reading a re-telling of Alice in WOnderland called the Splintered series by AG Howard. They've made the caterpillar a...psuedo-antagonist. I love him, naturally. His name is Morpheus. You'll probably hear a lot more about him, eventually. Right now, I'm sort of intrigued. And I can't wait to discover more about him, and share with everyone.

My obsession with Wonderland probably began with the Tim Burton movies. No, not probably. I KNOW it began with BUrton's movies. I loved the aspects of the movie that Alice used (though probably unknowingly) whatever conflict was going on in Underland to work through the problems going on in her personal life. This is no more noticable than in the second movie, Through the Looking Glass.

But anyway, I decided that Since I've really gotten into this fandom, I'll probably be switching things up for a bit.