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Books, Uncategorized

Final Book List of 2024

TitleAuthorDate StartedDate FinishedNotes
About GraceDoerr, Anthony *Aug 24, 2024 Dec 30, 2024Read for Book Club – after having read Cloud Cuckoo Land, I was expecting an epic novel and this was quite intimate.
All Stitched Up: The Complete Guide to Finishing Stitches for Hand-KnittersCrowfoot, Janenot setJan 09, 2025Need to buy a copy of this – so helpful.
Big Mouth and Ugly GirlOates, Joyce CarolAug 19, 2024Jul 27, 2024Read for Book Club – enh. It’s not my genre. I kept worrying for the protagonists.
Bookshops & Bonedust (Legends & Lattes, #0)Baldree, Travis *Nov 06, 2024Oct 19, 2024Loved this book! Read it out of order and it still worked for me. 🙂
Boy of Chaotic Making (Whimbrel House, #3)Holmberg, Charlie N. *Jun 03, 2024Jan 15, 2024Love this series so much! Cozy Fantasy!
The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-HopCoval, Kevinnot setJan 09, 2025Best book I read all year. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the English language or poetry.
Could You Survive Midsomer?: Can you avoid a bizarre death in England’s most dangerous county?Brew, SimonMay 30, 2024 Jul 27, 2024Choose Your Own Adventure book for adults. 🙂 Went through it many, many times.
Dear Kimberly…Love, Makayla: The Unraveling of My Evangelical Faith Into the UnknownMcCuistion, Kayla JoJan 16, 2024Jul 27, 2024One of my band mom friends wrote this. Very thoughtful. I stopped an started a bunch because it’s hard to see a friend going through a hard time.
Design Your Own Crochet Projects: Magic Formulas for Creating Custom Scarves, Cowls, Hats, Socks, Mittens & GlovesDelaney, SaraJan 09, 2024 Feb 28, 2025I’ve checked this out twice now, so I should really just buy it already.
Earth, Air, Fire & Water: More Techniques of Natural MagicCunningham, ScottDec 28, 2024Dec 30, 2024Trying to get ideas for this novel I’m writing
Geek Knits: Over 30 Projects for Fantasy Fanatics, Science Fiction Fiends, and Knitting NerdsDark, Joan of *not setJan 09, 2024So many cute ideas.
Hooked: When Addiction Hits HomeShantz-Hilkes, ChloeApr 11, 2024Apr 29, 2024This helped me understand people in my life so much better than I did before. If you hear me talk about “the yellow book”, this is that one.
How to be the best Maid of Honor ever: You’re Welcome SeriesBrooks, MakaylaJan 05, 2024Jan 05, 2024One of my band mom friends wrote this. I love supporting my fellow writers. This one is more of a pamphlet length than an actual book.
How to Make a Living as a Writer: Publish books, articles and blogs (Writing Boot Camp Book 1)Roshay, Amber *Jan 09, 2024?I read this off and on throughout the year
In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with AddictionMaté, GaborMay 04, 2024Dec 30, 2024This is NOT light reading. It took me all year to get through because I had to stop and recover so often.
Knits for Nerds: 30 Projects: Science Fiction, Comic Books, FantasyCarr, ToniJan 09, 2024Jan 09, 2024Loved
Knitting Plus: Mastering Fit, Plus-Size Style, 15 ProjectsShroyer, LisaJan 09, 2024Jan 09, 2024Want my own copy, but haven’t found one yet.
The Knitting Way: A Guide To Spiritual Self-DiscoverySkolnik, Linda T.Feb 12, 2024Jan 09, 2025Loved this enough to buy my own copy.
The Last of the Moon GirlsDavis, Barbara *Jul 27, 2024 Jul 26, 2024Read for Book Club
– it was all right. Would read other books by the author.
Lessons in ChemistryGarmus, Bonnie *Apr 19, 2024Apr 06, 2024Read for Book Club – Delightful and cannot wait for the movie
The Library of the Dead (Edinburgh Nights, #1)Huchu, T.L.Oct 19, 2024Oct 19, 2024Loved it so much I read it in one sitting.
Literary Knits: 30 Patterns Inspired by Favorite BooksLohr, NikolJan 09, 2024Jan 09, 2024So many cute things
Living with a Functioning Alcoholic: A Woman`s Survival GuideNeill, NeillFeb 2024Feb 2024My copy of this was NOT yellow. It was good, just not the “yellow book” I talk about.
Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan RickmanRickman, AlanFeb 2024Oct 21, 2024 Audio book – took ages to get through, but thoroughly loved it.
Magic Bites (Kate Daniels, #1)Andrews, Ilona *July 2024 July 2024Re-read so I could read the next one
Magic Burns (Kate Daniels, #2)Andrews, Ilona *July 2024July 2024Good!
Midsomer Murders Location Guide: Discover the Villages, Pubs and Churches Behind the Hit TV SeriesHopkinson, FrankJun 02, 2024 Dec 30, 2024This book was obviously a coffeetable book that should not have been turned into an e-book. It was pretty, though. I just couldn’t read it on my Kindle.
Modern Crochet: Crochet Accessories and Projects for Your HomeMills, MollaJan 09, 2025Jan 09, 2025Lots of cute ideas here.
Modern MendingLewis-Fitzgerald, Erin *Oct 20, 2024Dec 04, 2024Got through ILL.
NeedleplayWilson, EricaJan 09, 2025 Jan 09, 2025I own this book now.
Nine Liars (Truly Devious, #5)Johnson, Maureen *Jan 09, 2025Jan 09, 2025This series is so very good.
Not Your Mama’s Stitching: The Cool and Creative Way to Stitch It To ‘EmShoup, Kate *Feb 27, 2024 Feb 27, 2024 Cute stuff in here. Would be good for a beginner.
Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the VoidRoach, MarySep 30, 2024Dec 30, 2024Read for Book Club and found it fascinating. Would read anything by this author now.
Real Men Don’t Eat QuicheFeirstein, BruceJun 30, 2024Jun 30, 2024Ree bought this for the LOL’s
Shadow and Bone (The Shadow and Bone Trilogy, #1)Bardugo, Leigh *Jan 02, 2024Jan 8, 2024Was watching the show and thought, I might like this better as a book and it turned out I liked both.
Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the RentDench, JudiOct 19,2024  Dec 22, 2024So good. So funny. I love Judi Dench even more now and that should not have been possible.
Siege and Storm (The Shadow and Bone Trilogy, #2)Bardugo, Leigh *Jan 09, 2024Jan 29, 2024Good!
Sweet Shawlettes: 25 Irresistible Patterns for Knitting Cowls, Capelets, and MoreMoss, Jeannot setJan 09, 2025Many cute patterns.
The Thin ManHammett, DashiellFeb 19, 2024Feb 24, 2024Read for Book Club
The Weaver and the Witch QueenGornichec, Genevieve *Jan 08, 2024Jan 09, 2024I had deja vu the entire time I read this and kept wondering if I’d dreamt it or seen it as a movie, but neither thing appears to be true, so it must just be that the writing was insanely good and I really felt like I was THERE.
The Wizard of Oz (Oz, #1)Baum, L. FrankDec 02, 2024Dec 02, 2024Re-reading this after watching the movie version of the Wicked musical, which is a version of the book, which is a retelling of the movie version of of this book.

After I copied and pasted all that out of Good Reads, I realized that at least a couple of books were inexplicably missing, so I’m going to add them below:

  • “Barbara and Susan Talk about Empty Nests”
  • “The Nightingale” by Kara Dalkey Finished 1/27/24

Books I started, but did not finish (mostly because I used them for research for my novels or my lessons – this is not a complete list, but based off what I can remember and see from my seat here at the computer):

  • The Making of a Poem
  • Mary Oliver’s A Poetry Handbook
  • Sound and Form in Modern Poetry
  • The Essential Poet’s Glossary
  • How to Publish Your Poetry
  • The Language Poets Use
  • Sin and Syntax
  • McGraw/Hill Handbook of English Grammar and Usage
  • Dialogue by Robert McKee
  • Make a Scene
  • DIYMFA
  • The Concise Dictionary of Interior Decorating
  • Real Magic by Bonewits
  • Damon Knight’s Creating Short Fiction
  • Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey
  • Scene and Structure
  • Totally Useless Information
  • A Writer’s Complete Fantasy Reference
  • Body Trauma: A Writer’s Guide to Wounds and Injuries

Everywhere But Home, Lifelong learning, Speaking, Uncategorized, What I Love, Writing

Come out and see me at the Open Door Writing Group – Night Group today!

I will be speaking at the Open Door Writing Group – Night Group today at the UU Fellowship (1629 Old Omen Road in Tyler) at 6pm on the topic of “Humorous Writing”. Come on over and join us!

Everywhere But Home, My Own Personal Weirdness, My Writing, The Past Comes Back to Haunt Me, Uncategorized, What I Love, Writing

Playing catch-up

How is it already September? The summer went by so quickly and I’ve spent so much of it rushed off my feet with all the background, real-life stuff that is hard to cover in a blog post.

Here’s an update on my word counts from the last few months:

June: 8,880

July: 12,807

August: 22,434

Look at how I’ve improved! I’ve triple-checked that last one, but it is correct.

June’s improvement mainly came from writing more short stories. I stayed pretty busy with all the behind the scenes stuff from the other house, getting my eldest ready to go spend a month in China, teaching at both the ODWG writing groups, etc.

July’s word count bump came from not only more writing days in front of the computer on short story work, but also in the category I call “Lessons”, which I write for my local area writing groups. I was trying to get ahead for the busier times of the year when I’d have less time to prepare a lesson. It’s wild to me that I had any kind of improvement at all, really, because my spouse and I spent two weeks flat out with Covid.

August’s giant improvement came in the form of a road trip with my husband. For our anniversary last month, he surprised me with a trip to a little town in the middle of nowhere, which had a fantastic vibe, lots of fun things to tour, and quirky town oddities. Well, that tied in to the long-neglected Lake House Mystery in my brain. So I pulled out that old manuscript, updated a few bits here and there, and then started adding some fun stuff that popped into my head during the trip. After six days of adding little bits here, there, and everywhere, I had an extra 16,000-ish words added, all easy-peasy, which was amazing because that literally doubled the size of this manuscript.

I’m not done there, though. This mystery needs about 30,000 more words before it’ll be done. I’m wanting to finish that this month, while the mood is still is the air, so to speak. Crossing my fingers and hoping real hard.

-L

Everywhere But Home, Lifelong learning, Speaking, Writing

Today’s Speaking Engagement at the Open Door Writing Group

I spoke today at the Open Door Writing Group – Day Group (at the Tyler Public Library) on “Elements of Crime Writing”. Despite some technological conundrums early on, I got my slide show up and running and the lesson ran smoothly. Several writers piped in with good bonus information, which I always love to hear…and add to my notes for later presentations. I’m always improving on my lessons, y’all.

You should definitely come visit this group sometime! More information here: opendoorwritinggroup.com

Everywhere But Home, Lifelong learning, Speaking, Writing

Upcoming Speaking Engagement at the Open Door Writing Group – Day Group on August 28, 2024

I will be speaking at the Open Door Writing Group (at the Tyler Public Library) at 1pm on August 28, 2024 on the topic of “Elements of Crime Writing”. (If you think this sounds familiar, it’s because I did the same lesson at their night group a couple of weeks ago.) Come on over and join us!

Open Door Writing Group

Uncategorized

Upcoming Speaking Engagement at the Authors: Embracing Resilience in Writing Journey on September 6, 2024

I will be speaking at the Authors: Embracing Resilience in Writing Journey on September 6, 2024 on the topic of “My 2024 Resilience Journey”. Come on over and join us!

Everywhere But Home, Lifelong learning, Speaking, Writing

Upcoming Speaking Engagement at the Open Door Writing Group – Night Group on August 8, 2024

I will be speaking at the Open Door Writing Group (at the Tyler Public Library) at 1pm on August 8, 2024 on the topic of “Elements of Crime Writing”. Come on over and join us!

Open Door Writing Group

Everywhere But Home, My Own Personal Weirdness, Organizing, Speaking, What I Love, Writing

Upcoming Speaking Engagement at the Open Door Writing Group – Night Group on July 25, 2024


I will be speaking at the Open Door Writing Group – Night Group at the UU Fellowship of Tyler next Thursday, July 25, 2024 on the topic of “Story Beats and Echoes”. This is an updated version of what I taught at the day group, so come on over and join us!

Everywhere But Home, Lifelong learning, Speaking, Writing

Upcoming Speaking Engagement at the Open Door Writing Group – Day Group on July 24, 2024

I will be speaking at the Open Door Writing Group – Day Group on July 24, 2024 at 1pm at the Tyler Public Library on the topic of “Character Reactions”. Come on and join us! 🙂

Uncategorized

Can’t believe it’s June already

I’ve spent most of the last week running around trying to keep my and my kids houses from falling down around our ears due to storm damages. A tree fell through the roof at the kids house, so they’ve moved back home this week. The power’s been out and then even once it came back, we had no internet for days and days. It’s been really nuts, so I haven’t managed to finish transcribing from May yet. There’s no telling how many words I got, though I’m going to hazard a guess that I almost matched February’s numbers (around 17,000) because I was really going hard on my short story work. I’ll do an extra update next week about that. (Update: I couldn’t find everything in order to transcribe it all, so I didn’t hit my goal. I was somewhere around 7,000 when I ran out of things to transcribe.)

One of the other writing related things going on behind the scenes is time spent putting together an anthology for the Open Door Writing Group. I can’t remember if I mentioned this before. We’re having members of our group (both online and offline) write short works of non-fiction, fiction, or poetry on the theme of frogs. It started off as a fun little writing prompt, but it really took off. The in person writers were entranced by all of our frog stories and really wanted a wider audience for them. Since I have the most behind-the-scenes knowledge of how to start an anthology, I’ve been doing quite a lot of the legwork for the project. We’ve opened up the possibility of having writers also contribute to putting the anthology together and handling stuff as well. It’s been fun so far. I hope all the hard work pays off. We’re anticipating a mid-November launch date.

In other real life stuff, we had Mother’s Day, which we celebrated early at a sort of local renaissance festival (2 hours away), and then actual mother’s day I just sort of spent hanging out. We finally got our roof replaced from the hail storm in February. Then we had all the graduations and parties to attend and finished up the month with my husband’s favorite annual family BBQ (which we host here at my house).