Susanne Winter

Good morning! I actually was so busy doing nothing yesterday evening that I forgot to post another update (sorry). And when I remembered the wifi was already turned off. (Because of the teenager in the house (and because I don’t have any discipline at all) our wifi turns off at 9 pm sharp so that certain people don’t stay up way too late because of the internet.)

I did end the day watching “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, the first episode ever where we see the Klingon home planet and learn more about Worf’s family, that was very good.

I still haven’t finished „Murder Over Mochas“* but I guess I will do so today, only one more hour to read. I’m still waiting for something surprising to happen but I guess it will pretty soon. When you only read a minute here or there things always seem to move slowly. But then there are books where it’s completely impossible to only read a minute here and a minute there because they are so captivating. But then that’s not why you read cozy mystery.

So I’ll just read more of what I read yesterday, unless I finish the mystery real quick and start something new. I just realized that I had bought book three of the Bobiverse novels and have never read it. It’s a pity when there are all these great books coming out, and I snap them up the minute I see them, and then I completely forget about them.

If things go according to plan I might also spend some time thinking about the novel-to-be. But I bet I’ll be procrastinating instead. I’m really good at that, even.

Update 12.00:

I spent most of the morning refreshing my blog in the browser because I couldn’t access it. Finally I caved and conteacted support. It seems that the IP-address I was using was denied access by mistake. No fun.

At least I can participate now.

So far I have talked a lot to my husband, and a little to my son, and have read very little in „Murder over Mochas“. I only have one hour of reading left but if I don’t read I won’t be able to finish.

But first the making of lunch.

Update 5 pm:

Lunch was good but not as good as I had hoped. We had pasta with shrimps. And alcohol-free red wine. Which I don’t like. Alcohol-free beer is okay to drink if you don’t expect it to taste like the real thing but the wine is something I don’t care for at all.

Afterwards I did the dishes, and then I sat down to knit gauge swatches for my next sweater and finally finished reading „Murder over Mochas“. It is a cute book but didn’t really grip me. No idea if I just wasn’t in the mood, or if it’s the book’s fault. I feel like I enjoyed the other books in the series more.

Also I’m not getting anything near gauge for the sweater. So I will need to knit yet another gauge swatch with a still smaller needle. I sould have listened to my intuition. It told me that I should knit this yarn with a 2 mm needle but of course I had to go ahead and try bigger ones first. Knitting gauge swatches always feels like it takes ages. But that must be an illusion because a gauge swatch isn’t that big.

So I went back to „A Shifter’s Fevered Heart“* by Chloe Adler. I’m still at the beginning, and so far it’s going nicely. I’m not sure I’m in the mood for that one, though. This might be one of those days where I skip from book to book, never quite settling down.

I’ve also been doing some vague thinking in circles for the novel but vague thinking won’t get my outlining done. That doesn’t look promising at the moment. But first I’ll make a little music, just a bit of warm-up, and then we’ll see.

I’m guessing dinner will be early today as well because of the clock change.

Update 8.30:

 So we’re almost at the end of this year’s fall reading in October, and since my wifi will turn itself off in a short while this will be my last update.

I did make music for a bit, and had dinner, and then my son and I watched an excellent Star Trek episode, and then another excellent „How I Met Your Mother“-episode while I was knitting the last gauge swatch. At least I hope it will be the last one.

Now I’ll change into pajamas, brush my teeth, and read some more.

It was a nice set of weekends with all the reading and blogging, thank you, Winterkatze, for doing this.

Links marked with an asterisk * are affiliate links. If you buy through them I get a tiny percentage at no additional cost to you, and that helps me keep up this blog.

This will be the last weekend of the fall reading event for this year, so I thought I’d participate again even though I’ll be away from home for most of the day. I’m going to a spinning meeting again, leaving the house at 9.30 and back again around 4 or so. But there will be enough time for reading left, I’m sure.

I did read steadily along this week. I finished „A Witch’s Dark Craving“* and started the next in the series right away („A Shifter’s Fevered Heart“*) but then grew a little impatient with all romance all the way, and started reading „Murder Over Mochas“* by Caroline Fardig the minute it was published. I’m enjoying it very much, and am halfways through at the moment. It’s nothing earth-shattering, a cozy mystery, but well written and entertaining. The reason for the amateur sleuth being involved in all these murder investigations is even sound, and she goes from failed musician/restaurant manager to PI in the course of the series. And starts not acting all temperamental all the time. Of course she still ends up entangled in murder investigations, otherwise there wouldn’t be any mystery.

At the moment I’m slogging through „The Paleo Thyroid Solution“* which I want to finish before November 8th. It’s not really gripping my attention at the moment but then I’m basically in the „technical info-dump“-part of the book.

I’ve also contined reading „The Story Grid“ but again, not all that gripping. The author has a rather conversational tone with lots of anecdotes and I find myself drifting a lot. In between there are lists that I can never remember (I have started copying some of them out into my notebook because they actual are useful and important.) and graphics that I can’t decipher in my ebook edition. (That’s basically the only thing better in paper books, that it’s easier to read tables and graphs. But then I’m also dreaming of owning a nice big iPad pro for exactly that purpose and for reading magazines on it. Yes, I’m a dork.)

And I’ve pulled out „Take Off Your Pants“ another book about outlining because I wasn’t making progress with „The Story Grid“, and I really need to do some kind of outline for my next novel, and soon. Any method will be good as long as I actually get an outline out of it.

Did I tell you about my NaNoWriMo-project for this year? Not only am I going to write a complete novel in the month of November, I also will be blogging the novel while I write it here on my blog. Daily.

This will either be loads of fun, or a terrible mistake, probably both.

My grand plan is to write most of the novel in the first five days of November because that will be fall break for me, and my son will be away most of the time, and then I’ll write the rest during the second week. I will post a scene a day, roughly 1,500 words, so if I manage to pull ahead in the beginning this should only be reasonably stressful. Right?

Update 5.30:

I wouldn’t have thought that it would be so late until my first update, hm. The spinning meeting was very nice. I will order something different to eat the next time, though, because that breakfast didn’t quite agree with me. Eating out while fructose-intolerant is always, um, interesting. At least it’s not an allergy, I’ll just feel a little under the weather for a day or two.

I also took care of some family stuff after coming back home, and now I guess I’ll just cozy up with my crochet blanket and „Murder over Mochas“. I’m almost 60% through, so there will probably something interesting happening soon.

„The Paleo Thyroid Solution“ is just throwing names of minerals and vitamins at me, not the most captivating topic. But I guess it will get easier to read soon.

I’m sorry, no pictures today.

Links marked with an asterisk * are affiliate links. If you buy through them I get a tiny percentage at no additional cost to you, and that helps me keep up this blog.

So I didn’t participate in the Winterkatze’s „Herbstlesen“-event yesterday because I thought I’d be too busy, only to spend the whole afternoon not doing much of anything. I’ll try again today, and hope that I will manage to get a thing or two done as well as a book or two read.

I am currently in the middle of reading Chloe Adler’s „A Witch’s Mortal Desire“*, Sarina Bowen’s „Bountiful“, Estelle Ryan’s „The Braque Connection“*, and Amanda M.Lee’s „Witching on a Star“*, and Shawn Coyne’s „The Story Grid“*. Among other things. The one I really should read is the Story Grid so I can better prepare for novel writing next month but I’ll probably stick with Chloe Adler first because there are only fifty more pages to read in that one.

I am currently at the „maybe things aren’t all that bad after all“-point in the story which means there will be something really bad happening soon. I have to say that that is often the point in a book where I tend to wander off but then I also find that I tend to stop watching TV series at the „all is lost“-point because I lose interest. Comes with being someone who thinks about story in a craft way in addition to being a reader, I guess.

There’s quite a bit more sex in my novels these days than I’m used to. The whole romance genre is something I used to shy away from but then I was pointed to ones that are really good, and so I find myself getting interested. Not something I want to read all the time but it does help taking my mind off things. Sarina Bowen’s books in particular are making me stay up way too long because I don’t want to stop reading which is both a good and a bad thing.

As usual I will post updates here during the day. Happy reading!

Update 3.20 pm:

Had a delicious lunch of rice with veggies and dal, and then I sat and worked on the crochet blanket some more, and finished reading „A Witch’s Mortal Desire“. I really enjoyed it, and started reading the next in the series „A Witch’s Dark Craving“* right away.

I have signed up for Kindle Unlimited again because I thought with all those Amanda M. Lee books that I want to read but don’t feel the need to own (as much as one can own an ebook) it would be worth it for a month or two. And then I found that the first 30 days are free. Which I find rather swell especially since I did try it once before for free.

But now I need to tear myself away from sexy witches battling evil demons or something, and do something else for a bit.

I hope you still enjoy your day of reading, I will update again later.

Update 8 pm:

Here’s a picture of my cozy after-lunch spot that I forgot to post earlier:

And then I spent a few hours in this spot:

Recording a couple of songs as a birthday present. Of course I did it at the last minute, and my voice was shot right after track 2 of the first song. I still managed to record them all, and not lose my good mood.

Even though the recording software decided to crash four times. Fortunately most of the recordings are still there and I’m making a backup as I type this.

Now I’ll have a late dinner and sit and read some more, I think I’ve earned it. I guess I won’t read „The Story Grid“ today after all…

It was fun reading with you guys again, and I’m already looking forward to a repeat performance next weekend.

Links marked with an asterisk * are affiliate links. If you buy through them I get a tiny percentage at no additional cost to you, and that helps me keep up this blog.

Sorry I was offline most of yesterday. I had planned to write a bit more after coming back from the spinning meeting but I was really tired then, and so I just went to bed early.

This morning I slept in, and had a leisurely breakfast. I read a bit more of „Every Witch Way But Wicked*“ and downloaded samples of „Maim Your Characters“*, „The Paleo Thyroid Solution“* and „A Natural History of Dragons“*. The last one is all Winterkatze’s fault because she was talking about how much she loves the series on her blog.

I have already knitted a bit on the current garter stitch shawl but forgot to take a picture. Maybe later.

I hope you all have a very enjoyable fall reading day, I’ll be back later with updates.

Update 1.30:

Unfortunately the blog seems to have been offline most of the morning for no apparent reason. Which is why I couldn’t approve any comments as well.

In the meantime I talked a lot with my husband, and then we made lunch. Now I’m just about to pull out the crochet blanket again (to ward off the cold), and sit down with a cup of tea and a book. I will go back to fiction after I read through most of the „Paleo Thyroid Solution“ sample. I’m in two minds about the whole paleo thing. Mostly I’m thinking that human beings took a long time to evolve, and that we’re pretty well suited to eating all kinds of things now that didn’t exist 10,000 years ago. On the other hand I’m thinking that if it would really make me feel better not eating bread and pasta might be worth it.

I will probably end up buying the book, and then I can waffle some more. The information about how the thyroid works and such seems solid so far.

Update 8.40:

Spent the whole afternoon working on my crochet blanket and reading the witch book on and off. Still haven’t finished it. I also looked at reading samples of two guitar playing books, and helped my husband find the right screws and nuts for a vintage guitar amp online, as one does.

Then fried potatoes with eggs for dinner, and an episode of „Star Trek TNG“ and one of „How I Met Your Mother“ with my son while knitting.

A rather relaxing day all in all.

Now I’ll sign off and go to bed early to be ready for the next week.

It’s been nice participating again.

Links marked with an asterisk * are affiliate links. If you buy through them I get a tiny percentage at no additional cost to you, and that helps me keep up this blog.