Another website!

Finally! I have found a way I might spare all y'all (that is, all three of you) from expansive book reviews. And the answer is Goodreads. It is basically a website for ranking/rating/reviewing books.

So, I can go through and give books stars, one through five, from "didn't like it" to "loved it." It then adds itself to my listing of books. I could also add a written review. Others can read and comment on said review. I could group books into specific lists, like "Best Books of All Time" or "Steampunk Books" or similar things (if I thought I actually had the knowledge to make lists like best books of all time. I don't). Based on the books I rank and my rankings of them, Goodreads can then recommend me other books. I can add the books I am currently reading and my progress through them. I can add a list of books I want to read.

And that last part, the "to-read" list, is pretty awesome because I can also get a Goodreads smartphone app and look up all the books I want to read while I am, say, at the library. It also has a barcode scan which I have not tested, but I assume it allows you to scan a book and add it to your lists.

The way I've been using Goodreads recently is that I rank some of the Steampunk books I liked, e.g. the Parasol Protectorate series, and Goodreads recommends other books similar. I can look at the covers, names, and so on for the ones that look interesting, then hover my mouse over them and see their ranking. I usually shoot for at least a three or above. If that is interesting, I can read part of a description, and even click on it for full description and access to other reviews.

The reason I got signed up for Goodreads in the beginning is because they had a book giveaway contest. I did not win, but the point is that they also have contests and the like.

I love books. I still have the nostalgic connecting to actually holding a book, turning the pages, flipping backwards to find a particular detail, stuffing it in my bag, curling up on the couch... I also don't own a Kindle Fire, so I have no other real choice. And the library is free. Even though there is a 78 hold wait on the Hunger Games.

Long live the written word!

In Recent News...

I would have had a post for you. It was a short little clip on wanderlust and the various places I want to go. I think summer always makes me want to go to a tropical paradise. I start getting all swoony about beaches. Even a picture of the Dali Lama with a bunch of heavy islander-looking guys will make me swoony simply because they are islander-looking and that makes me think of beaches...

And I want to go to a beach. Or on a cruise. Or crash on an island where everyone has their own creepy interconnected backstory and there are crazy invisible forces and polar bears roaming about...

I never did finish Lost.

But you lost that small gem of a post because of my phone. Basically, I wrote that post on my phone and hit "publish." I happened to be in data roaming at the time. I had also used up my 50 mb of allowed data roaming. So technically, I could not use data for publishing. But I had wi-fi. And I had been using that on my phone instead of data. So I thought my Blogger app would publish through wi-fi. Well, it didn't. It tried to use data. And it couldn't publish through data, but it kept on trying. And as long as it was trying to use data, I couldn't use wi-fi. My webpages refused to load because I wasn't allowed to use data. And I couldn't delete the offending post because for some reason, the delete button would not press. And it was a virtual button, so you can't like look for gum stuck under it or anything like that. I ended up having to delete my Blogger app. The small post was lost.

A moment of silence for my small post on wanderlust.

Moving on...

I have become addicted to a webpage game of a similar variety to Facebook games, in as much as one can get addicted to a game where you must use energy for most things, you only have ten energy, and they recharge at the rate of one energy every ten minutes. That's an hour and forty minutes for your whole ten energy.

However, moving past energy problems, I have found this game very addicting. But that's for me. The only things really truly addicting to me usually have some storyline going on that I MUST follow. Have you every seen me play Dragon Age or Dragon Age II? I invested around two weeks, almost solid, to each one of those games, playing through it once, then playing through it again, this time carefully engineering all my choices to reflect a desired overall plotline.

Even Sims 3 draws me back as I engineer shallow soap opera plots for my house of hapless victims... ahem, Sims.

So what is this addicting energy-swilling game Linsey is rambling on about? (Oh, apparently I don't type my name in Blogger much. Good thing, as I apparently misspelled it. Shucks, there went my announcement hype.) The game is called Fallen London! And that link will take you to my character profile. From which you can sign up!

As far as I can make out, the game is a post-apocalyptic Victorian-era role-playing game. It's sort of steampunk, but doesn't have much in the way of inventions. Apparently London has fallen, dragged down by bats or other nefarious means to a place below the earth. This place is often referred to as the Neath (as in beneath) and the surface... well, the Surface. London is much closer to Hell as a result and rules, including the rules of physics, can be a bit different here. There are four primary stats you can invest in, and I believe with time you can get them all high, but I chose to go with shadowy and persuasive. My character is a bit of a sneak-thief.

And in Fallen London, you have a vast amount of freedom to choose what you want to do. You get storylets, which are often repeatable snatches of story, like robbing a weasel-seller or trying to make a name for yourself in the artistic world by telling jokes. Some of these lead to more extensive quest-lines, others you just keep doing to up a skill or gain some materials. There are also cards which are one-time use random storylets.

You can obtain a variety of equipment. For some reason, you start of in prison. You become acquainted with the interface through your attempted escape, and choose your first skill that you want to pursue. When you get out of prison, you are wearing manacles and prisoner's rags. These can easily be sold for some less offending clothing with a variety of stats.

And that is what has occupied my imagination of late. I was mentally following my character through the darkened streets of the Neath, a girl with long braids, a bowler, suspenders, trousers over scarlet stockings, a dog at her heel.

Well, at least it is interesting to me.

And I would want my dog to look like this:


This was David's sister's dog, a puppy named Champagne. She's half yellow lab and half Great Pyrenees, I believe. She was the most adorable puppy, but Becca couldn't keep her because she moved in with us and our apartment only allows cats... and we would've kept her, if we could have. Breaks my heart.

Anyway, the Amish ended up taking her, so now she's an Amish dog. I doubt she'll keep her name, but I don't think she really knew it yet.

I wonder where we will find a dog like that when we're ready for a dog.

Update... of a sorts.

I'm sorry I haven't posted anything in... well, I can't remember the last post, so it might as well be forever. I've been working on another pet project, detailed at my new blog called "Dreading Telling Mom." The name is a bit of a joke as Mom already knows. Sorry mother, the joke is a bit at your expense, but it isn't really intended toward you specifically, but the institution known as "Mom" in general.

Wow, this is starting to sound like an update post. I don't normally do those unless I have something to ponder on. What can I ponder on that would make this less of an update?

The first thing that springs to mind is cheese. Why always cheese? Why do you haunt me so?

Now I kind of want cheese. But I already brushed my teeth.

So not cheese. Let's see... bacon! *sigh* Am I hungry or what? But it is 23:30 already and I don't want to eat before bed. And I already brushed my teeth.

Well... nothing comes to mind. You may have to be content with that. And hey, I wrote a lot at my other blog. Give me a break.

Dreams of Diet

All I want to be healthy, but am plagued by weakness in fortitude. I will look at myself in the morning and be like, "I could almost resolve to give up Dr Pepper," but that night I will be thirsty and want one, or sometime during the day I will just be craving the cold bubbly 23 flavors, or I'll be flagging during a WoW raid and think, "Caffeine, I need caffeine." I've gotten so for the most part, I at least schedule my calorie intake from Dr Pepper. If I have one at lunch, I won't have one in the evening. If I have hard cider in the fridge, I'll often settle for that instead of a Dr Pepper. And hard cider tastes great, too, but I'm pretty sure it's hardly a healthy alternative. Ah, here we go. I just looked it up. Think about this: Dr Pepper is 150 calories for 12 oz, a bottle of Woodchuck's hard cider is 200 calories for 12 oz. So that's even worse.

Oh, just give it up, you say? Switch to diet, you say? Learn to like lite beers, you say? Well, nobody said that last one, I just assumed it be in the list. I can't switch to diet Dr Pepper (or 10. You can say it is for men and that's why I don't like it, and I'll say that's only if men like the taste of artificial sweetener and carbonation that goes flat too fast) because if I was able to switch to an inferior product, I'd be equally able to just give it up. It's just not worth spending money on Diet or 10 for me to not be happy with my drink, force myself to finish it, and then feel physically worse as a result. And lite beer... I drink cider for a reason, and that reason is, I don't like beer. So maybe if you found my some lite/light cider...

Give up drinks altogether? I'm not sure how having a drink (even the non-alcohol type) came to be so special to me, but for the most part, I'd rather have a drink in the evening than desert or candy or those other things I'm attracted to. A drink is my treat. I used to get through hard long days in school or on the internship by thinking about my Dr Pepper at lunch, or something akin to that. It was what made special, the redeeming factor of any day.

Then my other unhealthy problem is just the fast meal. That could be fast food or "I don't have any plans for lunch, but you are home so I feel obligated to make something, here's mac-and-cheese." I want to eat healthy, but when faced with a looming meal-time, sometimes I cop out. David and I also have a strong attraction to cream sauces on pasta and dishes with cheese. And while cheese is supposed to be healthy, nobody ever said it was low fat. Cheese actually is fat...

But whatever. The point is, I have aspirations of being healthy, and then I just don't. Also with exercise. I reached that point of "I can't see any benefit, so what's it going to hurt if I miss a few days?" Though I am trying to get my biking miles up. About 77 so far.

And then I keep thinking, "Well, what if-"... I have no idea what I was going to type there. I switched to my phone and can't remember a half hour back. Um... this is awkward. Basically, I want to change. I want to live a "Life is Good" style life, with all sorts of physical activity. If I was given a choice, I'd have a lot more kayacking, rock climbing, and snowboarding. I love biking and I'll throw in running and boxing for good measure. I want to be active, I want to have fun, and I want to be healthy. I lack the fortitude.

Edit: (since switching to my phone added in a bunch of random symbols I now have to take out) I want to eat healthy partially for the feel-good portion of it. I have more self-esteem when I eat healthy and feel light. If I could switch my drinks for like V8 (though that is expensive) and candy for fruit and actually eat breakfast... maybe I'll get somewhere.

On the birth of fictional characters

I normally start my stories with a character who is a type of me, because that is usually how my stories start. I ask myself who I would be and what I would be doing if I were in such a situation.

And I normally appear something akin to myself. It isn't pride as much as a realistic grounding. I might have been fourteen when I started imagining myself, albeit with cool hair or a better figure, instead of some beautiful blond girl. That was one of the moments where I realized I couldn't change what I looked like, but I could control what happened to me. In the story, anyway. To this day, many of my characters will posses some of my physical flaws, like freckles. I might change my eyes to green, because if I can't have green eyes in my own story, then what is the point? And it's a much smaller change than being a blond.

So I have this little me-type. Another reason I start with myself is because I believe I understand myself, and when in doubt, my character can just do what I would do. Then, I put the little me-type in the story, where she must become acquainted with her new world. See? I'm already referring to her in the third person. This is where we tend to part ways. Because now that she is in the story, I am only experiencing it vicariously through her. She might have been me, but to give her a place in the world, I have to figure out what she is doing there, and how she got into such a mess. And in discovering these things about her, I discover that she has deviated from me. With a different past, she becomes a different person. And as is the case with some characters, I end up trying to understand them, like we only recently met and I hadn't created them in the first place.

When characters take on a life of their own, the author is no longer really in control. If you want a character to do a particular thing, you have to come up with a situation in which it would be natural to do such a thing. One story I wrote was based merely on the premise, "what would it take to make Jasper swear?" Jasper is a pacifist, kind, and very even tempered. So the answer to that question is, "really, quite a lot." And poor Jasper really had a bad time of it. He ends up becoming almost suicidal, and I wouldn't have expected that from him. And then, in reverse, you can simply put your character in a situation, and hope for the best. Your character should then respond with whatever is natural to them, even if it is inconvenient to you. I don't have such a specific example for this one, but I know I've encountered it. And something that can really make your book seem like it is trying too hard, or is more your dream romance than an actual story, is to force a character to behave in a way that is unnatural. I hate that.

So, in example of character creation, I recently created a character. A type of me, in a steampunk world. I think she will be Irish. So she can inherit my pale skin, freckles, and dark hair. She gets green eyes, CAUSE SHE CAN. She also gets dreadlocks, cause I think they are fun. Now, I like my steampunk character to have mechanical skills to get her foot in the door with gadgetry and still have the potential for full blown inventor status by book three or so. And for some reason, maybe to push her into the life of crime, I made her poor. So my poor Irish dreadlocked mechanic girl has wound up in the Americas and I am going to push her at a cowboy who is also acting as a thief. But something changes from me.

First, I am not Irish. Secondly, she had to have some sort of background to become a mechanic and end up in America. Now she has tragically been separated from or lost her parents. And she has to be really stubborn in the face of Victorian convention to continue plying her trade. I don't know if I am really the convention-breaking sort of stubborn. Obviously, I'd like to think I am, but I rather doubt it. Then, when she meets my cowboy thief, she has to be just enough seperated from my legalism which cannot really fathom why someone might go about breaking the law.

And in the end, Brianna is an entirely different person than I am. She somehow became slightly eccentric, very focused while working, excitable, unable to really fathom her own danger, and somewhat absent-minded. And now that she is no longer me, I have to begin again attempting to understand her and what drives her and what she might do in any given situation.

Then, creating characters for a role-playing steampunk game, I think, oh, I'll just make a mechanic named Brianna Lynch and play as my character. And then suddenly I am on an airship, and then we've decided I am actually crew, maybe even head mechanic. My story has changed again.

I love writing.

March heat brings...

I'm sorry I have not posted recently. Maybe just nothing interesting has happened to me. Nothing at all. Completely boring.

It's about that time I move to a fantasy land. And get back on Star Wars The Old Republic to see if I can hit fifty before my subscription expires. Oddly enough, I'm having fun again.

But anyway, the thing that I keep thinking about these days is a topic oft-discussed and somewhat taboo... it is... the weather.

I am going to claim exception here. Sometimes we can talk about the weather and it actually makes sense to talk about the weather, like in the movie Day After Tomorrow where weather practically wipes out anything about America's latitude and north. I am not talking about the weather because I have nothing else to talk about (well, maybe that too), but because the weather is really really weird.

It is March here in Iowa, (and I would assume the rest of the world), and it's been around 80 degrees during the day, or warmer, for a half a week now, fluctuating before that.

I am sitting in my living room, or computer room with a nap couch, whatever you want to call it, with all the windows open to get the breeze. At eight a.m., it's about 70 degrees. Why does this matter?

Because that's really really weird! This is Iowa! Spring isn't supposed to start until the end of April and then it is supposed to freeze at least twice afterward! The groundhog saw his shadow! I would judge the harshness of winters based on how many times I thought my eyeballs would freeze just by walking to class in the morning! This winter seemed more mild than the ones in Turkey! Some people here already have their ACs running!

Climate change or global warming or regular fluctuation? I dunno, I'm not a scientist. I'm not really sure why it is the Christian position to not believe in global warming, but coming from a very polluted city, less pollution sounds kinda cool. I'm not going to freak out about it yet.

The only thing I'm really worried about right now is that the muggy warm air outside is going to stick around and intensify and summer will be just horrid. Or maybe it will balance itself out and summer will be about 70s whole way through. I could deal.

Cheese for Thought

Yesterday, my mother-in-law and two of my sisters-in-law were in town, so David and I went shopping with them, went out to supper, and visited their psychologist. I guess Michelle and Melissa had some joint session going on. I sat out in the waiting room and read Psychology Today, which was actually quite interesting. Did you know cheese is healthy? I mean, MORE healthy than you thought? I resolve to eat more cheese.

But I would like to say that I approve of psychology and visits to psychologists. I think it can be quite healthy (although I'd probably go for a Christian one. Not sure if theirs was or not). I know people who have had issues, problems with their parents, things that scarred them, and I think these people could benefit from a psychologist. Someone who can see the problem, identify the problem, and give them steps to take to get out of the problem. Someone who will speak straight with you. So bravo on everyone going to psychologists for taking the first step to reorienting your thinking.

That all said, I have no intention of going to a psychologist. I generally like to say, "I'm not quite that messed up." As in, I don't think I'm crazy enough for a shrink, but it isn't quite that. Because I know you'd be like, "Denial! People don't always know when they need a shrink!" For me, it is a balancing of my perception of how messed up I may be compared to the time and money involved with visiting a psychologist just because it may be healthy. For example, I haven't been to the dentist in years. I really want to go to the dentist because I like my teeth. But as I have no detectable cavities or tooth pain and I brush twice a day, I assume that I might be doing ok and think, maybe I don't need to go to the dentist just yet. I can put it off until we have a steady income again. Hmm... I should floss, too, if I'm going to have that attitude.

So basically, I don't think I need a psychologist quite yet. If I had something traumatic happen to me (and I don't even want to say the thing I just thought of), I might maybe think about going. And if I had a good friend or family member say, "Linsey, we know this even really hurt you, and I just don't think you're getting over it. It will help if you go to a psychologist and talk about it..." then I'd be even more inclined. I don't get go to the doctor unless I'm scared I might die of cancer either. Just too expensive.

All that said, I think you can find healing in the Bible and with God. Not that I'm doing that "shame on you for going to a psychologist or taking anti-depressant because God fixes everything." Sometimes those are the things you need to do. Just saying, short of paid therapy, I think that God can often help on things you are struggling with. It may be a bit more of an indirect route, as you need His help to figure out your problem and He isn't always as forward as a psychologist, but you can find healing there.

And that is my... let me check for inflation... 50 cents worth. Well, let's round up to $1.25 and I can get a Dr Pepper.