Midweek #ROW80 Non-Update and BOOK RECS

Yeah I totally have nothing to report since the last check in.  I haven’t even posted since Sunday.  Why?   Because there are some books that life simply has to stop for.

Last week, the 6th and final book in The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare, City of Heavenly Firecame out.  I loved the first three.  Then she got a contract for a continuation–another trilogy following up the first.  I read books 4 and 5 and was…well I didn’t hate them, but I didn’t love them either.  I tend to be very >.< when a writer goes and messes up my hero and shero’s HEA or HFN.  But I read them anyway because I loved the characters.  And it didn’t matter how much I was kind of eh about books 4 and 5, this book just made up for all of it.  It so beautifully wrapped up the entire arc, had gobs of delightful crossovers between this and her other series, The Infernal Devices (set about 150 years prior in the same world).  And I just had to stop everything I was doing to finish reading it (in all it’s 700+ pages of glory)–because it became very obvious early on that Cassie Clare was totally high on Game of Thrones while writing this book and I was completely in fear for ALL THE CHARACTERS’ LIVES.  Scene after scene of, “How can I make this worse?  Oh yeah THIS!”  I can just imagine her cackling in delight while writing it, imagining we readers in palpitations.  But the end, OH THE END WAS SO WORTH IT.  And to avoid spoilers, that’s all I will say about that.  I had to tag Lauren Garafalo to have mutual flails when I finished (she finished day before me).

So, today it’s BACK TO WORK on TY.  It helps that the characters of Wishful keep talking to me.  And I keep talking about them talking to me, which is amusing Susan, and probably making anybody who doesn’t know I’m a writer think I need antipsychotics.  I’ve got a very active relationship with my characters.  What can I say?

I HAVE been doing some plotting in the midst of my great Read-A-Thon.  My next Mirus project is coming along nicely and shaping up to be an actual book, with a prequel short story (I think).  So we’ll see how all that goes.  I’m a long way from drafting it or even having a complete outline, but it’s nice to revisit the world and see pieces coming together that I had no idea actually were meant to go together.

I’m also working on plotting out something else.  Well, I hesitate to call it actual PLOTTING at this stage because I don’t feel like I HAVE a plot yet.  I have a CONCEPT, a story that has a particular type of relationship arc (between characters I established elsewhere) and an idea of some of the KINDS of challenges they might face, but I have no idea of the context.  I have no antagonist yet, which means I really have no idea what happens.  This is NOT AT ALL how I generally work, so I don’t know if a story will eventually emerge from this or not.  We’ll see.

In other news, I FINALLY HAVE RUNNING SHOES THAT FIT PROPERLY.  This is the 5th pair.  I discovered a local store here that does gait analysis and full fittings.  Big shocker, I don’t ACTUALLY measure as a wide, despite the monstrous spread of my feet (please explain to me, then, what is wrong with all the regular width shoes EVERYWHERE?).  I ultimately wound up in a MEN’S size 8 of the Asics Nimbus 15.  A friend recently told me she got fitted and went a full 2 sizes up from her normal size for running shoes.  So…evidently that’s a thing?   Had a great chat with the CSR about gear, and generally I am much much happier.  Also, they aren’t a weird color.

I’m preparing to redesign my weight lifting program.  I picked up the Girls Gone Strong Modern Woman’s Guide To Strength Training program a month or two ago, and I’ve tried it out and I just…don’t like it.  Some of it is that I prefer a good electronic app to keep up with my progress instead of paper and a lot of the exercises aren’t listed in any of the apps I use and aren’t easily trackable (there’s a lot of frustration in NOT getting credit for my workout on Fitocracy because there’s just no way to record the exercise).  And some of it is that it’s really geared toward those who have access to a gym instead of a home set up.  I’ve already had to make some substitutions there.  I hate the warm up.  I mean, a warm up is necessary, certainly, but I feel like the one that goes along with this program takes about twice as long as the actual lifting portion.  And a couple of the warm up exercises make things pop that…I don’t think should pop.   There’s one hip thing and a shoulder thing and…yeah, just no.  And I just…feel kind of meh about it and don’t look forward to lifting days.  So I’m going back to my Beautiful Badass program and making some adaptations using Nia Shanks’ Intuitive Strength Training Guide.

And, before I go, one more book rec.  I mentioned on one of my Awesome Things posts a while back Meljean Brook’s serial, The Kraken King and I haven’t said anything else about it.  Well the final installment came out this week!  So now you don’t have to wait (which I know a lot of people HATE about serials).  This is 200k of Iron Seas AWESOME.  It will particularly appeal to the writers among you (the women anyway) because the hero is just…OMG I can’t say enough about how much I <3 Ariq.  He is the perfect writer’s mate.  GO FORTH AND BUY IT.  Or, you know, hang out and wait until the compiled version comes out (not sure when that is yet).

4 thoughts on “Midweek #ROW80 Non-Update and BOOK RECS

  1. Awesome. I started Heavenly Fire this morning. I’m glad you like it. That gives me hope! Good luck with your new “concept”. Kudos on finally getting the right shoes. 🙂

  2. I read the first three “Mortal Instruments” books; I didn’t even realize there were three more. Your enthusiasm about this last book has me thinking I need to buy them. I really enjoyed the original trilogy.

    Congrats on finding the right pair of running shoes. It’s awful to run in shoes that don’t fit right. Ouch!

    Happy writing, Kait! I look forward to hearing more about the next Mirus book.

    1. Yeah the first trilogy was so successful, they contracted her for a follow up trilogy. Then she’s got 3 others planned. A follow up to The Infernal Devices, a spinoff with a group brought up in book 6 of The mortal Instruments, and…I’m not sure who the other one is going to be about.

  3. I didn’t realize she wrote more than the original three in that series. I’m all wrapped up in other things, but I might need to remember this at some point.
    Glad you found better shoes. Was curious when you mentioned it on Twitter. Hope these are the final pair for you for a while.

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