Bedtime Stories

I spent four hours (by the stopwatch, so that doesn’t count e-mail checking or tea breaks) writing yesterday, only to end up with about the same word count as I started with. There was a lot of deleting of old stuff, but now I’m rid of everything I probably won’t be using and everything going forward will be new and (I hope) on the right track. I woke up this morning thinking of what will happen next, and it’s a very exciting, fun scene, so that will be this afternoon’s work.

Meanwhile in reading, I gave up on that 80s fantasy novel and returned it to the library today. I made it about 100 pages in, and I guess it wasn’t entirely bad, but there are other things I’d rather be reading, so why waste my time on something I’m having to force myself to read? I think I might have liked it if I’d read it in my teens, but I’ve ready so many books exactly like that, and I’m at a point in my life when reading about the coming of age of a teenage boy is less than thrilling. I still enjoy books about teen girls, but if a guy is the primary viewpoint character, I want an adult. I’m sure there are exceptions, but the book would have to be exceptional, not just the standard-issue “clumsy, small for his age stableboy turns out to have special magical powers” story.

While at the library, I picked up a couple of the books recommended here in comments. I knew when I was more excited about reading them than I was about the book I was reading, and there were about 700 pages to go in the book I was reading, it was time to throw in the towel. Another bad sign was that I was putting that book down so I could listen to the adaptation of Northanger Abbey on the BBC radio web site.

While I was listening to Stardust, I discovered that they have a whole section devoted to “15-minute dramas,” which are generally serialized productions of books, or else single-episode short stories. They’re just the right length for a bedtime story, something to lie there and listen to with the lights out. It seems to be good for shutting down the mental hamster wheel so I go to sleep more quickly. So this week it’s been Northanger Abbey. I’ll have to see what to listen to after that.