Dionne Lister

Close Call: A Doris and Jemma Vadgeventure by Eloise March

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Close Call is the story of Jemma, a twenty something young lady whose living the single life, searching for Mr.Right as well as deaing with being a bridesmaid at her horrid cousins wedding. As she’s dealing with these life challenges we see Jemma’s world from Jemma herself, but also from her vagina, Doris.

This is a really fun novella. It manages to deal with some real world issues, but also be highly humorous at the same time. The overall story is quite straight forward and I like that it’s not overloaded with pointless filler. It’s also a story that I think a lot of us can associate with, we all have friends who do daft things and family that we only tolerate because they are family.

The main characters of Jemma and her vagina, Doris, are really easy to like. Doris especially is really funny in her actions to try and protect Jemma from some bad decisions. Doris’ conversations with the other gentials around her give an interesting outlook, as do her thoughts about the other genitals around her.

I did see the reavel coming but I didn’t see how that reveal panned out, and I thought the ending was quite an honest one and it felt very real in that I could see it being how sensible people in real life would deal with it.

Close Call is one of the funnest reads I’ve had in some time. I’ve read books by Eloise March’s alter ego, Dionne Lister, so I knew this would be good, but as I didn’t have any real preconceptions I wasn’t expecting to find this book as much fun as I did.

It really is worth a read, so please check it out.

The Reading List

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Although I am not setting myself targets or making any grand plans for this year one thing I am aiming a little more attention to is reading. I felt last year I didn’t make enough time to read and this is something that I need to change. one piece of advice that I’ve heard successful writers give is that to write we need to read.

I have just finished Shadows of the Realm by Dionne Lister and I have just started Embedded by Dan Abnett. Shadows of the Realm has been on my Kindle App for a couple of months and I really enjoyed it. I’ll admit that I was not sure how I would do with it as I’m not a huge fan of fantasy but if I’m honest I’ve never really tried to read a fantasy novel. I’m glad I did read Shadows of the Realm as it is not only very well written but it is also one of those stories that gets more and ore addictive as you read it. After I finished it I went straight over to Amazon and downloaded the second book in the series. I’m holding off reading it though until the third is out and I’ll read them back-to-back when the time comes.

Tracie got me Embedded for Christmas but it’s been one that I’ve wanted to read for some time. I’m only thirty or so pages into it but already I’m at the point of eagerly turning the pages to see what happens.

This year there are a lot of books I want to read. Scott Sigler has Pandemic and The Champion out, as well as a number of novellas and short stories in various anthologies. Christopher Stocking has The Rotten Apple out and Jordanna East has Blood in the Paint out soon as well. Justin Macumber will also hopefully be releasing a couple more novels this year.

Then there are the novels on my iPad and book shelve I want to read this year. Doing a quick count I can see twenty three on my shelf and twenty eight on my Kindle App. Damn that’s a lot of books, and I know I’ll buy more during the year. Of course I’m not expecting to read all of these this year, my Goodreads goal is thirty five books. That is the same as last year but I didn’t hit it… hopefully I will this year.

Here are the website links to the authors I mentioned:

http://danabnett.com/

http://scottsigler.com/

http://jordannaeast.com/

http://dionnelisterwriter.com/

http://mentalsweatshop.wordpress.com/

Good Morning

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It’s Tuesday, no it’s actually Wednesday isn’t it….. You can see how this post is going to go just from that really.

It’s been a few days since I’ve rambled along on here so I thought I’d better sling out a post. Writing wise I’ll admit I haven’t done much aside from making a few notes for Earth, After Liberation and yesterday I realised theres a potentially a huge plot hole in Project Apollo, that felt like I’d been hit by a tank. On a plus side I had thoughts from one of my fabulous Beta readers on a story I’m planning to release next year, that’s what I’ll be looking at over the next few days. I’m not sending it out to anyone else so I’m going to look over all of the notes I have and see what’s what. I haven’t read all of the notes for it that I got last night, simply because it came through near my bed time, but like a little kid waiting for Christmas I’m itching to read through and see what notes there are.

During NaNoWriMo I really lost my rhythm with reading, it didn’t help either that the book I had started reading I just couldn’t get into. Now I’m reading Shadows Of The Realm by Dionne Lister, and so far I’m enjoying it but I’m out of the habit of reading do my progress is not all that. During the next few days I’m going to try and get into the rhythm that I had a couple of months ago.
That ties into trying to sleep better, I’ve found that reading before I go to sleep often relaxes me and I’m one of those people that has really bizarre sleeping habits. I’ve never been one to just drop off as soon as I shut my eyes, I often lay in bed trying to sleep before I drift off but reading before bed seems to help me drop off a little quicker.

Right that’s enough electronic mumbling for one morning and I need to start thinking about work. Have a productive day everyone 🙂

Looking Into December

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Moving out of NaNoWriMo I’m determined to keep the momentum that NaNo gave me going and increase my productivity from here on out. As I said I’m back on getting Project Apollo finished off and sent to Owen so he can go through it. I’m over halfway with The edits on Apollo now and once it’s done I’ll be going through the notes Chrystalyn Hope and myself have made on The Residents so it’s in my mind for when we start looking at it next year (okay I admit I made some additional notes last night 😛 )

Reading wise I’ve just started Shadows Of The Realm by Dionne Lister, I gave up with Shutter Island. I just couldn’t get into it. It wasn’t a book which was on my radar but Tracie wanted me to watch the movie so I thought I’d read the book first, I couldn’t get into it as I said so I’ll just watch the movie 😀
Shadows Of The Realm has started well and I’m looking forward to diving into it fully. This will be my first attempt at reading a fantasy story so I’m interested to see how I do with it. Normally I like my fiction to be at least modern day and future so it’s a step away from my normal genre.

TV wise I’ve just started working my way through The 4400. I’ve had this for a couple of months now but I’ve not really had a chance to start on it. I’ve got the entire collection so I can watch the entire run of it in my own time. I’m through to the fifth episode now and I’m enjoying it a lot so far.

Tomorrow night I’m off to see Catching Fire which I’m really looking forward to, but movie wise that’s about it for this month. Nothing else had really caught my eye movie wise. Me and Tracie may still try to see Carrie and Gravity is still one I’d like to see.

In the run up to Christmas though I will be mainly focusing on getting Project Apollo sorted, that will be done by Christmas. Oh and I need to finish off my Christmas shopping.

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A Quick Update

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What have I been up to in the last week? Not a lot unfortunately. The words have not flown quite as well as I have been hoping for. Until I can get down to Owen to go through his notes on Project Apollo I don’t really have a lot to do on it so I thought I’d start on what would be my next novel, which in hindsight was a bad idea because I’ll be needing to get back onto Apollo before I’ve finished a first draft.
I’ve only written a few pages of this next novel, Project Sabre, so I’m going to put it to one side and work on tidying up a short story that I’ve had written for a while and I’m going to work on a new short story as well. This one I’ve got a good idea for so I’m going to make a start on that this weekend.

Reading wise I’ve made a good dent in Stephen King’s The Drawing Of The Three. This is an interesting novel and quite different from the first book in the series.
I have also started reading Dark Spaces by Dionne Lister. This is a collection of short stories which are of the darker side of humanity and its really good. I’m about halfway through and these stories are damn creepy!

TV wise I finished watching the first series of Falling Skies and Oh My God what an ending! I can’t wait till I get paid so I can get series 2 😀

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A Couple Of Shout Outs

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Hey Guys and Gals, I just wanted to give a couple of by quick shout outs before I settle down and watch the end of this movie I’m watching.

The first is for The Hollywood Outsider podcast – http://www.thehollywoodoutsider.com/

This is a movie and TV podcast hosted by four guys, Aaron, Brian, Justin and Scott and each week they deliver spoiler free reviews of the current movies and TV series as well as talking about what’s in the news.
I love this one because these four blokes give honest opinions and they don’t bull sh*t the listener. It’s honest and very lighthearted.

The second is a shout out for another podcast called Tweep Nation – http://www.newbiewriters.com/podcasts/newbiepodcast/tweep-nation-podcast/

This one is two women, Amber and Dionne talking about everything from Twitter to writing to Possums. This is an awesome show that I have absolutely fallen in love with. Amber Jerome Norrgard (http://amberjeromenorrgard.com) and Dionne Lister (http://dionnelisterwriter.wordpress.com) have so much fun on this show that I laugh out loud with them and their guests. Both are indie writers and its very inspirational listening to them I have learnt a lot about writing. I’ve gone back to the first episode and I’m enjoying and looking forward to listening to all of the episodes 🙂

Please consider checking these two great podcasts out, they are both on iTunes and are free to download and listen to. They are definitely worth checking out 🙂

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