Cephalopod & Goals - OCTOBER!

Once again it's time for those "end of month" blog hops I like to participate in. I already posted for Write ... Edit ... Publish, and if you want to check that out, click HERE. But I also need to post for the Cephalopod Coffeehouse Book Club, and the monthly Do You Have Goals? hop.

So here goes.

This month I read more than one great book, and while I was tempted to choose If I Stay as my "book of the month", I opted for this one instead:

I can finally say, "I've read this book!" ... and it's about time! I first read an Isobelle Carmody book after my mum bought me book #1 of the Legendsong back in the late '90s. I LOVED it, and I know I'm not here to talk about Legendsong, but the point I'm making is that Legendsong #1 came out in 1998 or so, and yet it's taken until October 2014 for me to finally pick up my first Obernewtyn book. 

Now that we've got that intro out of the way, I will say that the writing in Obernewtyn #1 did strike me as quite 'young', likely because Carmody was in high school when she wrote the book. I'm interested in finding out how her writing did or did not change across later books, as she grew into an adult. I already know they got increasingly fatter, because while book #1 is very slender, some of the later books are literal tomes.

Despite the 'young'ness of this first episode, I greatly enjoyed it. It's an intriguing world I've entered into, a post-apocalyptic world in which magic is feared, and those in charge try their very best to stamp it out. Those figures of authority are fighting a losing battle, though, because more and more people are being born as "mutant" magic users, rather than the population of freaks getting less as they'd hoped would happen. And some of those 'freaks' are getting sick of living under the oppression their kind has endured for centuries. 

I look forward to learning more about the world of Obernewtyn as I read on with this series.

Last month I shared a picture of my beautiful temp foster kitty George, who is still with me. He's still pretty naughty, and very exasperating, but he's just as cute as he was a month ago. So he's lucky about that. ;) Still, he's one of the reasons I'm still a slacker.

So, yeah, goals? Ummm, I've done a tiny bit of revision work since last month, but nothing much to write home about. And guess what? Tomorrow, NaNoWriMo starts!

In sort of related news that isn't really related, I've almost finished reading Stephen King's On Writing, which has made me realise that there's no need to entirely abandon my pantser ways. ;) Being a pantser is no crime, my friends. If it's good enough for Stephen King, it's good enough for me. Ha!

Seriously though, I suck at editing this year.

Better luck next year, perhaps!

(I think On Writing gave me some thoughts there as well about how better to approach my editing tasks in future. But I'll talk about that some other day)

For now, I'm going to sign off on this note:

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! :)