Skip to main content

Putting on the brakes

I have decided to cut down my blogging time considerably until spring, in order to be able to continue to read for fun alongside my studies. I will not be suspending this blog completely, but posting is going to be even more irregular than usual until I have turned in all of my academic assignments.

"Dictionaries"
Snapped on my cell phone and edited using the PicSay app
I am taking two university courses this semester, in Terminology and Literary Translation, both at the master's level, 15 ECTS-credits altogether. In addition, I am taking a course in French for international relations through my workplace. That course amounts to 10 ECTS-credits, meaning that I am doing an almost full academic schedule as well as working full time. Even though I am not studying for a degree, this still needs to be taken seriously and most of the time I have devoted to blogging is now going to be taken up by studying and assignment work.

I do have a couple of reviews I'm working on, as well as one essay, some photo posts, several lists, and a shorter-than-usual Annual Reading Report, but I can't say when I'll post them (probably during fits of procrastinating from my studies...). Other posts will generally be shorter than usual.

Ideas I have had for keeping the blog going while I am busy with other stuff includes quick, short reviews instead of my more detailed reviews, adding more links to book stuff I want to draw attention to, and maybe (but just maybe) more photo posts. I'll also continue to post the monthly reading report. I have also considered starting doing giveaways when I return to full schedule, but we shall have to see about that.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Icelandic folk-tale: The Laughing Merman

Icelanders not only believed in the existence of selkies, but also in mer-people. The mermaids were said to be very beautiful, while the mermen were supposed to be ugly as sin but very wise and able to see things others did not. O nce upon a time a farmer went out fishing and pulled up a merman. He tried to get the merman to talk to him but he would not answer, except to beg him to release him back into the sea, but this the farmer refused to do. The farmer rowed back to land, taking the captive merman with him. When he pulled up the boat on the shore, his wife came to him and greeted him with tenderness and kisses, which he received with pleasure. This made the merman laugh. Then the man’s dog came to him and greeted him tenderly in the way of dogs, by jumping up to him, but the farmer hit the dog. Again the merman laughed. Then the farmer walked up towards his house, but on the way he tripped over a tussock and hurt himself. He got angry and gave the tussock a good kicking. Then...

Book 7: Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuściński (reading notes)

-This reads like fiction - prose more beautiful than one has come to expect from non-fiction and many of the chapters are structured like fiction stories. There is little continuity between most of the chapters, although some of the narratives or stories spread over more than one chapter. This is therefore more a collection of short narratives than a cohesive entirety. You could pick it up and read the chapters at random and still get a good sense of what is going on. -Here is an author who is not trying to find himself, recover from a broken heart, set a record, visit 30 countries in 3 weeks or build a perfectly enviable home in a perfectly enviable location, which is a rarity within travel literature, but of course Kapuściński was in Africa to work, and not to travel for spiritual, mental or entertainment purposes (he was the Polish Press Agency's Africa correspondent for nearly 30 years). -I have no way of knowing how well Kapuściński knew Africa - I have never been there...

Bibliophile discusses Van Dine’s rules for writing detective stories

Writers have been putting down advice for wannabe writers for centuries, about everything from how to captivate readers to how to build a story and write believable characters to getting published. The mystery genre has had its fair share, and one of the best known advisory essays is mystery writer’s S.S. Van Dine’s 1928 piece “Twenty rules for writing detective stories.” I mentioned in one of my reviews that I might write about these rules. Well, I finally gave myself the time to do it. First comes the rule (condensed), then what I think about it. Here are the Rules as Van Dine wrote them . (Incidentally, check out the rest of this excellent mystery reader’s resource: Gaslight ) The rules are meant to apply to whodunnit amateur detective fiction, but the main ones can be applied to police and P.I. fiction as well. I will discuss them mostly in this context, but will also mention genres where the rules don’t apply and authors who have successfully and unsuccessfully broken the rules. 1...