What with the storm and flooding in Sri Lanka and other stuff going on, I haven't had time to do a reading update. But maybe time to do one now to close out November?

After DNFing "Just One Damned Thing After Another", I started on "Clean Sweep". This one I liked 🙂

The story was engaging, and the writing was clean. It wasn't the kind of writing that made me want to write like that, but the story was good. And I finished the book in 4 days, which is a record for me ... Or I wasn't busy 😛

I'll be returning to this series!

Then I read "Dungeon Crawler Carl".

I knew Matt Dinniman a long time ago (before DCC) and he's a great guy. The book was interesting.

What interests me mostly about a book is the plot. Figuring out what will happen before it happens.

Couldn't do that much here 😛

For one thing, you know what will happen ultimately based on the premise - you know that Carl will make it to the end of the dungeon 🙂

For another, the plot points are like mini-stories. Each section of a level takes a chapter or two and is done. There are very few overarching plot elements which act as hooks. The main attraction is to keep reading to see what happens next.

But the plot twists as he progressed were entertaining and creative. So I kept reading, and reading, and reading.

Again, not quite the kind of thing I'd want to write myself, but definitely something that will keep me reading!

I'll be coming back to this series. Both Ilona Andrews and Matt make me want to come back and finish the whole series. But there are so many books ....

#Reading #Books #MiniReviews
A screenshot from a reading app…

So the wife and I did our cartoons for this week based on a Facebook video ... or at least, my/our reaction to it 😛

https://write.farook.org/idle-thoughts-05/

#Cartoon #Drawing #Art
Two cartoons by different peopl…

I don't think I've ever DNFed a book before. But this week I DNFed two.

So, overall progress has been three books this week but I'm not happy about it since I DNFed two and started the third yesterday.

I'll discuss why I DNFed each one (broadly - no spoilers).

"A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking" - this one just felt so slow, and a very abbreviated world-view. Action was sparse and when I finally ended up reading about climbing up a poop-tube (you'll know if you read the book 😛) for two whole chapters, I gave up.

"Just One Damned Thing After Another" felt much better at first, except that the main character was supposed to be smart but they keep not seeing the obvious.

They do say that they aren't smart sometimes, but if everybody else says they are, then are they all stupid?

Then there was the sex 😛 The first 8 chapters read like a Victorian romance - glances and sighs. But then it suddenly becomes a bodice-ripper in around chapter 9 or 10.

I could not recover after that and gave up soon after. It just felt so disjointed after that.

#Reading #Books #Thoughts
A screenshot from a reader app …

Another double-cartoon from the wife and I 🙂

https://write.farook.org/idle-thoughts-04/

Any resemblance to real people is purely unintentional 😛

#Cartoon #Drawing #Art
Two cartoons by two different p…

Recently, I've been reading different authors instead of sticking to a single author. I'm trying to find an author whose writing I really enjoy without nitpicking. So far, not a lot of success 😛

James Butcher's first book looked promising, but the second not so much...

The second telegraphed what was coming so much that I kind of knew where we'd end by as soon as the first "big" plot twist started 🙂

That's actually when I decided to read different authors and figure out one whose writing I really liked enough to keep reading them.

I read a collection of golden age science fiction stories as a palette cleanser for a couple of days. It was good but not compelling.

So back to fantasy I went since most of my TBR pile is fantasy 🙂

Next one was Ben Aaronovitch and "The Rivers of London".

Better, but the book felt a bit disjointed. It was almost as if Aaronovitch wrote parts of it at different times. Sometimes the characters seemed to forget basic things that they knew earlier and so on. And the timeline seemed to shift a bit.

I'll come back to the series later.

Now reading "A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking" by T. Kingfisher.

I'd heard a lot of praise for T. Kingfisher and so my expectations were high. Maybe too high?

She writes like I think I would 🙂 But the story is in fits and starts. There's action and then lulls...

I'm only halfway through, but it feels as if it could have benefitted from a bit more action. I'm going to finish before I make up my mind, but so far, I think I'll probably move on to the next author since the writing, at least in this one, is not what I was looking for.

The last bit of writing where I really felt energized was P. Djèlí Clark's "The Dead Cat Tail Assassins" — now that was a great and wonderful ride 🙂

I'm looking to have that kind of magic. Am I asking for too much?

#Reading #Books
A calendar view showing reading…

We (the wife and I) did two more cartoons - this time about that ever popular Sri Lankan food, hoppers!

https://write.farook.org/idle-thoughts-03/

#Cartoon #Drawing #Art
Two cartoons by two different p…

And the wife and I managed to get another cartoon done today 🙂 I'm not sure if I can sustain this pace though. I guess we'll see?

The story behind today's cartoon is here: https://write.farook.org/idle-thoughts-02/

#Cartoon #Drawing #Art
Two cartoons by two different p…

The wife and I are drawing a cartoon a day (hopefully) to improve our drawing skills.

The full story is here: https://write.farook.org/idle-thoughts/

Here's our first day's efforts ...

#drawing #cartoons #art
Two cartoons drawn by different…

Used to read all the time.

Didn't read at all for about 10 -15 years. Would try, but generally give up after a day or two.

Back to reading now and it feels good to be able to consistently finish books 🙂

Part of it might be the new EPUB reader I've been coding — I finally have an app which does everything I want instead of having to find workarounds for things that don't work quite right 😛

#Reading
Screenshot from an app showing …

Life in the coconut and concrete jungle
Image of a city skyline with a …

So, an interesting thing (for varying values of interesting 😛) happened today ...

There's a service request for a book editing job. The prospective client? The Minister of Finance for the UAE.

I was like, "Hmm ... why would he want a document edited on LinkedIn? He's probably got staff to do stuff like this."

I look at his profile (shown in image) and it seems to indicate that he has 4.5 million followers. Must be legit right?

But hang on! Lower down it shows his activity as having 2 followers. And his activity extends only to like 12 hours of responding to three different accounts.

Look further down and you notice that his experience listing is what shows up at the top making it look like he's got 4.5 million followers 😛

So obviously a fake/spam/scam account. But if you just look at the number at the top, you could be fooled. I've already reported them to LinkedIn. But just posting this in case they take in somebody else ....
Screenshot of fake LinkedIn acc…

I've always got a side-project going on that interests me in some way. But most of the time, I forget about the side-project after I get it working to my satisfaction 😛

This one's one such project.

My nephew kept sending me images of similar puzzles that he'd solved, trying to stump me. That's how I got interested.

I found the app/game that he was using and realized that the app had a curated list of puzzles that the developer had created. You could only play about 40 puzzles and you were done.

I wondered if it was possible to create unlimited puzzled by dynamically generating the puzzles on the go. I gave it a shot and it was possible ... and this app was the result.

But once the problem was solved, I forgot about that project and moved on to the next project 😛 I just remembered the project today and am wondering if perhaps I should package it up and put it up on an app store or two ...

I don't know, there's so many interesting projects to work on. So is it worthwhile spending the time on bundling and distributing an app which might go nowhere?

What do YOU think? 🙂
An image of a game screen showi…

I'm trying to get "Raisins of Wrath" ready for publication but need to do the cover.

My wife usually does the cover but she's too ill to do anything at the moment. So I thought of giving it a shot myself. I have the rough drawing in place, but not sure how it'll turn out.

#Writing #Art #FediBooks #IndieAuthor
A rough sketch for a book cover…

Read an Ebook Week promo ends today! Find my entire collection at a promotional price at @Smashwords till end of the day. Find my books and many more at https://www.smashwords.com/ebookweek

If you like humorous scifi with a bit of social commentary, check out my books 🙂

#ebookweek25 #Smashwords
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Happy Read an Ebook Week! To help you find a book to celebrate, you can find my entire collection at a promotional price at @Smashwords from March 2 - March 8. Find my books and many more at https://www.smashwords.com/ebookweek #ebookweek25 #Smashwords
A promotional image for Smashwo…

Read an Ebook Week promo! To help you find a book to celebrate, you can find my entire collection at 25% off at @Smashwords from March 2 - March 8. Find my books and many more at https://www.smashwords.com/ebookweek

#ebookweek25 #Smashwords
A promotional image for Smashwo…

Wrote a submission tracker yesteerday. (Well wrote two but that's a different story).

What struck me was that most submission trackers are paid services. Is anybody interested in a free one?

If you are, let me know and I'll throw this up on my server so others can use (for free).

#Writing #Apps
A screenshot of a web app which…

I seem to be out of my coding phase and into the drawing phase 🙂

While it isn't that good, this is based on a dream about a space yatch and a space yak ... but the yak is yet to be drawn 😛

But I really want to draw more and so this is good?

Incidentally, I learnt English mostly by reading. So for a long time I pronounced "yatch" as it's written (like "latch") in my head.

So maybe that's why in my dream it was funny to have a yatch meet a yak. But now, awake, it doesn't make as much sense to me 😛

#Art
A drawing of a space yatch trav…

When I try to think of something to draw/paint, my mind goes totally blank 😛

So decided to take inspiration from something that Ira Marcks did in one of his videos and draw something similar. This is the result.

Guess I keep drawing till the wellsprings of the imagination open up?

#Art
A drawing of a yellow/orange sn…

The painting and the words came to me in a dream 🙂 I think this is the beginning to a novel that's been in the back of my mind.

--

It was the night they came for us.

The flame hair trees wafted gently in the non-existent breeze, perfectly framing Mount Coinjar like a criminal mastermind in peak-Machiavelli mode. I could almost feel the bramble bugs, their tiny pinprick eyes peering out of their black blob bodies, waiting, waiting, waiting for an unwary target to come by.

#Writing #Dreams
A digital painting based on the…