TL;DR: If a post is categorized as Other Things, it will be free of any practical writing/authoring/work-related material, and you can plan your reading or avoidance accordingly.

I had been writing in two blogs, one for personal-me and one for professional author-me, but it turns out I’m less plural than I thought. Starting with this post I’ll lumping all of me onto one big messy blog. So to speak. On with the week’s show & tell.

Six weeks since I tallied up my media consumption. Six weeks! My blogging time went to news of convention travels and authoring accomplishments, gripes about various illnesses,  and a lot of etc. Life has slowed with the turn of the seasons, and thanks to the technological wonders of library due slips & a Netflix activity profile, I can bring the record up to date.

Bookses, my precious!

Most of my recent reading fell under the heading “Fluffy Romantic Fantasies of a British History that Never Was.” All these books are delicious mental cotton candy: pretty to look at, easy on the emotions, quick to finish, and dissolving in memory as quickly as flavored sugar melts on the tongue.

A Gift for Guile / Alissa Johnson
The Knave of Hearts/ Elizabeth Boyle
The Untamed Earl / Valerie Bowman
The Spinster’s Guide to Scandalous Behavior / Jennifer McQuiston
Only Beloved /Mary Balogh
An Invitation to Seduction /Lorraine Heath
Once a Scoundrel /Candace Hern
How to Treat a Lady /Karen Hawkins
The Wicked Duke /Madeline Hunter
Just Wicked Enough/Lorraine Heath
Lord of Wicked Intentions /Lorraine Heath
I Thee Wed /Celeste Bradley
How the Duke Was Won /Lauren Bell
Heir to the Duke /Jane Ashford

The two books that weren’t that kind of treat were salty, urban fantasies:
Fire Touched / Patricia Briggs
The Curse of the Tenth Grave/Darynda Jones

Moving Pictures:

My summer blockbusters tally this year is a quarter of what it usually is. A lot of movies didn’t pass my threshold for “is this worth half a day’s time plus the hassle of the drive plus major money for tickets?” Suicide Squad, Sausage Party, Mechanic:Resurrection, Ben Hur, War Dogs, Pete’s Dragon–I’ll catch them on disc or streaming. Kubo & The Two Strings is the only one I’m sad I missed. Stupid rhinovirus.

First, the feature movies I collected these last few weeks:
The Wave. Wholly forgettable.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. OMG THE STUPID. “Hey, kids! Let’s start up the hydroelectric power plant after 10 years shut down. How hard can it be? Flip the switches! Connect cables! Everything starts right up!” BWAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA. No.
The Big Short. Funny, informative, moving, clever. Superlative. I didn’t find the information in it to be revelatory, educational mind-blowers the way all its reviews mentioned, but then I learned about the havoc potential of secondary markets and the sociopathic cray-cray culture of Wall Street at my daddy’s knee in the late 70’s. The crash was never a shock or a mystery to me. Greed & corruption burned down a building that was already sliding off a cliff. Plenty of experts were raising alarms about the dangers of deregulated banking & the housing bubble from the late 90’s onward. Anyhow. It made me laugh, even while I got angry all over again.
Allegiant part 1. I see why the finale’s going direct to DVD. Bad. Dull-bad, not fun-bad.
Bridge of Spies. Atmospheric, brilliant, and damnably depressing.
The Giver. Could’ve been great. Wasn’t.
Zootopia. FOX! BUNNIES! OTTER! Progressive social message delivered with a fethery tickler instead of a mallet. Fifteen stars out of five.
Seven Samurai.  This is the first time in four viewings that I realized the villagers are the main characters. I think this is the only version where that’s true.
Magnificent Seven (1960) Watched right after 7 Samurai. Fascinated to see how 45 minutes of story development were condensed to 5 minutes of screen time in this iteration.
And finally a theater-worthy flick:
Magnificent Seven (2016) A few too many Hollywood cliche writing flourishes for my taste, but a fine updating nonetheless.

In serial viewing:
Zoo season 3: last three episodes in one sitting. I may have broken brain cells.
All 7 seasons of West Wing. Details offered in an earlier Other Things post.
Designated Survivor.  I’ll definitely be watching this one.
Miss Fisher Mysteries. Just starting now. Already in love with it.

Six weeks. It adds up to a lot.

Yes, I could get much more media creation done if I didn’t consume so much media. Then again I could also get a lot more writing done if I gave up gardening, cooking, volunteering, exercising, or socializing.  Value judgments. They’re sneaky. If I was independently wealthy and didn’t work at the library and had servants to do all my shopping and cleaning for me, I would get tons more writing and reading and movie-watching done.

I refuse to devalue any of my joyful work for the meager reward of bragging rights. I will not pursue monomania for quantity’s sake. Beyond physical survival & fiscal solvency, I strive for a balanced, healthy, grounded life. Productive? Enh. I’ll define it my own way.