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I made another start on my Yuletide fic. I think I have a way in to it now. I hope so, anyway. I'm running out of time. The main question is whether or not I can get the characters right. There's also a bit of backstory that needs to come out or some things won't make sense, and I can't figure out how to bring it out.

Yesterday, I roasted almonds and then made Chex mix for Scott. I use the basic Chex mix recipe but vary it by using a little more butter/margarine, half again as much Worcestershire sauce, and adding ginger. I should write up my recipe so that Scott or Cordelia could replicate it. I do the Chex mix in the oven rather than in the microwave. I think it comes out better that way.

I did chicken in the crock pot with Alfredo sauce and shredded it when it was well cooked. I hoped that Cordelia would be willing to eat it without complaining, and she did eat all that I gave her. I think, though, that the real draw was that I made pasta. She loves that. Pity that I don't. (I don't out and out loathe pasta, but I won't generally seek it out when there are other options.) Pasta represents a time investment that I don't want to make very often.

Today, I must write. I will probably also watch the library DVD that's due on Sunday and can't be renewed. It's in English, so I can play it while I write without being too distracted. I also have to devote a couple of hours to link finding for metanews (the newsletter is on LJ and Tumblr under the same name). I believe it's my week to post there, though, so I have a little more wiggle room as I won't be keeping someone else waiting.

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How you pick new books to try. (For melannen)

There are an awful lot of books I want to read. I'm trying not to buy books now because, when I do, I don't tend to pick them up and read them even if I really want to read them (The fact that I still haven't finished The Islands of Chaldea is fairly typical of books I own). I end up trying a lot of books from the library. I have about 500 books saved in lists on my library account, things I eventually want to read. I seem to add books to those lists faster than I take them off. I also have list of things I want to read that the library doesn't own but that I might request through interlibrary loan.

I use GoodReads to get recommendations some times. I find that it recommends a lot of things to me that I'm not hugely enthusiastic about, however. I'm trying to be ruthless about marking things I know I'll never read as 'not interested,' but I keep thinking that maybe I should at least try those books.

I use Amazon to try to keep track of new books that interest me. Amazon's not very reliable that way, but it does tend to pull up new books by the authors I can reliably read, and it gives me a few months notice on upcoming titles. Amazon also recommends a lot of things I know I'll never read. It thinks, based on things I've bought and enjoyed, that I'll love urban fantasy, and I don't.

I find a fair number of books just by reading DW and LJ and an assortment of blogs. I like it when people talk about what they've been reading. Even the books people hate sound interesting a lot of times just because people have a great deal to say about them.

I spend some time, too, browsing my library's online catalog. It's the closest I get to shelf browsing these days. I kind of miss shelf browsing and the serendipitous discoveries that come of it, but I don't think my family would have the patience to let me spend an hour or two finding books. I suppose I could take the bus downtown on my own in order to browse. The activation energy for that is too high, however. I'd never get out the door.

I don't get to bookstores very often now and tend not to buy much when I do go. I have a hard time finding books there that interest me-- The science fiction and fantasy section right now tends toward types of books that I don't like (urban fantasy, military SF, grimdark) or can't read (epic fantasy). I'm more likely to find things that I might actually read in the kids' section (not the YA section. Most of that is anxiety inducing), but kids' books are difficult because I don't want to buy hardcover but a lot of the books never appear in paperback. It's also not rare to find, say, book three without having books one and two.

When using all of these resources, I look at blurbs quite a bit. If I've read other books by the author in question, that informs my decision. I'm wishlisting a lot of non-fiction at the library these days, and for that, I often browse looking for titles that sound interesting. If I'm reading a review, I consider how frequently I agree with the author of the review about books. (I really enjoy reading review on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, for example, but I rarely pursue the books I see there because I don't have a great history with enjoying the books those reviewers like.)

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I've gotten no writing done, but I have completed my link finding. There were several things that were borderline as to whether or not I should include them in metanews. I'm never sure how strict or liberal to be with the definitions, and some days I include or exclude things that, on another day, I'd have made a different decision about. Today, I tended not to link most things. The exception is podcasts. I don't actually listen to the podcasts I encounter to evaluate whether they're meta or not; that would take a lot more time than I have to spend, and some of them focus on fandoms I know nothing whatsoever about. I just tend to assume they're close enough and to try to include enough information from the podcast blurb that people know what they're getting into.

I'm debating keeping Agents of SHIELD season one aside for Scott's birthday which is in February. That would be long enough after his rewatch that it wouldn't feel so wrong. Of course, I don't know for sure that he still wants the boxed set after having watched the whole season on Netflix. The extras don't sound that thrilling. I don't want to fuss with returning the boxed set as getting to the post office is a fairly major undertaking, but I haven't entirely decided not to return the dratted thing. I suppose I could give the sealed package to Scott and not tell him what's in it. He has to go to the post office anyway to mail the package to our nephew.

I should start writing, but I think I'm more likely to bake brownies. That won't take long, and it would be another thing I can point to as an accomplishment for the day. I think I'll try making them extra thick (partly because I want the 9x13 pan for other things). I will have to measure my small pan-- I'm not sure if it's 8x8 or 9x9, and there's about a fifteen minute difference in the recommended cooking times. I do need to take time soon to print out some of the recipes I have on my hard drive. I just have to look through them and decide which of them I can reasonably attempt. We have a lot of different flavors of chips-- chocolate, mint, and butterscotch at the very least-- but I'd like to make something besides chip bars and fudge. Then again, Cordelia doesn't seem to particularly want a large variety of cookies. I'm just thinking that Scott's mother and sister may not be baking much this year (Scott's mother can't have gluten, Scott's father has recently developed diabetes, and Scott's sister is avoiding all refined sugar). I like having cookies on Christmas day, and there may not be any if we don't bring them.

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My mother tells me that she and my step-father will be coming to Michigan some time this month. She wasn't sure if it would be before Christmas or after Christmas, but it will be after my step-father's term ends. He's a professor of social work at the university in Baton Rouge. They're making this trip for two reasons, the first is that they haven't been up here in a couple of years and want to see my family and my brother (who's in Kalamazoo) without the rushing around that there was around my grandfather's memorial (plus, my step-father couldn't come for the memorial because it was mid-term time).

The second reason is the big reason for when they're coming-- My step-father is making noises about wanting to retire to Michigan. My mother thinks he's forgotten what winter is like and how much work snow clearing involves. Mom is hoping that the cold weather will remind him of why they moved south to begin with. They've been trying to buy a house in order to spend summers in Michigan but haven't had any luck because they keep finding houses where the current owners are in over their heads and owe more than the house is actually worth. I think my step-father is assuming that they could just live in whatever house they find year round. He's not thinking about things like shoveling snow, and they're looking to buy over near Kalamazoo where there are often snowfalls of 10-12 inches at a time. It's unlikely that they'd be able to hire a snow removal service because they're looking to buy in a very small town (it doesn't even have its own grocery store).

I can kind of see why my step-father wants to return to Michigan. My brother is his only child, and neither of them are good at talking on the phone. My step-father has hearing trouble that makes the phone hard to use, and my brother is so private that it's hard to get him to talk much even in person. I mean, he's been dating a woman for nearly a decade and not a single member of the family has met her. I keep inviting him over for dinner and telling him he can bring her, but he never does. I sometimes wonder if she exists. I think he would tell us if he were gay, but he might not tell us if he were asexual. Being gay wouldn't be a big deal to any of us, not even my parents, but I'm not sure they'd understand being asexual. Of course, it might just be that he's embarrassed by his weird relatives and doesn't want to scare this woman off. Or maybe he doesn't want to introduce her to us because he doesn't view the relationship as that serious. He certainly has no interest in getting married so far as I know. He prefers living alone with his ferrets.