Pics of the Las Vegas Sphere – and books

I bailed on blogging again last week, and it wasn’t even for a boring reason like work or a writing deadline. I went to Vegas! And you know what that means: I’m so broke I have to sell my plasma to survive. I have new photos to fill space on my blog! This week we’ll visit Sphere, the newest Las Vegas attraction and my latest obsession. But first: it’s the 3rd Friday of the month, which means it’s time for the What’s On Your Bookshelf Challenge, hosted by Sue, Donna, Jo and Deb.

I’ve been getting back into a regular reading groove and finished a nice mix of books since my last book post back in August.

What I’ve read since August

Crime fiction

I’ve been getting seriously into mystery and thriller short stories, especially the Best American Mystery Stories annual anthologies (now called The Best Mystery Stories of the Year). I found several volumes of this series at my local Friends of the Library book sale, so I’ll get to indulge my new obsession for several more months. The three compilations I read this month (best stories of 2011 and 2021 plus a Mystery Writers of America anthology called Deadly Anniversaries) all contained wonderful stories. They’re immensely entertaining and also make for excellent training on different writing techniques, points of view, story structure, and more.

Speaking of short fiction, Jeffery Deaver published a new Lincoln Rhyme short, Swiping Hearts. You know how I love Deaver and Lincoln Rhyme, so I tore through this one quickly. Fun read!

I also finished Damyanti Biswas’s wonderful thriller, The Blue Bar. For some reason I found this book hard to get into, but I’m glad I stuck with it. The plot picks up about a quarter of the way through, and the entire novel immersed me in the people, culture, and geography of Mumbai. I’m looking forward to the sequel, The Blue Monsoon, which came out recently.

Romance – and how I discovered Virgin River

So I mentioned in my last post that I got a full request for my time travel romance/romantic suspense manuscript, Vanishing, Inc. after pitching it to an agent at a conference. She asked for the manuscript plus a query letter. For those of you who aren’t insane enough to be writers, a query letter is expected to include “comps,” a/k/a comparable titles, to help the agent understand where your book would fit with titles already published.

Comps are hard. Really hard. Especially for weird books like Vanishing, Inc., that cross genre lines. I’ve been looking for good comps for literally years. I started searching again and found a site that catalogs romances. A bit of searching and poking, and I landed on Virgin River. Now, Virgin River doesn’t include time travel, but it does include a female protagonist looking to start over in a small town after a traumatic experience and a male protagonist healing from his own trauma. All that plus a strong sense of place made it a reasonably good match for my manuscript. Comps are supposed to be recent and this one isn’t (it was published in 2015, I think)–but it was made into a Netflix series that has been posting some big (and recent) ratings.

Of course, I’m going to read any book I use as a comp, so there I was, spending my limited nonwork time frantically doing a final edit pass on my manuscript and racing through Virgin River.

I loved it.

I started watching the Netflix show. Loved it too. My husband also enjoyed it.

The writing isn’t perfect, and I have a few other minor complaints, but the book and show are really engaging. If you like small-town romance, check it out.

Nonfiction

• Disability Visibility – I can’t recommend this book enough. It’s a collection of personal essays by writers with disabilities. Many are wonderfully written, and all address aspects of disability that aren’t always well understood (example: how difficult it is for someone who uses a wheelchair to find attractive yet comfortable clothing). Outstanding book.
• Where to Retire – I likely have ~9 years till I can retire, but I’m a planner, so I’m already thinking about where I’d like to live when I no longer have to live near a job. This book helped me create a list of criteria and gave me a few new places to consider. And it gave me a few happy hours blending armchair travel with retirement daydreams.
• The Easy Way to Write Short Stories that Sell – useful advice for short story writers. But–spoiler alert–one cannot earn enough money writing short stories to pay for early retirement. Bummer.

Want more book talk? You can find all my book-related posts here.

Vegas, baby!

I spent the sweltering Tucson summer vacationless. Now that summer’s over and the weather here at home is tolerable… I’m traveling. I spent a few days in Las Vegas last week, I’ll be in Seattle for work in a couple of weeks, and I’m flying to upstate New York for a wedding in early December. Those last two would have been weather upgrades a couple of months ago. Now? Not so much. At least I’ll have some pics to fill space on the blog.

Speaking of which… I have Vegas pics! We’ll start with my new favorite Vegas feature, a music and entertainment arena called Sphere that opened earlier this year. I wasn’t about to pony up $500+ for tickets to see U2 there (because then I really would have to sell my plasma), so I settled for taking a bunch of pictures of the outside of the building.

As you can tell, it changes designs periodically. I’m in love with its emoji face. It’s so adorable! Can I have a pet stadium? Pleeeaaaasssseeeee? I’ll take good care of it.

The funnies

It’s the monthly book post, so I should have book memes, but I don’t because I’m too lazy busy to go find some. Hell, I don’t have any memes this month. What do I have? Quotes posted on a wall at the Chicken Shack in Henderson, Nevada.

No, I’m not kidding.

My son was a Trekkie when he was in late elementary and middle school, so one day I came up with my own joke:

Q. Why did the Klingon cross the road?

A. To conquer the other side.

Hey, he thought it was funny. Don’t worry–I won’t quit my day job.

How are things in your world? Whatcha reading? Fallen in love with any buildings recently?