Friday, December 29, 2023: Recommendations
Welcome, I’m Mary Louisa Locke, the author of the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series and the Caelestis Science Fiction series. In this daily newsletter, I reflect on my life as an indie author trying to age gracefully, including my struggles to maintain a balanced life, what I listen to, read, and watch for entertainment, and occasional bits of information I’ve gleaned from doing the research for my novels.
Daily Diary, Day 1214
Brief check-in: Despite how busy yesterday was with meetings and phone calls, I did get over 500 words written and all my walks in. Today, however, is filled with three scheduled phone calls, so I’m not so sure how much writing time I will get.
And now on to what I’ve been doing to entertain myself these past two weeks:
TV watching:
The only movie we watched was Maestro about Leonard Bernstein. I thought Bradley Cooper did an amazing job of inhabiting the character, but over all as a movie, a bit of a weeper. One of the downsides of having gotten DVDs of our favorite romcom and xmas movies in those days before streaming, is that we have watched and rewatched things like Die Hard and Love, Actually, that we weren’t tempted to rewatch any of them this season.
We did finish rewatching the first seasons of Slow Horses, and then binge watched this season, finishing up with the final episode on Wednesday. Also continuing to watch Shetland and Midsomer Murders as new episodes come out each week. Shetland has certainly been twisty, and I think next week will be the finale, and of course Midsomer Murders is as expected, with actors and actresses we recognize from other shows and a ridiculously high body count. But its predictability is what makes me enjoy it as something to watch that despite the body count is actually sort of restful.
We have also been watching the new season of the French police procedural Candice, and once again the romance between the two protagonists has hit a snag. Thankfully, I enjoy the main character enough (and the supporting characters) that I let go my impatience with the on and off again nature of the romance.
There was a Christmas special of Vera that I thoroughly enjoyed, even though I had recently listened to the audiobook version. Last night we discovered there were Christmas specials for Death in Paradise and the spin-off of Lost from Paradise, so we did a back-to-back with these. Again, all pleasant but not great. Frankly, this past week what I enjoyed the most was Slow Horses and we were sorry to see it end and have to wait for next season.
Finally, since Abbott Elementary is over, the before bed show we have started is rewatching Katie and Koji, a sweet British show with the Vera actress.
Listening
I finished listening to the second Thomas Perry, Jane Whitfield mysteries, and then started Geogette Heyer’s Civil Contract. Sadly, I finally got caught up with the episodes of the podcast, A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs. He has been doing this for years, just completed episode 171, Hey Jude, and now I will have to wait to listen to the new ones as they come out a couple of times a month. But in the interim I have some past episodes of Shedunnit to listen to. I also enjoyed listening to Christmas music on my walks. But I might need to spend some time finding some podcasts to try out going into the new year (will love to hear suggestions here. I like them short.
Reading:
I continued to read the holiday series of short stories that come out one a day, they will be finished on January 1, and I have started on a lovely special edition of The Secret Garden that has all sorts of inserts, like letters, maps. I even got almost caught up with my print magazines. But I know at this stage of my writing that I won’t get much reading done. I have reserved a new book I got by Kris Rusch to read as celebration when the draft of the novel is done.
In fact, I suspect my rather unenthusiastic reaction to the TV we watched recently comes from the fact that, in truth, I would rather be spending the evening writing. However, I know from experience that wouldn’t be good for my sleeping (which by the way has been excellent!) and so I don’t do this.
Did any of you watch or rewatch a favorite xmas movie? Maybe there was one I forgot and can dig out to end this holiday season!
Finally, only 3 more days to check out the Smashwords End of Year Sale:
All my Victorian San Francisco Mystery novels, novellas, and short stories are 50% off on Smashwords through January 1. Click HERE to see them. All my science fiction books are also available at a 50% discount, HERE.
And if you click HERE, you will get to see other great bargains on Smashwords.
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