Daily Diary, Day 1284:
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.
Brief check-in: If you’ve been following my daily posts, you know that the last couple of weeks, for a variety of reasons, I haven’t been feeling at the top of my game physically, which has had an impact on my productivity regarding my novel. However, what this has also meant is that I’ve been particularly happy when I’ve found tv shows, movies, podcasts, and audiobooks to help distract. By and large, I’ve been successful. I have an appointment to have the sye drained this afternoon, and I hope this speeds my recovery. Here are two hidden statues I had never noticed before that I saw on my first walk today.
Now, here are my recommendations from what I have been watching and listening to these past two weeks.
TV watching:
We continued to watch Death and Other Details, although we found the end rather confusing. The new episodes of Death in Paradise has been much more satisfying, and we are definitely still enjoying Will Trent. We have watched a couple more episodes of Foyle’s War.
We were sad to watch the last episode of Graham Norton for this season, and we have continued to rewatch Big Bang Theory over dinner, and Frazier and Fisk and new episodes of Abbot Elementary before bed.
We did actually watch a couple movies over these past two weeks. The first was Oppenheimer, which was quite good, and then we re-watched the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once, which was even better the second time around when we weren’t quite so confused by what was going on (confusion is not actually a bad thing, since it conveys the confusion at the main character is experiencing.). However, it still was very good to watch it a second time so I would definitely both recommend the movie, but also recommend watching it a second time if you’ve already seen it.
Finally, we have been delighted to watch the first two episodes of the new season of Vera, and I am sad that there’s only one more episode to go.
Listening
Podcasts have continued to entertain me in the first part of my walks, but I haven’t discovered anything particularly new to recommend. However, the problem with is my eye and finger, which has been keeping me from writing, means I have been listening to audiobooks more often, particularly when while soaking my eye. So, in the last two weeks I finished listening to Slow Horses by Nick Herron, listened to all of Persuasion by Austen, and have just finished
listening to the second book in the Jackson Brody mysteries by Kate Atkinson, One Good Turn. And this morning I started listening to Friday’s Child, by Georgette Heyer, one of my favorites.
Reading:
With the eye infection, reading, even on the Kindle, has been more difficult so I haven’t started anything new in this realm. Once again, a lot of gratitude for audiobooks. They are definitely making this rough patch, more pleasant to experience.
Anything new any of you wish to recommend for the rest of us? If so, do put in the comments.
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I have recently discovered Fiona Davis. She writes historical mysteries based on real people and events. The setting is New York, about which I know nothing, but anyone familiar with NY would feel as at home as I am with your SF mysteries. The two I have read were about the Rockettes (a friend's mother was a Rockette and that's how I was introduced to the author) and about the NY library and the first guardian that lived there with his family. All very interesting goings on and the mysteries fluidly wind through the historical parts. Definitely worth checking out.