Holidailies 2024!

Happy Holidailies! Holy smoke, Holidailies is 25 years old this year. This is my favorite writing project, and I’m glad to see it’s still going. Last year’s was a blast, so let’s see if I can add to some of the magic.

You may or may not notice that this website looks a little bit different from last year. I couldn’t bear to see Inigo’s name get smaller and smaller in my tag cloud, so I got a new template. Or, a new-to-me template as this one is Twenty-Fifteen. This one makes more sense to me because the place to leave a comment is at the end of the entry so folks don’t have to scroll up to the top to leave one. See also, I can still fool around with background images and color schemes without having to deal with block editing and all of that other stuff that drives me batty about WordPress.

Anyway, it seems the random prompt generator thingie at Holidailies isn’t functioning, so I thought I’d kick off with a Sunday Stealing as it’s about one of my favorite topics: books.

Has reading a book ever changed your life? Which one and why, if yes?
Yes. Bambi by Felix Salten. I read it when I was nine years old and it shaped the way I view animals.

Do you prefer to read fiction or non-fiction?
Fiction. I read a lot of medical journals for work and that’s enough non-fiction for me. When I read for pleasure, I prefer to escape into a different time and place.

If you could be a character in any novel you’ve read, who would you be?
I wouldn’t. Novels are based on one of three types of conflict (human vs human, human vs environment, or human vs self) and good writing involves depictions of a fair bit of suffering, and I wouldn’t want to endure either.

Has reading a book ever made you cry? Which one and why?
Yes. The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. Let’s just say a hawk is involved.

How many books do you read a year?
Not nearly enough. I’m very pressed for time, so if I read three or four, I call it a win.

Name a book you had to read, but hated. Why did you hate it?
I’ll catch hate for this, but the Bible. Twelve years of Catholic school can do that to you. Plus, the writing is just so bad with all the ye, thee, thy, and thine stuff. Unto you I say BLECH.

If someone wrote a book about your life what would it be called?
You’ve Gotta Be Kidding Me: Tales of a Long Island Girl Inside the Beltway. The dust jacket would say something like, “Washington, D.C. is full of blowhards, mansplainers, and pretentious snobs who think their doo-doo doesn’t stink. Enter Zennie. She’s snarky. She’s real. She doesn’t have time for their hot air.”

Have you ever written (or started to write) a book?
I’ve partially written three. Never did finish them. That’s one thing I absolutely hate about being a reporter. When I get home from work, I don’t want to write anymore unless it’s something like a blog or journal entry. Fiction requires a lot of thought and I just don’t have it in me. It wasn’t like that with every writing job I had, but my current workload takes a lot out of me.

If you could pick a book you’ve read to make into a movie, what would it be?
I wouldn’t. The movie is never as good as the book.

What was your favorite book as a child?
See Bambi, above.

What are you reading right now?
I’m reading two books, actually. The first is Dawn Empress by Faith L. Justice, about Pulcheria, sister to the Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius II. I absolutely dislike the protagonist, though—she’s religious and that’s a turn-off for me in reality, fiction, and historical fiction about real people—so  when I had to take a trip for work, I downloaded Breakdown, an Alex Delaware mystery by Jonathan Kellerman, and am enjoying it much more.

Hmmm… Going back to that question about being a character in a novel, I suppose I wouldn’t mind being Alex Delaware’s girlfriend Robin Castagna. She makes guitars for a living and I can think of a few rock stars I’d love to have as clients, though if memory serves me correctly, she was a target in one of the novels.

In other news… The National Christmas Tree will be lit on Thursday, so as soon as I get down to the Mall and the Walk of Peace, I will start posting photos of the state trees like I did last year. I’m not sure if I’m going to post my own ornaments this year. I have to take a look at them when I put up my tree, which probably won’t be until either December 7 or 14.

However, I got the Finch app this weekend and one of my daily goals is to do something that makes me happy, so here’s a snowflake I colored with glitter gel pens. Sorry for the bad photo. I already started the next one and forgot to take a picture of this one before I folded the book back. Oops. Looks like the white glitter ink doesn’t photograph, either. Really, those spaces are colored in! Live and learn! The book is 50 Snowflakes to Color by Kameliya Angelkova. Gel pens are Tanmit 80/160 in the cloth case, currently selling for about 20 bucks on Amazon, 80 colors with one refill each. (No affiliation, but sometimes folks ask.)