Challenge: Karma

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews.)

Prompt: Do you believe in Karma? Why or why not?

Easy answer: I don't believe in Karma. Not in the colloquial sense of, "If you do bad things then bad things will happen to you," and not in the more esoteric sense of "The weight of the good and bad things that you do in this life will determine what sort of life you will be born into next time around." Though if the latter version is true, then I can only hope that I have worked hard and advanced my soul enough to be reincarnated as one of my family's housecats.

As for the Why or Why Not? Well... look around. The super-rich are some of the most horrible, exploitive, damaging people on the planet, and they sure don't seem to be suffering much in the way of consequences for it. Whereas some of the best people I know seem beset on all sides with problems that aren't their fault and are frankly beyond their control. 

That said... I do think that actions have consequences. I think that, in general, if you show yourself as untrustworthy, over the long term people aren't going to trust you. If you're a hateful, abusive person then over the long term people aren't going to want to be around you. But that's not Karma; that's just... people.

Challenge: Recent Songs

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews.)

Prompt: A Recent Song I've Loved

I actually have two that are recent songs that I love. The first one is by Taylor Swift -- apparently I'm a Swifty? -- and it's called "Anti-Hero".

The second one is by Miley Cyrus, and it's called "Flowers". The video, um, may not be entirely work-appropriate; our girl Miley does like herself some skimpy outfits.

What songs have you been enjoying lately?

Challenge: My Favorite Food

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews.)

Prompt: My favorite food

Oh, easy! It's definitely cheeseburgers. Unless it's omelettes. Or, um, Pad kee Mao? French fries? Loaded french fries? Stir fry? No, wait, maybe it's the Mozzarella sticks from that one place that rolls them in panko crumbs? No, it's definitely bulgogi. Or gyro meat with that rice and some tzatziki sauce, maybe a bit of kafta on the side.

Uh oh. 

I like to eat, y'all. I like a lot of different kinds of food. I like having a variety of different kinds of food.

But I guess, after careful consideration of how my grocery budget actually gets spent, there is a final winner. 

It's bacon.

All. The. Bacon.

Bacon by itself. Bacon crumbled onto cheesy fries. Bacon in cheeseburgers. Bacon in omelettes. Bacon mixed into macaroni and cheese. Bacon cooked as part of a stir fry. It's just such a wonderfully versatile food, and so, so yummy.

Bacon.

Challenge: Ghost Story

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews.)

Prompt: Scariest real-life ghost story

I don't... actually really have one of these. Not as such. I've had sleep paralysis, of the Shadow People variety, but really only once; and of course as a kid I could scare myself silly thinking about the nightmare things that could be in my room at night. But that's really it. 

So the closest thing to a ghost story I've got is an incident I like to call... 

THE BATHROOM OF TERROR

This actually happened. This is described pretty much exactly the way it actually happened. So follow the link, and share the experience...

Challenge: Mark Your Place

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews.)

Prompt: Bookmark, scrap paper, or dog-ear?

At this point in my life, the answer is usually just, "Kindle." That said, when I am reading a paper book, I tend to mark my place with some kind of bookmark - frequently a card of some order. (I have an odd little collection of playing-card sized cards: some with art on them, some that came with other things like D&D figure sets, some remnants of card games that Secondborn opened and scattered in years past.) So, not usually purpose-built bookmarks as such, but not exactly scrap paper either.

Challenge: Bookcases

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews.)

Prompt: show us your bookcase(s)

I hate to say, "All right, you asked for it," but... well... here we are.The bookcase that I think of as "mine" is the one that lives in the writing closet, and the writing closet is, well... here: 

Inside, well... might be just a little bit cluttered. 

And behind my chair, more bookshelves - mostly with old D&D 3.5 books:

Yeah. 

I might be a little overdue to haul all this stuff out and reorganize it.

Also, you may notice that I am much better at giving myself good advice than I am at taking it.

So how about you? What do your bookshelves look like?

Challenge: Favorite Quote

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews.)

Prompt: Favorite quote from a book.

I can think of several off the top of my head, so I'm not sure I could narrow it down to just one. Let's take a look: 

• "Things fall apart, the center cannot hold... but what the hell, it's home." Roger Zelazny riffing off Yeats in the Chronicles of Amber.
• "I could have become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realized I could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites. It had been well over 35,000 hours or so since then, with still not much murdering, but probably, I don't know, a little under 35,000 hours of movies, serials, books, plays, and music consumed. As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure." Martha Wells in All Systems Red, opening The Murderbot Diaries with the most perfect introduction I've ever seen. Everything that's going to happen in the novella is promised to the reader right there in the first three lines.
• "This is blasphemy, my dear Jessica; a very important human endeavor." Iris Murdoch, from The Nice and the Good. (I think that's the right book, and also it's possible that I'm slightly misquoting it as Google seems strangely unable to find it. I shall have to re-read the book.) I like the idea that blasphemy is not only a defining characteristic of humanity, but that the capacity for blasphemy is something that the gods might envy in us.