Apologies

Going on hiatus while college friends are in town. Should resume regular posting in a week or so.

Brief update on my writing before I go...

I finished the first draft of Grave of the Goddess last Tuesday. (A million hip hip hoorays because it's only the second full draft of something I've ever finished!) I'm not looking at it for the rest of the month while my beta readers tear it apart. Planning to edit it into a query-worthy draft during June and July. Wish me luck because this will be the first time I have attempted to edit an entire draft like this.

That's it for now. See you next week sometime!

Teaser Tuesday: The Beauty Bride

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Current read: The Beauty Bride by Claire Delacroix

Synopsis: Alexander has a problem. It's that he has to marry off his sister Madeline, who has refused to ever wed. Madeline's betrothed died on the same boat as their parents and she won't even discuss it. So Alexander is forced to take matters into his own hands by auctioning Madeline off. He never intended Rhys Fitzhenry to take part. Rhys is a warrior who has fought the king to gain land. Clever and resourceful, he knows he needs an heir, and this auction is the perfect way to get one. Furious that her brother would dare auction her off, Madeline flees...but Rhys won't be cast aside so easily. Can this strong and witty warrior catch his impetuous and bold bride?

Teaser:

Rhys had always found women somewhat incomprehensible and a goodly amount of trouble. It was small consolation that his new wife proved his earlier conclusions to be valid.

I picked this up for free on my Kindle. (I am always looking for free romance novels to read via the Kindle app on my phone when I'm caught somewhere without a book.) For a historical romance with a pretty insane premise, its main characters are rather endearing. I'll say more about it when I finish it!

Musing Monday: A home without books is no home at all!

Musing Mondays is a weekly bookish meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Just muse about one of the following each week:

Describe one of your reading habits.
Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).
What book are you currently desperate to get your hands on? Tell us about it!
Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.
Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!
Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!

Last week I mused about how I am a "messy" reader - and got some interesting responses. It seems a lot of people fall into extremes with their reading style, either being messy like me or neat as a pin like my dear BFF.

This week, I think I'll continue to muse about my reading habits. After all, the best part about a blog is talking about yourself!

Reading Habit #2

Before I talk about my reading habit, I think we need some background information. Because not only do I think a well-worn book is a well-loved book... I also think a house that looks more like a library is the only kind of house for me. Fortunately for me, my boyfriend agrees! Our house currently has six standalone bookcases, and at least five shelves on other pieces of furniture that I have turned into bookcases. There are regularly piles of books on both coffee tables, both of our nightstands, the filing cabinet in my office, the end table in the living room, and sometimes the kitchen table.

Of course, we spend a lot of time in the Barnes and Noble cafe reading books we don't own as well.

 ...we own a lot of books. I counted all of them when we first moved in together (and actually took them all out of boxes) and we had four hundred and some odd books. That was three years ago. Since then, we've moved into an actual house and managed to rescue nearly all of the books that remained at our respective parents' houses. I wanted to count our new collection when we put up the bookshelves here... But it was far too daunting a task. I would assume we own over a thousand books now.

Yep. And they are in every room of the house EXCEPT the bathrooms. Which is silly because we both definitely read in the bathroom! (Maybe that can be the subject of another Musing Monday.)

I took this picture when I had finished counting all the books we had in our first apartment together.

So, my second reading habit is this: I delight in finding new places to read in much the same way that I am always looking for new places to write. Having bookcases all over the house really aids in this venture. I can say with certainty that I've lived here for less than a year and I have spent time reading in each and every room of the house - as well as on the porch and the deck out back!

Are you like me, always seeking the next reading nook? Or do you like to curl up in the same chair every time you open a book?

As for me... I'm so intrigued by listing all of my book-y assets that I'm thinking some pictures of my collection might be in order soon...

Friday Finds

This is another meme from Should Be Reading

FRIDAY FINDS showcases the books you ‘found’ and added to your To Be Read (TBR) list… whether you found them online, or in a bookstore, or in the library — wherever! (they aren’t necessarily books you purchased). 

I am constantly adding books to my TBR list. Recent examples from haunting our local Barnes & Noble:

The Witch's Daughter

The Winter Witch

The Midnight Witch

All by Paula Brackston. You can guess why I'm interested in these. (Hint: I really like stories about witches.) I actually checked out The Witch's Daughter from the library, but got caught up in reading other things and didn't get to it. For what it's worth, the first two chapters were beautifully written. I hope I can get back to it sometime soon.

Also stumbled across these YA books via Youtube reviews and thought they sounded good:

The Killing Woods by Lucy Christopher

Wild Awake by Hilary T. Smith

Has anyone else read any of these and have feelings about them?

WWW Wednesdays

Another meme found at Should Be Reading

 

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?

My currently reading list is always about a mile long. But I tend to be reading-reading one book out of the many. I realize that doesn't make any real sense so you'll just have to trust me.

Right now I'm actually reading The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander. I cannot believe I didn't read this classic fantasy series until I was in college! This is the first time I'm rereading, and I'm just as in love as before.

I recently finished reading The Bitter Kingdom by Rae Carson which was a fantastic end to a fantastic YA Fantasy trilogy. I cannot say enough good things about that series. If you want a seriously awesome female protagonist, look no farther. 

Also just read Long Time Coming by Edie Claire. I downloaded this for free on my Kindle and read it in a 24 hour time span. She has an excellent writing style although the plot was somewhat cliched. I think of romantic suspense stories like these as popcorn, and this one fit the bill perfectly. 

As for what I'll read next... I've got a few new exciting romance novels on my Kindle that I might blaze through. Or I might go back to rereading The Vampire Chronicles in preparation for Anne Rice releasing a new Lestat book this year (!). And there's always the next Chronicles of Pyrdain book. Knowing me, I'll see something new and shiny and glomp onto that so... Stay tuned?  

Teaser Tuesdays: The Book of Three

easer Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play long! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!


These memes are good fun. I've been reading so much more than I have in the past few years, that I feel like I finally have something to contribute to the reading blogosphere.

Current read: The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander

Teaser:

The golden pommel was smooth and rounded, its color deliberately muted; ash leaves covered the scabbard. It was truly the weapon of a prince.

Sigh! There's nothing quite like a beautifully painted high fantasy sword, is there?

Musing Monday: I am a messy reader.

 I enjoy the memes found at Should Be Reading so you might start seeing more of these...

Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…

• Describe one of your reading habits. 
• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s). 
 • What book are you currently desperate to get your hands on? Tell us about it!   
• Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.  
• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us! 
• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!

This week, I'll be musing about one of my reading habits. Mostly because this is my blog and I like talking about myself. Surprise! Because there might describe more of these in weeks (and months and years) to come, I will number them.

Reading Habit #1 

I am a messy reader. If you looked at any of my books, you'd be terrified to lend me yours. I highlight and underline favorite passages. I write my name in Sharpie inside the cover. I doodle character names on the edges of the closed pages. When I put down a paperback I'm reading, I often break the spine. I dogear pages I want to come back to. And I really like to read while I'm eating so... Coffee or salsa stains on the pages are not out of the question. 

I adore my books. But I don't worship them. In my mind, copies can always be replaced. I'd rather cuddle them (I often sleep with the book I'm reading under my pillow) and maybe bend the cover a bit then always be worrying about my paperback looking pristine. Besides, I frequent used bookstores the way some girls frequent the mall. So if my duct-taped copy of The Dragon Reborn is starting to lose pages, I know where to go to get a new one without breaking my piggy bank. 

...all that being said, I really try hard to be nice to books that people lend me. And whenever I read a hardcover, I leave the jacket on the shelf because I know otherwise I'll rip it somehow.

I'm afraid I never left my teenage bookworm habits behind... Anyone else out there a messy reader?

Booking Through Thursday: Favorite Books

Do you have a favorite book? What do you say when people ask you?

This is from last week. No new post this week as of Saturday morning... :(

I actually do have a favorite book! I think this is an unusual thing among heavy readers because we tend to adore multiple books with equal abandon. However. There is one book and one book only that 1) makes me cry every time I read it and 2) is the perfect ending to a nearly perfect trilogy.

If you haven't read this series - His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman - you need to drop everything else you're reading right now.

The first book of the trilogy is The Golden Compass (aka Northern Lights in countries other than the United States). Someone turned it into a highly disappointing movie which I try to forget happened. Don't even bother with it. The book concentrates on the adventures of a girl named Lyra who lives in Oxford. Only it's not our Oxford. If you want a longer summary, click the link I provided in the previous paragraph. Suffice to say, Lyra is stubborn and hilarious and strong. Everything you want a good heroine to be. We become familiar with her world and get a good hint of what is going wrong in it in this first volume. It ends with a fantastic cliffhanger that will have you running to the library/bookstore for the second book.

The second book is The Subtle Knife. It begins in our world! What, huh? And we get a new protagonist, Will Parry. Will may be my favorite fictional character of all time and I may or may not have named my muse after him because he's not the stereotypical male hero. He's a kid who had to grow up too fast. He's intelligent, curious, and somewhat brooding. And he's just as strong as Lyra - but in a completely different way. They act to balance each other out quite well.

Okay, obviously I love these books for the main characters. But the world Pullman has put together is one of the most uniquely beautiful fantasys I've ever seen. Parallel universes, steampunk elements, polar bear warriors, witches, angels, magical objects, sentient creatures entirely unlike anything on Earth, and a serious Christian mythology / philosophy that is the backbone of the entire series... all of these things add up to something truly amazing.

The Amber Spyglass is my favorite book of all time because Pullman manages to write the perfect bittersweet ending. I have no words for it beyond that. I mean, everything about the book is fantastically done: bigger and badder than anything that happened in the first two books. He wraps up everything to satisfaction in a surprisingly realistic way that is nonetheless poetic. But it's really the ending that gets me every time.

Sigh.

Basically this is the series I wish I had written, especially The Amber Spyglass.. And though it might sound conceited, I can't imagine a higher stamp of approval for a book I've read than that.

May Is For Pressing Onward

I pretty much already stated by Write Motivation goals for May in my last post, but I figured I'd do something a little more official. Because, you know, I can.

Writing Goals for May

1. Finish rough draft of Grave of the Goddess
2. Take an honest break from writing Grave after sending it to beta readers
3. Write enough of Holyoak Five that I can start a queue for posting episodes every week
4. After at least a week's break, start revisions of Grave

I think all of that's pretty doable. I just hope I'm done with this rough draft in less than two weeks. My five year college reunion is coming up (I know, don't even talk to me) and one of my best friends in the world is coming to visit! I haven't seen her in... jeez... more than two years? We plan to have a personal reunion with my other best friend forever who is finishing up her first year of grad school as we speak.

I'm so excited!

And all of that aside, I'm also trying to press onward with the overhaul of our yard. Since we moved into the house at the end of last summer, we didn't do much in the way of yard work other than mowing the lawn a couple of time and trimming some of the more gregarious growth on the weeping cherry tree out front. Now every chance I get I'm out there with a rake and clippers, attacking the layers of dead leaves and tangled remnants of whatever someone planted years ago. There were tenants living in this house for a couple of years and I'm pretty positive they did ZERO yard work. I keep finding the strangest bits of plastic and trash in the strangest places... I shudder to think what I'll find when it gets really warm and I attack cleaning the basement.

One more thing before I go. I recently noticed that this little blog of mine turned five about a week and a half ago. I've been pretty terrible about posting here regularly up until this year, but I thought it was interesting that I started this my last semester of college and almost all of my posts have been about writing and reading and trying like hell to mesh my everyday life with love of those activities. There are some fun things in my archives.

That's all from me for now. I'm gonna go read up on other people's goals for the month and hope there are still some crazies like me trying to finish the ends of novels.