All About Books #1

I saw these questions on Elisabeth's blog over at The Second Sentence.  They're all questions about your favorite books and reading habits and everything. I liked reading her answers and thought they were fun questions so I thought why not answer them too?  I think I'll break them into two parts though.  Let's get started!

1. Your favourite book as a child? My favorite book as a child probably had to have been I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.  I believe I have the version that says retold and illustrated by Nadine Bernard Westcott.  I still have that thing committed to memory.  When I got a little older I was stuck on The Kids in Ms. Colman's Class by Ann M. Martin.  I read them until I was way past their reading level.  I remember my mom taking me to the book store to buy one for me and being done with it before we got home!

2. What are you reading right now? I just started Deadline by Mira Grant, the second book in the Newsflesh Trilogy.  The first one, Feed, was great.

3. What books do you have on request at the library? Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell (And now I have a couple of the Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare.)

4. Bad book habit. Getting library fines.  I have a bad habit of doing that.  I've even had to pay for books outright sometimes because I kept it or lost it for that long...

5. What do you currently have checked out from your library? The whole Newsflesh trilogy by Mira Grant and Fangirl  by Rainbow Rowell.

6. Do you have an e-reader? Kind of.  I have the Kindle for PC and have a few books on there but I completely forget about it.

7. Do you prefer to read one book at a time, or do you tend to read several at once? One at a time.  Sometimes I put down a book for another one that I've been waiting on but that still feels like one at a time.

8. Have your reading habits changed since starting a blog? I can't say that it has.

9. What was your least favourite book this year? Well, I've only read three books so far this year and I'm pretty fond of them so I'm going to go for one I read last year.  I'd have to say Pure by Julianna Baggott. I don't know if I was just really excited for another book or what but I just couldn't get in to it.  I will go back to it because I liked the story.  It just seemed that I couldn't get excited about it.

10. What was your favourite book this year? For 2014?  I would have to say Feed by Mira Grant.  That thing was an emotional roller coaster.

11. How often do you read out of your comfort zone? Not as often as I should.  I would probably find something I liked if I branched out a little.

12. What is your reading comfort zone? Young Adult I think.  It's the first section of the library that I go to when I go to browse.

13. Can you read in the car? Yes.  I love reading in the car.  Otherwise, I'm either sitting there staring at nothing (unless we're on a road trip or something) or driving.  *shudder* I hate to actually drive.  It's boring.  Lol!

14. Where is your favourite place to read? The car.... or the bathroom.  Wait, wait!  Before you judge, I will have you know that my bathroom is the most comfortable and quiet place in the house.  I'm just saying.

15. What is your policy on book-lending? You can borrow books from me, but I will bother you about it after a week or so and keep doing it until you give it back...

16. Do you ever dog-ear in books? Nope.  Though I have used the dust cover for a book mark before.

17. Do you ever write in the margins of your books? No.  That's kind of a pet peeve.

18. What about text books? Hmmm.  I think I can remember writing in text books before.

19. What is your favourite language to read in? Has to be English.  I don't know any others well enough.

20. What makes you love a book? Humor.  It doesn't have to be a 'funny' book but I do appreciate a character who I feel like I could understand.  Like someone that I could be friends with.  Perhaps I mean a good character voice in general then?  Not necessarily just humor.

21. What would inspire you to recommend a book? Sometimes I read a book that I just have to talk about.  Like I actually can't help but to talk about it as if the people were real and whatever just happened was said and done right in front of me. (Just ask my sister.)  THAT is when I recommend the book (to my friends that read, that excludes my sister) because I can't talk about it if it will spoil the ending and I MUST talk about how funny/stupid/ridiculous/horrible whatever happened just was.  Therefore said book is given as assigned reading to everyone and is due ASAP.

22. What is your favourite genre?  Hmmm... *looks up a list of genres*  I believe that I'm more into Fantasy and Dystopian.  I've been reading a lot that I would call that these days.

23. What is a genre you rarely read but wish that you did? Mystery.  I would love to try my hand at figuring out who did it and with what (My bets are on Col. Mustard with the candlestick) but I tried once and just couldn't get in to it.  I need to give it another go.

24. Favourite biography? That's a tough one because I will admit to not reading many of those.  I do however remember having to do a project for school awhile back that I had to read one.  I can't remember the name of it but I'm pretty sure it was about Charles M. Schulz, the man who wrote the Peanuts comic strip, and liked it quite a bit more than I thought I would.

25. Have you ever read a self-help book? If self-help includes books that are kind of like text books then yes.  I tried to teach myself sign language once.  Didn't last long by myself.

26. Favourite cookbook? There's a couple from America's Test Kitchen that I like looking at.  And for whatever reason I'm fond of the cookbooks that come with kitchen appliances like blenders and such.  However, there is a cookbook that my school made when I was in kindergarten and it has a pretty good looking recipe for I believe they were Pizza Squares by yours truly. (However, I could not find said cookbook to make 100% sure that's what I did.)

27. What is the most inspirational book you have read this year? I was going to have to say none, but come to think of it I would have to say Mira Grant's Feed.  Strangely enough, reading a story about a group of bloggers success, how much more seriously blogging is taken in their day, and the kind of change that they made by doing it made me want to post more on my own blog.  It really did inspire me.


That's enough for now.  I'll post the other half of the questions some other time.  Feel free to grab the questions from me and make your own answers!

Writing A to Z

So I remember last year when I was on twitter and I was always seeing #atozchallenge at the end of tweets.  This year I FINALLY caught on to it before the event started.

Turns out that the A to Z Challenge takes place every April where you take it upon yourself to write a blog post every day except Sunday, which happens to be 26 days.  Not only that but you need to choose a word for each one to use as a prompt and they must be alphabetical order (Day 1 - prompt that starts with A, Day 2 - B, etc...).  That happens to conveniently give one letter for each day!

I'm going to go for it this year!  It sounds like fun and so why not?  Now the only thing is to figure out what to write...  Lol.  Think I might try a story.  Just post a little every day until I get to the end on the last day.  This is going to take some more thought.

Any of you giving it a go?  Returning for another try?  Any tips or tricks to the trade you're willing to offer?  I'm all ears.

Feed - Mira Grant (review)

"Shaun and Georgia are orphans of the Rising, the cataclysmic event which left the world reeling in the aftermath of the zombie uprising. Adopted by the Masons and raised in the strange world of the post-Rising media, they've spent their lives chasing the next big story, the one that will allow them to break into the big leagues once and for all. Now, in Senator Peter Ryman's run for the Presidency of the United States, they've finally found it.

All they have to do is survive until the election.

In a world filled with the constant threat of both the living and the living dead, it will be all that Shaun and Georgia can do to keep themselves in one piece. Accompanied by the rest of their blogging team, Senator Ryman's staff, and a whole lot of caffeine, they might succeed...or they might finally answer the big question of their post-Rising world: When will you rise?"

        -- miragrant.com

This is the first book in Mira Grant's Newsflesh trilogy.  I'll admit that this was my very first zombie read.  I know, I'm behind the times.  And this book has made me wonder why I waited so long!

Shaun and Georgia, are wonderful characters.  Georgia has just the right amount of smarts and logic while Shaun is daring and would do almost anything for a good video clip.  Both of them were snarky and fun.  They balanced each other.  Their relationship, as brother and sister and as co-workers as well, showed that they knew that too.  I think that was part of what made me care about them.  It was kind of funny when I found myself caring more about them personally and their part in the Senator's run for the Presidency instead of the fact that there are zombies running around trying to eat people.

I feel like she was able to give the details about the world that they were dealing with now without sounding like she was giving an essay.  I appreciate that because that's where I start to lose interest sometimes if I get to an 'info dump' part of a story.  At the same time, she still was able to give a lot of information.  She told where the virus that created zombies started, different forms of the disease, the transformation from human to zombie, and how zombies act.  But not only about zombies but how the news has changed now and the different types of people that are working in the journalistic field.  I like having that knowledge even though I could have just been told 'there's zombies now' and I probably would have been fine with it too if I didn't think about it too much.

I wish that I had read more zombie books to know if any of this was unique to her book or not but at the same time I'm glad I could enjoy it without being able to make any comparisons.  It was a great read and I can't wait to get started on the next of the series.

Barbies and Super Heroes

I've been spending a lot of time with some of my friends and family's kids lately.  All boys aged 2-6.  I know, and yes I'm still as sane as I was before... which might not be saying much.  Lol.

One thing I've come to notice is how randomly creative that kids in their age range are.  A lot of the time a kids first 'real' toy will be some kind of action figure or doll from a favorite TV show or movie.  What I find interesting is that no one teaches a kid to play with one of those things, but what do they do?  Pick it up and make it talk.  If I wasn't already used to them I would be surprised at the amount of detail the kids put into playtime.  I'm fairly certain that if I listen close enough that I would be able to get a plot for a new story out of them.

The younger ones tend to go for the action.  ("I kick you.  Jump over here!" "Oh no, I crash!")  The one in the middle could hold a conversation with two of his guys for who knows how long.  The oldest, however, likes to play with words themselves now.  He likes to make up words and exchange random words with the word 'fart' a lot...  I don't know what any of it means but as long as he's having fun I guess!

I do remember playing with action figures and dolls when I was little, especially at bath time, and to be honest I miss it!  Being in the frame of mind where nothing has to make sense and having whatever comes to mind fall out and essentially come to life through the toys was fun.  But kids grow out of it, as they will do, hopefully moving on to equally creative games and interests.  And adults grow out of it even more.

But some of us grow up to keep playing.  I do.  I just exchanged my dolls in the bathtub for pens on the paper.

Howdy Strangers

Been awhile, hasn't it?

Well, while I don't really have any New Year's Resolutions, I've been trying this new thing where I don't spend every spare (and not so spare) moment that I have on the internet.

It got pretty bad.  Like, I was scrolling through news feeds and videos like it was my job.  And it literally was starting to feel like a job.  I would reach a point sometimes that I didn't even want to be doing it but felt like I had to.  Then I would get my common sense back and shut it down.

So what do I do with this new found free time?  Write, of course.  Then read, housework, exercise, get a job....  Wait, why am I doing this again?  -_-  Lol.

While I do intend to cut back on the web, I do hope to become less of a stranger here.  So how are you all?!

Until next time!

Well, hello.....

Been awhile.  Let's catch up shall we!

Let's see.  I'm still working on the edits of NaNo '09.  I set it aside for quite awhile but I'm getting back into it I think.  I still have my Zombie story that I really want to finish.  Doesn't look like I'll get to it before this NaNoWriMo though.

Aside from novel length things, I'm going back to my roots!  Short stories!  Lol.  I started one about treasure hunting and one with an interesting twist on zombies.  I'm stuck on zombies a little, aren't I....  Ah well!  :D

I don't have any idea what to do for NaNo this year.  Though I'm not worried because I try not to think to hard about it until October rolls around.

I've been reading as well, of course.  I just finished the Fall of Angels series by Keary Taylor.  It was pretty good.  Now I'm reading The Future of Us by Jay Asher & Carolyn Mackler.  I'm loving it so far.  Next up will be Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver.

And I guess that's it.  What's been up with you??

Pressure of Progress

If you're anything like me, progress scares the mess out of you.  It makes you uncomfortable.  Most of all it's really hard.

It's a giant cliff that you need to get to the bottom of and the only option you have is to jump.  You've come to the point where it feels like it's now or never and it makes you freeze.

You've decided that this was the path in life that you were going to take and then it led you to this cliff.  You tell yourself all the things you're going to do, you believe in it enough to tell everyone around that you're going to do it.

But you don't.

You took a risk coming to this cliff and everyone knows now.  You tell them how your getting ready for the jump, but you feel embarrassed because it's been the same words over and over again.  Now you question if it was worth it.  You wonder if you'll fly or fall.  You wonder if you shouldn't just turn around and try a different direction.  Until others start to say the same.  Then you realize how important this is to you.  They tell you different variations of 'Go back', 'Do this', and 'It's the wrong way'.

That's when the fire was rekindled.

You want to prove them wrong.  You want to prove yourself right.  You want to take that one step that will most likely change it all.

But you chicken out.

Now you're fighting with yourself.  Are you scared or just lazy?  You make countless running starts only to pull up short and you're left pulling reasons out of thin air that you use like a veil to cover up whatever the really reason is.  Then you're just left tired.

And that's when you get tired of being tired.

You're tired of standing still.  You're tired of wondering what would happen.  You're tired of worrying that you'll miss your chance and have to ask yourself 'what if'.

So you run for that cliff, full speed this time, and don't show any signs of stopping.  You don't know exactly where it goes or if you'll be flying or falling but you only hope you'll be too busy enjoying the rush to find out.