Forward March! (March Book Wrap-Up)

I am the busiest woman on the planet nowadays. Word of advice for future college students: do NOT take three lit classes and a writing course all at the same time. You will regret everything. Anyway, here we go!

Writing
All of my writing is currently focused on the story I'm working on for my YA Fantasy class, which is still untitled. Since the last wrap-up I've written a few more chapters that are kind of scattered - I've been skipping ahead so my instructor can critique the later parts of the story as well as the earlier. As it stands right now I have 10,921 words written.

I am also currently participating in the first Camp NaNoWriMo of 2016! My goal for Camp - as always - is 10,000 words that will be put towards this same story. Right now I'm only a few hundred behind. Not bad! I fully intend to get that winner's certificate. It is going to be gorgeous.

During Spring Break I was able to write and post one more chapter of my fanfiction over on Wattpad, much to my readers' joy. It will be a while before I'm able to get another one out, but hopefully they'll be as loyal as ever and have patience with me while I finish the semester. My current stats for "Worlds Collide" are 1,638 reads; 132 votes; and 69 comments.

Reading
For the first time all year I'm ahead on Goodreads; I credit this to the insane amount of reading I'm doing for my classes right now. However during March I was able to sneak in a couple of personal books as well, thanks to Spring Break.

• The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
• The Tempest by William Shakespeare
• After Alice by Gregory Maguire
• Long Day's Journey Into Night by Eugene O'Neill
• The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin
• Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne

The Golden Compass gained five stars from me, which is not an easy task. It was a beautifully written novel with characters and situations not easily forgotten. This was the first book my YA Fantasy instructor had me read, and as soon as school is over I intend to read the rest of the trilogy. It was amazing. The Tempest was the first comedy by Shakespeare I've ever read. It had an interesting story, though admittedly my class' discussions on this piece were much funnier than the play itself. I still liked it, though.

I have an interesting relationship with After Alice. I think I phrased it the best in my review on Goodreads: "Subtly brilliant, simply hilarious. There were a lot of profound passages and great quotes in this book, as well as several one-liners that made me laugh out loud. However the story itself was a bit repetitive; it was basically Ada going through Wonderland and meeting the same characters a few paces behind Alice. Meanwhile back in the real world everyone was like, 'Oh, the girls are missing? No big deal.'" Like I said. It's an interesting relationship. I gave this book two stars.

Long Day's Journey Into Night was a book I had to read for my U.S. Literature class. I thought it was all right, but nothing spectacular. However The Word for World is Forest is a book I believe everyone should read at some point in their lives. It's less than 200 pages, so it's fairly short and manageable even to those who dislike reading. The message is excellent and the ideas presented simply cannot be ignored. I consider this novel a masterpiece.

Winnie-the-Pooh was a fun trip back in time for me. I remembered watching the old cartoons growing up with almost perfect clarity as I read the several short stories within this book. It's amazing how almost perfectly accurate the originals were before the more fun, expanding-the-world episodes were aired. I loved revisiting my childhood through the pages of Winnie-the-Pooh.

No rest for the weary! See you next time!

I Love Books! (January and February Reading Wrap-Up)

I have no idea why I thought taking three literature classes and a writing course all at the same time was a good idea. On the bright side, it means I get a lot of reading done, as well as having an excuse to get my butt in gear when it comes to writing. I don't have a lot of time before I need to start my next books, so here we go!

Writing
I have not touched the novel I wrote in November, nor have I written anything more for my Wattpad readers. My only focus right now is on a brand new story that I started in January for my YA Fantasy independent study course. The story (yet untitled) focuses on a dwarf-fairy hybrid outcast named Reid and the struggles he faces when two humans - creatures his world has never heard of before - arrive and change everything he has ever known. As it stands right now I have about two chapters written, with a third on its way for this week.

My current stats for "Worlds Collide" are 1,371 reads; 111 votes; and 64 comments.

Reading
Most of the reading I've done throughout January and February has been for my various classes, but somehow I've managed to find time to read for myself as well. The first book on this list was read entirely in January. Everything else is for February.

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Friend or Foe? Adapted by Matthew J. Gilbert
• Eye of Cat by Roger Zelanzy
• Othello by William Shakespeare
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
• Lock and Mori by Heather W. Petty

Eye of Cat was the final book in my science fiction class from last semester that we did not have time to read. I wanted to read it anyway, and now that I have, I really wished we'd discussed it in class. I found it extremely confusing and hard to plow through, and I think hearing my classmates' perspectives on it would have helped me a lot. Believe it or not I had never read Frankenstein before this month, but I really enjoyed it and would certainly declare it a masterpiece. I found it amazing that I was able to read Huck Finn without getting overly bored, despite its lack of real plot and character development. It felt like I was reading a story a ten-year-old had told - hard to believe but impossible to put down. 

I was really, really excited when I found Lock and Mori at the public library earlier this month. I love Sherlock Holmes to death and was intrigued by the idea of his hated enemy Moriarty being a female. I was also interested in the idea of their backstory being completely different because of this aspect. However I struggled to enjoy this book as much as I wanted to because I had my mind set so heavily on the idea that it was Sherlock and Moriarty, which it really wasn't. Perhaps as the series goes on there will be more character and story development, but for this book alone, I found it impossible to believe that Sherlock was Sherlock - to me he was just a very intelligent boy who happened to have the same name as the great detective. Mori was also a character I had a hard time liking, and the story was told from her perspective. Their love story felt forced due to the genre of the novel and came on way too quickly to be believable. However, if there is one thing I have to say for this book, it's that I could not seem to put it down despite its many flaws, and the last line was possibly the greatest last line of a novel I've ever read. I intend to continue reading the rest of this series. (Book 2 comes out in September...WHY?!)

There! I've written a blog post for the first time in forever. But there is no rest for the life of an English student...on to the next book! See you in March, and Happy Leap Year/Day!

I Have Book Guilt

Yeah, you heard right. Book guilt. What a great way to start off the year, huh? I've heard of a lot of readers getting this, but until now I've never experienced it myself. It doesn't feel good.

Basically book guilt is when you have a ton of books that you own but have never read and/or have a ton of books that you have plenty of time to read but totally ignore instead. I, unfortunately, am suffering from both types right now. I currently have 11 books that I own but have not read (gradually accumulated through various trips to bookstores and gifts from friends). I've also had this ENTIRE WINTER BREAK to plow through most if not all of them, and yet...

I have only read one book in this entire three-week period. I am a horrible person.

With school starting back up in a little over a week (for us college types) and me choosing to take THREE lit classes this semester, I am probably not going to have time to read for pleasure hardly at all in the next few months. I'll be too busy reading for school. The good news is that I WILL be reading, and adding books to my Goodreads goal for this year, but the bad news is that these 11 books that are sitting in a pile in my room right now will probably look exactly the same by the time I graduate in May. (Actually, it will probably be bigger...who knows how many Billings trips will be made between now and graduation?)

So what I'm going to do in an effort to help myself feel better about this situation that I have placed myself in is make a list of the books that I own but have yet to read (my TBR) and possibly explain why I am excited to read some of them so that if I happen to get a spare moment between lit books to read something for myself, I can choose one and go for it.

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Friend or Foe?
• Really short...I have no excuse for not having read this yet. -//-
• Shadow Spinner by Susan Fletcher
• Carrier of the Mark by Leigh Fallon
• Once upon a time there was this online writer's community called "Inkpop" (which has since turned into "Figment.") Inkpop's primary sponsor was HarperCollins Publishing, and every now and again editors and agents for the company would browse through stories on the site and - on extremely rare occasions - offer authors they liked a publishing deal on the spot. This is what happened to Carrier of the Mark. Ever since then I've wanted to read it.
• Of Metal and Wishes by Sarah Fine
• Steampunk meets Phantom of the Opera. Seriously.
• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
• Eye of Cat by Roger Zelanzy
• This is the fourth book that we were going to read in my sci-fi class last semester but never got around to. I'd still like to read it, though.
• The Search for WondLa by Tony DeTerlizzi
• Given to me by a friend. It looks really interesting and totally up my alley as far as stories that I enjoy.
• A Frozen Heart by Elizabeth Rudnick
• If my roommate ever reads this she's going to facepalm so hard, because when I first saw this book in Walmart I was dying to get my hands on a copy and almost went through a disaster in order to obtain one. (She was present for this near-disaster.) I was obsessed with Frozen for two weeks afterwards. And now here I am, a couple of MONTHS later, and I still haven't read it...
• Bright Lights, Dark Nights by Stephen Emond
• A modern take on an interracial love story.
• A Whole New World by Liz Braswell
• The story of Aladdin...if he hadn't found the lamp.
• Carry On by Rainbow Rowell
• I cannot even begin to explain the total and utter excitement I felt when I learned that this book was on its way. It's kind of a long story if you haven't read Rowell's Fangirl, but I've been stoked about reading this monster of a book for months and finally got a copy at the Christmas Stroll a while back. I will read this! I promise!

There you have it! Those are the 11 books currently on my TBR. My goal is to get at least a couple of them read before school starts. If nothing else I can cop-out and read the three short ones (less than 200 pages each) and be like, "Yeah, I've read three books already this year. No big deal."

Ha.

I suppose I should stop writing this blog and A) go to sleep because it's 2:40am and B) get started on that reading, huh? Yeah...probably.

Welcome to the year 2016 on Endless Possibilities, everyone! If my astounding laziness and procrastination are any indication of what lies in store for the rest of the year, then it's going to be an interesting one. See you next time!

Wrapping Things Up (December Book Wrap-Up)

It's hard to believe we've come through yet another year, but alas, here we are! As December is considered by many WriMos (myself included) to be a "recovery" month, I did not do very much at all in terms of reading or writing as 2015 came to a close. My main focus was surviving finals and then taking a well-deserved break when they were over. And that's just what I did.

Writing
Most of the writing I did this month was various essays and presentations I had to give for finals last semester, but I am proud to say I did successfully get back to "Dude, Worlds Are Gonna Collide" over on Wattpad just like I intended. The story returned on December 19. In this month two new chapters have been released, and my readers seem satisfied. I'm hoping to get back to regular updates again this semester. I intend to use the rest of my winter break to get a good head start on writing chapters so they are ready to go when I need them.

My current stats for "Worlds Collide" are: 911 reads, 87 votes, and 51 comments.

Reading
I only read one book from cover to cover this month, and that was MLP: Discord and the Ponyville Players Dramarama by G.M. Berrow. It was a real quick, fun, easy read that I completed in less than 24 hours. I really loved the many references the book made both to the show and other forms of media. Discord has a pet goldfish named Q. High five if you get that reference, because it's the best one in the entire fandom.

I started to read The Divine Invasion by Philip K. Dick but stopped about 50 pages in. The only reason I started it was for school, and once finals week was over and I was no longer required to read it I just lost all drive to do so, basically. It seemed like an interesting story - and I may get back to it someday - but I was just too burnt out to care at that point.

Also, on a side note, my Reading Challenge on Goodreads was to read 50 books in the year 2015. I read 47 total. So I did not complete the challenge, but I got pretty close. 47 books isn't bad, considering the craziness of this past year. For 2016 my goal will be 50 again. I intend to make it this time.

And that about sums up 2015! Be sure to check back here in 2016 for more nerdy blog posts and book wrap-ups. This is going to be a defining year for me, personally. I can feel it! Happy New Year!!

NaNoWriMo Tag (November Book Wrap-Up)

I made it! I won NaNoWriMo for the second year in a row! Sorry that my wrap-up is a bit late, but honestly, once NaNo was over I just did not want to do anything for a while. I've been sleeping so much the past two days I'm pretty sure I don't know what "awake" is anymore. Anyway!

Writing
I wrote 50,115 words in 30 days during the month of November for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). My story was titled Jenkins and Smith and was my first attempt at crime fiction. It sucked, and I have no problem admitting it. But at least I tried, and - bonus! - Jenkins and Smith was the tenth book I've ever written. I've written ten books in my lifetime! That's crazy!

That was the only form of creative writing I did last month. I put "Worlds Collide" over on Wattpad on hold until December. My current stats for said book are as follows: 644 reads, 68 votes, and 36 comments.

Reading
Although November was primarily dedicated to writing, I still managed to read four books during my free time.

• A Canticle for Lebowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. (started October 23)
• Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix (started October 26)
• Talon by Julie Kagawa
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

A Canticle for Lebowitz was, quite simply, a masterpiece. I gave it five stars. Horrorstor was my first time reading in the horror genre, and it was a good choice for a newcomer. It was definitely creepy, but not overly so. I liked it. Talon was extremely hard to get a hold of, but it was totally worth the struggle. Julie Kagawa never ceases to amaze and she has definitely gotten me hooked on her newest YA Fantasy series. I loved Talon. I have not yet finished Androids, but I have enjoyed it so far and will be proud to be able to say I have read it, as it is considered a sci-fi classic.

The NaNoWriMo Tag

This tag was created by Kristina Horner on YouTube.

1) How many times have you done NaNoWriMo?

• 2015 was my third year doing NaNoWriMo and my second year winning.

2) How did you first find out about NaNoWriMo?

• I'm pretty sure I had heard of it before this, but the first time I remember really looking into it was when I was a senior in high school and I saw a poster advertising it in the English hall. NaNo is also the reason I found out about Kristina Horner, too, if I'm not mistaken.

3) What was the name of the first novel you attempted with NaNo?

• The first project I attempted with NaNo was Restless. It was going to be a TMNT fanfiction about Leo x Karai and Casey x April, but I never got past 10k words. I'm not proud of my first year with NaNo, but it is there anyhow.

4) Give us a one-sentence summary of what you're writing (or wrote) this year.

• Jenkins and Smith: Criminal justice student Bryan Jenkins and high school senior Wren Smith team up to stop a dangerous crime lord's human trafficking industry.

5) What's the best writing advice you've ever been given?

• I believe it was Lauren Myracle who said: "I've always been told to write what you know. But I say, write what you like." The research and editing can come later.

6) Did you ever take a year off from NaNo? Why?

• Since beginning in 2013, I have never taken a year off from NaNo. I have not won all three years, but I at least attempted all three.

7) What's your biggest inspiration when figuring out what to write?

• My inspiration comes from everywhere. My inspiration for this year's novel came from Sherlock Holmes. My inspiration for last year's came from a video game series. My inspiration for my favorite novel that I've ever written (Follow the Raven) was a lesser-known video game with a beautiful protagonist (and I mean beautiful in the personality sense). I've also gained inspiration from other books, shows, and even just asking myself questions of "what if...?"

8) Read us the first sentence from one of your novels.

• "He would never have seen the murder if he hadn't been in desperate need of a cigarette." (From Jenkins and Smith, 2015)

9) Why do you love writing?

• Writing is the one thing I'm good at. It's the one thing I feel I can do well, something I can offer the world. I love creating characters and whole new worlds and dangerous villains and complex plots. I love all the mechanics of it as well as the pure, unadulterated joy that I gain from putting words on paper. I just love writing!

Again, I apologize that my November Wrap-Up is a couple of days late, but I consider myself to be in the "recovery period" of post-NaNo craziness right now. You can be sure to look forward to more regular blog posts this month! Happy Holidays!

NaNoWriMo 2015 Update #3

Wow! Thanksgiving Break has done wonders for my word count! When I got home on Tuesday night I was sitting at roughly 27,000 words, and now I am at 39,505. I can't believe I'm catching up! 50,000 is within sight! I'm actually going to make it! My challenge at this point will be filling up those last 10k words since I have already reached the climax of the story and am now in the denouement.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Kristina Horner, a BookTuber that I follow. This is her tenth year doing NaNoWriMo, and for a while she was even further behind than I was in this year's endeavor. Despite the daunting amount of words she had to write to catch up, she has been determined all month long to make it to 50k and is now less than 10k to that goal. Her strong-willed determination to win NaNoWriMo has helped me feel encouraged throughout the month, even when it got to the point that I was 17k behind. Seeing her word count go up has helped me believe that mine could rise as well, and now both of us are going to make it to the finish line. So thank you, Kristina, for your encouragement this November.

I am currently at 39,505 words. And still going strong!

NaNoWriMo 2015 Update #2

I have not written a whole lot since my last update, and I completely blame college for that. Thanks to a test I was unprepared for, a book review that is due tonight that I still have not started, and a speech I have to give on Thursday, my time has been directed at other things this past week. I am currently 11,000 words behind in NaNoWriMo right now.

It also didn't help that I had a bad case of writer's block. I initially had planned for my story to kind of be in two parts, but once the first part was over and I entered the limbo when I introduce the next plot, I crashed into a cement wall and had to start digging through it to get to the other side and keep going. Fortunately I seem to have organized my thoughts a bit more and have now started down a newer, more exciting path than I thought I'd be taking. My novel's genre has also changed a couple of times over the course of this week, but I think it has mostly settled on thriller/suspense.

What encourages me is knowing that Kristina Horner - my role model in all things books - was even further behind than I am and is now catching up rather quickly. If she can do it, I can do it. I can still hit 50k.

I am currently at 17,136 words.