Tag Archives: discussion

September 2016 Wrap Up

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THIS IS HALLOWEEN! THIS IS HALLO– wait. No. Not yet.

How. Guys. How is it October already? I don’t get it! This year is going by in such a blur. And as for this month, it was a little better than August, though it’s been stressful and stuff, so here’s the things that happened:

What I Read

  • Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas – I loved it. So much. I hate that we have to wait another year for the last book (also sad that there’s only one book left *sob*), but the story is definitely getting more intense and I’m really enjoying it. 4.75/5 stars Check out my review!
  • The Goal by Elle Kennedy – I love this series a lot and this companion novel was really good! Lots of sexy times, lots of drama, but the characters were still awesome. 4/5 stars Check out my review!

Even though I didn’t “read” this book this month, I’m including it under this category because I did do a review of it. This was my first DNF review:

Books I Started But Didn’t Finish

Books I Got This Month

  • Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas
  • A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir
  • The Goal by Elle Kennedy

Discussions I Held

Top Ten Tuesdays & Top 5 Wednesdays

Writing Related

Fun Things

  • Hobby Corner: September ANIME Edition – Anime’s been a part of my life since I was a kid, but I talk about my more recent favorites this month.
  • I Am The Reader Tag – Inspired by a recent release, I loved the questions for this tag and just had to participate in it.
  • Rayna Recommends: Diversity – Since diversity has been such a huge topic this month, I decided to recommend some of my recent favorites.

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I read one book that is fantasy this month, so that makes 29 out of 30 fantasy books read for the year! Woo!

Life Updates

  • My husband and I moved into my parents’ house at the beginning of the month for personal family reasons, so that’s been stressful. Luckily we’re all moved in and all of that, it was just a pain to pack and move as fast as possible before he had to start school this semester.
  • I’m stressed out like crazy lately, but I’m still trying to keep calm through a lot of what’s been going on. Lots of scary things that happened with my mom and stuff, but she’s doing better now.
  • I stopped my subscription for Uppercase this month because of the move and stuff, but I also want to resubscribe, now that I’ll be able to save more money… Hmm.

Let’s Chat! ≧◡≦

How was your September? Did you have to go back to school? How are you juggling stress and reading?

My Currently Reading Shelf & Why It’s a Lie

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If you use Goodreads then you know about the three “shelves” that they give you upon signing up: read, currently reading, and want to read. These three shelves really define a bookworm’s real shelves, but of course the option to add more shelves is always there and people come up with really creative names for what they want to shelve their books on.

Me? I’m lazy and just use the three.

BUT. If you take a look at my currently reading shelf…

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THIRTY. SIX. BOOKS. What the hell is that number about? I can barely focus on the one book I’m currently reading at the moment, let alone thirty-six!

See now, I have this bad habit. Do you want to know what it is? (of course you do, why else are you here?)

I start books and don’t finish them.

I KNOW. HEATHEN. But, let me explain.

It’s like I’ve talked about before a few times on my blog about how I want to read certain books during certain times of the year, or I’m just not in the mood to read, etc. These factors are huge in determining on whether or not I finish a book. If I’m super into it, don’t have a crap ton of stress in my life, or am just not super tired like I’ve been lately, then I can read a bunch of books in any given month. I find them enjoyable and I can fly through them sometimes.

But then there are times when I just… can’t.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I generally DO enjoy the books I’m reading at that given moment they’re sitting in my currently reading shelf, but more often than not my mood changes and I just don’t want to read it anymore.

My earliest book on that shelf is A Game of Thrones. I started reading it back on December 23, 2013. Almost three YEARS ago, people. Three. Years.

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And then I have a few books I started two years ago or last year and I’m just sitting here like, “Why haven’t I finished reading them?”

I know a couple of them I’m probably definitely not going to read anytime soon, so I can remove those if I wanted, but the others? I actually AM interested in reading them, but I just haven’t because… why?

Laziness? Lack of interest? More interesting books on my shelf?

I think yes to all three.

I also enjoy using the currently reading shelf to constantly update my reading progress on the book I’m currently reading at that moment. I like seeing my progress and how close I am to finishing and seeing if I can finish it in a certain time frame and stuff like that. It’s like a competition with myself.

I find that the shelves on Goodreads are super useful and awesome, for sure, but I think it’s just my mind’s constant flow of wanting to read ALL THE THINGS that so many books get pushed aside for just one book I’m super interested in at the time.

Let’s Chat! ≧◡≦

Do you abuse your currently reading shelf like I do? How many books are you actually currently reading? Are your shelves on Goodreads accurate representations of what you’ve actually read/are currently reading? Share your insights! I must know!

The Importance of Diversity

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If you’ve been around Twitter and YouTube in the last week, then you’ve probably seen the very heated topic of diversity popping up constantly. I’m not naming names or anything like that, but there was a very controversial video that included a lot of ignorant viewpoints on diversity and how it’s not “needed” or “important” in literature. That we should be sticking to a status quo of sorts when it comes to books.

And oh how wrong that is.

I’ve talked about the importance of diversity in children’s literature before, but this is a more general, encompassing talk today.

As a white female, I’m privileged. No doubt about it. I’ve been raised in a good home with a good family and have a good life. I shouldn’t have much to complain about, but I’m only human so it happens. I suffer with depression, and occasionally anxiety.

But there are things that I have been realizing more and more as I stay longer in this community: there is more out there than what I know.

Of course I enjoy reading stories about a white boy and white girl having drama, falling in love, and lots of kissing. Of course I enjoy reading about a white girl out to save the world. I can relate to it not because I’ve saved the world or anything (or have I?), but because I’m a white girl.

I’d love to be able to read books with black women protagonists who kick ass and who are confident in themselves, or books with Asian male protagonists who are both sensitive and athletic and might have a mental illness, or books about gay religious hispanic men getting their flirt on at a college campus and how they deal with their faith in all of it.

And I’m sure these books are out there!

So why is it that they never seem to “stand out” among the crowd when new books are being marketed to the public? How come it takes so long for these kinds of books to be raised to the surface and have people buzzing about them?

It’s like they aren’t going to sell as well because their main characters aren’t white.

And of course I’m not saying this is the case for all books and situations!

But every voice deserves to be heard. Every person of color, every disabled person, every religion, sexuality, gender, situation, mental illness: it all deserves to be heard. It all deserves to be told.

So why do people think that we should only be sticking to some certain status quo when it comes to books?

If I had been able to read a book about a girl with depression when I was younger, maybe I would have developed better coping mechanisms as a result. Maybe if I had been able to read a book about a girl who struggles with her sexuality then maybe I could have come to terms a lot sooner than I did. Hell, maybe I still wouldn’t feel so lost sometimes.

And I know that there are so many people out there of varying skin colors, genders, sexualities, etc, who need these stories in their lives. And when people say that diversity isn’t important, that it’s the “worst word in the English language,” that it shouldn’t really exist, then it’s like they’re saying that all of those people don’t matter.

And they for sure do.

So what can you do to introduce more diverse books into your life?

  • Well, there is a readathon coming up from September 12-19 that is hosted by four lovely ladies on YouTube (Joce @ squibblesreads, Monica @ shemightbemonicaMonica @ shemightbemonica, Christina @ Christina Marie, and Whitney @ whittynovels) called #DiverseAThon and there’s no challenges or anything, but there’s an optional group book they have up which is Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. They only hope that you pick up at least ONE diverse book to read during this time to show support for the cause of diversity.
  • Challenge yourself to read at least ONE diverse book a month. And if that’s too much for you, then spread it out, but there are so, SO many out there to choose from.
  • Ask around! There have been tons of threads on Twitter about different diverse reads, plus there’s the infinite blog universe you can look into, as well as YouTube and other places. Ask around and you’ll find someone that has read something diverse.
  • Start with a topic that is important to you. For me personally, depression/suicide are very important topics to me, and I definitely want to read more books involving them, especially from the protagonist’s point of view. (If anyone has any recommendations, please let me know!) But if you’re someone who is struggling with sexuality, then find a book that has confident characters in that sexuality that you believe you identify with, or if you’re looking for something that has kickass lesbian black female heroines, then search for them!
  • Branch out from there. The world of diversity is a hidden gem, but once you find it, it’s beautiful and it really deserves to shine.

Diversity is so, SO important. Don’t ever think that it’s not. Your race, sexual identity, gender, etc is not the only one out there; all voices deserve to be heard because all voices are important.

Let’s Chat! ≧◡≦

What kinds of diverse books are your favorites? Do you gravitate more towards a certain kind, or do you really try to branch out and read different things? What is your stance on this whole diverse topic? Let me know!

August 2016 Wrap Up

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Well, August was a… well, it was a month. That’s really all I’ve got.

What I Read

Books I Started But Didn’t Finish

Books I Got This Month

  • P.S. I Like You by Kasie West

Discussions I Held

Top Ten Tuesdays & Top 5 Wednesdays

Writing Related

Fun Things

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Three more books to add to my list! So now my total is at 28 of 30 fantasy books!

Life Updates

Life has been very, very rough this month and so I’ll be on a temporary hiatus until things settle. Due to personal family reasons, my husband and I decided to move back in with my parents. It’s the right decision for everyone, so I’m glad about that for sure, but it’s just rough right now.

Let’s Chat! ≧◡≦

Are you sad summer’s coming to a close? What have you read lately? Tell me all of the exciting things!

How I Got Into Writing

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If you’ll remember a few months back, I talked about how I got into reading and how it became such a huge part of my life. Well, today’s discussion/talk/thing is going to be along the same lines as that, but about how I got into writing.

Now I’ve been into writing for a long time. But more than that, I’ve been into story making my entire life. For just about as long as I’ve been reading, I’ve also been making stories. Whether it be in my head or on paper, I always had a story to tell.

As children, we often play with toys or outside or wherever and we create stories for when we’re in those moments. Even during my playtimes I was creating, and I recognize that now, but at the time it was just play. Even when I’d play video games I would create whole other stories and scenarios from what I was playing in that moment to something completely different.

My first real writing experience that I can remember was back in the fifth grade when I was around ten or eleven years old. We had to create a story for an assignment (I don’t remember the specifics) and it had to also include pictures. So in this small, fifteen page blue booklet (if it even has that many pages), I wrote a story about how the sun came to be in the sky. I wrote about two children who were playing with a yellow and orange ball and when one of them threw it up too high, it never came back down and it stayed in the sky, creating the sun.

It was very simple, but it was my first story that I had written down. And I loved it.

Fast forward a year into sixth grade when I rekindled my friendship with a friend I hadn’t seen since kindergarten (who’s still my best friend today) and how we, along with another friend, got into manga. My first manga was Tokyo Mew Mew and it sparked a love for magical girls and Japan.

So, during one of our classes that took place in the school’s library, I began to write. And write and write. I wrote about my own magical girls in Japan (which, of course, I knew nothing of save for what could be read in manga), and I wrote a villain and a romance and friendship and it was my first real story. I wrote 19,876 words before  I stopped and, as an eleven year old, I think that’s pretty impressive.

I went on to write other short stories and poems after that, never writing as much as I had before, but still writing. I wouldn’t do it consistently, but there’d be something new every once in a while for a few years.

And then I got into role playing online. My skills in the beginning were terrible, but as I RPed more and I got more comfortable with it and learned from others, I soon developed my own RP style and would come up with stories for each of my characters. On one website that I was also an admin on at one point, I had over 50 or 60 characters, each with their own unique story, personality, etc.

I had never considered writing to be a career or where I hope my career path would go, but as I got older and was in college struggling with my majors and where I belonged, I was advised to look at my classes, my passions, and what did I find?

My best classes were writing and literature classes.

When I decided that that would be my major, I flew by with flying colors in all of my English classes. Some were more challenging than others, but then there were some that allowed me to write and create and those were my absolute favorite classes. Of course, toward the end of my college career I stopped caring as much because HELLO SENIORITIS, but I still wrote and created.

In the fall of 2014 is when I participated in my first NaNoWriMo and completed my first story over 50k words long. It was an accomplishment for me because it was a full story that I had written from beginning to end. Sure, it’s got a lot of problems and whatnot, but what first draft doesn’t?

I’ve found as I got older and went through school that I’m much better at communicating my thoughts through writing than I am verbally and I think a large part of that has to do with my creative mind and imagination.

So what’s happened since then? Well, I’ve participated in a few NaNoWriMos throughout the year and I still haven’t made much progress on anything. I blame work and life and stuff getting in the way, but if I want to make an actual living off of it, then I have no one and nothing to blame but myself for giving these excuses.

So that’s how I got into writing. I’ve always been more of a creative mind than a scientific mind, and I’m happy with that. I find that being creative is a way to relax and discover so many things about yourself and the world around you.

Let’s Chat! ≧◡≦

Are you a writer, and if so, how did you get into writing? Were you always into writing from a young age, or did it come later in life? If you’re not a writer, then what’s stopping you? Are you even interested? What kind of writing style would you do (poetry, fiction, children’s books, etc)?