Monday, March 28, 2011

BR: Beautiful Dead: Summer

So, while my copy of Summer was coming in the mail, I quickly re-read Arizona to catch myself up. And I found that while I absolutely love these books when I first read them, rereading them it's as great. Maybe because I already know the mystery, so it's not as entertaining and I'm not enthralled, or maybe because the writing isn't very good...

Beautiful Dead, Summer
By Eden Maguire

But when I finally did read Summer last night, I couldn't put it down! These books, while still dealing with the popular Paranormal romance stuff, are done in a unique way. I like the combination of mystery and paranormalcy, even as I want to beat sense into Darina.
The twist and turns were more exciting, and more intense, than I anticipated, and I was quite pleased. The ending was hurried, however, and I wished we could have seen more of Summer's reconciliation with it all. I hope she's at peace... you don't really get a clear understanding (or maybe I read it too fast).
And is it just me, or is Eden Maguire's writing getting better with each book? Good for her. )
Oh, Phoenix. How will you end? Because we all know it's going to suck. Beyond measure. And I'm not looking forward to it!
 
(Okay, that's a lie... I can hardly wait for Phoenix. I just don't want it to end, because it's going to be a sad, sad day in the life of Darina.)
 
(Also... I still hope she's seeing Raven. Because she promised Arizona, and I have a feeling that if Darina isn't keeping it, Arizona is going to come back and give her a swift kick in the toga...)

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

My Writing History

I suppose there were signs early on that I was destined to be a writer of words, a teller of stories, and, of course, a deeply random person.

In first grade, during free time, I would cut up little pieces of paper and staple them together, writing squiggly lines of "writing." When my teacher asked what I was doing, I informed her that I was making books for my teddy bears. WIN.

My first memories of profound story telling happened during the first month of 4th grade. While sitting at my table making "All About Me" posters, I proceded to tell my group a story with crazy twists and turns for about twenty minutes. They were enthralled, and confused, and listened until the very, very end. I only wish I could remember what it was about. Something about an orphan girl...?

7th grade was my first written story. For our end-of-the-year compliation of all the quick writes and poems we'd done, our last assignment was to write a 3-5 page short story. Mine? The 18 page masterpiece of "The Elves Of Enkanto," where the beautiful young Jade and her best friend, the elf named Daven (the name of my crush at the time) find a magical key and have to save Wizard Limey from the evil Katherine (the name of the popular girl whom I hated). All major characters have some sort of green name (Jade, Limey, King Emerald, the dog Green Leaf), or are stolen from Homestarrunner.com. Oh, and I dedicated it to David Bowie "for he was the most awesome person in the 80s." My teacher was quite proud of my insight and use of literary techniques. At least, that's what she wrote on my paper.

I was seventeen before I did any more story-writing. I had gotten sick, and was realizing that I was going to have to spend my Junior year at home, recovering. I was bored and dperessed and lonely... and was having really weird dreams due to medicine. My dad had his old work laptop sitting in the upstairs office for anyone to use... After having a weird dream about people with silver and golden hued skin, I warped it into a 20 page dystopia story, and my writing took off from there. For the first few months, I'd sit in bed writing on the laptop (which I affectionately called Crappy Comp) for hours upon hours, but I was embarrassed. Everytime I heard someone coming, I'd throw my blankets over the computer and pretend I eas reading. It wasn't until weeks later until I let someone see me with the laptop. I'd written at least 4 short stories by then, and was completely dedicated to my craft.

I have now completed one novel, Let It Be, which I throroughly despise. It's nothing like it started out as when I first wrote it at seventeen, and it's a crappy Young Adult Romance about Immortals and child abuse. I absolutely hate it, and am thoroughly embarrassed by it, but it's my first completed works.

I have lots of other stories I work on periodically, but as I am switching my genre of books I read, I've found that I am liking my stories less and less... and am trying to switch them from cheesey YA to regular adult like fiction and literature. We'll see.

And then I blog. Oh, do I blog. My regular, day-to-day blog is hollysthoughts.com. Check it out, yo.

And that, my friends, is my abridged wtiting history.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

In Which I Whine

Anyone want to give me free books to read?

I'm out of things to read
and I need more
and Barnes and Noble (although my favorite place on earth) is so far away (and expensive)
and the library is lame and doesn't have anything good and the books smell funky, besides.

I need boooooooooooooooooooooooooooks.......

BR: Allison Hewitt Is Trapped

I read a zombie book.


Allison Hewitt Is Trapped
By Madeleine Roux

Alright, don't judge.

So, typically I'm not a zombie apocalypse fan in the least, but when I saw the cover of this, and saw that Allison Hewitt is trapped in A BOOKSTORE... you know me. Had to read it.

 And actually? I really liked it! It's written as Allison's blog during the beginnings of the Zombie Apocalypse... also a great love of mine (blogging)--- and is highly entertaining. The book swore like a drunken high schooler, but aside from that, I thought it was positively excellent.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

What I Read In February

(it's a small, small lot this month)

(I don't recommend the book version. We'll see about the movie version. It was terribly written, and the story was... okay. Nothing more.)

Read: 2/10

Read: 2/15

Read: 2/26

Read: 2/28

So... yeah, regular fiction is taking much longer to read. While I am greatly enjoying these books, I miss being able to read an entire book (or at the very least half) in one night like I often did with YA. I don't think I'll hit 100 books this year, which kind of saddens me. However, I'm not spending money on books like crazy anymore, which I'm sure make everyone involved happy.

And I'm still working on The Secret Garden (I'm meeting Dickon tonight, and I'm quite excited about it), although I honestly do not know where I put my Grimm's Fairytales. Although I only read the first fairytale before I lost it. Kinda sad, seeing as there were at least 50 stories.

Anyway, at the beginning of the year, I set the goal of only 75 books this year, as compared to 100 last year (although I got to 136, I believe was the number), seeing as I have a lot more going on in my life as I did in 2010 (well, at least parts of 2010). But with these books being, well, heartier, it's taking much longer! Are you seeing the fact that I read a total of 5 books this month? Granted February is the shortest month of the year, but seriously? 5? Not cool.

So I suppose I should log off and get reading...