Favorites of 2011

Since I've obviously failed miserably in my attempt to write a review that's worth being seen by anyone other than my cat (I do have a couple of drafts, they're just ... well, not good), I decided to turn my attention to my favorite things about 2011 - in a stream of consciousness sort of way.  So, without further ado ... drumroll, please ...

Favorite series I discovered:

1. SHADE series by Jeri Smith-Ready.

I'm a big fan of Rachel Vincent and her books and follow her on Twitter.  This past summer there was a little thing called the YA Crush Tourney in which Tod (from Rachel's Soul Screamers series) was up against Zach (from Jeri's SHADE series).  After watching the "battle" on Twitter between these two fictional boys and their fans, and reading some of the teaser incentives that Jeri posted during the match I had to check out Zach for myself.

I was prepared to like Zach from what I read about him in the YA Crush Tourney (Scottish accent, gorgeous, etc.) and I did, er, do.  What I wasn't prepared for was Logan Keeley.  Logan made his way into my heart like very few fictional characters do.  In fact, the last fictional boy to affect me like this?  Adam Eddington from Madeleine L'Engle's The Arm of the Starfish.  I've been in love with him since I was oh, I don't know, 12 or 13 years old maybe?  I don't remember how old I was the first time I read the book.  Suffice to say, it's been a long, long time.  (Jeri assures me that Zach will have my heart too by the end of SHINE and I believe her.)

But I didn't just fall in love with Logan.  I fell in love with Aura and Zach as well (though not quite to the extent that I did with Logan).  Because I'm such a fast reader not many books (and fewer characters) stick with me after I've finished them because I need to make room in my head for new books and characters.  Not so with Jeri's books and characters.  Aura and Zach and Logan pop into my head still (months later) when a song I'm listening to reminds me of them.  Which brings me to my next favorite series because it takes place in a radio station and music is very important to the series.

2.  WVMP series by Jeri Smith-Ready.

I loved SHADE and SHIFT so much that I went looking for other books of Jeri's that I could read and found her adult vampire series.  I plowed my way through all three books in this series too.  Jeri's currently writing the fourth and final book in the series and I can't wait to see what happens.  She's promised us a happy ending for Shane and Ciara though! ;)

3.  October Daye series by Seanan McGuire

I'd seen these books and heard about this series but it wasn't until I went to Seattle in October that I bought the first book and that was mostly because I wanted to buy a book at the famous Elliott Bay Book Company.  I am not sorry that I picked Rosemary and Rue as the one I bought.  Upon finishing I immediately went out and bought the next two.  And before I was even finished with those I bought the next two.  I've not read One Salt Sea yet because it's the last book that's published and I kind of want to save it and savor it.  I don't know how long that will last.

4. KGI series by Maya Banks

On the surface these books look like your typical romance novels, just another addition to the myriad books out there starring special ops alpha males who have to rescue their women.  They're better than that most of the ones out there in that they have a plot and and are written well.  Yes, they're still romance books with all that entails, but they're also full of mystery and suspense.  The Kelly brothers are definitely alpha males and will do anything and everything to protect those that they love, but they also aren't afraid to show affection and love.

Favorite book:

Room by Emma Donoghue

Hands down the best general fiction book I read all year.  A difficult subject matter told through the eyes of an innocent five year old.

Favorite experience:

Seattle.

I had the opportunity to go to Seattle for a weekend - the same weekend that the Smart Chicks Kick It tour was going to be there (with a LOT of my favorite authors) AND the same weekend as the Northwest Tea Festival.  Books and tea and me in a place I've wanted to visit for a while?  YES!  I had an incredible (though much-too-short time) in Seattle.  Not only did I get to listen to some of my favorite authors talk about writing, but I discovered new favorite teas.  It was my first "real" vacation by myself and I discovered something: I liked being on vacation by myself.  Don't get me wrong, I love going on vacation with other people too, but there was something incredibly freeing about being on my own.  I want to go back.

Favorite music:

1.  Frightened Rabbit

I learned about Frightened Rabbit thanks to Jeri Smith-Ready and fell in love with them immediately.  I don't know what it is about their music, but their album "The Winter of Mixed Drinks" has gotten me through some rough times just in the past two months that I've had it.  I love the whole album - every single, solitary song on it.  And the free acoustic download from their website?  Absolutely brilliant.  Three heart-wrenching, beautiful and raw songs that will kill you.  But in a good way.  Mostly.

2.  The Twilight Sad

From following Frightened Rabbit on Twitter I discovered The Twilight Sad and ... yes, you guessed it, fell in love with them as well.  So much so that I'm (semi-)seriously considering trying to make a trip back to Seattle to see them in March.  They'll also be in Chicago, but as I'm tired of Chicago and not tired of Seattle I'd rather go see them in Seattle.  This will probably not happen, but a girl can dream, right?  They also have a free acoustic download on their website and, well, the raw energy that James Graham puts into singing those songs makes me shiver.


So there you have it.  Some of my favorites from 2011.

Things I've learned

It's been an interesting weekend.  And it doesn't feel much like Christmas is only two weeks away with the warm weather we're having in mid-Missouri right now.  Not that I'm complaining ... well, okay, I'm sort of complaining because I'd really like to have a white Christmas.  I miss the days when it used to snow at Thanksgiving - not a lot, but just enough to put you in the mood for Christmas.  I used to love driving back to college after Thanksgiving knowing that we'd be putting up the lights in our dorm room and listening to Christmas music.   

Anyway, I spent the weekend trying to write a review and Christmas shopping among other things and I discovered a couple of things:

1.  Writing reviews is a lot harder than I thought.  Well, writing good reviews is harder.  Not that I expected  to be able to sit down and crank out a review in five minutes because if they were that easy to write then everyone would be writing them.  But I didn't expect to have this much trouble.

2.  Christmas shopping isn't as fun as it used to be and shoppers are more disrespectful the closer it gets to Christmas.  Case in point: at Eddie Bauer yesterday I had not one, but two people cut in front of me in line.  I thought I was quite obviously waiting in line to check out - I was standing in front of one of the two registers with my arms full of items to purchase - but apparently I wasn't as obvious as I'd thought.  Either that or I was wearing my invisibility cloak and had forgotten that I put it on.  Both people looked at me and then blatantly stepped up to the register before I could.  I thought about saying something but I was too shocked at their audacity to be coherent.  Why people feel the need to be so rude is beyond me.  I mean, really, what good does it to anyone?  *sigh*

On the bright side, I downloaded Forget The Night Ahead by The Twilight Sad from iTunes on Friday night and spent most of yesterday listening to it.  Between this album and Frightened Rabbit I just might be able to survive the holiday season.

Reading and goals

I made a goal on Goodreads to read 125 books in 2011.  I'm currently four books away from meeting my goal.  This is due, in part, to the fact that I've been reading almost a book a day for the past couple of weeks.  I don't know what's come over me ... I've always been a prolific reader but this is a LOT of reading even for me.

So with all of the books read, I've been thinking that maybe I should start trying my hand at writing reviews.  I do write some reviews on Goodreads, but I don't normally put much thought into them so they're not that great.  Only problem with that is that I usually read so fast that I sometimes have trouble retaining what it is that I've read.  So I can say things like "I loved this book. You should definitely read it."  But when people ask me why I liked it, or why I think they should read it, I can't put those reasons into words.  (The caveat to that is if I absolutely positively LOVED the book so much that I can't stop gushing about it, I'll be able to tell you all the reasons I liked the book and why everyone should read it.)

But maybe, just maybe, if I make a goal to review some of the books that I read - and I mean REALLY review them - on my blog maybe that will force me to slow down and retain what I'm reading.  Even if no one but me reads the reviews that's ok.  It's all about making me a better reader and if I'm a better reader then that might just translate into being a better writer.  So it's a win-win all around, right?  Right.

With that said, I think I will try my hand at a "real" review when I finish the book I'm currently reading.

Huh ... So this is what my blog looks like

It has been forever (was my last post really in 2008??) since I've been here.  I created this blog to have somewhere to babble on about books I like and Nano and somewhere along the way I kind of ... well, forgot about it, I guess.

Nano 2009 and Nano 2010 were both successful even though, like all Nano novels, neither went exactly the way I had planned.  Nano 2011 was most definitely NOT successful.  Oh, I finished, er, well, I reached 50,000 words (just, my actual word count was 50,025) but the novel was - in a word - horrible.  I just couldn't seem to get into the story this year.  I had all of these random things going on and every time I tried to pull them together it just got worse.  I went days without writing a single word - almost a whole week once - and couldn't seem to care.  Finally, I decided that in order to finish I was going to have to turn the whole darn thing into a dream.  With a big last weekend push - and a LOT of repetition (because of course my FMC had to explain what happened in the dream to the MMC) - I was finally done.

I really want to revisit the novel - once I get some distance from it - and see if I can't figure out where it went wrong and fix it.  I did a lot of preparation this year in contrast to previous years when I didn't do much at all so maybe that's what went wrong.  At any rate, I really liked my characters this year and even kind of liked the plot I had and I feel like I let them down.  Not a good feeling.  But it's over and done with and next year will be better.

Lately, I've been spending a lot of time on Twitter which, now that I think about it, may have contributed to my novelizing woes this year.  Hmm.  I'm following a lot of authors (I still have that OMG moment when I get a response from an author) and book bloggers (reviewers) as well as hockey peeps and friends.  So yeah, I've had a lot of fun on Twitter (though that's mostly thanks to two fictitious characters who have their own Twitter accounts. :) )

In fact it was through Twitter and the YA crush tourney hosted by The YA Sisterhood that I discovered The SHADE series by Jeri Smith-Ready, which is an incredible series.  The first two books are out now.  SHINE is due next year and I can't wait!  The YA Sisterhood is holding another tourney right now only this time it's the heroines' turn.  Two of my favorite heroines (Kaylee from the Soul Screamers series and Aura from the SHADE series) are up against each other in the first round.

At the beginning of October I was lucky enough to get to go to Seattle for the Northwest Book Festival and see so many incredible authors who were part of that stop on the Smart Chicks Kick It Tour.  I think that was the highlight of my year honestly.  So many authors all in one room = AWESOME!

I seem to be on a huge, and I mean HUGE, young adult reading spree.  I just absolutely love the book that are out now for young adults/teens and there are a LOT of them.  I think in the last week alone I've added at least 10 books to my TBR pile on Goodreads.  I blame this on Twitter.

So yeah ... I'll stop babbling now.  Anyway, I'm going to try to be better about updating.  We'll see how successful I am.

Day 30 of Nano

I finished tonight. I actually reached 50,000 last night, but the novel wasn't done. Luckily I had today to really finish it.

54942 / 50000 words. 110% done!

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with my time now that I'm not writing every day.

Day 5 of Nano 2008

The 2008 Nano Marathon Writing Weekend is over and done. I picked Ang up at the airport on Saturday afternoon and after feeding us in St. Louis, we headed back to Columbia with a stop at the pet store to get food for Griffin. We talked for a while when we got to my house, but then the 4 day marathon writing started. Ang flew back to Michigan late yesterday afternoon. When she left she had reached 20k and I was over 15k. Not bad. What's even more amazing is that we did all of this writing at my house! We didn't go to a coffee shop once, except a quick walk-through of one downtown in the quest for a molasses cookie.

So after five days of writing (though I'm not sure I can really count today since I didn't even write 1000 words) I am 33% done. I don't think I've ever been this far ahead this early in the game. I like my plot this year, which makes it easy to write, and of course it helps when you have someone writing alongside you and pushing you.

I just hope that I can keep it up now that I'm on my own. But not tonight. I am tired.

Nano starts in FIVE DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!

I have a plot. I don't have characters.

And that's ok.