Category Archives: Reading

It’s November!

And do you know what that means…

NaNoWriMo has begun! For those of you unfamiliar with NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, or what I call Nano for short), it’s a challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days during the month of November. Crazy, right? I’ve been doing this since 2010, and this is my fifth year participating. I’ve won two years so far, in 2011 and 2012. Both years that I lost, I was writing mainstream fiction, and both years I won, I wrote fantasy/adventure novels.

So this year I thought I would go with the statistics and write another adventure novel. It’s titled The Silencers. Here is my (working) synopsis:

Demir, the soot-covered city to the north, has never been home and “K” had to learn the hard way to live on her own in the harsh city. Taken in by the notorious league of assassins called the Silencers, she has been trained to not only survive, but to hold the lives of others in her hands. Living through the shadows of the night, she bases her life around one philosophical rule: no liabilities. When her next assignment is an ex-soldier and a potential enemy of the state, “K” is forced to question her morals and the state. If she helps this soldier, it will break the one rule her life has been rooted upon. But, he may also lead her home.

With warring pirates to the south, dark secrets within the Silencers, and an ache in her soul, “K” is forced to make a decision that will change her life for good.

Maybe a little dramatic, eh? :) Nonetheless, I am very excited for this month. I don’t make much time for writing outside of my blog, so I’m really looking forward to sitting down and creating again. Who knows, maybe this year will be the year that, after November, I will look into publishing. We will see. :)

Any other Nano participants out there? If you are, feel free to be my buddy! I’m sure I will be posting updates throughout the month in order to keep myself going – it’s not an easy feat, in the least. If you’ve never heard of this before and like to write, I encourage you to give it a try.

Even if you don’t win, it’s still pretty cool to look back and look at what you accomplished. I’m always proud of what I write in November; last year I managed about 23,000 words, and when I go back and read snippets of what I wrote, I always surprise myself with how good some of it actually is!

To all those participating, best of luck my friends!

My Love of Reading

This first week (+2 days) of the new year has been pretty great. I’m still on break, so I haven’t been doing a whole lot but bumming around, which is fantastic. I’ve worked with my mom twice, but other than that I’ve been content to spend most my days seeing friends and getting a good start on my 2013 goal to read 52 books this year.

I’ve finished three so far, all in the Graceling Realm series: Graceling, Fire, and Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore, which I would highly recommend to fantasy-lovers. Graceling is about a girl named Katsa who lives under the command of her uncle, King Randa of the Middluns. In this realm, on rare occasions, children are born with what is called a Grace, an extreme talent. Katsa is a Graceling, and her Grace is to kill. Catchy, eh? I really couldn’t put the book down, and flew through it in a little over a day. I felt fairly similar with Fire, the prequel to Graceling. Though in the same realm, it had a fresh new kingdom, story, and characters that I just soaked in and I finished that one easily in a day. Bitterblue, the sequel to Graceling, was a little more work for me to get through, but I still liked it nonetheless.

I started Eragon yesterday, the first of the Inheritance Cycle series. It’s a book that I’ve always wanted to read but hadn’t gotten around to. I’ve done that with a lot of books, I’ve realized. I’ve always thought they sounded good and wanted to read them but didn’t have them or have the time, or whatever excuse. For example, I didn’t read the Chronicles of Narnia until 2011, or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory until last year. Just classics that I should’ve read, but didn’t, and want to, but haven’t.

I recently signed up for a Goodreads account. Well, I’ve actually had it for a while, but I haven’t really used it because of one reason or another. I’ve always just listed the books I’ve read (at least the last couple of years) but I think I’m going to start recording them there as well. I like the stats and it keeps all the books I’ve read all in one spot and I can get recommendations from friends and see what they’re reading as well. If any of you have a Goodreads account, I’d love to follow you, or be your friend…or whatever it’s called. :P

It’s pretty ridiculous what a good book can do to me. I just curl up in my bed with it and don’t come out until I’m about to pee myself or starve. Okay, maybe not to that full extent. :P I like to read in my room since it’s the quietest place. I’ll sometimes come out to the living room, where my mom and dad tend to hang out just to be in their presence since I don’t get to see them when I’m away at school.

One of these days I’m going to buy myself a Kindle. I’ve been wanting one for a while now, just can’t get myself to fork over $100 for one. But I just think it’d be convenient to be able to carry with me and a lot of the e-books are much less than the print copies. And the Kindle would be great for long trips (which I tend to take frequently) and in the car in the dark. The one that I want (the paperwhite) has a light which would be perfect for that.I ‘m sure I could come up with some other reasons, but those are the ones that I’m using to justify buying one, haha. One of these days! Maybe after I’ve been working for a while as a treat to myself.

I had to get my driver’s license renewed a few days ago. I don’t know what I was thinking when I went. Actually I take that back; I thought that it was going to be similar to renewing a library card of a liscence plate, where you go in and they give you a new sticker and you slap it on the ID and voila! It’s renewed! So my mom was laughing at my reaction when I found it I had to get my picture taken again. Thankfully I had showered before I went (I was feeling especially bummy that day) but had just thrown my hair back in a sloppy ponytail. Haha, the things I have to learn the hard way. But now I can drive for four more years! Woooooo.