All I Want For Christmas... (2)

This is a fun meme started by Danya over at A Tapestry of Words. We mention one book we would love to get for Christmas this year.

Here's my pick for this week:

Nightshade by Andrea Cremer

Calla Tor has always known her destiny: After graduating from the Mountain School, she'll be the mate of sexy alpha wolf Ren Laroche and fight with him, side by side, ruling their pack and guarding sacred sites for the Keepers. But when she violates her masters' laws by saving a beautiful human boy out for a hike, Calla begins to question her fate, her existence, and the very essence of the world she has known. By following her heart, she might lose everything— including her own life. Is forbidden love worth the ultimate sacrifice?

___________________________

Nightshade is going to be the next book I buy, whether I get it for Christmas or not! There's a ton of hype about it, and I've read so many great reviews, so I really need to get myself a copy. It seems like another book everyone has read and loved except me!

Why I Didn't Fail (Well, I Sorta Did) NaNoWriMo

Don't read this unless you want to hear me go on and on about my writing experience... I'm mostly writing this for my own reflections... But I will try to keep it from being boring. :)

Okay, it won't be that bad. I just want to give some kind of warning. :)

Here's what I have to say- I didn't fail. I refuse to say I did, because it implies of sense of well, failure. Of non-accomplishment.

By the truth is, I didn't make the 50,000 word count. But here's what I did do: I reached 30,000 words, and for all my talk of wanting to be a writer I've never carried out a book idea for more than a couple thousand words before giving up on it. And the best part with this book: I'm still not giving up on it. I still love the idea. I still am planning on continuing to write it.

I got really busy and didn't make the time for novel writing that I should of. If I do this next year (which I most likely will) I'll be sure to schedule myself more time and concentrate harder on making my word count every day.

Once I got to 25,000 words (halfway) I realized I had a great idea, but just trying to write a bunch of "words" just to keep going didn't really help my story. I was starting to write crappy stuff, and I didn't really know where the plot was going. So I took a break from writing and spent A LOT of time outlining. Once I was finished, I went back to writing, I cut a bunch of stuff, and then wrote stuff that felt a lot more relevant.

Of course by then, I was so behind on my word count I stopped caring about catching up. But even though I knew I was WAY behind it didn't stop me from just keeping writing more. Before November, I had thought about outlining ahead of time, but the problem was that I had to write some, to get to know my characters, before I knew where the story was going to go. I discovered all of this and more about my own personal writing process.

I am disappointed I can't be a "winner", but there's always next year. I don't feel like I "failed" because I still have an awesome story idea that I'm going to continue working on. This whole NaNoWriMo experience actually gave me the confidence that maybe, just maybe, I will be able to be a writer someday. There was so much I learned, just about myself as a writer.

Sometimes I read those "pep talks" I get in my email from the NaNoWriMo website, written by a lot of published authors. Though I can't remember most of them, one stuck with me. It was written by Holly Black, who we all know is an incredible writer. I'm going to copy part of her pep talk here, because this really stuck with me throughout the whole writing process, and I feel like I have to share it:

1) No one can tell if the writing was fun or if it was hard. Trust me. I know it seems like writing that pours out of your brain in a passionate flood should be better than writing that comes slowly and miserably, but the only person who will ever know the difference is you. So no excuses—get the word count done.

2) You don't have to believe you can; you just have to do it. I remember everyone telling me I had to think positive when I was writing my first book. If I believed I could do it, then I could! If I pictured myself published, then it was going to happen! Which sounded great, except...could I do it? If I didn't think I could, was I doomed to fail? What if I was almost totally sure I would fail? I am here to tell you—what matters is sticking with it. Even if you don't know if you can make it through NaNoWriMo, just get through today. Then get through tomorrow. Don't worry about the day after that, until it's today. Then you know what to do.

There was a lot more to her pep talk, but I think these are really important! Something I learned and certainly want to remember for next year.

Congrats to those of you who finished! And if you didn't, here's one person who understands. But tell me- I want to hear- how did your writing experiences go?

First Come, Second Served Month and Schedule

I, along with a few other fellow book bloggers, will be participating in a fun event called First Come, Second Served Month. Amber from Down the Rabbit Hole is organizing the whole thing- see her post here.

What is it, you may ask?

It's the entire month of December devoted to reading and reviewing all those sequels sitting on your TBR shelf. The sophomore novel for a writer is almost more crucial than the first as it allows the publisher to know if the author is going to sell. It's essential that we support our authors on their journey! So bust out those sequels and get ready to win some prizes for reading them!

(taken from Down the Rabbit Hole)

The dates are December 5th-December 31st. Yes, that means it starts this Monday!

At the end of each week, head on over to Down the Rabbit Hole to link your reviews to sequels you have read during the month for a chance to win some giveaways. Besides that, there will be events such as giveaways/author interviews going on at a few different blogs, including here.

You can see the Master Schedule here of all the events going on during this month. Here is the schedule for upcoming events at Book Infinity:

December 6th: Giveaway of Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

December 17th: Interview/Giveaway with Artist Arthur (Manifest)
December 22nd: Create-A-Sequel Challenge/Giveaway!
December 29th: Giveaway of Misguided Angel by Melissa de la Cruz

In addition to those giveaways/interviews/challenges, each blog participating be featuring one sequel a week. I will be reading/featuring these four books:





Linger by Maggie Stiefvater

Mystify by Artist Arthur

Hunger by Michael Grant

Masquerade by Melissa de la Cruz

I'm excited to start this month and hope you check back for the giveaways and other awesome stuff!

Waiting On Wednesday: Original Sin by Lisa Desrochers

Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

My pick for this week is:


Original Sin by Lisa Desrochers

Release Date:

June 5 2011

When secrets and old histories come to light, Frannie realizes that nobody is who she thought they were. Hell won’t give up and Heaven won’t give in. Some are willing to hurt anyone close to Frannie in order to get what they want. It will take everything she has and then some to stay out of Hell's grasp.

And not everyone will get out of it alive.

I just spotted the new cover for this, so I had to share it! What do you guys think? Like the first book, I think the characters do look a bit too old, but it's not that bad. If you read my review you'd know I'm Team Luc all the way, so I'm kind of worried by the fact that Frannie's standing with Gabe, not Luc this time. Oh well, I guess I'll have to read the book to find out what happens there! I liked Personal Demons a lot, so I'm excited to continue reading the series and I'm really curious as to where this book is going to go. (My review of Personal Demons is here).

On another note... if you're wondering about how I did with NaNoWriMo, considering it was over last night, I'll be posting more about that later.

Book Review: Manifest by Artist Arthur

Title: Manifest

Author: Artist Arthur

Series: Mystyx #1

Publisher: Harlequin Enterprises, Limited

Release Date: August 1 2010

My Source: Won from contest

My Rating: 4/5

Goodreads Summary:
When fifteen-year-old Krystal Bentley moves to Lincoln, Connecticut, her mom's hometown, she assumes her biggest drama will be adjusting to the burbs after living in New York City.

But Lincoln is nothing like Krystal imagined. The weirdness begins when Ricky Watson starts confiding in her. He's cute, funny, a good listener—and everything she'd ever want—except that he was killed nearly a year ago. Krystal's ghost-whispering talents soon lead other "freaks" to her door—Sasha, a rich girl who can literally disappear, and Jake, who moves objects with his mind. All three share a distinctive birthmark in the shape of an M and, fittingly, call themselves the Mystyx. They set out to learn what really happened to Ricky, only to realize that they aren't the only ones with mysterious powers. But if Krystal succeeds in finding out the truth about Ricky's death, will she lose him for good?

My Review:

I want to start out this review by saying this book was awesome because it featured a black female main character with paranormal powers. That's just something awesome we unfortunately rarely see in YA fiction. I really like the cover too!

Now, onto the book itself... Manifest was a mix of a coming of age tale about Krystal, the protaganist, learning about her new powers and growing up a bit herself, while at the same time solving a mystery relating to her new paranormal power of being able to see and talk to ghosts. I really enjoyed the mystery aspect and the end of the book had me totally surprised!

Krystal was a character I really could not stand at the beginning of the book, but grew to love and even care about by the end. For about the first half of the book, she was just a whiny brat. She was so resistant to learning more about her supernatural powers or even trying to fix her relationship with her parents, and it made me want to slap her sometimes! I felt like her resistance was really slowing down the plot for the first half of the book and there were parts it got dull. But then, about halfway through, we started to see Krystal change. She was still headstrong and stubborn, but started to use her it in a good way. She had to help Ricky solve the mystery of his murder and help her two new friends- Sasha and Jake- discover why they were started to get weird powers. I started liking the book a lot more once Krystal decided she was going to stop being so resistant of events that are going to happen anyway. The reason she was so obstinate was the issue of her parent's recent divorce and the fact that she was never given a really good reason for it. As Krystal found out more about what happened between her parents, I started to truly feel bad for her, almost to the point of tears when she learned some things that shocked her and me as a reader.

Throughout the book, there was one character I really loved- Ricky, the ghost Krystal is helping. He was funny, adorable, and the fact that only Krystal could see him gave them a connection I felt instantly. He was the reason Krystal transformed from an annoying spoiled girl to a great well developed character. I loved all of his scenes and I really hope he's back for the second book in the series- it wouldn't be the same without him.

Maybe it was because I was reading an ARC copy, but the one thing that really bugged me throughout the whole book this: we'd get into a scene, build up a lot of suspense, and then it would switch to a scene later, never returning to the previous scene. I wouldn't mind this except for the fact that we never found at what happened in the scene before. It felt a bit choppy between scenes and I wondered what I missed. It occured a few times, but it wasn't that bad and shouldn't keep you from reading this book.

Overall, I recommend Manifest to YA paranormal fans. It's a 4/5 rating for me because I really got into the second half of the book and loved the mystery and suspense, if you can make it through the beginning where I thought the protaganist's attitude might kill the plot. It's a great start of a series and worth adding to your to-read list. :)

Buy From Amazon


Author Website

All I Want For Christmas/Happy Thanksgiving

This is a new meme started by Danya at A Tapestry of Words. Participants choose a book each week leading up to Christmas and say why it's made it onto their wishlist. Fun idea, and I've been meaning to join for awhile now.

Here is my pick for this week:

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

I feel like I might be the last person in the world to read this book... and it looks so good! I'm not afraid of big books, but I guess it's size has made me shy away from getting it at the library. But I think if I owned it, I'd be way more happy to read it. I think it would make the perfect Christmas break read. Anyone agree with me? I hope to get Beautiful Creatures for Christmas this year!

And while I'm writing a post, I can't forget to say Happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow bloggers! I hope everyone has plenty that they're thankful for this year and a big meal on the table this evening.

I thank God for the many priveleges he's blessed me with. So many I can't even begin to list them right now.

Thank you, followers, for reading this blog and making it worth spending my time on!

A New Look

Right now my blog is in the process of getting a mini-makeover! I've been designing it for a while and I really like it so far. Designing pretty-looking stuff isn't exactly my specialty, but I like the end result.

I'm not done yet, I've just changed the header and background but I'm working on navigation buttons and other stuff, so if you notice things that don't appear quite normal, that's why. I know currently as I write this I don't have any navigation buttons at all! But the construction should all be over by the end of the day.

I hope you guys like the new layout! I decided it was just time for some change around here.

EDIT: I'm finished with the re-design (I think). If anybody notices any glitches with my blog, please let me know! This whole make-over took me about 6 hours- yeah, I can hardly believe it took that long! It didn't feel that long, I had fun doing it. :)