October Wrap-Up / November TBR

October:

• The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
• Fantasy Lover by Sherrilyn Kenyon
• Dark Currents (Agent of Hel #1) by Jacqueline Carey
• Grave Peril (Dresden Files #3) by Jim Butcher
• Coraline: The Graphic Novel by Neil Gaiman
• The Mark of Athena (Heroes of Olympus #3) by Rick Riordan
• The House of Hades (Heroes of Olympus #4) by Rick Riordan

I ended up reading The Legend of Sleep Hollow because of the new TV show, which you need to watch. I mean, read the short story, it's good, but the TV show is just really good guys. I have no excuse for the second book except it was on my Kindle (I don't remember why) and it was four am and I couldn't sleep and then I just wanted to know how it ended, even if I kind of wanted to rip my eyes out.

Dark Currents was a fantastic book, I've barely started the second one but I am really loving this series so far and I've realized how much I adore this author. Also, House of Hades. I mean holy cheerleader batman, I mean seriously. The Blood of Olympus is probably my most anticpated book of next year, I just - I want to know what happens, I hope it's really long and I want a Nico point of view chapter (or I will riot, not really, but I want to see in his head so badly).

Wow, I rambled, I guess I'm in the writing mood (which is definitely good), so I will probably not see you until December.

November:
Yeah, I'm not going to be reading at all. I'm doing NaNoWriMo and that's kind of it, and I'm overachieving in it. (Writing more then the 50,000 words, my goal is 300/350k. Yes, I am crazy, don't even ask).

So I'm not really not going to get ay books read, kind of sadly, but - the first week of December I will probably just read that first week and can hopefully get some books read and finished (especially ones I'm currently reading for the New Year. Gah. New Year. How the hell did it get to being almost 2014?)

If you want to follow my NaNoWriMo progress and laugh at my wrist pain. NaNo profile, Twitter.

NaNoWriMo 2013

I've been doing NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, for few years, starting to feel like I have somethings to say. I don't want to say wisdom, because I feel like I've been doing it for such a little time compared to some others. My first year was 2009, I'd just started high school and was looking for something to write something other then Harry Potter fan fiction. Kristina Horner's video that year convinced me. (She's done one every year for a while and at the bottom of this post you'll find links to all of them and to some others!) I've been doing it since 2009 and did every Camp and Script Frenzy (rest in peace) since then.

And if you're staring at this post going 'great, but what the hell is it?' Well, my dears, it is a insane month where so, so many people try to write 50k! Or less or more. Personally, I've been part of the 'overachievers' club for the last couple of years now. It's certainly been an interesting thing to try and write even more then 50k. My goal this year is 250k, but I'd really like to hit 300k. If you're at all interested, overachievers have their own forums this year on the NaNo site, Beyond 50k!

The point, though, about this post is that if you've ever wanted to write a novel or have an idea if your head, maybe NaNo is the right place. If 50k seems too much to write in one months because you have this or that, just - give it a shot. Maybe aim for 30k, 20k, just try to make as much time as you can, cutting out the stuff you don't need and that will be there come December.

Now, my main advice for NaNoWriMo, if you're going to do it, is to know whether you're a pantser or a planner in advance. Also, you might want to check out Chris Baty's book, because it is lovely. Chris Baty, by the way, is the one who created NaNoWriMo in 1999.

Also: writing buddies. Checking in the comments of Kristina's 2013 video can help or you can add me on the NaNo website. If you've got any questions, feel free to just ask them in the comments. Happy writing! Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got like four novels I should be planning out.

Now, to try and convince you, some people who can talk about this way better then I ever could.

Kristina Horner:
2009 - Why I Do NaNoWriMo
2010 - NANOWRIMO
2011 - You are a SUPERHERO
2012 - NO EXCUSES (a NaNoWriMo pep talk)
2013 - 5 Ways to Get Your Novel Written
NaNoWriMo (updated) music video (just do it)

John Green's video from 2009
NaNoWriMo!!!

Little Book Owl (a BookTuber who I love) did an awesome video that, if you have no idea how to do NaNoWriMo, has pretty much all the advice I could ever offer you
How To NaNoWriMo

A friend of mine (and awesome author) Robyn Schneider did an official pep talk for the YWP, young writers program, and she talks about suck dragons so....
NaNoWriMo YWP: How To Vanquish Your Suck Dragons

Dewey's Read-A-Thon (October 12th-13th, 2013)

I didn't really have a huge stack of books to get through, which is kind of surprisingly with my read-a-thon past, but I had some books I wanted to read. I always love this read-a-thon, because it's a short and sweet one and everyone is on Twitter talking about how they're reading this and their snacks and at about 3am everyone either passes out or gets extremely delirious.

Anyway, I wanted to tell you the books I read and how pages it was, because I like this keeping track of page count thing.

Books:
Coraline: Graphic Novel by Neil Gaiman, P. Craig Russell
The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus #3) by Rick Riordan
The House of Hades (The Heroes of Olympus #4) by Rick Riordan

Pages: 1,255

So it was only three books but both the Riordan books were long, both almost 600 pages, and I had started Mark of Athena before but I didn't count that hundred or so pages. Anyway, I had a lot of fun and got a lot of reading done and oh my god Rick Riordan knows just how to do a middle grade adventure, let me tell you. If you participated then I hope you had an awesome time and got some reading done, and hopefully I will post more regularly now. Ha, NaNoWriMo is coming, that's not going to happen.

And if you're reading this and going 'Casey, what is this read-a-thon thing that is 24 hours and I missed' then you should go to the website and check it out.

Dewey's 24 hour read-a-thon is tomorrow!

It's been how long since I've made an actual post here? That's not excepted, what happened to that plan, self? Okay, besides that, the yelling at myself and saying I am very sorry about not posting, I just realized (almost 8pm) that tomorrow is the Dewey 24-hour read-a-thon. I vaguely remember it happening last year and I really wanted to participate this year because this is apparently the year of me doing read-a-thons.

So on the thirteenth, probably late in the day, I'll put a post up talking about tomorrows day of reading and what happened. I have actually been reading the last couple days, which is perfect, so I think tomorrow will be awesome! I also want to make a post about NaNoWriMo, because it is coming. Too slowly, in my opinion, but I also really need to actually plan out my stories.

Anyway. The read-a-thon tomorrow. Official twitter, blog. Check it out! (if you want to sign up, it's simple, in the left bar is a link to all the posts you'd need. To be a participant or just a cheerleader)

September Wrap-Up / October TBR

September:

• Torchwood: Golden Age by James Goss (audiobook)
• Shadow (Paper Gods #0.5) by Amanda Sun
• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (audiobook)
• Instructions by Neil Gaiman (audiobook)
• Legion by Brandon Sanderson (audiobook)
• Something From the Nightside (Nightside #1) by Simon R. Green

I really didn't get a lot of reading done this month, I did get quite a bit of writing done even though it just was kind of a 'eh' month for me. Just - one of those months, I guess.

October:

I have no idea what I want to read, I've been kind of preparing myself for H.P. Lovecraft. I've never read anything by him and he lived like ten minutes from me and I love horror so it's ridiculous I've read nothing by him. I just don't really know where to start, I'm still kind of figuring it out.

Also Rick Riordan's new book comes out on the tenth! And I never read the one from last year (I got spoiled like the day after it came out and just couldn't bring myself to read it, it was just kind of annoying and sad). And Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson just came out and I really want to read that, I've learned I kind of love everything he writes and can read it pretty quickly since it sucks me right in.

There's other books around but after my kind of suck reading month, I'm not sure. Also, I currently stand at having read 99 books this year, after upping my goal from 50 to 100, but I don't think I'm going to up it further, just so how many more past 100 I can get.

Also I'm so, so sorry for not posting here all month. I honestly don't know what happened, I haven't been feeling very in the mood too, and I just need to. It's been a weird month, an off month I guess. well, more off then normal.

I hope your Septembers were good and your Octobers are spook filled (ooh, another reason for some Lovecraft, I just realized) and also pumpkin filled.

August Wrap-Up / September TBR

How is it September already? I feel like I must of missed some months or something, I always feel like the year flies by so fast. Anyway, onto the books, because that's what we're here for right? Books.

August:

• A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
• Serenity: Those Left Behind (Serenity #1) by Joss Whedon and more
• Warm Up by Victoria Schwab 
• Vicious by Victoria Schwab
• The Blob That Ate Everyone by R.L. Stine
• Bakuman, Vol. 1: Dreams and Reality by Tsugumi Ohba
• The Rithmatist (Rithmatist #1) by Brandon Sanderson
• Better Days (Serenity #2) by Joss Whedon
• Burnt Offerings (Anita Blake #7) by Laurell K. Hamilton
• Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
• Blue Moon (Anita Blake #8) by  Laurell K. Hamilton
• The Shepard's Tale (Serenity #3) by Joss and Zack Whedon
• Obsidian Butterfly (Anita Blake #9) by Laurell K. Hamilton

Whew! So many books this much, and a couple really good ones that I'm still thinking about. I'm going to, hopefully, have my review of Vicious up the week/day that the book comes out and hopefully reviews many of them. If you haven't noticed, I can be kind of bad at this, it's hard to say enough things sometimes.

September:

Honestly, I have no idea what books I am going to read, as I never do. So, some guesses, and I am definitely not a psychic.

• Fray by Joss Whedon
• Next In Death series
• Ink by Amanda Sun (and the novella)
• Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper

And hopefully more. I can't remember off the top of my head which In Death book I'm on, I'm on one of them, there's a ton of them. And Fray is a comic/graphic novel about a slayer very far in the future and it sounds amazing (it's Joss Whedon, how could it not be amazing?). I might read the next Anita Blake book, but I've heard after Obsidian Butterfly they get kind of, well, bad (until the newest one, I think), and I have the next three, so I might as well read them, it's just... the next one is over 600 pages. 

I also have some ARCs for books that come out September/October that I definitely should read. I'm very bad at making a list of books to read and sticking to it, though, normally I just pick up a random book and start reading.

Anyway! I hope August was a good month for everyone, if not reading wise then maybe something else wise, and now it's September! How the hell did that happen? No, really, I'm confused about this. 

Year in Review (2013 - 2)

Part two of this series (at least for 3013)! I don't know how many of these there will be, but probably a lot, because I'm going to try and get as many for each post as I can, without making them extremely long, and I've already read over 90 books this year.

The Regulators by Stephen King (5/5)
Review here

The Magician's Nephew (Chronicles of Narnia #1) by C.S. Lewis (5/5)
I don't have a review up for this one and, as a couple weeks ago I finished the last book in this series, I'm thinking of just putting up a review of the whole series, but I'm still not sure. I enjoyed this book, and this series, but I'm not sure I have much to say about this one or any of the others.

Glory in Death (In Death #2) by J.D. Robb (5/5)
I love this series. It's more of a guilty pleasure read then anything else, but I can normally read them in one sitting and it's kind of like a cleanse between the more serious books, I guess. (I've read a lot of them this year).

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Caroll (3/5)
I struggled a lot with this book. Something about it, I just couldn't get into, but I did end up finishing and gave it three stars. It wasn't bad, not at all, but it's just so... something. I think most of it was that during the whole thing I was mostly like 'what is happening? why? why?' and that isn't a fun way to read a book.

IT by Stephen King (5/5)
A reread for me, and one of my all time favorite books. It may be over one thousand pages, but I have read it many, many times. Probably too many. I don't have a review up of this one, but I feel like I should, hopefully soon.

The Laughing Corpse (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #2) by Laurell K. Hamilton (4/5)
I can't pretend to remember what exactly happened in this book, I'm currently reading book nine. But I remember this one not being quite there yet, like she hadn't hit her stride writing this series yet or something. Don't get me wrong, though, it was still really good.

Immortal in Death (In Death #3) by J.D. Robb
I really don't want to say really anything about these books as I get further, I mean they're pretty standalone really, story wise, but still. Check this series out if Law & Order but with more character stuff sounds fun (characters as in the main cast of characters).

Circus of the Damned (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #3) by Laurell K. Hamilton (4/5)
I love the Circus, which is where most of this is set, so I really liked this one. The Circus of the Damned is a place in this world, enjoy! And that's all I'm saying, so much further in the series now.

The Lunatic Cafe (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #4) by Laurell K. Hamilton (4/5)
Pretty good. And that's all I'm saying. 4/5 says enough, I think so the 4th in a series.

Bloody Bones (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #5) by Laurell K. Hamilton (5/5)
For some reason I adored this book more then the others. None of the books are really light, but I felt like this one was a little darker and grittier and, I don't know, I just enjoyed it more somehow.

And I think that's where I'm going to cut this one off for now. The mostly In Death and Anita Blake one really, but still. I could probably get through a few more without it getting too long, but I think I'm going to just stop here. To be continued in part three! (Tell me if you like this / if you don't, any comments would be helpful. I like having them, as a kind of personal record, but I'd still be interested if there's anything you think I should add/take away).