The Liebster Award!

Beautiful Dragon Mermaid Queen, R.K. Brainerd, (seriously check her out, she's as mythical and amazing as both those creatures) has bestowed upon me THE LIEBSTER AWARD! It's a fun award given by bloggers to fellow bloggers for being positive and encouraging members of the community! 

THE RULES:

1. Share 11 facts about yourself.

2. Answer 11 questions from the blogger who nominated you.

3. Nominate up to 11 bloggers and write 11 questions for them to answer.

I'm not sure I know 11 people with active blogs...uh oh.

MY 11 FACTS OF ME-NESS:

1. I was on a TV game show called Figure-It-Out on Nickelodeon when I was little. Here's the link to the episode. It's no longer viable blackmail, HA! 

2. I've won a cosplay contest! I dressed up as Fionna from Adventure Time (and a friend was Prince Bubblegum) and played the theme song on a ukelele. 

3. I've climbed Mt. Fuji. And the only thing that got me to the top were the stamps you could get branded on to your walking stick at each of the stations. GOTTA CATCH EM ALL! 

4. Speaking of, I still have all of my Pokemon cards, still organized by type and evolution.

5. I'm such a skeptic when it comes to the paranormal, but when I visited Stone Henge while living in England, I could feel an inexplicable energy. It was surreal. And then the hordes of people ruined it. 

6. I've kissed the blarney stone. It's a lot higher up than they tell you and you have to bend over a gaping hole backwards to kiss it. 
 

7. I'm a huge dino nerd. Ever since I saw Jurassic Park in theaters when I was 3 y/o (way to go mom!). My favorite dinosaur is parasaurolophus. 

8. I have reoccurring nightmares about being chased by a t-rex and velociraptors through a football stadium or an elementary school...even though I love dinosaurs...and I'm 27-freaking-years-old. 

9. I sleep talk. Horribly. When I lived in Japan I would teach classes in my sleep. In Japanese. I don't actually know Japanese. 

10. My dad used to drive race cars. He holds a lot of the track records in Florida. My childhood smells like burnt rubber and exhaust fumes.

11. I'm allergic to all these: bananas, honeydew melon, cantaloupe, almonds, avocados, walnuts, and cats. 


And here are my questions from m'lady Brainerd:

1. What’s your biggest regret? (We’re starting off deep here, apparently)
Not finishing SOUL BOUND sooner and querying it when vampires where at the height of the market. I have NO doubt in my mind it would've been snapped up back then.

2. If you could be any animal, what would you be? 

A dolphin, hands down. They have a whole ocean to explore. And they have sex for fun. Hehe. 

3. What’s your dream writing space?

Honestly, I love writing in cafes. I like the hustle and bustle. A table on the second story, next to a window so I can people watch the streets: perfection. 

4. What author are you currently learning from/being inspired by? 

Leigh Bardugo. Six of Crows was a masterful juggling act of a brilliantly diverse and unique cast of characters. I learned so much about balancing character perspectives/personalities and creating dynamics between each of them. 

5. What’s your biggest writer goal you’re working on right now? 

Finishing this new WIP. I'm really enjoying writing it and can't wait to finish, get it edited up nice and purdy, then send it out to CPs and betas! 

6. What’s your biggest life goal you’re working on right now? 

Moving back to England and getting some roots planted. I've been a bit of a wanderer and it's about time I have a stable, consistent life. For a little while anyways ;) 

7. If you could change your eye color, what would you want it to be? Strange colors totally allowed. 

OH OH I LOVE THIS QUESTION! Either two different colored eyes or any shade of grey. Same with my hair! The grey, not the different colors. Don't think I could pull that off...

8. Who’s your current/favorite book boyfriend/girlfriend? 

Inej Ghafa from SIX OF CROWS. We would have late night talks about the world and life and then cuddle. Then she'd teach me how to be an assassin of the night.

9. If you could get one material item right now without having to pay for it, what would it be? 

My own private jet. So I could travel anywhere in the world. 

10. Outside of writing, what’s your dream job? 

Environmental vigilante. Seriously. Sabotaging construction equipment or taking big construction companies to court. Like environmental espionage!

11. Finally, any exciting book release/promotion stuff going on? And if you’re still wandering in unpublished land like me: what’s a recent writing/life epiphany you’ve had? 

That I don't HAVE to get my first novel published. For some reason I had it in my head that if I couldn't get my first (and only) novel agented and published, I had no chance at ever being a published author.



And now for my questions!

1. Where is your favorite place to write? 
2. Who would play your MC if your MS got turned into a movie?
3. Is there a book you will always/happily reread?
4. Is there a genre you would love to write in, but feel you're not ready/equipped for right now?
5. What's the worst part about writing for you?
6. What would be your X-Men name and abilities?
7. Who is/are your favorite book character pairing(s)?
8. Name one guilty-pleasure TV show or book you watch/read.
9. What's your favorite source of writing inspiration/motivation? (Either a quote, or book, or person, or yoga position, whatever does it for you!)
10. If you could co-write a book with one author, who would it be?
11. What's your biggest strength as a writer? (Seriously! Toot your own horn! Toot toot!)


THAT WAS SO FUN! Thank you, Rebekkah! I hope we're all famous authors one day that get to do these kinds of Q&As all the time! 

August in Review

August is gone. AUGUST IS GONE, PEOPLE! How are we already on our 9th month of 2016? And why has this whole year been such a massive dumpster fire? But as we leave the scorching months of summer for the (for Floridians) equally scorching months of Autumn, hope is in the air that this year will STOP IT RIGHT NOW OR I WILL TURN THIS CAR AROUND. 

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo. 6/10.When I read SIX OF CROWS by Bardugo a few months ago, I became an instant Bardugo-dite--a fan for life. I was so eager to jump back into the world of Grishas, so I did. With the first book in the Grisha Trilogy, SHADOW AND BONE.

While Bardugo clearly realized more of her full potential in SoC, SaB was okay. I finished it in a day. I'm jumping at the chance to get my hands on SEIGE AND STORM--but I can't figure out why.
Aside from the imaginative setting and refreshingly unique take on Russian folklore and culture, there was nothing about this book that I LOVED. But also nothing I hated.
I didn't particularly like the MC, Alina. In fact, I didn't particularly like anyone in the story. There wasn't really any character that I identified with or felt myself rooting for. None of them really stood out. Maybe because, for a huge chunk of the novel, the story revolved around being beautiful and the vanities of the Little Palace and the Grisha in general. It started to feel a little too... catty. Too typical in it's "plain girl is mean girled, gets makeover, becomes hawt, is still super boring and uncomplicated but everyone falls in love with her anyways because now she iz hawt." The story lost a lot of depth as soon as Alina started admitting how beautiful she was. *eye roll* 

But Bardugo's writing style is so fluid and enjoyable. Even if I wasn't totally buying what she was writing about, I was flying through this book because of how she writes about it. Her style is clear and concise, and she balances exposition and description with action and dialogue VERY well. There's something to be said about a story that is enjoyable to actually READ. As in the syntax and tone and flow, rather than the plot and characters.

So yeah, I didn't LOVE it... buuuuut... OMGGIMMETHENEXTONEINEEDITANDIDONTUNDERSTANDWHY!

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. 6/10

Those playwriting classes I took in college? Totally worth it. If for nothing other than the fact that I could dive into this and not be totally thrown off by the stageplay format. I can absolutely understand why a lot of people struggled with it. Prose fiction and stageplays are two VERY different creatures. And for the poor souls who didn't listen to the millions of people (including Rowling herself) screaming at the top of their lungs, "THIS IS NOT A BOOK, IT'S A PLAY! THIS IS NOT A BOOK, IT'S A PLAY!" they didn't stand a chance.

Formatting aside, you could tell very quickly that Rowling didn't have much to do with this other than lending her name as the headliner on the cover. It felt more like some strange version of Harry Potter fanfiction. And while I appreciated the depth of the story and how realistic the writers tried to make it (Harry not being the wonderful father we all thought he would be, Ron and Hermione in a very normal, uninspired marriage), it had very little of the magic that draws one (that drew millions and millions) to the series.

I must've been cursed this month to read books that had, like, NO likable characters, because, damn it, it happened again. Pretty much every character in this play is a bit of a dick. Aside from Scorpius. He was cute. And his crush on Rose was adorable.

But I'm not convinced Tiffany and Thorne have ever actually spent time around adolescent boys. Their voices were SO random and inauthentic that I was actually laughing out loud sometimes at the absurdity of their dialogue. They were quite obviously young boys written by older men who forgot what it was like to be a kid. EVERYONE felt like a strange caricature of themselves. OOC (out of character) alert!

As a novel, in Rowling's expert hands, this story might've been what we all hoped it would be. But it had only the barest traces of the Potterverse we all know and love, and while it was an interesting addition to the series, it felt wholly unneeded and like a concession on Rowling's part to let someone beat her laid-to-rest series with a stick.

Star Trek: Beyond: 6/10. Holy deja vu, Batman. Haven't we seen this before? Don't get me wrong, two hours of Chris Pine is never a waste, but this felt a bit like a cookie cutter movie. Ship blows up, oh no! Something happens to crew, oh no! Something from the Federation's past comes back to bite them in the ass? OH NO! It was good, I still enjoyed it, but sadly, it brought nothing new to the table.

Suicide Squad: 4/10. I don't wanna talk about it... *shakes fist at Warner Brothers* *curls up into a ball*

Side note** I made bread from scratch. It was a solid 7/10. I AM A DOMESTIC GODDESS! *googles how to boil an egg*

~Be mindful of the the things that precious time is spent on.~