Blog Update

Finals are over, hooray! Well, they were over for me a lot earlier than most people. I got sick after I got back from Thanksgiving at school, which accounts for my MIAness lately. I went to the doctor twice, the urgent care center, and the emergency room twice, and no one could help me. So my mom had me shipped home early because she was so worried about me and I've thankfully gotten a lot better. But since most of my friends hadn't come home yet, all I did was watch TV and EDIT.

The first round of edits on The Shape that Breaks are COMPLETE. I'm so excited and ready to start with critique partners. I've never been this close to finishing a novel and I'm so freakin' excited I've been neglecting reading. Right now, I'm finishing up Ascendant by Diana Peterfreud (I always have to look up how to spell her name). Also, I got a couple of ARC tours coming up, which I'm super excited about, so hopefully I'll be more active this winter break!

I think about once a week or so, to help with the fact that I have no money, I'm gonna review an old favorite of mine. And I have a ton, so be ready!

Happy holidays, everyone!

Across the Universe Book Trailer

I know everyone and their mother is posting about this, but I'm so freakin' excited for this book that I had to post this.

A book trailer for Beth Revis's upcoming novel, Across the Universe!

Sam's Ramblings (3)

I think I have mono. I have to go to the doctor tomorrow to confirm but I don't feel THAT crappy. That would be very bad, if I actually did have mono.

I'm here to talk to you about: WINTER.

I live in Florida. I've lived in South Florida for my entire life, with only vacations to places where it gets colder and there are mountains. (Lake Tahoe!) But Florida, for those of you who don't know, is a LONG state. It takes about seven hours to get from where I live to FSU, if that gives you a little bit of an idea. So, down south, there really isn't a winter. It gets in the 50s, maybe the 40s, everyone complains, and it's back to 80 for two weeks until the next cold front.

So, living in Tallahassee? Yeah, there's a winter. It was 30 degrees this morning when I left my dorm and even though I wasn't that cold, it's so weird to see people COMPLAINING about 50 degree weather. If it was 50 degrees, I could lay outside and read a book and not wear gloves.

This rambling today has no purpose. I'm reading, a review for Revolution to come in a day or so, and I'm getting through Ascendant! Hope everyone is doing well and had a great Thanksgiving!

In My Mailbox (11)

Got two books this week!

Where I Belong by Gwendolyn Heasley

Ape House by Sara Gruen

What did everyone else get?

Teaser Tuesday!

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This week I'm reading Where I Belong by Gwendolyn Heasley!

"Senor Luis gives me a heartthrob smile. At my old school, he'd be T.M.F.G., Total Material For Gossip, and I'm sure some student would try to seduce him. Wait... that's one way to get myself kicked out of Texas, but I really don't want to be the subject of a Lifetime movie. At least not for that." - Page 54

Sam's Ramblings (2)

I go home for Thanksgiving break tomorrow! :) I'm so excited.

Today, I'm going to talk about REVISIONS.

This is in all capitals because I have never done serious revisions before. I'm a master at revising short stories, although I have yet to start in on my latest work that I finished in September, so approaching THE SHAPE THAT BREAKS is difficult. Usually when I'm dissatisfied with a draft, I rewrite it. But as I learned in NaNoWriMo this year, there isn't a point in rewriting the same thing if there will be the same things wrong with it. So I need to change them in this draft. But it's hard, opening up that document. It's like I don't know where to start. And it just brings about doubts that I've been having about it regardless.

It's also kind of heartbreaking to read through TSTB over and over again because I'm going through the same exact thing that Celeste was at the moment. It's funny - when I'd begun writing this draft, I'd never known heartbreak, but I nailed it. I've always been complimented on my ability to make things seem real, such as the issue of suicide in my a recent short story, so I guess I'm grateful for that. My former self must've known that this would be a kind of therapy for me.

But again, it's a daunting process. You'd think that writing the damn thing would be the hard part, and in many ways, it is. But revisions aren't nearly as fun as pondering plot points all day and being excited to get home, so you can work on the scene you've been playing with in your head for the past three hours you were supposed to be listening to your professor talk.

So, I'm diving headlong into this process. Wish me luck! :)

In My Mailbox (10)

This week I got a couple of AWESOME books:

Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly

Ascendant by Diana Peterfreund

What did everyone else get this week?