On Writing: National Novel Writing Month

For as long as I can remember, I've loved to write stories. English has always been my favourite subject and my love of reading definitely has something to do with that. I want to write books like the ones I read and review on this blog. I want to write books that someone else will read over and over again and, for the past few years, I've taken part in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). This post will be the first in a series of posts about my writing process, how I write and, how NaNoWriMo 2015 ends up going.

For those of you who don't know, NaNoWriMo is a yearly event where writers all over the world, attempt to write 50,000 words in the 30 days of Novemeber. Which is a crazy thing to do, but it's something that I look forward to every single year. Now, 50,000 words is not a complete novel - a completed novel is usually between 80,000-100,000 words but, by the end of November, you'll have at least part of your novel completed, which is a lot more than you have at the start of the month!

Now, if writing a novel in 30 days isn't your thing, then there is something called National Blog Posting Month I think - where you write a blog post every day for 30 days. I don't know too much about this actually - it's a relatively new discovery for me, but if you do run a blog and fancy a challenge, then maybe this is for you!

National Novel Writing Month isn't just for adults. There's also a Young Writers Programme (which for the last four years is the programme that I've done - 2015 is the first year I've progressed to the adult version!) and, as the name suggests, this is where young people write a novel. Unlike the adult programme, the word count can be changed to suit ability and, I know in the US a lot of schools make NaNoWriMo a part of the curriculum and students really enjoy it.

If you're interested in joining up for 2015 (there's still a little time left!) then go to the NaNoWriMo website to sign up and create your novel. If you're interested in the Young Writers Programme, then head to the Young Writers Programme website where there's information for both young people and educators.

I hope you enjoy this series - if there's something you want to know about writing then ask away and I'll try to answer it!

Image from NaNoWriMo - no Copyright Intended

Halloween Book Recommendations

I'm such a bad blogger - I know, I know, I'm sorry! To make it up to you, here is a list of Halloween, spooky, creepy book recommendations I have gathered from the lovely people of the internet and a new list of books for me to pick up and try myself (because I obviously have so much time on my hands!) are there any that I've missed?

• The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey - Melanie is a very special girl. Dr. Caldwell calls her "our little genius." Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant Parks keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh.
  
  Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children's cells. She tells her favorite teacher all the things she'll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn't know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad.

• Echo Boy by Matt Heig - Audrey's father taught her that to stay human in the modern world, she had to build a moat around herself; a moat of books and music, philosophy and dreams. A moat that makes Audrey different from the echoes: sophisticated, emotionless machines, built to resemble humans and to work for human masters. Daniel is an echo - but he's not like the others. He feels a connection with Audrey; a feeling Daniel knows he was never designed to have, and cannot explain. And when Audrey is placed in terrible danger, he's determined to save her. The Echo Boy is a powerful story about love, loss and what makes us truly human.

• Dancing Jax by Robin Jarvis - At the end of a track, on the outskirts of an ordinary coastal town, lies a dilapidated house. Once, a group of amateur ghost hunters spent the night there. Two of them don’t like to speak about the experience. The third can’t speak about it. He went into the basement, you see, and afterwards he screamed so hard and so long he tore his vocal cords.
  
  Now, a group of teenagers have decided to hang out in the old haunted house. Dismissing the fears of the others, their leader Jezza goes down into the basement… and comes back up with a children’s book, full of strange and colourful tales of a playing-card world, a fairytale world, full of Jacks, Queens and Kings, unicorns and wolves.
  
  But the book is no fairytale. Written by Austerly Fellows, a mysterious turn-of-the-century occultist, it just might be the gateway to something terrifying…and awfully final. As the children and teenagers of the town are swept up by its terrible power, swept into its seductive world, something has begun that could usher in hell on earth. Soon, the only people standing in its way are a young boy with a sci-fi obsession, and his dad – an unassuming maths teacher called Martin…

• Say her name by James Dawson - Roberta 'Bobbie' Rowe is not the kind of person who believes in ghosts. A Halloween dare at her ridiculously spooky boarding school is no big deal, especially when her best friend Naya and cute local boy Caine agree to join in too. They are ordered to summon the legendary ghost of 'Bloody Mary': say her name five times in front of a candlelit mirror, and she shall appear... But, surprise surprise, nothing happens. Or does it?
  
  Next morning, Bobbie finds a message on her bathroom mirror... five days... but what does it mean? And who left it there? Things get increasingly weird and more terrifying for Bobbie and Naya, until it becomes all too clear that Bloody Mary was indeed called from the afterlife that night, and she is definitely not a friendly ghost. Bobbie, Naya and Caine are now in a race against time before their five days are up and Mary comes for them, as she has come for countless others before... A truly spine-chilling yet witty horror from shortlisted 'Queen of Teen' author James Dawson

• Zom-b by Darren Shans - Zom-B is a radical new series about a zombie apocalypse, told in the first person by one of its victims. The series combines classic Shan action with a fiendishly twisting plot and hard-hitting and thought-provoking moral questions dealing with racism, abuse of power and more. This is challenging material, which will captivate existing Shan fans and bring in many new ones. As Darren says, "It's a big, sprawling, vicious tale...a grisly piece of escapism, and a barbed look at the world in which we live. Each book in the series is short, fast-paced and bloody. A high body-count is guaranteed!"

• The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman - After the grisly murder of his entire family, a toddler wanders into a graveyard where the ghosts and other supernatural residents agree to raise him as one of their own.
  
  Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy. He would be completely normal if he didn't live in a sprawling graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor of the dead. There are dangers and adventures in the graveyard for a boy. But if Bod leaves the graveyard, then he will come under attack from the man Jack—who has already killed Bod's family...

• Daughters unto Devils by Amy Lukavics - When sixteen-year-old Amanda Verner's family decides to move from their small mountain cabin to the vast prairie, she hopes it is her chance for a fresh start. She can leave behind the memory of the past winter; of her sickly Ma giving birth to a baby sister who cries endlessly; of the terrifying visions she saw as her sanity began to slip, the victim of cabin fever; and most of all, the memories of the boy she has been secretly meeting with as a distraction from her pain. The boy whose baby she now carries.
  
  When the Verners arrive at their new home, a large cabin abandoned by its previous owners, they discover the inside covered in blood. And as the days pass, it is obvious to Amanda that something isn't right on the prairie. She's heard stories of lands being tainted by evil, of men losing their minds and killing their families, and there is something strange about the doctor and his son who live in the woods on the edge of the prairie. But with the guilt and shame of her sins weighing on her, Amanda can't be sure if the true evil lies in the land, or deep within her soul.

• Ravens Gate by Anthony Horowitz - When Matt Freeman gets into trouble with the police, he's sent to be fostered in Yorkshire. It's not long before he senses there's something wrong with his guardian: with the whole village. Then Matt learns about the Old Ones and begins to understand just how he is different. But no one will believe him; no one can help.

• The Diviners by Libba Bray - Evie O’Neill has been exiled from her boring old hometown and shipped off to the bustling streets of New York City—and she is pos-i-tute-ly ecstatic. It’s 1926, and New York is filled with speakeasies, Ziegfeld girls, and rakish pickpockets. The only catch is that she has to live with her uncle Will and his unhealthy obsession with the occult.
  
  Evie worries he’ll discover her darkest secret: a supernatural power that has only brought her trouble so far. But when the police find a murdered girl branded with a cryptic symbol and Will is called to the scene, Evie realizes her gift could help catch a serial killer.
  
  As Evie jumps headlong into a dance with a murderer, other stories unfold in the city that never sleeps. A young man named Memphis is caught between two worlds. A chorus girl named Theta is running from her past. A student named Jericho hides a shocking secret. And unknown to all, something dark and evil has awakened.

• The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman - Sussex, England. A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.
  
  Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years—promised to protect him, no matter what.

• The Dead House by Dawn Kurtagich - Part-psychological thriller, part-urban legend, this is an unsettling narrative made up of diary entries, interview transcripts, film footage transcripts and medical notes. Twenty-five years ago, Elmbridge High burned down. Three people were killed and one pupil, Carly Johnson, disappeared. Now a diary has been found in the ruins of the school. The diary belongs to Kaitlyn Johnson, Carly’s identical twin sister. But Carly didn’t have a twin . . .
  
  Re-opened police records, psychiatric reports, transcripts of video footage and fragments of diary reveal a web of deceit and intrigue, violence and murder, raising a whole lot more questions than it answers.
  
  Who was Kaitlyn and why did she only appear at night? Did she really exist or was she a figment of a disturbed mind? What were the illicit rituals taking place at the school? And just what did happen at Elmbridge in the events leading up to ‘the Johnson Incident’?

• Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake - Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.
  
  So did his father before him, until he was gruesomely murdered by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father's mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. They follow legends and local lore, destroy the murderous dead, and keep pesky things like the future and friends at bay.
  
  Searching for a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas expects the usual: track, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he's never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, now stained red and dripping with blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.
  
  Yet she spares Cas's life.

Now, I can only vouch for the Anna Dressed in Blood being amazing but all the others sound really intriguing to me and I hope you've found something to suit the Halloween season. Thank you to everyone who recommended these books to me and there should be (hopefully) another post up soon.

All blurbs from Goodreads - no Copyright Intended
 

Why do I abandon a book or series?

So, as a general rule, I finish books that I start. It takes a lot to make me put down a book half way through it. But, there are exceptions to this rule, and, since I'm in a bit of a book rut right now, I thought it was a good topic to look at.

I have to care about the main character/s. This is a pretty broad statement. What traits stop you from caring about a character? To me, if a character is repetitive in what they're saying (procrastinating about how you've fallen in love with the new guy but he's so mean to you every other page kind of thing) then it's a pretty big turn off because to me, they become almost shallow. Recently in the YA books I've read, the above example happens so often and it really puts me off. I think, the reason hero's like Katniss or Clary are so likable by so many people is because they actually do something. They don't sit and stare at the hot guy for 250 pages and then do something, which is a huge turn off for me personally.

This ties in with relationships - both romantic and friendships. The relationships have to be believable. If you've read any of my reviews, you'll see there is a pattern in the relationships that I well...ship. They all have a spark, some sort of chemistry. Take Clary from the Mortal Instruments for example. I love her and Jace together - the sarcasm they generate is brilliant and offers a lot of relief from what would otherwise be quite tense. What I love about Cassandra Clare's writing is that every relationship has some sort of spark. Clary and Simon's friendship is also full of sarcasm and humour and yet it's a completely different tone than when Jace and Clary are together. All of the relationships within The Mortal Instruments to me are really great examples of how characters should interact. Recently though, there have been a lot of relationships between that characters that have lacked energy. They don't seem to work - the romance in book 1 of the Mara Dyer series for example was a relationship that I had high expectations for and just left me feeling depressed. The characters didn't connect to me and this was the main reason why I didn't go out and get book 2 because I didn't connect with the characters and their relationships.

The plot has to be believable. Again, this is quite a broad point because, obviously, we're talking about fiction books. We're not in a dystopic world where society is split into factions but the thing is, the plot within that is believable. You know those moments in the middle of the book where the hero does or says something and you're just like - 'what? How did you reach that conclusion?' Those moments where you're on step 4 but the character has seemingly jumped to stage 44? This isn't as common now as it maybe used to be - a lot of time is spent on making sure the reader can keep up, but every so often I run into a book that just leaves me confused and it's incredibly off putting.

All of these things can make a book feel slow and clumsy. Which is the reason so many people stop reading a book or series and is the main reason I stop. I am willing to persevere with a book I truly am, but these are the main things that turn me off continuing. What do you think? Have I missed something? What stops you from continuing a book or series?

Image from http://mashable.com - no Copyright Intended

Top 10 Tuesday

Wow it's Tuesday again already? This week, there's no set topic so this list is probably going to be my favourite of all TTT because this week I'm talking about my Top 10 Book Boyfriends - how can you choose just 10? As always, go and check out The Broke & The Bookish for all the TTT prompts and, in no particular order, here we go...

1. Daemon Black - need I go on? If there are aliens out there, please let there be a Daemon and please let him find me...
2. Four - you'll probably see a pattern emerging here of suitable bodyguard type boys and Four certainly fits that description
3. Finnick Odair - the poster boy of the Capitol with a dark secret - I almost died in Mockingjay! What happened is not fair and I will never get over it. Never.
4. Dimitri Belikov - again, suitable protection from any vampire attacks, check. Nice eye candy, check.
5. Ash (Iron Fey) - yes I like dark brooding guys - I have a problem I know!
6. Regan (City of Halves) - ditto
7. Jace Lightwood - apart from having an identity crisis I love him so much!
8. Simon Lewis - I think TMI is the only series where I love the guy best friend as well as the main love interest
9. Jacob Black - I'm not ashamed - I think he was my first YA book boyfriend so he deserves a place on this list. Who needs a sparkly vampire anyway?
10. Adam (If I Stay) - yes this is technically based off the movie but I do have the book and I'll eventually get round to reading it. Either way, I love Adam mostly. He can be a bit of a douche but compared to Daemon & Jace, he's an angel!

So there you are, my Top 10 Book Boyfriends - who would make your list?

Top 10 Tuesday

 I'm so sorry this post is late - my days are all messed up and I was convinced it was Monday yesterday! Anyway, this week's top 10 is supposed to be 10 book series I have yet to complete but I think I have one series that I've started and haven't finished because when I start a series; 99% of the time I finish the series so I'm changing it slightly to 10 book series that I have yet to start - because there are a lot more of them! If you want to check out the original post then check out The Broke & The Bookish and here is my slightly altered list.

1. The Giver by Lois Lowry - I'll admit, the first time I heard of this book was when I heard that Taylor Swift was guest starring in the movie adaptation because, unlike in the US, it's not a book on the curriculum in the UK but it sounds like a really interesting series and I'm excited to read it.
2. House of Night by PC Cast - this is a series that I'm really excited to get to. I even picked up the first few books from the library but real life interfered so I didn't get a chance to read them but I can't wait to read it.
3. Maze Runner by James Dashner - this series sounds very similar to the premise of the Hunger Games in some ways and, although I've heard mixed things about the series I'm intrigued to see how the series pans out before I watch the films.
4. Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare - I was going to read this series when I was on holiday but I didn't get around to it but I'm determined to read it before 2015 ends. I will!
5. Chaos Walking by Patrick Ness - I've only heard amazing things about this series and I've got all three books sat in the house waiting for me to read.
6. Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas - another series I've heard amazing things about and was going to read on holiday but didn't get around to. Now that book 4 has just come out, I can't wait to really get into this series and see how amazing it is for myself.
7. Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor - I've heard mixed things about this series but I'm intrigued to see for myself. It seems to be a series that you either love or hate so I can't wait to see how it falls for me.
8. Delirium by Lauren Oliver - this is the series that I've started and want to finish but just haven't gotten round to yet. I've read book 1 and loved it and, despite the mixed reactions to book 3, I really do want to finish this series.

So those are my top 8 series that I have yet to start. It does take a lot for me to not finish a series at all and I think recently the only series that I have no intention of picking up again is the Mara Dyer series. I hope you enjoyed this post - what would be on your list?

Top 10 Tuesday



Yes it's back! I've kind of missed doing these posts so I'm excited to be doing them again. The topic this week is Ten Characters You Didn't Click With. As always, this comes from the Broke & the Bookish blog so go and check them out and here we go...

1. Caleb from Half-Blood by Jennifer L. Armentrout - based on my post yesterday, he's the most recent character that I just didn't really click with. I didn't really connect with Alex and Aiden either but Caleb really just seemed like dead weight to me and so I didn't really connect with him as a character.
2. Mara Dyer from the Mara Dyer series by Michelle Hodkin  - I really didn't like Mara at all. She never really became a 'real' character to me. I never really understood her actions or thought processes.
3. Brie from the Catastrophic History of You & Me by Jess Rothenburg - again, I didn't really understand Brie as a character. Her actions were completely off base and not realistic based on the initial character set up.
4. Neva from Dark Parties by Sarah Grant - Neva spent so much time obsessing over Breydon that she never became the heroine that she needed to become, which not only infuriated me, but also meant that I didn't care about what happened to her in the book.
5. Bella Swan from Twilight by Stephanie Meyer - I'm going to confess that I still really like the Twilight saga despite all the bad press it's got. That being said, I've never connected with Bella. It takes her four books to mature into someone I could potentially connect with, but by then, the series is over. I think all the other main characters - the Cullens and the wolf pack - are much better developed than Bella.
6. Nathan from Half Bad by Sally Green - I really didn't like Half Bad as a book anyway but Nathan as a protagonist just didn't connect with me. Like most of these characters, I didn't care about what happened to him so I didn't connect with him.

So those are my top 6 characters that I didn't click with. What would make your list?

Half-Blood by Jennifer L Armentrout

Half-Blood by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Rating: 3.5 stars

Synopsis: The Hematoi descend from the unions of gods and mortals, and the children of two Hematoi pure bloods have godlike powers. Children of Hematoi and mortals--well, not so much. Half-bloods only have two options: become trained Sentinels who hunt and kill daimons or become servants in the homes of the pures. Seventeen-year-old Alexandria would rather risk her life fighting than waste it scrubbing toilets, but she may end up slumming it anyway. There are several rules that students at the Covenant must follow. Alex has problems with them all, but especially rule #1:Relationships between pures and halfs are forbidden. Unfortunately, she's crushing hard on the totally hot pure-blood Aiden. But falling for Aiden isn't her biggest problem--staying alive long enough to graduate the Covenant and become a Sentinel is. If she fails in her duty, she faces a future worse than death or slavery: being turned into a daimon, and being hunted by Aiden. And that would kind of suck.

Review: It's been so long since I reviewed anything and I'm so sorry for that, but I'm back now and, to kick things off, a book that I thought I was going to absolutely love. But I didn't. If any of you are frequent visitors to this site, you will know that one of my all time favourite book series is the Lux series by Jennifer L. Armentrout. It was the first thing I'd ever read by Jennifer and I fell in love both with the characters and the plot but also with her writing style. I adore the Lux series so much that I was hesitant to pick up Half-Blood but, when I found it on offer in a local book store I couldn't resist. I was expecting to be reacquainted with the writing style that I'd fallen in love with previously. But it wasn't there. Don't get me wrong, the writing style was still really good, but there was an almost personal connection with Alex missing from the narration. In the Lux series, both Daemon and Katy are characters filled with attitude and sarcasm and that really comes across in the way the books are written, but this was missing for me in Half-Blood. Like I said, the style itself was still great and if I hadn't read the Lux series beforehand, I probably would have liked it a lot more, but I think the same writing style used in the Lux series would have worked equally well in Half-Blood.

I found the plot line itself was actually really similar to Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy series. Alex and Aiden are very similar to Rose and Dimitri in their traits and even their circumstances - Alex and Rose are Aiden and Dimitri's students - but I think I prefer Rose and Dimitri as characters. I think they have more chemistry than Alex and Aiden seem to and to me, Rose and Dimitri just seem a lot more kick-ass than Alex and Aiden. I did enjoy the references to the God's and the mythology aspect in general. It was obvious to me that Jennifer had really done her research and I thought that it merged really well into the plot line. In the few YA books I've read that have included mythology in the plot, I've found it can be a bit hit and miss - sometimes it really works and sometimes it really doesn't. I think that Half-Blood is a good example of where the use of mythology does work really well with the plot and is actually believable.

Saying that, I didn't think the plot itself was as enjoyable as the Lux series because of it's similarities to Vampire Academy. One of the major plot points is set out for you to guess and the other plot point involving Alex's mom is also pretty predictable and is kind of similar to Rose and Dimitri's situation, and again, I think I prefer the way the plot unfolded in Vampire Academy. Since I read this book on holiday, I haven't looked up which book was published first but, I read VA before I read Half-Blood. If you haven't read VA then you will probably enjoy the plot but for those of you who have read VA, you'll see what I mean if you do decide to give Half-Blood a try.

I also want to quickly talk about Caleb. As a character he really irritated me because he didn't add anything to the plot line. To me, he was too 'good'. There was no real conflict or tension added by his involvement in the plot. I know why Jennifer used him, especially in the end conflict but by then he was just dead weight to me. Maybe he'll be developed in the other books but, based solely on book 1, I'm not a fan of Caleb.

I'm still a huge fan of Jennifer L. Armentrout but, for me, I'd recommend you pick up the Lux series over the Covenant series. To me, the characters and plot are more developed and original and her writing style was a lot more interesting for me in the Lux series. If you're looking for a similar plot to Half-Blood, then pick up Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead - again, the plot and characters are just more developed to me than they were here. I really wanted to like Half-Blood as much as I adore Lux but, unfortunately, Half-Blood just didn't live up to my expectations.

Image from Goodreads - no Copyright Intended