Weekly Rewind 11/5-11/12

It's the second week of November and...I haven't finished a book yet. I've been reading and LOVING The November Girl for the past couple weeks, but since starting NaNoWriMo, my reading has fallen way to the wayside. However, I am over my 50-book goal for the year, so that's something. I really wanted to make it to my original goal of 75, but with all the writing for NaNo, that's probably not going to happen.

Speaking of National Novel Writing Month, I am almost at the 20,000 word mark and I am very proud of myself. I've written every day except one day last week when I was sick, but hopefully I can make that up. I also have the goal of writing 10,000 words in one day at some point during the month, but I think my biggest word count for a single day is less than half of that, so we'll see how that goal turns out.

Most of what I've been posting on the blog has been NaNoWriMo-related, too. Here's what I've written on the topic so far in the past week:

- Parts one & two of Paper Fury's Beautiful Books feature about NaNo goals, characters, aesthetics, etc.
- A post on things I'm learning about my writing self while participating in NaNoWriMo

I also posted...

- A list of priority reads for November (definitely not getting through all of these what with all the writing, unfortunately)
- The stages of disappointment I went through while reading Lauren Oliver's Replica (still unsure if I'll read my eARC of Ringer or not)

Okay, I've fulfilled my obligation to summarize my blogging week; back to the writing!

Weekly Rewind 10/30-11/4

It's November! It is the time of Thanksgiving prep, including stressing about spending time with your family, of Remember Remember the Fifth of November, and, most importantly, of NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, in which thousands of crazy people take part in a challenge to write a novel (50,000 words) in a single. Month. Because we are crazy.

Usually when it gets to be NaNo time, I think about doing it, write for about two days, then quit because it seems like an insurmountable task. This time, it's day five and I'm still going! At the time this post was written, I even had 8,110 words of my (hopefully) glorious bisexual bookish novel done. To be fair, four pages of it were about her having breakfast because I couldn't think of a way to move the plot along, but hey; it's a first draft; they're supposed to be terrible.

This year, I am determined to write all month, even if I don't get to 50,000 words (but I'll secretly feel like a huge failure if I write all month but don't manage to reach 50,000 words). Then, I plan to edit and revise like a crazy person and submit my novel to pitch contests like #PitMad and #PitchMas. So I'd better stop blogging and keep writing the damn novel.

So far though, I've managed to keep up with the blogging alongside the writing, which is totally bananas. Here's what I wrote about on the blog this week:

- I posted my October rewind, where I talked about my favorite and least favorite books of the month and other monthly happenings (Gentleman's Guide and This Darkness Mine and The Hazel Wood were the clear book winners)
- I wrote about things to do as a millenial stuck at home on Halloween (I only did a couple of them while watching reruns of the last season of Top Model)
- I talked about my goals for this season of NaNoWriMo
- I expressed my weird worries about character names (although I think I've found a name for my MC now)

I also tweeted a bunch about NaNo, and even interacted a bit with Cait of Paper Fury, who is my favorite blogger of all time, aside from Jamie of The Perpetual Page Turner. This was very exciting for me, as I am a teeny tiny blogger and Cait is a big huge celebrity blogger and I am also very shy about talking to other bloggers online because I fear I am not worthy of their attention, so this was a big deal to me.

Also, people keep liking my NaNo tweets and following me on Twitter and it's bonkers! I have never interacted with people this much online and it is weird but I like it.

I also started reading The November Girl by Lydia Kang, which I read a very early draft of as an editorial intern for Entangled Teen (I said yes to it, of course), and I'm very excited that it's being published and that it's even more amazing than it was the first time I read it.

How was your week? Are you participating in NaNoWriMo?

Weekly Rewind 10/16-10/21

It's the end of one week and the beginning of another, and last week was not an easy one. It's been very tough for me emotionally since I've been having friendship troubles, lack of friends, and all the #metoo stuff from the past week. I finally broke down last night in the middle of the read-a-thon and let it all out and feel a little better, but I'm still just feeling a little fragile and emotional in general.

But, I still managed to post a little bit last week. Here's what I wrote:

- a roundup of terrible book covers on NetGalley (like, they didn't even try with some of these)
- I tried to look at the positive with this list of things that are actually making me happy lately
- a bunch of posts for Dewey's 24-Hour Read-a-Thon, including the opening survey, book recs for the past 10 years, readathon memories from previous years, and the closing survey

I really wanted to stay up for the entire 24 hours, but I think the breakdown kind of derailed that and tired me out halfway through. I also got lost as to what to read when I finished Gentleman's Guide because it was good and I was tired and didn't want to think. I wish I had been able to do a full 24 hours, but maybe some weekend when I don't work I'll try it again on my own just for fun. Plus, there's always the April read-a-thon, and who knows what the heck I'll be doing in April.

I also read three books this week, and all of them were good, although bone, the poetry collection, was not as good as I was hoping. However, both YAs were fantastic, and I hope I continue to have fewer 3-star reads than I've been having this year.

I also made two trades, one for The Cruel Prince, which I absolutely cannot wait to read, and one for the black, no-cover ARC of Matched for my collection of that trilogy. I'm still trying to find Crossed and Reached ARCs, but I will have a nice collection of the first one at the very least. I also won another Goodreads giveaway for The Raven King, and now only need an HC of The Dream Thieves to complete the Raven Cycle. I really want to wait until I own all of those books before I start reading them because I have a feeling I'm going to want to binge the whole series, so I really need to get my hands on The Dream Thieves ASAP because it's about damn time I read that series. Oh, and my mom bought me the new Golden Compass book, La Belle Sauvage, so that's pretty exciting. I'm so nervous/excited to get back into that world, since it was one of my all-time favorite series as a kid. 

Weekly Rewind: 10/8-10/15

Phew, glad that week is over. I spent most of it working or at my internship, plus worked on my final portfolio for graduation a bunch which I then finally submitted. I also got to spend the weekend with my wonderful boyfriend at a book festival, which will be where I am when this post goes up! I started reading Eliza and Her Monsters on the plane to see him and am really enjoying it, and think it's way better than the author's first book, Made You Up, which I was really psyched for when it came out but was ultimately disappointed in. I need there to be more kissing though. Way more kissing. And talking! There is not actually a lot of speaking out loud in this book. But it is usually pretty cute so it's mostly okay.

Here's what went up on the blog this week:

- a collection of my incoherent thoughts on This Darkness Mine, which I still have a book hangover from, quite honestly, and don't know if I will ever recover from it
- what I've been listening to this week
- books I've fed the TBR monster recently
- a review of my first ever BirchBox from September!

Weekly Rewind 9/24-9/30

Hello friends! It's the end of another week, and the beginning of October! It finally feels like fall weather, and I am very excited about this because fall is my favorite season. I love cold weather, and cold weather means reading all cuddled under fuzzy blankets with cats all over you and drinking lots and lots of tea.

This was a very stressful and emotional week for me. I've been feeling very overwhelmed at my library internship because I'm afraid to try things even though I know I can do them, but I know I have to buckle down and get over my fears of making mistakes and show them the full skill set I know I have. Fortunately, this stressful week ended with my boyfriend coming to visit me for the weekend, and it's been relaxing and lovely as it always is when he's around.

I read a very fascinating self-help-ish book this week called The Gifts of Imperfection that I can't wait to talk about, and I broke my three-star reads streak with The Hazel Wood, which is utterly fantastic and definitely a new favorite even though I'm not even done with it yet.

This week, I managed to post for five days and stick to my blogging template schedule. Here's what I wrote about:

- 26 bookworm questions tag from Paper Fury
- A guide to Regina Spektor's music
- A list of books I need to read paired with their perfect tea match
- Some easy ways to treat yourself
- All about choosing a concentration in library school for my first installment of my new library feature, The Library Chronicles

I also got two new books, Yrsa Daley-Ward's poetry collection Bone and There's Someone Inside Your House by Stephanie Perkins, which I'm super excited to read because I love slasher movies and I haven't read a YA horror in a long time, plus I've never given Stephanie Perkins a shot and I know everyone in the YA world loves her.

Weekly Rewind 9/17-9/23

Another week, another wrap-up. I've noticed something interesting about my blogging experience this time around, which is that my reviews are getting more views than my other posts. This has not been the case throughout my entire blogging career, so clearly I am doing something right this time. Any book blogger will tell you that reviews get the least views on their blog, so seeing my reviews in my most popular posts widget is very gratifying.

In other news: I had my first few days of work at my new retail job, and it's going pretty well so far. I was super anxious at first because I've never done retail before, but I think I'm catching on fairly quickly and will end up being fine. Things are also still going well at the internship, though I've had a very emotional week and felt like I wasn't as focused as I usually am because of some personal friendship stuff that's going on.

I also participated in Bloggiesta, one of my favorite blog-related events. I completed most of the tasks I wanted to complete, aside from creating a library feature, which I have an idea for but didn't write a post for this week, so that will be on my to-do list for next week. I also decided not to include a visual resume/CV because I don't want my readers to know where I work or live, but I did add career goals and library interests to my about me/"My Details" page.

- Branding

     - Branded tagline

     - Branded mini "about me" section

- Professional things

     - add a "professional details" section

     - add portfolio w/ coursework samples

     X add visual resume 

     - add librarian-related interests somewhere inc. professional goals and what I like to read

- Posting stuff

     - create a library-related feature

     - make basic schedule

In addition, I created a few Tumblrs because I haven't been on it in a while and wanted to experiment with it again. I created a Tumblr for this blog that will be my cat reviewing books plus reblogs of cool bookish stuff, and also a Tumblr full of hot authors just for funsies. 

Here's what I posted this week:

•  My favorite books of summer 2017
•  Upcoming music releases I'm excited for
•  A post on why I'm taking a Facebook break

Books I Got This Week

Everything Must Go - Jenny Fran Davis

The Princess Saves Herself in This One - Amanda Lovelace (not shown)

The Leaf Reader - Emily Arsenault (not shown)

Weekly Rewind Sept. 11-17

We're halfway through September, woohoo! I feel like this month is going by painfully slowly, probably because I'm impatiently awaiting October so I can go down south to see my boyfriend at grad school again. Long distance relationships are very difficult, but at least I'm with a good person who I talk to and FaceTime with most days. Still, the distance is also very painful, and I've really been feeling it.

This week felt weirdly busy even though all I really did was school stuff and going to my internship. I also went to a discussion event about starting a teen advisory board at your library, so that was something different, and felt super awkward because most of the other participants had things to say since they already had advisory boards, plus they were all real librarians and I was just an intern. Still, I learned some useful things, and found out about a couple bookish events that are coming up that I hope I can go to.

I mostly felt like writing about books this week, so that's what the majority of my posts were. I wrote about...

- Why I dislike Adam Silvera
- Books I really want to read this month
- a review of a book I didn't like by Adam Silvera (apparently this is an Adam Silvera hate week, oops)

I also wrote a more positive post about things I've been doing well this year. It was nice to reflect and realize I'm making a lot of personal progress.

I also downloaded a few eARCs from Edelweiss. None of them look all that great to me, TBH, but I can never stop myself when HarperCollins puts up eARCs for download. I have a problem.

Here are my new books:

Weekly Rewind Sept. 3-9

So, I've got a second full week of blogging down. I'm still enjoying it, which surprises me, because after I tried to start it up again the last time, I wanted to stop pretty soon after, so this is a good sign. I'm really liking blogging about whatever I darn well want to, and I think that's helping me keep going.

This was a pretty stressful week for me. I had the second week of my library internship, where I got to go to the high school open house. Not many people came to talk to the library booth, but I did get to learn how to use the very cool button maker, so that was a plus, and I learned that I am in fact capable of talking to people about library things.

We also had people come paint the house, and for three days I basically couldn't go upstairs because they were painting and there were ladders everywhere and every doorway was covered in plastic. I got super scared that I would get trapped in the plastic or mess something up and the painters would yell at me, and plastic kept getting stuck to my foot, which also freaked me the heck out. But, fortunately the painting is all done and I can clean the dust off of everything now.

I also got a job! I'm so relieved to be employed again. The pain of unemployment and worrying about money constantly is over, plus I'll have things to do during the day! It's a retail job, which may not be the most exciting, but it's at a store I really like and feel comfortable in, so that's something anyway.

Now, onto the posts.

This week, I posted...

two reviews:
As I Descended
Wicked Like a Wildfire

I only liked one of them, which you will easily be able to guess by the titles of my posts.


I also wrote two pop culture-related posts, one about the fact that I'm excited for Taylor Swift's Reputation album, and another about TV shows I've been watching.

Here are some books I got this week:

 I got autoapproved for Macmillan's Children's Publishing on NetGalley, so I got a lot of great books, plus a poetry collection and two books from Entangled Teen that I'm really excited for, including one that I read as an intern and said yes to! The November Girl was super amazing when I read it in its early stages, so I can't wait to see how good it is now. Let's Talk About Love is another one I'm very excited for, since it's about a black asexual girl who works at a library!