- What I'm Reading
- What I'm Writing
- What Else I've Been Up To
- What Inspires Me Right Now
What I'm Reading
I'm all over the place on this one, so bear with me.
AUDIOBOOKS
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, read by Wil Wheaton. This book has been long recommended to me as "nerd canon" type of reading. However, it was very important to those who recommended it that I listen to it being read by Wil Wheaton, one of the great nerd gods. I downloaded it from the library, started listening this morning and I am a little disappointed that I had to stop it because my husband need quiet homework time.
Gregor and the Curse of The Warmbloods by Suzanne Collins, read by Paul Boehmer. I wasn't planning on downloading this. I already had Ready PLayer One to move on to, but when I finished Gregor and the Prophecy of the Bane (Book 2 of The Underland Chronicles), I was ready for more. The Underland has been the place I have been going every night for about a month now before I go to sleep. I will NOT be happy when I am done with this series.
GRAPHIC NOVELS
The Poor Bastard by Joe Matt. The Picturebooks Anonymous Club meeting at Comic Book Jones is this Monday and I NEED to finish this book before I get there. It's a quick read, but with this depressing protagonist I am dragging my feet.
BOOKS
An Abundance of Katherines by John Green. It is crazy I haven't bought this book. I probably will when I finish it. For now, it is my "in-store read" every time I go to Barnes and Noble and I'm not writing. Sometimes, in fact, I go up to B&N for the sole purpose of finding out what is going on with Colin. I love this book. John Green is my hero.
Multicultural Teaching by Tiedt and Tiedt. This is one of my husband's grad school books. For anyone interested in teaching literacy in a multicultural way, this book is an invaluable resource - it has page after page of books to share with your students, lesson plans and cool activities. Next chapter I'm reading is on Art History!
The Fantastic Family Whipple by Matthew Ward. This is another BEA book. It is an ARC of a middle grades book that is coming out in August. It's a really fun premise of a family that constant breaks world records and the one kid in the family who doesn't fit in.
31 Days To Build A Better Blog by Darren Rowse. As part of the StoryDam.com relaunch in August, I will be bringing the 31DBBB challenge to the StoryDam community. This challenge is part challenge, part book club surrounding Darren Rowse's book. I am rereading it to refresh myself and get ready for the introduction.
What I'm WritingDear 302, a YA novel It's still CampNaNoWriMo, and even though I abandoned ship for awhile, I'm back on board and I am rewriting/editing Dear 302, the first novel I ever completed. I have finished seven chapters at over 11,000 words, so hopefully I will make it to my 50K goal by the end of the week (miracle?).
My husband has made me vow that I be brave enough to just go ahead and do something with this once I am done with it. So that's happening. Time for me to put some big girl pants on and finish up and move forward! As soon as I am done with this post, I am diving right in again.
Trifecta I've been looking for weekly memes and hops to join in on to keep Rivera Runs Through It more active during the summer. One that I found that really intrigues me is Trifecta - a weekly writing prompt based on a word and one of its definitions. The writing is short (from 33 to 333 word limit), so I am going to participate. This week's word is "charm," as in charming an animal like a snake charmer does. Check out tomorrow's post to see how I did!
What Else I've Been Up To
Limping My back has been in a lot of pain this week, so mobility is sucky. I am actually propped up against my large heating pad while writing this.
Bike Reading This is where I go on my stationary bike and reading while I cycle. This is an incredibly important activity to do each day just to get my muscles unwound and at least partially mobile.
Writing outside my house. I have been basically living at the Barnes & Noble up the block from me. The baristas know my husband and I and they were actually shocked when we left the other night before closing. I am feeling a little bit of withdrawal since we didn't go yesterday (I was super symptom-y) and I am not sure we will make there today!
Reading "Poets & Writers" at the park while eating really bad stuff. The purple minion says it all. I was being crazy. I was being bad. But, in the end, I was having fun. It was an afternoon picnic with my husband while we watched the duck and turtles in the pond and read about writers. (I read about Neil Gaiman while my husband read about Joe Hill in Writer's Digest.
Prepping for The StoryDam Celebration As alluded to above, I am at least one part of the relaunch effort taking place next month. I'm doing everything I can during my good days, so that when the bad one comes in the middle of the relaunch (this is bound to happen, I am sure of it), I will not be leaving the rest of the team in the lurch.
Snapshots Birthday Bash I am still promoting my two posts from yesterday about the awesome YA LGBT scifi novel, Snapshots by Patricia Lynne. For some reason there are no entries in my giveaway which makes me sad, so I am trying to tell more people about it! Here's the Book Review and Author interview (Patricia Lynne is awesome) for you to learn about the book. But, if you just want to try to win it, the widget is at the end of this post!
Working Towards a Masters Degree in Literacy Education I joke. My husband is actually doing this, but since I have been helping him each weekend, I feel like I am back in grad school again. The sad part is that I am loving it. I love learning. I love talking about teaching and I find everything about it, but my husband's stress levels, to be so much fun!
What Inspires Me Right Now
The Online Community In preparing for the StoryDam relaunch, I have been exploring the online world again and it is just wonderful. The memes, writing prompts and celebrations have been very inspiring to me. Also, the CampNaNoWri community is second to none. I feel extremely guilty that my health didn't allow me to keep up this month, but I am extremely proud of the work my cabinmates have been doing.
My writing group This Saturday is my next writing group meeting. Hopefully I won't have to cancel like I did last time. Every time I leave a meeting, I come out completely recharged and ready to WRITE. I love it. I look forward to it and I am mad that August's first meeting lands on my anniversary.
What's going on in your week?
What are you reading?
What are you writing?
What's inspiring you?
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WOW that's a lot of books!
ReplyDeleteI feel your back pain. Hope it feels much better soon!
I wish I could live in a Barnes and Noble. Whenever I'm Stateside, I make pilgrimages ;)
Have a fantastic week!
I read Ready Player One the old fashioned way, but I am such a HUGE Wil Wheaton fan that I think I'll have to check the audio book out of the library. The book is wonderful. I can't wait for another work from Mr. Cline.
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by Miss Cole (my little brother used to call me "Cole" before he could say "Nicole"!),
ReplyDeleteDon't let the book list fool you, I am sure a number of them will still be on my list next week. I get into different reading moods and sometimes reading words isn't even an option (hence the audio), so I'll be chipping away at these for awhile.
I love my Barnes & Noble, but I am heartbroken that all of the indie bookstore are gone in Staten Island.
Have a great week!
I was ready to go pick up Ready Player One a long time ago when someone stopped me and said, "GO AUDIO!" so I almost forgot about it completely. For some reason it popped back in my head this week. I had no idea what it was about, just that it was geek-lore, so I thought it was a memoir or something. I was very confused for the first couple of minutes of listening! LOL! Now that I have wrapped my head around the fiction of it all, I am super excited about the direction the story is going in.
ReplyDeleteGood for you for jumping back in on revising/editing. It can be such a tedious process, but it can also be kind of fun. I love prettying up my stories in revisions. :-) And isn't it awesome to know that you've actually written an entire novel right to the end? That feeling never gets old.
ReplyDeleteI've read AN ABUNDANCE OF KATHERINES and THE FAULT IN OUR STARS by John Green, but I preferred the latter. (Such a good book!) I have other Green books upstairs that I can't wait to read. The guy has a way with words!
Good luck with your writing this week, Nicole. I hope your back starts feeling better soon.