Category: Reading

Book tags · Reading

2018 Book Challenge UPDATE

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I’ve not made a lot of progress, but I can fill in a spot or two 🙂

2018-book-challenge-1.png

I’ve only read 7 books so far. I’m a slow reader and put family, work, and writing above reading. So it’s slow going 😛 The one’s in bold are the updates.

  1. A book published this year
  2. A book picked for you by someone else
  3. A book you can finish in a day
  4. A book you’ve already read – I was in a bit of a slump the last couple months. I like to comfort read when that happens.
    1. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas
    2. A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J Maas
  5. A book borrowed from your local library – I thought I could finish this in a day. Didn’t work out. lol
    1. The Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross
  6. A book that is a friend’s favorite
  7. A book published before you were born
  8. A book you own but have never read All three took care of this one 😛
    1. An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson
    2. The Beast is an Animal by Peternelle van Arsdale
    3. Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
  9. A book that is non fiction
  10. A book from your childhood
  11. A book from a bestseller list – Does this have to be THIS years bestseller list? If not…
    1. Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
    2. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas
    3. A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J Maas
  12. A book written in the decade you were born

 

2018 Book Challenge Ann Marie Swaim

How are your reading goals this year? 🙂

Monthly Updates · Reading · writing

Writing: Monthly update for March

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It’s the first of the month, or close enough lol Time for another writing update!

Querying:

While I’m deep in the revising trenches preparing to publish, querying will be on hold.

Current WIPs:

From Stars, Come Dragons (The Seven Stars #1) – No new developments. Still going strong with editing!

Title coming soon (The Seven Stars #2) – March was the worst! I’ve restarted writing this book three times now. I think I’ve found my way with it, but I’m so frustrated by the stop and go progress I’ve decided to set it aside for a bit. After a break, writing other things, I can come back to it with fresh eyes.

Which brings me to…

TDB – I’m not totally sold on the title of this, so I’m only going to use the acronym for the working title. I started the rough draft for this at the end of October last year and was in love with it. I put it aside to do my NaNoWriMo project (write a script) with the intention of coming back to it in December. Then everything happened with Fyre and Brimstone and this got left behind.

Well, it’s forgotten no more! While I break from book 2 of TSS, I’m going to finish this rough draft. It’s an epic high fantasy inspired by Sarah J. Maas’ A Court of Thorns and Roses series, pirates, and Hungarian folklore. I already have about 9K words written and expect this to be a long one. I’m hoping to make good enough progress on it to include a nice size update about it every week. I’d love to tell you more, but my process won’t allow it. Oversharing kills my momentum. And since I’m already struggling with getting words down, I don’t want to risk making it worse.

 

Reading:

Read two books in March, which means I’m still on track with my 2018 reading goal!

Below, I included my reviews of the two books I read in March. TBH, I wouldn’t say I review books as much as I give my initial thoughts after closing it. Anywho, here they are!

Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

Goodreads rating: 2 stars

9579634Just finished Prince of Thorns and *le sigh* I ended up being disappointed. It was amazing to start. I got an A Clockwork Orange vibe from the brothers. Jorg slotting O so lovely into Alex’s blood spattered boots. I was ready to go on the ride of ultraviolence with this band of deplorable brothers. But as the book went on, this fell away. I got confused and the plot seemed to meander or was unclear. By the time I got to the last 80 pages, after the “climax,” if you can call it that… I was ready to put it down and not pick it back up again. Then the ending, well… I was underwhelmed. #notmyAlex

 

The Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross

Goodreads rating: 3 stars

This is my original review:

51kXoQwdLlL._SX324_BO1,204,203,200_That was a really fun read. The characters were a bit too surface and cliche, but overall I like them. I was disappointed we didn’t get to spend more time with Dandy, but hopefully he’s going to be a bigger part of later books. If not, that will be even more disappointing. The plot became extremely predictable as the book went on and I actually skimmed some of the book because I knew what was going to happen. Boy… Seems I have a lot of negative things to say, but honestly, I liked it. I’m going to read the next one. To the library! 😛

 

Beta Reading:

Wasn’t able to beta read in March. I have volunteered to beta for someone as soon as they’re ready. She contacted me last week and says she won’t be ready for another couple of weeks.

BLOGS:

I feel like I really fell down on this in March. It was a rough month with all the changes at work. I didn’t get a whole lot read, written, or discovered. I’ll try to do better in April. 🙂

 

Well… I think that does it. Some ups and downs, but all in all an OK month! At least writing got done, even if it wasn’t a lot of it.
How was your March?

Book tags · Reading

Reading Habits Book Tag

annmarieswaim4 Comments

I found this tag on Reading with Jessica’s blog. Make sure to head over and check out Jessica’s answers!

BookTag

1) Bookmarks or random piece of paper?

I have 4 of these bookmarks. I flipping love them.

bookmark.jpg

2) Stop reading randomly or after a chapter/certain amount of pages?

I think my bookmark answered this for me… lol I don’t have a goal in mind when I start reading. I just read as much as I can, when I can. Though I’d love to always be able to finish the chapter, it’s not always possible.

3) Do you have a certain place at home for reading?

Usually in bed. Sometimes in the living room with my feet up.

4) Do you eat or drink while reading?

I always have water with me, no matter what I’m doing. But I don’t need anything while I read.

5) Multitasking: Music or TV while reading?

I don’t prefer it, but I can read with these things going on in the background. My husband is usually watching something while I read next to him 🙂

6) One book at a time or several?

I should be a one at a time reader, but I’ve started a lot of books lately without finishing any first. Not sure what’s going on there.

7) Reading at home or everywhere?

I read when and where I can, but most of my reading is done at home.

8) Reading out loud or silently?

Silently. But my husband and I have wanted to read a book together, reading it out loud. Just haven’t gotten around to it.

 

9) Do you read ahead or even skip pages?QOS

I’ve done this once. With Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas. It was really dragging for me and I scanned ahead to try to find a place where I could get back into it, but it didn’t happened. Ended up DNFing. Sad 😦

 

 

 

10) Breaking the spine or keeping it like new?

I try my best to keep my books looking new, but I don’t freak out if the binding breaks.

11) Do you write in your books?

Not fiction, but I write in text books and technical books all the time.

12) Who do you tag?

If I tag you and you’ve done this tag before, please put a link to your post in the comments for everyone to follow!

Rachel @ Island Girl Reads

Phannie @ Phannie the ginger bookworm

Danielle @ The Introverted Booknerd

And anyone reading this post! Please feel free to post a link to your tag in the comments when you’ve finished!

 

General · Reading

2018 Book Challenge

annmarieswaim10 Comments

Thanks to Ashleigh Bekkah, I’m going to give this 2018 Book Challenge a try!

Also, you can check out Vicki’s original post about this reading challenge here!

2018-book-challenge-1.png

I’ve only read 3 books this year. Here’s what I’ve have, so far!

  1. A book published this year
  2. A book picked for you by someone else
  3. A book you can finish in a day
  4. A book you’ve already read
  5. A book borrowed from your local library
  6. A book that is a friend’s favorite
  7. A book published before you were born
  8. A book you own but have never read All three took care of this one 😛
    1. An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson
    2. The Beast is an Animal by Peternelle van Arsdale
    3. Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
  9. A book that is non fiction
  10. A book from your childhood
  11. A book from a bestseller list
  12. A book written in the decade you were born

I have my work cut out for me, but I think this will make choosing my reads fun. Plus, since I don’t necessarily own a book to fit every item on the list, this gives me a good excuse to go the library more often 🙂

To keep up, I’ll post an update whenever I finish a book on this list. If nothing else, I’ll add it to my monthly update post!

So, how ’bout you? What are you reading this year?