What *did* I read in February?

You know it's possibly the first time I've got the end of a month and really cannot recall if I read any books. I spend so much of the time that I would normally spend reading, on writing my book right now that it's murdering my reading totals.

On the face of it this February has not been my worst *ever* reading month, I'm pretty sure that there has been a month where I only read 5 books - I'm right it was November 2012. In the past 28 days I have read 6 books and as won't be surprising to most people who know me, half of those were re-reads :P

I re-read the first two books of Marissa Meyer's fantabulous Lunar Chronicles; Cinder and Scarlet before I devoured Cress in a few hours. I already am a big fan of Fairy Tale retellings and the fact that this series is just that but with a SCI-FI TWIST makes it even more awesome. I love all of Marissa's characters, except the Lunar queen obvs (what a cow) and Cress is so adorable with Thorn that I feel like some kind of bloody Admiral with all the ships I have got sailing (Damn Marissa you got some 'splaining do the Wolf/Scarlet front).

After my sojourn to New Beijing I took a much needed trip back to see how Juliette and Warner were getting on in Ignite Me. *pours bucket of icy water over self*

DAMN IT ALL TAHEREH ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?! Cos you bloody well succeeded. Your whole series had me sitting there grinning like a fool and squealing with delight. I have never in ALL MY LIFE had a complete reversal of feelings towards a character as I had with Warner. That sexy, adorable bastard. The intensity of his scenes with Juliette were enough to set me and the house alight and it was all I could do to sit there reading with a straight face (Tumblr is good training for that shit). The Shatter Me series is going to become a staple re-read for me every year methinks and until Tahereh writes something new I'll be pining away for her lusciously beautiful writing.

I also read Unite Me, which was the gawjuss bind-up of Destroy Me and Fracture Me by the aforementioned Goddess. As you might expect my fav of the two by a country mile was Destroy Me because WARNER POV! *flails* I could easily read the entire series through his eyes and rather hope Tahereh might do more novellas in his POV *bats eyelashes* PRETTY PLEASE? Is it really wrong of me that the main upside to Fracture Me was that I get to see Kenji? Julienji is now a particular BroTP for me.

Finally I re-read Fangirl by the current Queen of Contemp Rainbow Rowell. I read the e-book last year while I was supposed to be doing my final prep for my Spanish speaking test and since I passed I have no regrets about doing it. I recently bought the amazingly designed paperback and HOLY BALLS THE ARTWORK GUYS! Seriously this is why I love having physical copies of books because there is just no comparison to having the awesome colour illustrations of Cath, Levi and the gang inside the front and back covers while you're merrily reading away.

So to sum up my February reading went as follows
Cinder by Marissa Meyer *RE-READ* 4.5 Stars
Scarlet by Marissa Meyer *RE-READ* 4.5 Stars
Cress by Marissa Meyer 4.5 Stars
Ignite Me by Tahereh Mafi 5 Stars
Unite Me by Tahereh Mafi 4.5 Stars (Most of that for Destroy Me)
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell *RE-READ* 4.5 Stars

Overall a pretty good month, both in terms of reading and writing. If you don't follow my twitter then you may not have seen that I passed 32K on my 2014 Writing Project *confetti* I'll be doing another post for my "Writing Ray" blog series in which I may vair well give you a look at the Prologue to the as-yet unnamed book. Due to my weird writing style in which I'm doing from about half-way until the end first and then going back to write to the middle, the only unspoilery bit I have that I can show y'all is the Prologue.

Hope everyone is having a Good Saturday
Til I post again
Ray

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Writing Ray - Almost a bit of a Milestone *confetti*

Good Morning m'lovelies! Tis quite a nice Sunday here in the Shire (of Derby) there is actual sunshine which is novel although I shan't be venturing outside to check how warm it really is.

For anyone who's been following my tweets this past month and half you'll know that I've kind of been abusing the #writing hashtag as I've been working on my story/book/novel (I've been unsure about what to term it). Compared to all the authors I follow my progress is minuscule but for *me* it's incredible and I felt a bit of  a celebration was in order.

So last night when I finished what was the 11th complete scene my book stood at 27,337 words, up until a short while ago I was fairly confident that this project was now the longest piece of creative writing that I'd ever done to date. Turns out because of how I left my Nanowrimo story from 2010 the whole draft file was missing the part of Chapter 9 that I'd not finished so it was about 1800 words shorter than it should be.

Due to this I actually have 500 words to go until 2014 WIP becomes the longest thing I've ever written but that isn't too bad cos now I have an excuse to WRITE MORE! *dances*

So I shall save the real celebration for when I've finished my next scene... this was a bizarrely useless post.

But I just wanted to share it with y'all :D
Laters
Ray

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Writing Ray - Stuff that helps me write

So yesterday I did a wee post about my writing process and what I actually use to do my writing. If you ain't seen it then have a look here if you fancies. Today I am going to continue on this theme by talking some more about other bits and bobs that help (or hinder) my writing process.

I don't have a fancy desk and chair that I sit at to do my writing like some authors (*wistful face* one day...) I tend to just get home from work, get changed into a suitably layered heat-retaining clothing and settle into my side of the sofa with the throw blanket wrapped around me until Le Boyf gets home. During that time I naturally get lost on Tumblr for an hour or twoorthree and get no writing done at all *shakes fist* if only I could quit you...

Eventually I sort myself out and actually open up Q10 to start writing. I also fire up the fabulous website I have recently found thanks to those writing masterposts that occasionally appear on my Dash. I have been doing a lot of writing with my iPod playing the Frozen soundtrack on a literally endless loop (as anyone who follows me on twitter can attest to) but I have also been using an awesome site called Soundrown which is basically a site that gives you ten different noise loops that you can listen to when you want to block out surrounding distractions. My current favs are the Coffee Shop, Rain and Train noise loops but if you don't fancy those then there's also Waves, Birds, Nighttime, Fire, Fountain, White Noise and er, Playground (the last one feels a little creepy to me :S).

I've found that I can't really listen to music or whatever with my earbuds for prolonged periods of time without my ears hurting like a bitch so I have commandeered the fab set of headphones that my boyfriend bought which is actually a fabric headband with the audio technobits hidden inside. So I get to keep my ears warm while surrounding my head in sound *thumbs up*

Tis also freezing as frosty-themed hell in my lounge of late and I have poor circulation to my extremities at the best of times so I have to break out my fingerless gloves (which I bought waaay back in 2010 for Nano) and the fluffiest bedsocks I own in order to avoid frostbite as I write. So basically I look like this.

You're welcome.

Until Next Time guys.
Ray

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Writing Ray - How I Write

This year is my year to write like I've never done before. The last time I seriously wrote for more than an afternoon was my Nanowrimo attempt of 2010 (y'all who followed my blog back then know what happened after that) and I want to finally get a whole story out of my head and onto paper and/or computer screen.

So far in the past month I have managed to write just over 19,000 words on a Fantasy story that had been slow-brewing for a while in my mind. I've almost done a quarter of the story maybe although there is still a loong way to go with it. If folk are interested in reading snippets then I'm not sure what to do cos everything I've written so far is from about a third of the way through the story up towards serious spoilerific sections. Hell I may have to start writing a beginning. *sigh*

But I kinda wanted to talk a little about how I actually write and the odd little things I need while I'm writing. I know a lot of authors post pics and whatnot of their writing spaces and talk about their routines so why the feck shouldn't I?

Mah writin' prooocess 
Ok so if you didn't just read that with a Scottish accent then I don't even know what you're doing here, sheesh. *ahem*
I have come to realise that with my writing I simply cannot write linearly - basically I come up with the idea for the climatic third of the story and then have to figure out the feck I got there. The first scene I wrote on my current WIP is from around the end of the first third of the book and is the first time my two POV characters meet. It basically kicks off the main journey of the story in a rather dramatic style but I've yet to plot out what the hell got my MCs to that point in the first place. I have vague ideas for my male MC but my female MC is currently being a cheeky lass and not bothering to let me know what she's been up to.

I also have found that I plan out scenes in my head as if I was a film director, replaying little shots of a scene over and over as I work out the details and dialogue. Eventually I may actually get those scenes out into proper words but until then it's rather a favourite pre-sleep activity to play out a scene in my head, I have a climatic scene from a different fantasy story that I've been mulling over for something like four years which I often play out. My brain is a crazy place.

I do most of my planning and plotting (for this WIP anyway) in a plain journal that I got a few birthdays back and also in a yellow legal pad I bought while I was in Florida in either 2011 or 2012. For some reason I've only used pencil in the legal pad and my Parker Jotter in the journal and I've taken to lugging them around with me recently in case I get a free moment to scribble something. It's alerted a few people at work to what I'm doing so I have to be all coy and hope they never try to nick the notebooks off me.

The main body of writing I'm doing with this rather fabby word-processing program that I discovered when I did Nanowrimo. It's called Q10 and is a free program that you can download here and it's so awesome; it has a great uncluttered interface and you can program it to autosave your work, set alarms to do wordsprints and there are spellcheckers as well. But the best thing and obviously the main reason I got it was because it makes typewriters noises as you write. Amright?

I do then transfer the text document into Word to check spelling and shout at my computer as it complains about my word and grammatical choices (fuck you I don't care what you think of my verb usage Word). Eventually as I get more scenes done and work out the overall order of the story I'll start combining the word docs into one MASTER FILE which will be rather fun to watch the word count grow and grow.

Now this post is getting rather long and I reckon that I should leave the other quirks of my writing process for another day. If anyone *is* interested in knowing more about what I'm working on please leave me a comment and I shall try to see what snippets I could put up without risking spoiling stuff.

Have a Good Saturday afternoon!
Ray

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January has been one of those months...

Where all you've wanted to do is wallow in the nostalgia of books you've already read at least twice before, or as the case is with some of my reads in January fourorfivetimesIdunno. As I've had additional goals for what I do with my time I'm strangely not all that bothered and despite my claim to re-read less this year I reckon it's going to happen just as much as it always does because 2014 is the year that ALL THE SERIES seem to be ending!

I mean the Shatter Me series is nearly over (my copy of Ignite Me is already on its sexy way here so *dances*), the last Mortal Instruments book is out in May, the last Daughter of Smoke & Bone book is out in April, the last Blood of Eden book is due out in April, the last Slated book is going to be out and the next freaking Throne of Glass book is out in September-ish, not to bloody mention Unmade by that evil madame Sarah Rees Brennan! The last Grisha book AND ISLA AND THE FREAKING HAPPILY EVER AFTER!! I mean that's a lot of series finishing and some of them I am probably to re-read ahead of the final book's release so I've already lined myself up for about 15 re-reads just from those lot.

But anyway I digress as always. I should probably confess to my shameful reading from January. Only 11 books and literally only *ONE* book was a first-time read.

January
1. The Emperor Mage by Tamora Pierce (1/1/2014 AM) *RE-READ*
2. Realms of the Gods by Tamora Pierce (2/1/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
3. Touch of Power by Maria V. Snyder (4/1/2014 AM) *RE-READ*
4. Scent of Magic by Maria V. Snyder (4/1/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
5. Taste of Darkness by Maria V. Synder (6/1/2014 PM) NEW READ WUT?
6. First Test by Tamora Pierce (13/1/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
7. Page by Tamora Pierce (15/1/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
8. Squire by Tamora Pierce (16/1/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
9. Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi (20/1/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
10. Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi (20/1/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
11. Lady Knight by Tamora Pierce (26/1/2014 AM) *RE-READ*

I think this month is very indicative of which three awesome gals are some of my absolute favourite authors, I mean I don't know if you can spot the pattern but I assure you it's there. *shifty eyes*

*coughs* But anyway that's what I read in January! Now a wee bit later today or possibly tomorrow depending on what my grumpy self can be bothered to do y'all may get a post will more info about my 2014 Write a Fucking Book project (that's not it's actual name but it's a good Motivational point). So keep your lamps peeled for that!

Laters
Ray

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Writing Ray - an Adventure for 2014

So what most people probably don't know about me is that in addition to being a reading junkie I also like to write. Words are generally what I'm good at except when I go through phases of being utterly incapable of stringing them together for certain purposes (see the lack of reviews I've written these past two years).

Now I wouldn't call myself a writer by any stretch of the imagination since I've never actually finished writing a story; but I do spend a fair amount of time thinking and day-dreaming about stories and plotting out scenes in my head. I have loads of notebooks half-filled with scene snippets, character profiles, and other notes relating to five or six different story ideas yet to date I've not completed or even properly drafted one of them.

However I would like 2014 to be different. This year I want to finish *one* story. I don't want to give myself a super-strict time limit like with Nanowrimo since that might put me under so much pressure on top of what other work commitments I have at any given time that I will probably end up losing my motivation entirely. But I do want to at least finish something for once. Whether that just be an horrific first draft or something more revised and edited- anything is better than half-started nothings.

I should make it clear that I don't necessarily want to finish a story *just* to get it published. While that would be fucking awesome I have enough of sense of reality that I can't expect that to just happen. I want to finish this story for ME so that I can have that sense of pride in myself - like "Fuck Yea I wrote a book, it's probably pretty shitty right now but dammit I love my characters and I finished it!"

Too often I've started a project all fired up only to get disheartened after a month and stick it in a drawer and forget about it. I need to see this through. THE WHOLE FUCKING WAY. That means even if I have days when I can't write for shit and I want to jack it all in I just have to let it breathe for a few days, listen to some more music and come back to it with fresh eyes.

So far I'm doing pretty good with it - I've written something like 10,000 words in just the past two weeks and I have a reasonable idea as to where this story is going. Obviously I'm a looooong way off being done, there's whole swathes of the story that I haven't worked out yet and I'm getting rather fixated on writing one my MC's POV over the other.

I gotta be careful that I don't the same thing as I did with my Nanowrimo story back in 2010 when I basically put writing over everything including my Uni work which effectively was the tipping point towards me dropping out altogether. I have two different qualifications on the go at the moment plus a full-time job and my boyfriend who has to live with me so I can't sink too far into writing that I forget everything everything else.

Well that's about it for now, if anyone is interested in what I'm working on then please leave a comment  and I may post bits or waffle about my characters for you. If you follow me on Twitter you're likely to get lots of spam about my writing shenanigans and my on-going infatuation with the Frozen soundtrack as my writing music (it's already getting out of hand and I only bought it two days ago).

Laters,
Ray

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Surprise Top 13 of 2013 and 2014 Reading Goals

Surprise Bitches, bet you thought you'd seen the last of me...

Yes well I know it's not unheard of for me to just vanish into the aether and then not reappear for 2 years but I think that just adds to my charm n'est pas?

So I return in the New Year with a plan to slowly reintegrate myself into a more active participatory role in the book community and this time I have Gifs! (gods all bless Tumblr).

Top 13 Reads of 2013
Since no one has any idea what I read last year (except those few whom I actually communicate with through other mediums) I thought I'd start with a list of my favourite reads of 2013. This list won't include any re-reads or multiple books by the same author. Also in no order of favouritism.

Angelfall by Susan Ee 

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell  

Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas

Unravel Me - Tahereh Mafi

Clockwork Princess - Cassandra Clare

Etiquette and Espionage - Gail Carriger

Just One Day - Gayle Forman

This Song will Save your Life - Leila Sales

Siege and Storm - Leigh Bardugo

Untold - Sarah Rees Brennan

Battle Magic - Tamora Pierce

The 5th Wave - Rick Yancey

1Q84 - Haruki Murakami

Reading Goals for 2014

I kinda failed with some of my goals from last year so hopefully I can succeed with this year's.

1. Read at least 150 books

2. Read at least 1 non-fiction book a month

3. Read at least 1 classic book a month

4. Read more from my TBR pile than re-reads

5. Get back into the habit of filling my reading journal properly

6. Try to get back into book community (see already trying with this one!)

What goals are all you lovely folk setting for yourselves in 2014? 

Hopefully y'all will see more from me soon - alas now I have to go be domestic, ironing calls!

Ray

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