A Spot of Murder & Mystery

"A Murder is Announced" by Agatha Christie, adapted for the stage by Leslie Darbon: The quiet English village of Clipping Cleghorn is all a buzz when an announcement appears in the local newspaper about a murder taking place at Little Paddocks. Miss Blacklock, the matriarchal home owner, dismisses the advertisement as a silly prank, but the house's other residents aren't so sure. As the dreaded hour approaches, other village members start to arrive at the house to see what will happen including the sleuthing busybody Miss Jane Marple. Mystery, murder, and mayhem ensue in this delightful 1950s style "whodunnit" production.

"Burn Bright" Campaign

So when I checked my blogger feed this afternoon, I discovered a blog post by Alexandra talking about a campaign to get a certain book she had raved about in previous post published in the U.S. (and preferably internationally published). The book is "Burn Bright" by Marianne de Pierres, the first in her "Night Creatures" trilogy. And while I hadn't read Alexandra's previous blog post since I'm a recent follower of hers, I still decided to look into the campaign and the book itself.


Here is the synopsis from Good Reads:

"Into a world of wild secrets and deadly pleasures comes a girl whose innocence may be her greatest strength.

Fueling my Obsession

Check out the Babbling Flow and see what awesome ARCs Sara is giving away in another fabulous contest entitled "MOAR ARCs!!" (I won one of the ARCs from her previous contest*, which I'm super excited to read!) Here is the list of the ARCs she's giving away this time:

ARC: Shut Out, by Kody Keplinger

ARC: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer, by Michelle Hodkin

ARC: Ashes, by Ilsa Bick (SIGNED)

ARC: After Obsession, by Carrie Jones & Steven Wedel

ARC: The Eleventh Plague, by Jeff Hirsch

Updates and Inspiration

Enjoy reading my blog? Then go check out these other great bloggers and their fantastic giveaways!

Roni Loren @ fictiongroupie.blogspot.com – Roni is celebrating her two-year blog anniversary and all the great things she has accomplished in the mean time. =D She’s giving away several different prize packages, so go enter for a chance to win.

Alexandra Shostak @ alexandrashostak.blogspot.com – Alexandra still has several awesome ARCs to give away from ALA. 8 of them in fact! O.O Go check out her blog for your chance to win one of the four themed packages.

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Now back to our regularly scheduled program for another late night post from this busy teacher/costumer/writer gal…*wink*

Books and Bloggers

(Sorry about no post since last week...but I did spend some time on Tuesday updating my blog look and finally creating an "about me" page. Curious who I am? Curious about my blogger moniker? Click the "about me" tab to find out!)

I was going to write this post sooner, but I took a nap before rehearsal instead and lost my "free time for writing" window. Oops…*shrugs* oh well. I know I promised you book reviews this post, but first I want to share a few things with you.

First, earlier this week I finally received my ARC of Michelle Davidson Argyle’s “Monarch”. *squee* Here’s a picture of me shortly after I opened the package:

Michelle is doing a blog tour to promote her new book (coming out in September) and I signed up! So definitely stay tuned for my review and post about her suspense spy thriller in September. And until then, go check out her blog and see why I think she’s awesome. 

And speaking of awesome, another blogger I follow (Laura Diamond) is holding a great contest to celebrate for follower numbers. She reached her 500 twitter followers (in fact, she surpassed it) and is super close to reaching 300 blog followers. She’s offering writing critiques and free books! Yay for both! Check out her blog as well!

Perhaps I Should Rethink this Schedule Thing...

I haven't exactly been keeping up with my schedule, now have I? *shakes head* I'm thinking of changing it to a Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule since I'm off on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and technically have time to write in between work and rehearsals. (Therefore pre-setting my posts for M/W/F mornings.) But right now, I'm still adjusting to this new schedule and hope to get into a blogging rhythm soon. *shrugs*

However I have been catching up with my reading! I'm only 5 books behind in my reading challenge for this year. I'm 3/4 of the way through one book and just started another...and have at least 10 more in my "to read next" pile. It literally is a pile of books sitting on my desk, reminding me that I need to read them. (Half are library books so I definitely need to read them before their due dates.) Next post I promise I'll have several book reviews/recommendations...

And speaking of books, a blogger I follow (Karen Amanda Hooper) just got a book deal for her first novel "Tangled Tides"! *squee* Go check out her site and join in her celebration. Psst! She's having a great book giveaway. ;D

Also check out these other awesome giveaways (I found these sites through Karen) @ Natalie Bahm's blog, Alexandra Shostak's blog, and the Babbling Flow blog. So many books...so little time! =)

~Namárië

Unforeseen Opportunities

So...life has a funny way of throwing you curve balls when you least expect it. (Of course, isn’t that the point of a curve ball?) Sometimes these “curve balls” can be bad or good, annoying or delightful, boring yet unavoidable or exciting yet terrifying (as in my case).


You see, I was just offered the opportunity to teach the morning theatre arts class for the creative arts camp I work for…and I accepted! So now I’ll be teaching the Monday & Wednesday afternoon technical theatre class as well as the Tuesday & Thursday morning performance theatre class. Yay—oh, wait…

Remember what I said about having a lot on my plate in my last post...*sigh*

Our Heroine Makes a Triumph Return

I’m back! I apologize for my lengthy and unplanned hiatus, but life has been rather hectic for me lately. Of course, hasn't everyone’s lives been a little hectic these days?

With school letting out (I mentioned I was a substitute teacher before, right?) and summer starting, I thought I would have time to fulfill my resolutions of writing more, reading more, and keeping up with this lil’ blog of mine. But this hasn't been the case. School being out has only led to me taking on more activities that keep me away from my home, my computer, and my books. This isn't a bad thing though because I’m enjoying these activities. I just realized I need to get my act in gear and make time since it seems I’ll be forever busy.

Catching Up on my Reading/Reviewing

Thanks to school testing, I was able to catch up on my reading over the past few days while working as a substitute. The teacher I was subbing for yesterday and today was assigned to “hall duty”…which basically means you sit in one of the hallways making sure kids aren’t talking in the halls about the test, kids find the correct room and aren’t goofing off in the halls, and giving the testing teachers breaks or running emergency errands for them. It’s fairly boring most of the time, so I was told to bring a book to keep myself busy when I wasn’t needed by a teacher. So I sat there in my comfy rolling chair (the teacher I was subbing for told me to bring his desk chair out into the hall), reading my books and writing out this little blog.

Yesterday, I finally finished reading my 6^th book of the year, which means I’m keeping up a good pace up with 2-3 books per month. I started (and finished) 3 books in January and started (and almost finished) 3 books in February. Of course, this last “February” book took me about 3 weeks to finish…

My February Books

Back in January, I joined the Book Vixen's "Outdo Yourself Reading Challenge 2011". I pledged to read at least 25 books this year. Now I have joined the Goodreads 2011 Reading Challenge and pledged to read at least 30 books. So far, I think I’m doing well! I read three books in January, and I started three books in February but only finished two of them during the month. (I’m about 100 pages away from finishing the third “February” book.) And to match my last book post entry, I will give my opinion on the next two books I have finished reading.

Birthdays and Dreams

Today is my 25^th birthday! And I’m pretty excited about it in case you couldn’t tell. =) I’m always excited about my birthdays though, whether there’s a party involved or they’re “big birthday milestones”. This year’s birthday was a simple plan of sleeping in late, enjoying the DVD presents my parents gave me, and having a nice dinner with my fiancée at Carino’s Italian Grill. Going out with a group or throwing a party can be fun, but I’m more of a low-key type of person.

Anywho...for the other part of this post I’m going to ramble about dreams. Not dreams meaning life-long goals or aspirations…dreams meaning the kind you have at night while you sleep. I generally have very vivid and often strange dreams that I can somewhat remember, at least for a short while after waking. It’s almost like I’m watching a movie (because I’m rarely the subject of my own dreams) and these stories are being played out in front of me. But when I wake up, I can only remembered bits and pieces of the “movie”. I had one of these types of dreams last night, and I woke up kind of sad that I couldn’t find out the “end” of the “story”. But I wrote it down and perhaps someday I will discover or create the ending.

Remodeling...

*Update - 03/04/2011 - I changed the design and layout to a new purpley theme from the "busy pink" one mentioned in this entry below*

Please excuse the dust and remember to wear your hard-hat while visiting. I'm currently under-going a redesign of my blog. And while I really did like my old background and layout, I felt it was too dark and it was time for a change. Of course, what you are viewing now may not be the final outcome of this remodeling. I'm playing around with different layouts and backgrounds. I like this current one, but it might be too busy...and there's a lot of pink involved. I'm not really a "pink" kind of gal...purple is much more my style, but I'm giving this design a try. We'll see how long it lasts. Drop me a comment and tell me what you think.

~Namárië

P.S. I plan posting some entries soon. I have snow, more books, and monsters to blog about...tune in soon!

To Review or Not To Review...

*cough cough* Boy, it's dusty here...oh that's right, I haven't been here in a while. <.<  >.> I guess I should clean this place up! *grabs a broom* =P

I know one of my resolutions was to blog more, but I haven't been keeping to it very well. I've been too busy reading, writing, and working. I know it's an excuse, but it's also the truth. So I figured I'd write my newest blog entry about the books I have just finished reading (which is in line with my 2011 book challenge and one of my resolutions). This post is not so much of a review as it is my recommendation and opinion about these books. (Which is basically a review, I know.)

I just don't really like the idea of "reviewing" something. I don't usually read reviews since I like to figure out things for myself, and I'm usually disappoint in the reviews. For one thing, I tend to like (even love) things that majority of people don't like (sometimes even down right hate...*don't hate*). And sometimes reviews make me "angry" because the reviewers miss things (did they really just read/watch the same thing as me?), get their information wrong (again, did you read/watch the thing you're reviewing?), or write reviews that are hurtful/mean-spirited (if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all!). Anywho, my mini-rant is over...so this isn't a review...it's just me talking about the books I just read in brief terms and chalk full of my singular personal opinion.

Exercising the Mind and the Pen

Back in December, I discovered a wonderful site called “750 Words”. The whole premise of this site is to get people to write on a daily basis, preferably 750 words or more a day. You can read the whole story about the creation of the site on the site's home page (click the link above). And I thought it was a great idea, so I signed up for it (and it's free). Everyday you are given a blank white page in order to write whatever you want, and the site saves your writing automatically. You also get special points and badges for achieving certain goals and whatnot, but the important part is getting yourself writing. For the month of December, I did pretty well. I wrote an entry most of the days and most of the time meeting or surpassing the daily word goal. So I decided to enter the site's monthly challenge of writing 750 words (or more) every day for the entire month. If I "win," my name is placed on the "Wall of Awesome." But if I miss a day or daily word goal, my name is added to the "Wall of Shame" and it cannot be removed until I succeed on another month's challenge. I'm doing pretty good so far and am keeping myself motivated to write daily. I use the site like a journal to take down notes, story ideas, daily events, my blog entries...and now my new writing exercises!

A Reading Challenge for 2011

As I mention in my last post, I'm going to try to read more this year. I used to read a lot of books...so many in fact that I couldn't even keep track of how many books I read in a month, let alone in a year. But as I've gotten older and life has gotten in the way, I've found myself reading less and less. I've started several books, but then I tended to set them down and either lost them or had to turn them back into the library...never picking them back up to finish them ever again. And they weren't bad books...most of them were very good and I want to finish them (if I can ever find them again). Life and other things would just distract me and I would lose interest in them at that particular moment or I would lose the time to read them anymore. But I'm aware of this problem and I hope to correct it this upcoming year because I really do miss reading. It's one of my favorite things to do and I feel it's very important to read. So when I discovered the Book Vixen's "Outdo Yourself Reading Challenge 2011", I thought I'd join! (I found out about this reading challenge through Roni at FictionGroupie.)

Happy Holidays & Happy New Year!

First off, I hope everyone had a great time over the holidays, was able to spend time with their families, and received gifts or goodies to make them smile. As usual, I kept busy with my various “Christmases” between my family and my fiancée’s family. Two visits on his side (his Dad’s side and his Mom’s side) and three visits on my side (my parents at our home, my Dad’s side, and my Mom’s side). It was good seeing our families and spending time with them. But now the holiday season is winding down and making way for…the New Year!


Wow! 2010 has just flown by! So many things have happened and changed over this year, and not just in my life but in the world as a whole. And like many bloggers today, my entry will be about my “New Year’s Resolutions.” I typical don’t make resolutions merely because I often make them too unachievable or forget about them completely halfway through January. But this year, I figured that if I wrote them down on my blog, I’d probably remember them and would be more inclined to follow them since I could then give a sort of status update on them throughout the year and/or in next December. So here are my realistic resolutions for 2011!

Awesome Movie Mash-Up

Hello again, my fellow bloggers! (And a big thanks to my 9 followers!) I'm just doing a quick post today to show off this awesome movie mash-up someone posted on Twitter. (Twitter post link to this entry at ScreenRant.) It takes one of the famous sword fight scenes from "Princess Bride" (my favorite movie) and adds in an interesting element from "Star Wars". Please Enjoy!

~Namárië

NaNoWriMo 2010 is Officially Over

Final Word Count: 34,720

I’m a little saddened that this challenge is over since I really enjoyed it. It was more fun than I expected. =) But all good things must come to an end…or do they?
<.<   >.>   O.o

Yes, there is always next year…but why not continue writing throughout the year? Why not set your own monthly word count goals? Why not find a writing group to join or writer friends to hold you accountable? Or pledge to yourself to sit and write for a set time amount or set word count every day? 2 hours or 1000 words a day?