National Book Lovers Day

August 9th is a great day for many, many reasons. August 9th is officially National Book Lovers Day! If the two towers stacks of books on my side of the bed is any indication, I do love me a good book.

So to help you celebrate the day in the way you love, I have compiled a list of crafts, events and books to commemorate the day.

Go to a local used book store.

There is something magical about entering a used book store, the stacks of books exploding from every crevice is homey to me, and if I was a horder if I chose a different path, I would want my house to be like that. Barnes and Noble and Amazon are fantastic, but on Saturday, go explore a used book store. 

My favorite one near my house is Hole in the Wall Books. It is the epitome of a used book store. So darling, I cannot wait to be a millionaire so I can spend all my time/money/life there and read. ALL THE TIME.

If you are in D.C. There is a great store near Eastern Market and another one in Dupont.

While I am all for supporting authors, and buying copies of books that they will actually make money on, don't forget about your local used book sellers, too!

DIY Book Crafts

If a DIY adventure is more your speed, check out some of these!

Cover books with pretty paper for decor!

Image via etsy

You can glue the sides of a book together, then with a heavy duty exacto knife, cut a hole. Then fill it with dirt and viola! A book planter!!

Want other ideas? check out my Pinterest board! (Because who doesn't have book inspired pinterest boards?)
http://www.pinterest.com/missmallory11/national-book-lovers-day/

Watch some Outlander

Outlander is my favorite book ever, and my newest obsession. If you haven't heard of it, then educate yourself. Now. I'll wait. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Outlander

You're back? Great.

Buy the books and read them now. They are fantastic.

Now guess what? Your dreams are coming true. They have made it into TV show on Starz. Not quite sold yet? Watch the full first episode on Starz right now for free.

The series officially premiers on August 9th, so get a Starz subscription and get on it.

Simply, read a book

If you want to adventure through the magic that is books, here is my reading list.

1. The Merchant Emperor -Elizabeth Haydon
2. The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern
3. The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared - Jonas Jonasson
4. A Breath of Snow and Ashes -Diane Gabaldon
5. Quitter - John Acuff
6. The Game of Kings -Dorthy Dunnett
7. A Walk in the Woods -Bill Bryson
8. Magic's Pawn -Mercedes Lackey
9. Steelheart - Brandon Sanderson
10. Frances and Bernard - Carlene Bauer

Also! Don't forget to attend the 2014 Library of Congress National Book Fair on August 30th. More information here:  http://www.loc.gov/bookfest/



Enjoy your book weekend.

Writers Block

For me, writing is a passion, a passion that I rarely provide my self with time for, but a soothing passion nonetheless. I am sure that people reading this would say, "Well, if it is a passion then why wouldn't you want to make time for it. Shouldn't it be an all consuming beast eating your time and energy? Feasting on your social life and your sanity?" To them I would say "Snarky, metaphor using reader, that is just the problem." I go through stages, and the Libra in me won't let me actually get devoured by the muses. I go through these terrible stages as a writer and then I become depressed, making my writing depressing to read. Which then, in turn makes me more depressed and so on. I have to tear my self out of it and close Microsoft Word and go out into the world. So because of this, I am going to write tonight, about the stages of me as a writer, and why I realized that I will never become great.

When I start out, I have immense writers block. I sit and stare and nothing come out. I have no idea where to begin, what to say, I have been away for too long. It is like when you haven't seen or spoken to an old friend and at first the conversation is awkward and forced but as the time passes things begin to flow, then I have the opposite of writers block. I have so much going on in my brain that I want to work vomit all over the page. I look at a blank page and see potential in my mind, but the words to communicate that vision are just gone, jumbled with everything else that is in there. Other story ideas, where the current characters should go, what kind of weaponry will they be needing, do I have enough suspense, what about fighting, how do you write a fighting scene, I need more characters, whats a good characters name, how many windows should this barn have, is this city small or large, how will I draft a map of this imaginary realm, what is this characters motivation, how do boys think...all of these things fighting for the front attention.

As I work through all of them, finally putting my mind at ease it is many many hours later, I most likely haven't eaten, and haven't even thought about doing anything else. This is usually as far as I let it go, because the more I write the more I have to write. This is a more healthy version of writing, I take breaks rest, but my desire to go out and speak with real people dwindles quickly. I go from fun loving, lets go out, try new things, and become simply happy drinking tea, writing. People ask me to hang out and I just make excuses, I find it is so much easier to be this way when I am living alone or with family. When I have roommates, it is harder for me to seclude my self.

From there I start to become a little bit depressed. Since I am not a crazy old wealthy lady who can afford to lock her self up in her room, writing until all hours of the night, I still have to function in the real world. So as I go to work, I realize I see people differently. Where once I saw fun individuals who I consider my friends. I see people who I work with, who's lives I am not apart of. I put my self as the outsider. I make myself the martyr, who people don't understand because to engage with these people I have to not write. The characters I write become so much more interesting to me. I see traits in people and weave them into my characters. I look at life so different than I do.

But because of this depression, my work suffers, things become dark when I write and in my life. This is where my needs and desires as a Libra become sorely out of balance. I want to be with people but feel that I am not ready to enter society because I love where my writing is going. If I leave, I may not come back, however if I stay, will I ever be in society again? my Libra wonders. It is hard. I can empathize with the writers who met their tragic ends. I understand the drinking and the pain. I have only experienced it on a small scale because being social has always won out. That is why I can never expect to get anything published. I cannot spend enough time in my work to complete it to a satisfactory level, because I need the human contact that my darker withdrawn self is too selfish to give.

I love writing and will always hope and try to be one, but it will always have to be a past time, and can never be anything more to me. It is a weird revelation to have, and an even weirder one to share. However as I sat looking at the blank web page of my blog that is what came to me, and what I saw. So I figured I would share.