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.

My Bucket list

I want a Bucket List, I mean I HAVE a bucketlist. Things to do before I die, but I want to say here they are world hold me accountable and let me do them! So I am going to post one. Did I mention that I dont actually know what a private life is? I am not really sure why people don't want to know every detail about my life, buut obviously they should!

1. Live in another country for at least a year
2. Own my own business
3. Publish at least ONE of the books I have started.
4. See a flash mob Finished this one!!! Thank you Eric and the boys of Dead off Center!! Follow them here: Facebook or @deadoffcenter
5. Be IN a flashmob (obvious reasons as to why this would be appealing to me)
6. Go rock climbing
7. Visit every state (I think I am 13 or 14 out of 50)
8. Write, record, and publish a rap Look on FB I have one. heard people want lyrics. I can post them!
9. Do 1 gig as a stand up comedian.
10. get 1K followers on Twitter
11. Get 10K page views on my blog
12. see all of the wonders of the world
13. road trip across America
14. back pack at least 1 European country
15. become completely debt free
16. Have an entourage
17. Be VIP at a party
18. Fly first class
19. Run a marathon
20. Go on an archaeological dig

These 20 things are all I can think of, but now they are online, anyone can see them and hold me accountable,  for these things and let me know when there are these opportunities. Please let me know!

A blog a day for a year

So I always start blogging, and then later I stop, usually a blog post or two later. So this is my commitment. That I will do a Blog Post a day for a year. I am not promising brilliance, nor long posts. But i will try to write everyday. So today I'm going to start with something about me that many people don't know about me.

I love writing and would love to one day publish a book. I currently have 5 novels going. I switch between them when I get inspired and have been working on one of them since high school. It's a long time I know. I have a lot written. Most of it is garbage but I just am so in love with the characters and the plot and the world I created that I can't even think for one second to let them go! The worst part about writing though is sharing your work. What you think is ground breaking, eloquent and well thought out tends to be, at least in my case, half thoughts that don't make any sense. One of my favorite quotes is by Hemingway when he says "write drunk. Edit sober" This phrase really rings true to me. Not because I like getting drunk, my love affair with a good cab non withstanding, but because when you're drunk your inhibitions are cleared your mind is free and my imagination soars! I find that I can completely explore the life I have created for the character. But then obviously when you're sober and you see the grammar and the misspelled words you also see the idea the beauty and the brilliance behind the idea.

I would have to say that there is nothing more satisfying in all the world to look at what you have written and to be happy with it. To hear what you created read aloud and it sounds like a real novel. Of course I fall prey to the feelings every writer has the third fourth and fifth time they hear their work and begin to scrutinize it and see every error and where a whole new idea could have been born. It's absolutely satisfying and heart breaking all at the same time.

It is also hard when you dont have another writer in your life because sometimes it is hard for other people to understand why you feel the need to be antisocial one day because you had a moment of inspiration. Or to nervously chew your fingers as you give someone a passage to read that you have labored at (for years in my case) and wait to hear their verdict, but not wanting to hear at the same time. It's a terribly wonderful feeling....or did I mean wonderfully terrible?? Might actually just be terrible.

Anyways, any site you go to tells you that writing everyday is the key to getting better, and as much as I want to believe I was born with an amazing god given great talent. But we can all clearly see that isn't true. So I truly hope that over the course of this year that my writing will grow as much as possible!