2009 December 20 » Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog

TSS: December 20 (Discombobulated)

Posted by Anastasia on December 20, 2009 No Responses »

Dec 202009

I finished my finals this past Tuesday, but I haven’t yet managed to recover from my blogging break. I think while I was keeping up the pace– a post or two a day, basically– I kept myself motivated to keep doing just that. But then when I took a break from blogging AT ALL, I sort of…interrupted my mojo, or something.

I get excited when I’m writing my “reviews” (lately just review notes), but it’s the rest of the blogging stuff that I can’t get the energy for: formatting posts! You may have noticed the lack basic formatting items like, oh, italics in my posts. That’s because I’m too lazy to put any in! Stuff that hasn’t already been pre-formatted seems to just fall by the wayside, so while my review headers are all pretty, my actual posts are barebone. Bah.

Plus bloggers (and blog readers) are getting into the holiday slump thingy, so my interaction with people has fallen to the side, too. And I think that’s another big part of it– when I don’t have someone to talk to about my reviews or memes or even just what’s going on in the book world, I feel sort of lonely and less inclined to write posts. On the other hand, I read a buttload of books this week.

Basically I just think I need a book of energy, excitement, and maybe the antidote for discombobulation if possible. Now, if I could only remember how I got back into my groove last fall, after the summer slump…

How do you get re-excited about blogging after falling off the horse, so to speak?

Books read (and reviewed) this week:
239. The Mystery of the Third Lucretia – Susan Runholt [3.5/5]
240. Ozma of Oz – L. Frank Baum [3.5/5] *
241. The Rose & the Beast – Francesca Lia Block [rating: 3/5]
242. Princess Ben – Catherine Murdock [rating: 3.5/5]
243. The Broken Teaglass – Emily Arsenault [rating: 4/5]
244. Ash - Malinda Lo [rating: 3.5/5]
245. Kissing the Witch – Emma Donoghue [rating: 3.5/5]
246. The Commitments – Roddy Doyle [rating: 4/5]
247. The Tale of Despereaux – Kate DiCamillo [rating: 4/5]

Currently reading:
The Snapper by Roddy Doyle. I’m actually kind of liking this a bit more than The Commitments, maybe because I haven’t seen the movie and so I’m not constantly comparing the two?

APFOL: December 6-19

Posted by Anastasia on December 20, 2009 4 Responses »

Dec 202009

Interesting posts and other things that have caught my eye ~~this week~~ over the last two weeks. It isn’t actually everything, since I didn’t want to kill myself copy-pasting, so for the entire link collection check out my Delicious page.

Warning: This thing is BIG. The week and a half I was away? Yeah, that’s when, like, EVERYTHING INTERESTING THAT EVER HAPPENED showed up in my feedreader.

And now, I present to you, my readers: Awesome Post Full of Links #15: December 6-19!
Continue reading »

2010 = the year of reading challenges!

Posted by Anastasia on December 20, 2009 No Responses »

Dec 202009

I know I’m always interested in seeing what reading challenges people have signed up for, and so I thought I’d post mine! Some of these have special prizes for people who sign up before January 1st, btw. (Pretend I’m winking here.)

I’m still looking around to see if there’s any really good ones I’ve missed, but here’s what I’ve signed up for so far. I’ve tried to limit my challenges to ones that a) aren’t something I’m already going to accomplish anyway (which is why I didn’t sign up for the Support Your Local Library challenge again), b) are slightly off my standard book choice path but not so far off I’ll never finish the challenge. I hope that makes sense– basically I’m just trying to stretch my box’s sides wider.

Challenges

Readalongs

Lord of the Rings readalong
Woman in White readalong

(This is basically my entire 2010 reading challenges page.)

So…

I’m really excited about the challenges I’ve signed up for! I’m a little worried about the readalongs, since I tend to give up on those about halfway through, but I’m going to try really hard to finish them. Also, you may have noticed that I’ve been making “here’s what I’m thinking of reading” lists, which I didn’t really do for my 2009 challenges. I think that by having some idea of what I want to read, I’ll finish the challenge easier and/or quicker, because I won’t be scrambling around trying to find a book that works. Yay having foresight!