Saturday 9 December 2017

My Favourite Tropes

Hey guys!

So a few weeks ago, several blogs I'm following all talked about their favourite tropes in books/films/tv and I thought. Hey. I'm a trope-loving human. I could talk for hours about that. I want to do it!

Quality content here, guys. Quality content.

This post has actually been planned since back in November - in fact, my initial draft talked about NaNoWriMo, which just tells you how long I left off finishing it. But it's a post I've been planning, so I'm doing it. Bear in mind that after this, I'm taking a brief break from posting for Christmas and I'll be back on the last Saturday of December with my Wrap-Up!

But that's in the future. Right now, let's talk tropes. On we go!

 Found Families

I just...I literally cannot describe to you how much I love this trope. I mean, it turns up in every one of my stories, it's in an awful lot of my favourite books/films/tv shows and I just...I love it. 

It's that friendship thing again, I'm just a total sucker for friendship and platonic relationships and this allows me to fully bask in it. I just. I love it guys. I love it. If you pop this one into your stories and it's well-written*. You've sucked me in. 

*eh, who am I kidding. I'll love it even if it isn't well-written.

Other tropes that I also love, but that are kind of too connected to this one to get their own category would be - the Ragtag Band of Misfits, the Magic of Friendship and True Companions.

Examples: the Leverage team (Leverage, obviously), the Straw-Hat Pirates (One Piece), the Batfamily (Batman comics, DC), the Guardians of the Galaxy (Marvel)


Quick, Act Natural!

Or as it's called on TV Tropes, Acting Unnatural. 

Pretty self-explanatory, really. You know that moment in a film/book/tv show where someone comes into the room and all the characters have to act natural. Naturally, they're all terrible at it and they strike ridiculous poses or do stupid stuff.

I just. It's brilliant. I'll never get tired of it. 

It's a trope that turns up all over the place, but it's a little harder to find a specific example of it anywhere. So, instead, to illustrate my point, I'll just show you a snippet from my NaNo novel, where I used it. 

Dorks, all of them.



Crazy-Prepared

Do you have a character who's somehow prepared for everything? Including, but not limited to, escaped sharks in the middle of London, killer ballet dancers and the invasion of giant snails that we all know is coming?

Then you probably have a Crazy Prepared character. And I will probably love them forever.

Examples: Batman. Do I need to say anything else?

Dysfunction Junction

That group that's completely messed up in every possible way? Who all definitely need therapy? They're this trope. 

There's something about a bunch of messed up kids coming together to heal their broken pieces and fix each other that I love and this trope is a predecessor to that.

And we're back to the Found Families trope. Literally everything comes back to that eventually, I swear.

Examples: the Batfamily, the main characters from Sherlock (BBC), anyone from A Series of Unfortunate Events (Lemony Snicket)

The Awesome Normal People

These are your Iron-Mans, your Batmans, your Black Widows, your Samwise Gamgees. 

These are the guys who don't have any special powers - except for sometimes being rich - but they're awesome anyway. They stand up there with titans and no one ever questions that they belong there. They're the ones that prove that you don't need powers to be awesome.

Examples: Other than the examples above, Beren (Tolkien, of the Tale of Beren and Luthien fame), Steve Trevor (Wonder Woman)

Team Dad/Mum

The one slightly more mature person on the team who just parents everybody. The Dads are the slightly more harsh version of this trope, the ones who discipline and tell people off. The Mums are the warm, nurturing version of this trope. Sometimes you'll have one of each, sometimes you'll just have either one.

Then you get the giant messes that are kind of both, but kind of neither and honestly, they've no clue what they're doing but they accidentally adopted a bunch of people and they're trying, okay!

*coughs* Sorry. Got a little carried away there.

Sometimes they're literally parents to the others in the group, other times they just take this role without that. 

Examples: Wendy Darling (Peter Pan), Effie Trinket - Team Mum to an extent (more so in the films, Hunger Games) along with Haymitch Abernathy as the Team Dad, Chiron (Heroes of Olympus), Bruce Wayne (Batman, DC), Jeff Tracy (Thunderbirds)


And that was a not-exhaustive list of just a few of my favourite tropes in literature/films/tv and honestly, if you write about them, I'll love you forever.

What about you? Do you have any favourite tropes? Tell me down in the comments.

Saturday 2 December 2017

The Writer's 'When You Learn More About Me' Questionnaire + Five Facts About My WIP

Hey guys!

So we're into December! And that means Christmas! Exciting stuff. For this month, I've got a couple of posts planned, but for the most part we'll kind of chill a bit, okay? I'm (obviously) posting this week and next week, but the week after that I'm going on break for two weeks for Christmas. And then I'll be back on the last week with my December Wrap-Up.

So I was wondering what I could do for this week and I decided that I'd *cough*finally*cough* get around to filling in a couple of tags that I was tagged in by Deborah Kelty

Me? Fail at everything? Why yes, thank you for noticing.

So we'll start with the 'Ten Questions About Me' questionnaire, then move on to the second one. Here we go.

Q1: What was the first story you remember writing?

I'm not sure, since this was way back when I was three, but I'm pretty sure it was about a king, a queen and a princess who all died in the end. Also, I'm pretty sure there was a ring involved. I hadn't even read Lord of the Rings at this point, for obvious reasons, but I was ripping it off anyway.

Q2: Where do you gain your inspiration? 

All sorts of places. Music is a major one, which is why I make playlists for all of my stories. I love music. Pinterest is also a big one. I can surf Pinterest for hours and I have a special Story Inspiration board on my account where I pin ideas. Taking in media is very helpful too, reading books and watching films and tv shows. I get so many ideas just watching an episode of Doctor Who. 10/10, would recommend. 

Q3: Who/What exactly encouraged you to become a writer?

My family's always been really encouraging, but other than that, just my favourite books and wanting to be able to write like that. I've always loved writing, so I really didn't need much encouragement to do it.

Q4: If you had a choice between past or present tense to use, which one would you pick?

It really depends on the story and on how I'm feeling. If I've been writing a story with present tense for a while, I'll instinctively write everything in present tense, but it works the other way round too. 

But, because this question calls for an actual answer, I'd probably say present tense. It's the one I prefer at the moment, because my main draft is written in present tense, so I'm overwhelmingly spending more time in it. 

Q5: Do you have some type of "kryptonite" weakness?

My physical disability stops me from writing as much as I'd like, but it's probably just making me write a normal amount, so I mean...

In terms of my actual writing...it's those dang villains. How do people not overwhelmingly sympathise with their villains?! I don't understand. I make a villain, then I wonder why they're doing what they're doing, then I over-develop them, then I feel bad for them. 

Dear fellow writers, how the heck do you write irredeemable villains. I seem to be incapable of it. Strange considering that my novels tend to be pretty dark and violent. 

Q6: On the flip side, do you have a type of "superman" strength?

....I mean, I've been told I'm pretty good at dialogue? But I don't know if that's actually true across the board or not. I'm an expert procrastinator, maybe that's mine. 

Q7: Are there any guilty pleasures of yours?

I don't tend to feel guilty over the things I enjoy. If I like something, then I like it. But I guess, maybe I like Disney XD shows and find them ridiculously enjoyable, even though they're actually rubbish.

Q8: Is there a genre of media/entertainment you've not seen but want to try out one day?

I'd love to try out horror at some point. I own Stephen King's IT in novel form, so hopefully I can get to reading that behemoth and then kind of get to grips with the genre. I do love a tinge of horror in my media - my favourite Batman comics are the ones that dip into horror territory. 

Q9: And finally, what is your favourite writing snack?

I'm not sure, probably tea? Because I am a true British stereotype, dang it!
Also, I like olives. And grapes. And coleslaw.
Me? Weird? Whatever would make you say something like that?

Q10: So, would you do more Q&A's like this?

I mean, I'm terrible at them, but sure. Tags are easy blogposts!

And that is that one done! Now onto the second. 

So for this, I have to give out five facts about my WIP. And for this, I'm going to waffle on about my novel Asteria, which...I have not talked much about on this blog for some reason.

I will eventually make a full post explaining this novel, but for now, you just need to know that it's science-fiction (kind of) and it's about a teenage mess of feelings called Minerva who's very stabby and doesn't understand emotions and friendship.

Here, see the Pinterest Board for it:


And on we go!

Fact 1

It's set in a fictional solar-system almost a thousand years after humans colonised it. The system is essentially run by the Valarian Republic, a supposedly-democratic government with elected representatives from each colony and group of people who meet in the Senate.

The Senate is kind of the most back-stabby place ever. Yes, that is poison in your cup, probably shouldn't drink it.

Fact 2

There's a crew of nerds who have no idea what they're doing, all have the most tragic backstories and who all kind of low-key adopt the teenage mess that is Minerva. 
Minerva has no idea how to cope with this.

Fact 3

There's a desert planet called Samoia that has a natural disaster native to it called the Samon. It's basically a planetary monsoon that covers the whole planet and refills the empty rivers and wells. 
The native Ryoans believe that it's sent by the water god, Ryoji.

Fact 4

Ten years before the novel begins, a species of people are slaughtered by the Republic. This has major ramifications on the system as a whole. It leaves the whole place politically unstable.

Fact 5

There's a floating country called Tirvah within the atmosphere of the ice planet, Everarin. It's a cool place, albeit under occupation since their king had no chill and yelled at the Republic leaders in the middle of the Senate meeting. As a result of Fact 4, to be specific. See, told you it had a big effect.


And that is the end of this week's post! A pretty big one, really, but there you go. Sorry, Deborah, for taking literally forever to catch up and do this. I fail.

When it comes to tagging, I have literally no blogging connections, so if you want to do these tags, go ahead and do them. I tag you all.

What did you think of this week's post? Do you have a WIP you're working on? Tell me a fact about your WIP in the comments below.

Saturday 25 November 2017

November Wrap-Up + Why I Quit NaNoWriMo This Year

Hey guys!

So I'm back, after a break last week. And today I'm going to explain that week. But first, I need to tell you something. I quit NaNoWriMo this year.

I didn't want to, but partway through November, I developed costochondritis. That - in case you don't know - is an inflammation in the chest cavity. In my case, it was generally agreed to have been brought on by too much typing and the doctor told me that I wasn't allowed to type for a few days. If I'd just stopped then gone back to it, I would've had too many words to write in a day and I would have just made the costochondritis worse. Which, since I have another assignment due in the beginning of December, I really don't want.

So I decided to stop doing NaNoWriMo this year. And that inability to type is also why I didn't post anything last week. I didn't have anything written beforehand and I wasn't allowed to type during that weekend. So that's that.

Now that I'm allowed to type a little bit again, I've gone back to my main drafts and left my NaNoWriMo story for a while. I'd like to finish Asteria by the end of the year, so I need to get cracking on that.

Since this is the last Saturday of November - here, have a wrap-up post.

Music

So I was mostly listening to my Ghosts, Doughnuts and Other Related Things playlist this month, but I did listen to some new stuff. I listened to AURORA this month and she's amazing. Really chilling, creepy music that's great for story playlists. Very atmospheric. 
I also listened to The Jungle Book 2016 soundtrack. A good soundtrack. And I listened to some stuff from TROLLS because why not?

My song recommendations for this month as follows:

Follow My Feet by The Unlikely Candidates: A song I've loved for a while, but still great. Great for character playlists.
Dreamers by Oh Gravity: A great song, super good for friendship playlists. Very good for space playlists. I love this one so much.
Isle of Flightless Birds by Twenty-One Pilots: A little bit darker than the others I've recommended, but great for sadder character playlists. I still love this one.

And my artist recommendation is: AURORA

I feel like you knew that was coming, since I mentioned her earlier. But she's just amazing and I completely recommend her, particularly her album: All My Demons Greeting Me As A Friend. So creepy and atmospheric. I especially recommend Running With The Wolves, Murder Song (5, 4, 3, 2, 1) and Nature Boy (Acoustic)

Films

Once again, no films that I really got into this month, so straight onto the recommendations:

This month's film recommendation is How To Train Your Dragon - Still one of my favourite animated films ever. It has beautiful animation, stunning music and one of the most emotionally moving stories I've seen. I love it. Go watch it. Now. 

Cutie.

TV

This month I started watching The Good Place, a really odd, really funny comedy about a woman who dies and ends up in The Good Place, when she was supposed to end up in The Bad Place. It's really weird, but hilarious. I love it. 

I got back into watching Thunderbirds Are Go, which is a reboot of the old 60s Thunderbirds show. It's great. I also started rewatching The Musketeers, a BBC adaption of The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas. A brilliant show that I adore. 

My recommendation for this month is: 

Falling Skies: Falling Skies is a TV show about a family in the aftermath of an alien invasion. It's great, has good action, strong acting and enjoyable characters. I also loved the focus on family, it's an original take on the idea. It's also pretty funny as well, at times. It can be a little bit violent, but definitely nothing awful. 

All the father-son feelings. All of them.

Writing
So, obviously, I attempted NaNoWriMo this month. By the time I had to quit, I had over half of the 50,000 word-count, so I'm pretty happy. It's more than I would've written otherwise and I've been trying to force myself to get to work on Ghosts, Doughnuts and Other Related Things for so long now, it's nice to just get writing it. 

I've also started writing a timeline of the fictional solar system in Asteria, going back 800 years to when humans first colonised it. I've got the first 100 years down. 

The first part of it. This is going to take a while, but it'll be worth the work.
I also got back to the main draft of Asteria and added a little bit to it, not much since I can't type much, but a bit. I also got further with editing The Gatekeeper Chronicles

I wrote two blogposts this month:

Reading
Sadly, not much got read this month. With writing and also working on my assignment for the first week, I didn't get much time. I'm partway through Hamlet by William Shakespeare for my module, which I've been focusing on getting to grips with since that's what my next assignment is about. I also read a bunch of One Piece volumes and I read And I Darken by Kiersten White. 

My recommendation for this month is: 

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick - Another of my favourite books, blending beautiful pictures with words in a really visual way, it's so easy to read and follow. I would definitely recommend it if you struggle with reading. It's also a genuinely beautiful and moving story. 

Blogs
I haven't read many blogposts this month, so this section is empty. Sadness.

This month's recommendation is: Paper Fury: Genuinely hilarious and weirdly helpful. Also, Cait's publishing a book next year, so you should all go and pre-order it. Now.

And that's it for November. How did your month go? Did you do NaNo? If so, how did you do? Tell me down in the comments. 

Saturday 11 November 2017

NaNo Week 2 + Beautiful Books

Hey guys!

So NaNoWriMo's second week - and first full week - draws to a close. And...I didn't do as well as I wish I had.

In my defence, I had an assignment due with my Open University module and so, obviously, that took a lot of my time. But, because I didn't even write for a couple of days this week, I'm not going to break down what I wrote each day. I'm just going to give you my final word-count. A grand total of....18500.

So still just about at the word-count I need to be at, but not as far ahead as I hoped to be by this point. But all things considered, I'm not entirely disappointed with it. And next week is an opportunity for me to get ahead!

So now we're going to use the Beautiful Books questionnaire - you know the one, I've used it before a lot, it's run by Paper Fury and Further Up and Further In This one is a continuation of the last one, looking at how you've progressed since.

Overall, how is your mental state, and how is your novel going?

My mental state is...a thing. It's not been amazing, with how little I've written this week, I've been feeling kind of down about it. But I've been doing okay with writing so far today and hopefully I'm going to write more after this is posted. An update on if I manage much more will be posted next week. 
My novel is going pretty good. There is a space of a couple of chapters where I was struggling a lot with writing, so the chapters aren't the best, but I got through it and I'm back to where I'm comfortable with the story. So that's good!

What’s your first sentence (or paragraph)?

Honestly, Reinette is the most relatable character in this story.

Who’s your current favourite character in your novel?

This question is completely unwarranted and, honestly, rude.

I genuinely can't decide, I love all three of my nerds too much to choose. They are all smol and precious. So, I don't have one. Definitely one of my three MCs though.

What do you love about your novel so far?

The dialogue. I haven't written a story based in modern times before, so having the ability to write my characters talking the way that I talk is so much fun. 
The story's also based around where I live, in places that I've been to, so that's been a very new and exciting experience.

Have you made any hilarious typos or other mistakes?

Not that I can immediately find. I normally find and edit any major typos that I can see and any others are hard to find unless I actively take the time to edit.

What is your favourite to write: beginning, middle, or end — and why?

My favourite is definitely the beginning, with the middle coming a close second. I always find wrapping a story up the hardest.

What are your writing habits? Is there a specific snack you eat? Do you listen to music? What time of day do you write best? Feel free to show us a picture of your writing space!


My current writing space is this - me sat on a chair with my feet up and a blanket. The most ergonomic, of course. I have no specific snack I eat, but I do snack on a few different things. I do listen to music, I have my story playlist ready to go on Spotify. 
I probably write the best in the evening, there's less distraction and also the imminent deadline of midnight approaching rapidly. 

How private are you about your novel while you’re writing? Do you need a cheer squad or do you work alone (like, ahem, Batman)?

I show my sister a bit of it and I share snippets every so often, but I'm relatively private. I don't let most people read all of the rough draft.

What keeps you writing even when it’s hard?

The deadline? Crying? 
I guess it's just the desire to reach my goals, really. Because I really want to do it, it means that even when it's hard I still push through it.

What are your top 3 pieces of writing advice?
  1. Just write. Seriously. It doesn't matter how bad it is, you can always fix it later. Just push through it and write.
  2. Fluffy blankets are surprisingly helpful.
  3. Listen to those darn characters. Most of the time, if a scene is going badly and the characters aren't going where you want them to go, they're actually right about it. You write it differently and it's better than it would've been. Listen to them. They're normally right.
And that's the end of the questions. Overall, not my best week, but okay all things considered. I'm hoping to write a bit more tonight. Now before I go, have a snippet.


In which my MCs meet the personification of the River Dee. 

Yeah, I don't know where that came from either.

And that is it! Next week, I'll be back with another update. See you then.

How's your NaNoWriMo going? Written many words? Or are you at least happy with what you have written? Tell me down in the comments.

Saturday 4 November 2017

NaNo Week 1

Hey guys!

NaNoWriMo has hit and I've been doing...not horrifically? It's not going awfully and I'm pretty happy with where I am at the moment.

In case you've forgotten, I'm writing Ghosts, Doughnuts and Other Related Things for NaNoWriMo. Click on the link if you need more information.

There's not too much to recap right now, since we've only had a few days of November so far. Now, without further ado, my word counts.

Recap


Day 1

On day one, I hit 2252 words by the end of the day. I kind of wish I had more, but I was doing a lot that day, including visiting friends and such and we didn't make it home until about nine in the evening. And that's when I started writing. 
So 2252 words for this day.

Day 2

On day two, I hit a more respectable 4750 words. I had a bit more time to write this day, so I could focus better. And it actually came quite quickly, I knew where I was going with the story so I didn't slow down too much. 
A good day.

Day 3

On day three, I hit 4183 words. Again, more respectable, although I didn't write much in the evening and I probably could've done more. But eh, I'm happy with it. 

And all of these days added up to 11185 words over the three days. Which is more than I needed, technically, so I'm pretty happy with it. My aim for this month is to finish the novel I started -  which I've never done before, with NaNo. Normally I just hit the 50000 words then collapse into a pile of goo. But not this year! 

So I need more words each day in order to hit my goal. 

Why did I decide to do this, I hear you ask? Clearly, I felt that NaNoWriMo wasn't challenging enough, so I had to make it harder.

I have no regrets*.

*I lie, I have all the regrets.

Snippets!


So because I apparently have no shame and no sense of hiding my terrible first draft from public eyes...here, have some snippets!

Reinette Doesn't Have Normal Reactions



Reinette, please. Also, Reinette is so much fun to write from the point-of-view of. So much fun.

Barnabas Is A Nerd



Barnabas is also too much fun to write.

A Snippet I've Already Shared, So Here



Have I mentioned that I love writing these characters? Because I do. 

And that's my first few days of NaNoWriMo. I'd say it's going pretty well. Let's see how next week goes!

Are you doing NaNoWriMo? Where are you with your word count? Any interesting snippets? Put them down in the comments below.

Saturday 28 October 2017

October Wrap-Up

Hey look guys! It’s a New Thing™.

I’m actually pretty excited about this. So from now on, hopefully, I’m going to be doing wrap-up posts at the end of each month.

The basic layout for this is as follows: I’ll talk about different topics (e.g. music, books, tv) and my experiences in that topic over the month in question, then offer you a recommendation in that topic. I’ll also update you on my writing!
Is this just an excuse to flail about tv shows/music/books? Maybe.

And on we go!
Music

Honestly, this first one could count as either film or music, but it’s a musical so I’m putting it in music.
So back during September, I was sucked into the hole that is Newsies: The Broadway Musical and I have not yet escaped. I watched the Newsies film a few years ago and really enjoyed it. When I discovered via Tumblr that the stage adaption had been filmed and put on Amazon Video, well, I couldn’t just ignore that.
So I shot over to Amazon and bought it. I have no regrets.
I forgot just how much I loved this musical. It just makes me feel so warm and tingly inside. I feel so happy when I’m watching it.
Here. Watch the thing. You’ll get itCarrying the Banner




My song recommendations for this month are as follows:

Red Hands by Walk Off the Earth: It’s such a perfect song for a bunch of my characters? Morally complex characters. That’s what it fits.
Battle Scars (acoustic) by Paradise Fears: This is such a beautiful song. It’s perfect for the abundance of Found Families in my stories.
The Broken Ones by Dia Frampton: Once again, perfect found families song. I’ve been looking at these ones a lot for the Hezekiah crew playlist I’ve been compiling, so they’re heavily featured. Once again, a really beautiful song that I get really emotional about. I love it.

My artist commendation for this month is: Sleeping at Last

Very instrumental and calming, with lyrics in most of the songs but not all (also, I’m pretty sure there’s pure instrumental versions of even those). The most chill. Listen to Slow and Steady, Mars and Uneven Odds. They’re three of my favourites by him.

Films

I didn’t get massively into any films this month, so straight onto the recommendations!

This month’s is: Mad Max: Fury Road – which is a beautiful, powerful film that I adore. I watched it in April for the first time and I just love it. Be warned though, it is quite dark and violent and it is a 15. It’s not normally really graphic, but still, if you’re sensitive to that, it might not be a good idea.


It is very pretty.

TV

I mean, the obvious thing to talk about is The Great British Bake-off which came back on last month. And it’s amazing and way too intense for a show about baking.

I also watched Hetalia: Axis Powers for the first time this month and it’s pretty good. All the history jokes!

Other shows I watched this month include:

Voltron: Legendary Defender: I finally got onto Season 2! I know, I’m behind, shush. I love this. It’s funny and suspenseful and I love the characters so, so much.

The Adventures of Sir Lancelot: The one from way back in the fifties. It’s a mix of black-and-white and colour, but I love it either way. I love Arthurian legend and this is a great adaption. In some ways. Little lighter than most Arthurian legends.

And my monthly recommendation is:

Leverage: Leverage is this incredible, beautiful show about a group of criminals who form a team to help people and bring down corrupt corporations. It kind of starts out a bit dark and goes upwards into cheery comedy. They filmed an entire episode in the style of The Office, people. And it was hilarious.
And it centres around a found family and I am a total sucker for that particular trope.


I love these nerds.

Writing

I did a whole bunch of work on world-building for Asteria, which took a fair amount of time. And I’m not far off finishing the first draft. So that’s good!

I also came up with a new idea! It’s called Searcher currently, and it’s about a pair of brothers who are searching for their dead mother’s final heist. It’s nowhere near ready to write, still early in the planning/brewing process. I have characters, but even the plot’s not really figured out yet. Still, I’m excited.

I’ve been writing a collection of short stories for the backstories of the secondary main characters of Asteria – the rest of the Hezekiah crew specifically.  I started work on the last of them (out of ten stories, so I’ve already written nine) and I currently have four hundred words on it (out of an aimed two-thousand) and I’m pretty happy with how it’s turning out so far.

I chose my NaNoWriMo novel, Ghosts, Doughnuts and Other Related Things and planned out what I needed.

I posted three different posts this month:




Reading

I read As You Like It by Shakespeare, The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen as well as a few of the One Piece manga volumes this month.

I haven’t had too much time to read, since my last OU module started this month and I’ve been prioritising writing when I’m not working on that.

My recommendation for this month is:

Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor: I read this back in July and it blew me away. Beautifully written and just…amazing. One of my favourite books that I’ve ever read. Read it. Now.

Blogs

Paper Fury wrote 10 Reasons YA Books Should Mention Food. It’s really funny and actually pretty smart. I officially want to mention food more in my books now (which considering I mention food every other chapter basically might not be a good thing) I highly recommend any of her posts. Just go read her blog, people. She's also publishing a book next year! Which I am very excited for.

My blog recommendation this month is:


Feels Like Hope (Aimee Meester): Beautiful, often raw and pretty much always what I need to read at the time.

And that's all for this month! What did you think of this type of post? Do you want me to carry on doing it or is it completely stupid? Tell me down in the comments.

Know The Novel - Within Spooky Wild West

Hello, all. It's been a few weeks and I'm back again, with the second part of the Know the Novel linkup made by Christine Smith . If...