Words Of Advice

Words Of Advice For 2012

A Cautionary Comic For Writers by Debbie Ohi

Debbie Ohi is super cool, knowledgeable and funny so I suggest you check out her blog Inkygirl if you haven't already.

I think that her comic makes a much better point than I can. We all say we will do more writing, that we'll make more time for it etc etc etc. But often we end up distracted. I kind of have to be online because of my job (writing copy for websites), because of this blog and because I write and review books so I like to keep informed about what's going on. But that's no excuse for the stupid amount of time I spend just refreshing Facebook and Twitter. I think that every single one of us could do with cutting back a little bit, even if you visit Facebook just one less time than usual that's a good few minutes extra that you could be writing!

Check your email and reply to any emails that are urgent but then try to stay offline until your work is done! Then once that's over you have lots of free time to Facebook, tweet, chat, email, read blogs and generally fritter away the hours on the internet to your hearts content.

My life pretty much revolves around the internet, and that's totally cool because everyone lives different. But we all need to strike a balance.

Also, go outside once in a while. Even if it's just to walk to a bookshop or the library and back.

So here are my words of advice for 2012: Write. Write more. Write lots. Write until you can't stand not writing. Write until it becomes a need, something you have to do. Write because you want to, because you love to, because you can't imagine a life where you're not writing. 

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day #12

My Book Of The Year!

This was a real toughy because there have been so many good books this year. I had to do a search through my GoodReads account to make sure I remembered all the books I read! According to that I have read 50 books this year, which was my goal! Although some were re-reads, that just goes to show how awesome those books are. It also shows just how many comics I read.

So, of all the books I have read this year...

*drumroll*

Molly's Book Of The Year is...

I really enjoyed Wolf Blood and out of the books published this year that I have read, it's definitely one of my favourites. I really hope that there is a second book because I wasn't ready for it to finish. I would recommend it to anyone who loves reading YA, especially if you like fantasy, Celts and snow.

You can read my review here at Mostly Reading YA. I gave it a 4/5!

I decided to only choose from books published this year, to narrow it down, and I haven't included comics because I'm guessing that most people who read my blog are into books.

Out of the rest of the books I read this year, regardless of publication date, and including comic/graphic novels, my favourite is:

I Kill Giants, possibly the best graphic novel I've ever read.

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day #11

2 Novels I Wrote In 2011

Image from: TJ Winnipeg

Well I finished my masters this year. In the final half of the year, from around February time to September 29th I was working on my manuscript. I finished the first draft in May, the second draft around July time and then most of the third draft was done by the end of September for our hand in. We had to write, edit and submit 40,000 words, we also had a personal tutor who read through the manuscript and talked to us about changes etc a few times. I think I met my tutor three times? Once was on Skype. Then this manuscript is marked by our tutor and a second marker, we got our marks back in October along with some feedback.

I got some lovely feedback from both my markers, but I was especially pleased when the second marker said she ended up forgetting that she was marking something and read it as a story!

So, once the masters was over I decided to pop my manuscript to one side for a while and let it stew while I finished off my second novel. Which is technically my first. I started it back in 2009 I think, during my second year at university but it was put to one side because of my masters. I wanted to start something new and I wasn't entirely sure where the plot was going. I finished my second novel for NaNoWriMo!

An extract from my first novel is appearing in the Bath Spa University MA Writing For Young People Anthology, which we decided to call "Writes of Passage" this year. I'll post a link to the website once I have it up and running and then you can nose around.

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day #10

3 Sequels I Can't Wait For In 2012

Image from: amyr_81

Hallowed

The Spook's Blood 

Once I catch up!

DOGS: Bullets and Carnage Volume 7

There's nothing out about it, but I've seen leaked scans around online so who knows.

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day #9

4 Books I Can't Believe I Still Haven't Read!

Image from: KieuvyNyuyen

Once upon a time, Hazel and Jack were best friends. They had been best friends since they were six, spending hot Minneapolis summers and cold Minneapolis winters together, dreaming of Hogwarts and Oz, superheroes and baseball. Now that they were eleven, it was weird for a boy and a girl to be best friends. But they couldn't help it - Hazel and Jack fit, in that way you only read about in books. And they didn't fit anywhere else. 

And then, one day, it was over. Jack just stopped talking to Hazel. And while her mom tried to tell her that this sometimes happens to boys and girls at this age, Hazel had read enough stories to know that it's never that simple. And it turns out, she was right. Jack's heart had been frozen, and he was taken into the woods by a woman dressed in white to live in a palace made of ice. Now, it's up to Hazel to venture into the woods after him. Hazel finds, however, that these woods are nothing like what she's read about, and the Jack that Hazel went in to save isn't the same Jack that will emerge. Or even the same Hazel. 

Inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen," Breadcrumbs is a story of the struggle to hold on, and the things we leave behind.

Kate, Michael, and Emma have been in one orphanage after another for the last ten years, passed along like lost baggage. 

Yet these unwanted children are more remarkable than they could possibly imagine. Ripped from their parents as babies, they are being protected from a horrible evil of devastating power, an evil they know nothing about. 

Until now. 

Before long, Kate, Michael, and Emma are on a journey to dangerous and secret corners of the world...a journey of allies and enemies, of magic and mayhem. And—if an ancient prophesy is correct—what they do can change history, and it is up to them to set things right.

A story of alchemy, family and an astonishing new creation, snow.

On a winter night so cold the fires freeze in the hearth, a mysterious guest appears at the door of Lettie's inn. He claims to be the greatest alchemist that ever lived and that he can change her life forever. But in a wild adventure across the five continents and the Occidental Ocean, Lettie discovers the true value of snow, friendship and family.

Have you ever had the feeling that you've lived another life? Been somewhere that has felt totally familiar, even though you've never been there before, or felt that you know someone well, even though you are meeting them for the first time? It happens. In 2073 on the remote and secretive island of Blessed, where rumour has it that no one ages and no children are born, a visiting journalist, Eric Seven, and a young local woman known as Merle are ritually slain. Their deaths echo a moment ten centuries before, when, in the dark of the moon, a king was slain, tragically torn from his queen. Their souls search to be reunited, and as mother and son, artist and child, forbidden lovers, victims of a vampire they come close to finding what they've lost. In a novel comprising seven parts, each influenced by a moon - the flower moon, the harvest moon, the hunter's moon, the blood moon - this is the story of Eric and Merle whose souls have been searching for each other since their untimely parting.

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day #7

6 Favourite Characters Of 2011

Image from: amyr_81

Tom from The Wardstone Chronicles is always a favourite of mine. He's also one of the few characters who has never irritated me at all!

Trista from Wolf Blood. She's strong, courageous and underneath her hard, warrior exterior she's very caring, even if she doesn't show it very much.

Pretty much everyone from The Meek but especially Pinter. I love his expressions and how surly he can be.

Barbara from I Kill Giants. I adore her. I love how she's very tough, sarcastic but very sensitive. I don't want to ruin the story too much through. Read it.

Rosa from Arcadia Awakens. At first I wasn't sure about her, she seemed very typical angsty teenage girl with her gothy clothing (lots of black and spiky boots) but the more you get to know about her past and her family the more you come to understand and love her. You come to realise that she is very clever and very strong, even when her problems seem insurmountable.

Badou from DOGS: Bullets and Carnage. I love most of the characters but there is something special about this chilled, funny and very lucky ginger haired guy who goes crazy when he runs out of cigarettes.

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day #6

7 Favourite Covers Of 2011

Image from: Anastasia Abramova

I love The Meek and I love the cover. It's so well done. It gives you a good feeling of the comic/graphic novel and also hints at just one of the many story-lines within it's pages. 

Gorgeous, just gorgeous and really sums up the feel of the book.

I wasn't sure about the cover at first because you see a lot of YA romance/fantasy books with the same kind of covers: hot girl in big dress. But I do actually really like the font, the feather, the trees, the colour and I just hope they continue the theme because I've seen another cover floating around for the second book that I do not approve of.

I haven't read it yet, and I've heard mixed reviews, but I do think that the cover is pretty gorgeous.

I love it. I love the cover and I love that it's continued through onto the inside.

I know that it took a while for Gill and the publishers to find a cover that they really liked and thought fit the book. I think it had a few versions, some Gill preferred more than others, but it was this one that won out. I think it's simple and I love the reflections in the osprey's eyes.

I just love the art style of DOGS: Bullets and Carnage. So I pretty much always love the covers.  Giovanni Rammsteiner is a bad-ass and this cover  shows that.

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day #5

8 Favourite Books Of 2011

Image from: syd delicious

This list made me realise that I read a lot of books and a lot of comics, and that some how comics always seem to connect with me more powerfully than most novels. Come on writers! Up your game and entice me with stories and characters as awesome as those in my favourite graphic novels! By the way, not all of these books were published in 2011 some are a little older but I only got around to reading them this year, most are parts of a series so do have a newer instalment that came out this year.

I keep thinking about this book. I need the sequel! My life will be incomplete without it!

Loved it, some small niggles but otherwise it's amazing. I'm not very fond of the cover though.

This was published in 2009 but I didn't get to read it until this year. Either way, read The Wardstone Chronicles because they are kick ass.

We own the limited boxset of Girly that was published on demand, so I can't show you the other covers. Girly is an awesome, very strange, very silly and not for kids comic. Expect sex and sillyness and lesbians.

Another comic. I read this one online but there is a book. It doesn't update very often and has been going for a while but read it. It's one of the few webcomics out there that have a really amazing art style and equally amazingly detailed world and story.

Another comic. Read it. Do not research it because you will spoil it. Read it and if you don't love it then, I'm sorry but we can't be friends.

This is not a book about vegetarianism. This is a book about a man finding out about where the meat on his table comes from, what happens to it during it's life, death and after wards, and also what happens to the people involved. I love this book because it is well written and truthful. Nothing is dressed up to sound better or worse than it is. You are not told what to think but presented with the facts and examples so you can make up your own mind. I don't see any reason for someone not to read this book.

This is my favourite manga series. It is an 18+ because it is violent. Seriously. But it's also full of fantastic characters that I love and I also love to hate. Plus most of the characters are super attractive which makes it easy on the eye. The actions scenes are really intense but this isn't your standard boys comic. Yes there's lots of guns and explosions and swearing and gangsters and all that, but the characters all have really interesting pasts and the storyline is deep, dark and drip fed to you. I don't want this series to ever end!

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day #4

9 Personal Achievements Of 2011

Image from: Amyr_81

Finished my masters in Writing for Young People, I am now a Master of Arts in Writing for Young People. How fancy! My mum's reaction was to tell me that I sound like a Harry Potter wizard.

Wrote and edited my first novel for my masters, which is currently just over 53K, 40K of which was submitted and marked.

Won NaNoWriMo and finished my second novel, which is just over 51K.

Moved in to our first proper house (not a one bed flat) like grown ups!

Got engaged to my fiancé on May 5th, which is also our 3 year anniversary.

Got my first paying writing job as a freelance copywriter.

Declared myself as self-employed.

Having our very first proper Christmas this year where neither of us are working and we have decorated the house, put up a BIG tree rather than a little one like the last few years and we are making my fiancé's Dad and Granny Christmas dinner! Luckily no one in the house eats meat so everyone is cool with a veggie Christmas.

I made this blog! Which I hope you all enjoy reading.

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day #2

11 Favourite Writing Blogs Of 2011

Image from: syd delicious

These are just some of the many blogs that I follow and love. I say 'writing blogs' because all of these people are writers in their own ways, whether they be blogging, reviewing or writing their own novels. They're all lovely and talented and deserve lots of love so check them out!

Laura Jane Cassidy (Author, writing, life and all sorts)

Writing from the Tub (Writer and reviewer)

Page Turners (Reviews)

The Crooked Shelf (Reviews)

Writer Unboxed (Writing)

Mostly Reading YA (who I review for)

Inkygirl (Writing)

Ravenous Reader (Reviews)

Wonderous Reads (Reviews)

Charade (Life, advice, fashion and everything inbetween)

Nose in a Book (Reviews and active promotion of book love)

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day #1

12 Writers I Read For The First Time In 2011

Image from: m for marvellous

Kai Meyer

N.M. Browne

Marcus Sedgwick

Adam Gidwitz

Michelle Paver

Geraldine McCaughrean 

Gill Lewis

Susan Pfeffer

Cynthia Hand

Vladimir Nabokov

Sally Nichols

Jenny Downham

Twelve Days of Christmas

In the run up to Christmas I thought it would be nice to do something fun! Rather than the usual updates you can look forward to the following:

13th December: 

12 Writers I Read For The First Time in 2011

14th December: 

11 Favourite Writing Blogs Of 2011

15th December: 

10 Authors I Saw In 2011

16th December: 

9 Personal Achievements Of 2011

17th December: 

8 Favourite Books Of 2011

18th December:

7 Favourite Covers Of 2011

19th December: 

6 Favourite Characters Of 2011

20th December: 

5 Events I Attended In 2011

21st December:

4 Books I Can't Believe I Still Haven't Read!

22nd December: 

3 Sequels I Can't Wait For In 2012

23rd December: 

2 Novels I Wrote In 2011

24th December: 

My Book Of The Year!

25th December Bonus