Eek/Ook… I hit 6000 followers last week??? (and I’m kinda still in shock) Thank you all so much for following and sticking around!! It means so much to me!!
To celebrate, I thought it might be fun to do something a little different and react to your assumptions about me (like the videos on Youtube). Since I’ve been around a while (five years?!?!) I figure you might have some good ones! (well, good or utterly nerve-wracking depending on what people come up with 😉) Whoever wants to participate can leave a comment with their assumption and I’ll add it to a post 😀 And that’s it! You can let me have it! What are your assumptions about me? (she says internally quaking 😉)
I think you can probably imagine the squeals, but just in case, here’s an idea…..
I am absolutely chuffed that this happen and just want to say a MASSIVE *thank you* to all of you!!
So announcing a little something I’m calling:
(yes, yes I know historically speaking this would have been in December- but it’s not like the Romans can call me out for being culturally insensitive…)
So just for a bit of background, the Saturnalia was the winter solstice in Ancient Rome, and was typically a time of partying, gift giving and for everything going a little topsy turvy- masters became slaves and slaves became masters! Free speech and satire ruled the roost! (Whoop!!)
In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve already started with a little satire of my own… And because I love comedy, I thought I’d do a little contest to encourage you to all write and share *your* own comedy and satire. This can be something you’ve published before or something new- it’s upto you! And it can be written or cartoons (because I know there are some talented cartoonists out there on the blogosphere). All you have to do is link to this post or comment down below with a link to your post!
Prizes: The prize will be a book (or two, if you can manage it) worth upto £15 on Bookdepository for the best entry and being featured on this blog. If there are enough entrants there may be a second place prize.
Conditions: This contest will be open until 12:00 GMT on 3rd February 2017 and is open to any country that Book Depository ships to- the full list can be found here. Prizes cannot be shipped to PO Boxes. You have to be over 18 or have the permission of your parents to give me details such as your full name and address (none of which will be shared). The final decision will be made by me.
Annnd I think that’s all the legal shmeagle stuff. Hopefully it’ll be a bit of fun and I look forward to seeing your posts!
Right now I’m off travelling, so don’t panic if I don’t reply to your comments/posts, but there will be a couple of (hopefully) amusing little posts while I’m away- TTFN!
Hi all! So sorry I’ve been absent lately- as I mentioned in a post last week, I’m semi-but-not-properly doing Nanowrimo and *surprise surprise* it’s eating up most of my spare time.
But today I simply had to take a break from the madness to thank each and every one of you for helping me reach 800 FOLLOWERS!!! You have no idea how excited that makes me!!
Now if you’re been around a while you may have noticed I like to do little celebratory posts whenever I hit these milestones- but unfortunately with all the aforementioned madness, my brain’s been a little fried- so the things I came up with were somewhat questionable….
For instance- I thought I might try sticking blurbs through google translate and have you guess what they were- it didn’t exactly go well- see what you make of this gibberish:
What is the best Dickens humility and orphans trainee drink a dirty job, but do not dare to dream of being good. One day, he found himself in mysterious circumstances, and “We have high hopes.”
Then I thought of playing “Change a letter, ruin a book”– here are some of the ones I came up with:
Juden the Obscure
Court of Thorns and Noses
Gong Girl
99 Ways
City of Rashes
And my personal favourite… Fisty Falls
BUT in the end I just settled for saying:
Although you are most welcome to come up with your own book titles in the comments! (It’s not like there’s anything else going on in the world tonight…)
Happy October everyone! And boy was I pinching myself a little while ago when I hit 700 followers!! I was super, super chuffed about it- so thank you all!!! And since it was my birthday as well last week- I thought I’d do a quick GIVEAWAY to celebrate!
Now cos this book is so pretty *and* cos I wanna share some Pratchett love, I decided this lovely copy of Guards! Guards! would be my gift to one of you lucky readers!
Righty-ho- now that you’ve had a good chance to ogle the prize, you can enter the giveaway here:
The giveaway will run until midnight on the 7th October (GMT London local time) and I’ll notify the winner shortly after. It is open to anyone who lives in a country where bookdepository can deliver to
And that’s all for now! THANK YOU ALL FOR BEING SO AWESOME!!!
So last week something massive happened…. something I can’t even explain…. I reached 500 followers!
I am literally speechless! Thank you so much for being such awesome bananaholic, monkey brains and following this blog as I ramble on about books! I can’t tell you how ecstatic, excited and extraordinarily wonderstruck it makes me to have you all on board!
To celebrate I have decided to run a giveaway, where I will be giving away this gorgeous edition of Mort- the first Discworld book I ever read and the start of my long term Pratchett fanaticism.
Isn’t it so pretty? Obviously I’m trying to lure a few of you over to the darkside of Pratchett fandom with this delicious eye candy… but honestly even I’m getting book envy looking at this cos my copy isn’t nearly as nice! So if you’re burning to get your hands on this exquisite book, you can enter with rafflecopter here:
The giveaway will run until midnight on the 11th of June (GMT London local time) and I’ll announce the winner shortly after. It is open to anyone who lives in a country where bookdepository can deliver to 🙂
As I am going away with work next week this will probably be the last time I post for a while (*sobs*). Until then- ttfn! And good luck!
So this is super long overdue- but here is my Q&A post, as promised! Thank you all once again for helping me reach 400 followers!! You’re the best!!
How are you today? Also, what color are your favorite socks? (you never said the questions had to be relevant, haha!). Last one: are you a hug person?Donna @ Chocolate Waffles
I’m wonderful! My favourite socks are my Halloween ones, which are white and orange. And I am a hug person!! *hugs all round*
This could be a whole post on its own! I don’t know about being the editing Queen- but I am a weirdo who loves editing. This is my basic process, although every book is different so may do it slightly differently depending on the book:
Step 1: I usually iron out any structural changes first- making notes as I go and changing them when necessary. I know a lot of people are against editing as you go, but if you don’t do this and you leave something that should’ve been changed right away, you will regret it!
Step 2: Proof read. Then you can look out for more of those pesky changes you need to make in the structure. Also, this is a good time to look for grammatical errors- cos I am a grammar nazi and can’t cope with grammatical errors. And finally- the bit everyone hates- killing your babies- which basically means deleting all the unnecessary poncey bits that don’t work (though I don’t do this nearly as much as other people- cos I’m actually a fan of purple prose- sorry!) The best way to do this is to use Track Changes (which I learnt as a proof reader- I swear it has changed my life!)
Step 3: Lather, rinse, repeat- literally keep going over the manuscript until it feels right. It’s a good idea to leave it to rest between edits.
Other tips are: reading it aloud and printing it all out to basically deface it (although, as I said, I prefer defacing it on track changes)
Well my answer to this is usually Egypt- but right now I actually feel like going somewhere more European that I’ve never been to before, like Florence. I mean, doesn’t that look magical…
If you could go anywhere in the world where would you go and why?ViviHeartBooks
Okay, now I’m just gonna say Egypt, cos I’ve always been obsessed with ancient Egyptian culture!
That literally changes depending on what’s on TV and how many movies I have that I haven’t seen. Sometimes I go months without watching a single movie, and sometimes I go months without watching any TV. At the moment I’m obsessed with Homeland and Game of Thrones!
I always dream. Last night was particularly weird. I had a dream about a parrot and chocolate raisins. Basically, the parrot was trying to break in through the window cos my mum said it was angry about being kept as a pet. It was using a golf club to break the glass- which was odd cos it could’ve used its beak. And then the parrot disappeared and my mum gave us chocolate raisins. I could’ve stopped at the parrot and chocolate raisins- it wasn’t gonna get more normal… Moving on…
To eat a whole sachet of ketchup on its own- I achieved this goal and I am very proud of myself :p
Top 5 fave Discworld, (Or Terry Pratchett in general), characters? Combustible Reviews
These are all gonna be Discworld related and very unoriginal. In no particular order: Death, Captain Vimes, Vetinari, Carrot and Ook!! (That was so hard to narrow down!!)
If you could time travel who would you want to meet?The Daily AM
Well, after the last question, I’m gonna have to go with Terry Pratchett
And also which cartoon/anime character would you like to bring to life?The Daily AM
Dimitri from Anastasia cos I had a crush on him as a child and want to know if I’d like him in real life
If you could be any character from any book, which one would you wanna be? A Bibliophile’s Obsession
Probably also Smaug- cos I’m in a very Smaug-like mood- and because he’d offer the best protection as a best friend- nothing beats fire breathing dragon as an ally (I learnt that from Shrek).
Ok, don’t worry- I’m not gonna go with Smaug for this one! Even though he’s gay, it’s got to be Baz from Carry On
If you could make moderate to significant changes (plot, characters, setting, whatever) to a popular YA novel that ended up seriously disappointing you, which book would you choose, and how would you change it? Hey Ashers
That is such a hard question! I think the one that springs to mind is Thirteen Reasons Why, because I actually liked the idea behind that one, but felt like the author didn’t do it justice. I did a post about it here where I go into a lot more depth about what was wrong with it (which would be all the things I’d change).
What was the biggest bookish plot twist you have ever read?hashtaglovebooks
Ooh hard!! The one in Jude- that I’m not going to mention cos it’s too spoilery- but you’ll know what I mean if you’ve read it- that was scarring!!
What was the strangest movie or book you liked as a child? Jess’ Reading Nook
Fantasia and Bambi were my two favourite movies as a child- I used to sit and cry when I watched Bambi and then spin frantically round the room while watching Fantasia- I was an odd child.
If you could erase one embarrassing moment, which would it be? Being a Book Nerd
When I ranted about quorn for half an hour before someone told me that’s what was for dinner
Do you prefer a fork or a spoon? (I know some people who eat everything with spoons.)Zezee
I’m a monkey, I use my hands.
And what is your favourite colour and how would you react if you woke up one morning and can only see that colour?Zezee
That literally changes every day- but let’s go with orange, cos I’d find it funny if I woke up and everything was orange.
If you instantly won the lottery, what would be the first thing you would spend it on? Samer T
I’m torn between the totally sensible and the totally bizarre for this one- so I’m gonna try and combine the two. A dilapidated house – cos it’s always been my dream to restore an ancient property- I’ve watched way too much Grand Designs (and yes I have browsed the National Trust database cos I’m just that cool).
Ooh, and any blogging tips you could send my way!Samer T
I’ve already said have fun, so I’d suggest connecting with loads of other bloggers cos it makes the experience loads more fun!
What would your Thank You card say to Voldemort if he somehow made you look permanently identical to him?Sublime Reads
Hey Voldy….. Look up!
And then I’d punch him in the face. (Obviously I’d have to deliver it by hand for this to work)
And that’s a wrap! Hope you all enjoyed that as much as I did! I had a lot of fun answering all of your interesting, wacky and frankly absurd questions!
Ahh I had a wonderful surprise when I went online today and found out I had 400 followers!!!
How did that even happen? I totally did not see that coming!! Thanks a million times over to all of you wonderful people following me on here! You’ve absolutely made my day 😀
In celebration I’ve decided to do a spontaneous Q&A!
Ask me anything- about me, about metaphysical quandaries, about the world in general- anything! I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to give you terribly accurate answers to all of the above- but it’ll be entertaining to see what I come up with! Ask away in the comments below! I’ll answer every single one of them in my next post!
the orang-utan librarian 