Easing Back Into the Routine

I’m alive, everyone!

First off, my sincerest apologies for leaving you all so unexpectedly and for so long. I was really swamped with finals and couldn’t bring myself to simply make off with a LazyPost every week. It didn’t feel right to put so little effort into the ol’ blog.

But school’s over and I’m back now and that means hopefully getting back into the swing of things. This post is just going to be a little update on what I’ve got planned over the summer. Next week I’ll hopefully have a short story for y’all, so I suppose that’ll be the start of me seriously blogging again.

I’m once again working on the Project, which is what I’ll refer to my book attempt as because I seriously lack even a decent working title. What I had when I last spoke of it proved to be yet another false start, though this time I’m keeping a lot more of the plot points from the previous draft than I have with my other attempts. I’m hoping that means I’m getting closer to the real story, the one I’ve been trying to uncover this entire time, the one that needs telling.

What’s different from my previous drafts is that this time I’m actually writing an outline first. I decided that the reason I keep writing and writing and ultimately coming to a dead end is because most of the time I only have a vague idea of what I’m doing and where the story is going. There’s a lot of moving parts to my tale and an outline will help me keep them all straight.

Second order of business: the Eclectic Reader Challenge. Clearly the goal of a book each month has gone out the window, so I’ll be trying to finish as many books as possible over the summer. That means a bunch of reviews, which I generally don’t particularly enjoy writing, but I probably could use the practice. Right now I’m almost through The Catcher in the Rye, so I’ll be reviewing that shortly. Then, most likely, I’ll do Pride and Prejudice, and then get through the rest of the books in the sidebar there that I started and never finished.

Blog news: I’ve been given an award by the brilliant Kirsten, which I promise I’ll do a post on soon. I haven’t forgotten! That’ll come sometime in the next couple of weeks. Now that I’m blogging again, I’ll also be joining up with the Teens Can Write, Too! chain once more (kinda bummed that I missed out on this month, though, I love talking about covers).

I should probably tell you quickly about my high school’s summer reading books this year. The book that the entire school is reading is The Fault in Our Stars, thanks in part to my recommendation, and I’m super excited about it. Having been a nerdfighter for about eight months or so now, I absolutely love TFiOS and can’t wait for the student body to love it as well.

I have two other books to read as well, since I’m taking AP English next year: Dracula and a nonfiction called The Shallows, which is about how the Internet is affecting our minds and such. I’ve already read the former, which is a bit of a disappointment seeing as how now the only new book is a nonfiction, but I’m willing to give The Shallows a go. More on the summer reading will probably come in the future.

That’s how things stand for me in the literary world. I look forward to joining the WordPress community once more.

Happy reading.

LazyPost: John Green in Amsterdam

Readers, it is once again time to implement the LazyPost, in which I post something quick, easy, and not necessarily related to books because I’m busy with other things.

This is a video of John Green doing a talk-type-thingy in Amsterdam recently for The Fault in Our Stars.

Yes, I am still obsessed with the book.  Readers who have been with me for a while will know that I used to constantly nag them to read The Hunger Games if they didn’t already.  Well, now I’m nagging you to read TFiOS (which is what the title is often shortened to).

Please read TFiOS.

Okay, here’s the video, courtesy of Booksandquills on YouTube, who also did an awesome Dutch pronunciation guide video for the book.

WARNING: SPOILERS!

Happy Easter, and

Happy reading.

On Quotability

Some books are just really, really quotable.

You know the type.  A book that allows you to have a witty and obscure comeback for almost every conversation.  These books are different for all of us, but almost all of us have at least one.

Easily one of my favorite books now.

For me, it’s definitely The Fault in Our Stars.  I can’t talk about an action hero without at least thinking “You can’t kill Max Mayhem!“, and I find myself blurting the words, “WHAT IS THIS LIFE?!” if I’m surprised or if something good happens.  And there’s the ever-popular “I’m a big believer in metaphor, Hazel Grace,” when someone uses a metaphor.

Quotes don’t have to happen in conversation, either.  I know there’s been lots of instances where I’ve been with a friend who’s also read TFiOS (or another book) and we’ve just recited a few lines from a certain scene.

I don’t know what it is about certain books that make them ripe for the quoting, but I find it interesting to quote something and see if anyone gets it.  Of course, there’s the downside: if no one does understand it and the quote doesn’t quite fit the conversation (see above Max Mayhem reference), it looks a bit strange.

The life of a book nerd is hard sometimes.

There are other books that I like to quote as well.  For example, if someone makes a one-liner or a joke that fits, I’ll use Fred’s line from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: “With the whole wide world of ear-related humor before you, you go for holey?”  Come to think of it, the whole HP series has some good ones.

Naturally I don’t go around speaking in quotes all the time.  This is only if the opportunity arises and if I think of it in time, which admittedly does not happen often.  Most of the time, too, I only use these around someone I know who has read the book as well.  But I’m telling you, TFiOS really does have a lot of moments that have at least gotten me thinking about a quote during my everyday life.

Anyway, that’s what’s on my mind today, readers.  Do you have any books that you like to quote?  If so, which ones and which lines do you find yourself using?

And also this, which makes me feel ALL OF THE THINGS.

Happy reading.