2016 What I'm Reading Wedesday #4

For my ROW80 Wednesday Check-ins, I will be posting my progress on my reading goals.  

This week I am reading The Double Life of Fidel Castro.  I have just started, so I'm not sure what I think of it yet.  The book is written by a personal bodyguard of Fidel Castro.  I am interested to see if Fidel's double life really surprises me or is it is exactly what I expect.  

Anyway, my goal for this year is to read 32 books, so I set my January goal as reading 3 books to give me a good head start.  I have already read 4 books this month.  Yay!!  I am currently attaining my main goal!  I have yet to make progress on any of the series I want to complete or on my TBR list.  Oh well, I am enjoying the reading right now.

2016 Goal: 32 books
Books Read = 4/32
Books from TBR list: 0
Series completed: 0
2016 Pinterest Board

January
1.  Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
2.  Foreign Gods, Inc by Okey Ndibe
3.  Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy by Dinty W. Moore
4.  Thunder and Lightning by Natalie Goldberg

What are you reading this week?  How are your reading goals going?

Teaser Tuesday (January 26th)

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Here is my teaser:

"As soon as it came to a halt, our plane was immediately surrounded by twenty or so soldiers who mounted guard, rifles slung over their shoulders.  We were watching this spectacle from the windows of the plane when Fidel suddenly decided to disembark to enjoy an Irish coffee in the transit zone.  It was sheer bravado; for the Comandante, it was a way of saying that nothing could stop him from making an incursion into enemy territory --- on this occasion, that of Ireland, next door to British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, an indefatigable ally of Ronald Reagan."
-The Double Life of Fidel Castro: My 17 Years as Personal Bodyguard to el Líder Máximo
by Juan Reinaldo Sánchez with Axel Glydén (p. 130-131)

Have you ever read this book?  What did you think?

Weekly Wrap-up (January 24, 2016)

Blog Posts
Top 10 books I recently added to my TBR
What I'm Reading Wednesday
I was supposed to blog a Stuck in my Head post also, but had some technical difficulties.  It will be posted as soon as I can figure it out.

What I read
I have had a lot of reading time recently. I finished two books this week: Dear Essay Writer Guy by Dinty W. Moore and Thunder and Lightning by Natalie Golodberg.  After reading two books on writing, I am inspired.  I even managed to use that inspiration to write a little this week.  Now to keep up the momentum.

Next on my list is a book by Fidel Castro's personal bodyguard.  I am very excited to get started.

Interesting Stuff I Found on the Internet
I have been researching bullet journals a lot this week and started my own version to see if it works for me.  I want a place to keep my to do lists, track my food and certain habits I want to maintain.  

Fiction Writing
This week, I wrote one day.  I started working on a personal essay and got 190 words down on paper before getting interrupted or distracted.  I know it's not technically fiction but I want to track all my writing.

Editing
No editing this week, although I did think about it a lot :)

How did your week go?

2016 What I'm Reading Wednesday #3

For my ROW80 Wednesday Check-ins, I will be posting my progress on my reading goals.  

This week I started reading Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy by Dinty W. Moore.

 I am enjoying it so far.

2016 Goal: 32 books
Books Read = 2/32
Books from TBR list: 0
Series completed: 0
2016 Pinterest Board

January
1.  Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
2.  Foreign Gods, Inc by Okey Ndibe

What are you reading this week?

Top Ten Books I Recently Added to my TBR List

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish.

I keep a TBR list on Pinterest and I am constantly adding books to it.  Here are the last 10 books and links that I added to the list.

1.  Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell - I love reading books about writing and aftger recently reading a blog post about this book, I had to add it to my TBR.  I am excited to read this book.

2.  Inked by Eric Smith - Tattoos that decide your destiny?  I am already hooked.

3.  Zia the Teenage Zombie and the Undead Diaries by Angela Scott - Who can resist a zombie dealing with all the drama of being a teenager?

4.  The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black - This book sounds like a fairy tale.  I just want to curl up for a weekend and read it.

5.  Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell - I read Fangirl and loved it.  I can't wait to read another book by Rainbow Rowell and I have heard that this is a great one.

6.  The Unquiet by Mikaela Everett - A parallel Earth, people training to replace their duplicates?  You had me at sleeper-soldiers.

7.  12 Books for Fans of Gillian Flynn - Yeah, I want to read them all.  Oh, and also Sharp Objects; I haven't read that one yet.

8.  11 Books with Crazy Plot Twists - I have read 3 of the books on this list already, but I would like to read the others and I'd like to reread And Then There Were None.  I love Agatha Christie!

9.  11 Books that Scared Stephen King - Some of these books don't sound particularly scary, but they do sound interesting.

10.  Lifer by Beck Nicholas - Slavery, space, rebellion.  I'm ready!

2016 What I'm Reading Wednesday #2

For my ROW80 Wednesday Check-ins, I will be posting my progress on my reading goals.  

Sorry for the late post.  Not much reading happened in the past week.  I am still reading Foreign Gods, Inc.  It just started getting interesting, at only 39% complete.

2016 Goal: 32 books
Books Read = 1/32
Books from TBR list: 0
Series completed: 0
2016 Pinterest Board

January
1.  Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

What are you reading this week?

Teaser Tuesday (Jan. 12)

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Here is my teaser:

"They go to the stranger in droves-- gorging on the very air he fouls with lies.  Our noses have been rubbed in feces, but what are we to do?  When a goat enters a homestead and urinates as well as defecates, why, it's already too late to shoo it off." 

-Foreign Gods, Inc. by Okey Ndibe (Kindle edition, no page number)

Stuck in my Head: David Bowie

I am late with this post this week because I was not feeling inspired.  The only song I have had stuck in my head recently is the one I listen to multiple times at work as I play it for each of my classes.  Then today, inspiration struck me in the worst possible way.

David Bowie died.

And I knew that I just had to share some of my favorite Bowie songs.  

Under Pressure Queen featuring David Bowie

Space Oddity

Let's Dance

David Bowie, you will be missed.  Thanks for all the amazing music.

What's your favorite David Bowie song?

ROW80 Check-in (Round 1, Week 1 2016)

Time for a ROW80 check-in.  I am trucking along, working hard on my goals for the year.  

Here's my progress so far:  I have read one book and started a second.  There were five days this week that I didn't write or edit any fiction.  I was feeling really down; I was not meeting my goal.... but when I thought about it, I had written something almost every day, just not fiction.  So  I have modified my writing goal to include blog posts and journaling, basically all the different types of writing that I do in my spare time.  With the modification, I have only missed two days of writing so far this month.  That's not bad....  I am tracking the days that I do not write in an effort to better understand my habits.  Maybe there is a pattern that I am not seeing.

My goals and progress:
1.  Read 32 books (2-3 per month): 1/32
2.  Read books I have pinned on Pinterest
3.  Complete some book series that I have started
4.  Write or edit every day(including blog posts, journaling, fiction, etc.)
No writing days: Friday(1/8), Saturday(1/9)
5.  Complete first draft of DOVH and Mordred
6.  Edit first draft of ZF
7.  Complete at least one writing challenge
8.  Continue with my blogging schedule:  1 week/52 weeks

2016 What I'm Reading Wednesday #1

For my ROW80 Wednesday Check-ins, I will be posting my progress on my reading goals.

I am currently reading Foreign Gods, Inc. by Okey Ndibe.  I have heard nothing about this book, just happened upon it in my public library's digital library.  The synopsis sounds interesting.  We shall see.

Started a new book today #amreading

A photo posted by Lisa (@lalocadesigns) on Jan 4, 2016 at 8:18pm PST

2016 Goal: 32 books
Books Read = 1/32
Books from TBR list: 0
Series completed: 0
2016 Pinterest Board

January
1.  Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

New Year's Goals 2016

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish.

This week's topic is Top Ten Resolutions for 2016

A new year deserves some new goals, although I only have 8 reading and writing related goals.  These will also be my ROW80 goals.  So here we go....

Reading Goals

1.  Read 32 books (2-3 per month)
Last year my goal was 30 and I managed to read 35, so I am upping the goal a little this year.  32 books should be manageable.

2.  Read books I have pinned on Pinterest
I have a board on Pinterest chock-full of books I want to read, my TBR list if you will.  Last year I only read 3 books from that board.  Why am I collecting a list of books if I am not trying to read them?  It's just plain silly.  So this year, I will read some books that I have pinned and, of course, I will continue pinning books.

3.  Complete some book series that I have started
I would like to finish reading Melissa de la Cruz's Blue Bloods and Witches of East End series, Michael Scott's Nicholas Flamel series, Deborah Harkness' Book of Life series.  I feel like there are more that I am forgetting right now.  I want to continue with Dean Koontz's Odd Thomas series, but I don't think I will finish this year.


Writing Goals

1.  Write or edit every day
I will not set a word count goal this year although I might keep track of my yearly word count, just for fun.  I think it will be easier to meet my goal if there is no word count/time goal attached.

2.  Complete first draft of DOVH and Mordred
Not much left to write in DOVH, a lot left in Mordred.  I want to keep plodding along and making progress.

3.  Edit first draft of ZF
I have never edited anything as big as ZF before, so this will involve reading and learning, both of which I love.  Win Win.

4.  Complete at least one writing challenge
I don't think I will attempt NaNo this year.  It never works out very well for me, by which I mean I usually write a few thousand words and then second guess where the plot is going and think a lot about writing the next part and then realize I am too far behind to ever catch up and then give up completely.  I would still like to try some kind of writing challenge, so if you have any suggestions, let me know.

5.  Continue with my blogging schedule
I have been following my schedule for a few weeks and want to continue with it.  It is working for me.  I will post Teaser or Top 10 Tuesday, What I am Reading Wednesday, a weekend Stuck in My Head post, and occasional book reviews.  I hope to also add some personal essays this year... maybe.

What are your reading and writing goals this year?

Stuck in My Head: 80's Memories

Last night my husband and I took a stroll down memory lane and listened to some songs we remembered from the 1980s.  Here is a sampling of what we listened to.....

Bananarama "Cruel Summer"

Nenah Cherry "Buffalo Stance"

Wee Papa Girl Rappers "Wee Rule"

What are some songs that remind you of your childhood?