26 Days Later - A Blogging Recap

26 days of daily posts. 2 guest posts. 1 tired blogger.

In case you hadn't noticed, my posts kinda deteriorated there at the end. Even now, my brain's not quite in the right mode for quality work. I definitely don't think I have it in me for daily posts. At least, not without having planned everything out beforehand.

Even if the posts didn't take much time to compose, the planning and anticipation of writing them definitely cut into my other blogging 'duties'. For example, I have at least 1200 unread blogs from the past few weeks, 2 unread ARCs which expire in just over a week, and one ARC which gets 'officially' released this next Tuesday! I'm planning a mini-marathon this weekend to catch up as much as I can.


Now that it's all said and done, I'm ready for a vacation. I don't plan on disappearing entirely—got an In-My-Mailbox coming together and book reviews planned for next week—but I probably won't be posting much not having to do with books. Then again, you might all prefer that. Who knows? Well, you do, of course.

Still, if there's a post or two you've missed, you can check them out by clicking the corresponding image above. Or, if you'd prefer, you can find them named on my Previous Ventures sidebar down and to the left. And, as always, if you have questions, complaints, or insights, please don't hesitate to comment below

This is Vicki, over and out.

B is for Boredom

Not that I could possibly be bored while writing this post, but you know we all get bored every once in a while. Boredom is just an inevitability, especially if you're out of school and unemployed. Sometimes there's just no one around, or it's the middle of the night and you're just not tired, yet your brain isn't sharp enough to sustain writing or blogging. So here is a list of my tried and true methods to beat boredom!

E-Mail ~ This never takes long for me. Even managing my multiple accounts only takes 10 minutes tops. Still, if I'm especially bored, I might try going through old messages and deleting/organizing them.

Facebook ~ Again, I usually don't spend very long on here. A quick skim of my homepage, then a glance at my profile is enough to satisfy me most of the time. But if I'm trying to beat a serious bout of boredom I might randomly poke someone, organize my Visual Bookshelf, or redo my Flair board. I've been known to spend hours at that.

Google Reader ~ What better (and more productive) way to beat boredom than to catch up on all the blogs I'm following? And if I've finished all my sorted blogs, I can go through my unsorted blogs and get them organized! Yay for organization.

YouTube ~ As everyone probably knows, it's far too easy to spend an eternity on YouTube, hopping around from video to related video. Watching the FailBlog series alone can take hours. Personally, I find the Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged videos, Potter Puppet Pals, and various videogame walkthroughs extremely entertaining. But there's so much out there, I'm sure anyone can easily find their own poison.

DeviantArt ~Sometimes I'm looking for something in particular, such as stock items for graphics. Sometimes I'm browsing for a good story. Either way, DeviantArt offers a pleasant distraction from one's boredom.

Diffindo ~ I may have mentioned it once or twice before, but I'm part of a Harry Potter Role-Play site. Each person creates an original character and places them inside the HP universe. We've recently gone through a bit of a reset, so everyone's starting fresh. And even if no one's on to interact with, there's always working on one's character profile.

Pokemon ~ Yes, I'm in my 20's and I still play Pokemon...What can I say? It appeals to my love of collecting as well as pandering to my ineptness with run/jump gameplay.

iTunes ~ I have a lot of music. A lot of it comes from CDs where I just import everything and go on my merry way, without ever listening to all the tracks! So, when I'm in a particular funk, I listen and rate what I have. I usually don't get very far, as my attention eventually shifts to what I'm doing in the foreground, but any progress makes me feel better.

Paint.NET ~ This Photoshop-like freeware program is practically my best friend when I'm bored. Whether I'm creating signatures for character profiles, floorplans for role-plays, or graphics for this blog, I can easily occupy myself for hours at a time.

Re-Organizing my Bookshelves ~ I've probably done this 3 times in the last couple months. As soon as I get a new book, my entire shelving system is thrown out of whack! Well, okay, it depends on the book and what shelf it goes on. Gotta have everything looking nice, after all.

TV ~ For the longest time I relied on my VCR to tape my weekly TV shows. Now I use a TiVo...and am I ever glad I switched (thank you, Dad)! My top shows include:

House, Bones, Castle, Fringe, Glee, Sanctuary
Leverage, Burn Notice
Rotten Tomatoes, Futurama, Family Guy, iCarly, American Idol

Or there's always popping in a movie...but that list is waaaay too long to type out. Maybe another day...

But of course, if all else fails, I can always read a book!

Some B Books I've Read:

A Breathtaking B Group:

The B Font:

A is for Alphabet Mania

So, this week I happened across a very interesting challenge: the Read Your Name challenge hosted by Phantom Inkheart. Pretty much, you come up with a name (your name, your blog's name, your character's name, etc.) and then you pledge to read a book for each letter of that name.

For example, if you chose the name Lady Gaga, you might read...

Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The ~ C.S. Lewis
Alanna: The First Adventure ~ Tamora Pierce
Dragon's Blood ~ Jane Yolen
Youth In Revolt ~ C.D. Payne
Golden Compass, The ~ Philip Pullman
Angels & Demons ~ Dan Brown
Graceling ~ Kristen Cashore
Alien Terror ~ Chris Archer

Or other books starting with those letters.

I've gone ahead and posted the challenge in my sidebar (down and to the right) and will be adding to it for the rest of the year. Sure, I've started relatively late, but I think I can still manage to read 18 more books before the year's out.

However, while I was skimming over my shelves and my TBR list, trying to decide what to read, a thought occurred to me: what about the other letters? Sure, I have a pretty good selection in my name, but what about P? Or R? And there are so many amazing S or C books, to only highlight one feels like a disservice.

Then there's the fact that I've been a bit erratic in my posting schedule. I've heard it's best to post daily, but so far I've not had enough motivation nor subject matter to do daily postings.

So, I thought to myself, why not make the alphabet a daily blog project? And, upon hearing no negative response, I've gone ahead and started! That's right, for the next 26 days I'll be posting a letter-coordinated topic. Some posts (I'm sure) will be more random than others, but each subject will start with the next letter of the alphabet.

Be assured that these will not be taking the place of any memes or reviews I write. After all, I'm also participating in a book review challenge, and I wouldn't want to stifle my reading/writing.

I'm really looking forward to this experience, it being my first attempt at posting every day. I think I have some fun topics planned, though some are coming easier than others... Tomorrow's for example, is eluding me thusfar. But no worries, I'll get something down.

Some A Books I've Read:

An Amazing A Group:

The A Font:

Aelfa