Geaux Tigers! And Sweet Bloggers...

It's official!!! LSU won the BCS Championship game tonight and the city is going nuts! I'm so happy for LSU, my dear alma mater. It couldn't have happened to a better group of guys and a better group of fans. Tiger stadium is like nothing you'll find anywhere else...the fans and the players are just electric and you can just feel the energy driving around Baton Rouge and it's all been transported down here to New Orleans this week! I went to school on LSU's campus in New Orleans for my Master's and after Katrina, we were transported to the Baton Rouge campus and during football season it was just incredible. I'm so proud of the team for winning tonight! Bourbon Street will be nuts tonight! We went down to the quarter for lunch yesterday and ended up turning around because we spent an hour just trying to find parking...and we were on the outskirts of the quarter which usually isn't too bad parking wise. Needless to say, I won't be braving it down there tonight :p

As for sweet bloggers, I got a package in the mail today and a card in the mail from two different bloggers! Both unexpected! The first was from Deslily. She sent me her copy of The Dragon Quintet which she just read not too long ago with a very sweet note. It has a short story by Orson Scott Card in it and she knew I'd enjoy it. Thank you so much, Pat :) You're taking care of me, I see, since I made a resolution not to buy books! (more on that in a second) The second thing was a card from Bookfool and inside were three beautiful homemade bookmarks with her photos which I love so much!! And one of them is a poppet pic :) Thanks Bookfool! They're already being put to use. You people are just too nice!!

So an update to the no buying books resolution. NO, I haven't bought any books! But I've decided that it's a totally unreasonable resolution. So here's a more reasonable one. There are books that I had already planned on buying. For instance...if a new book by Orson Scott Card or Neil Gaiman comes out, or a new book in a series I'm reading, I'll make an exception...but no more impulse buying and just shopping the shelves. I'm thinking maybe like 10 books for the whole year. Aside from that, I like Carl's idea of using the library more, and I'm going to do that. For challenge books that I don't have, I'm going to get them from the library! Sounds good. Proud of me Darla??? ;)

And another reminder that if you haven't signed up for the book giveaways for The Time Traveler's Wife and Wind Follower, go to The Catch Up Post and sign up!

We Have Some Winners!

The Saints and LSU both take home huge victories this weekend, which put a big smile on my face :) Now, if Manning takes home a victory for the Colts, I'll be one extremely happy camper. But I know there's something else that everyone else is interested in! The three book giveaways ended today and the winners have been chosen, so without further ado, here are the winners!

Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card goes to Booklogged!!! Congrats Booklogged! So glad you won this one. I think you'll love it!

American Gods goes to Susan! You're on a roll, huh? ;) Hope you enjoy this one, it's great!

And Scar Night goes to Kailana! This one couldn't have found a better home. I think this one's right up your alley Kailana. Wasn't for me, but I think you may enjoy it!

Send me your snail mail addresses and I'll get them right out to y'all. My email address is chrisa511@gmail.com. Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to everyone who participated. I really enjoyed reading everyone's favorite books and added a bunch more to my wishlist...like I needed that :p

No NaNo update today which actually puts me behind about 200 words, but I'll catch up tomorrow! Sundays are made for rest anyway...and for football and Family Guy :p

Giving Back *Sticky Post*

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So it seems that the gods are telling me that it's time to give back, time to keep karma balanced. I've won two books lately! The first was Marked by PC and Kristin Cast from Eva and the second was an ARC of Colleen Gleason's new book (not due until February 2008) The Bleeding Dusk! So I'm doing one of my favorite things to do, a book giveaway! But not just one, not just two, but three book giveaways! Here's the scoop:

I went to Borders tonight and picked up very nice trade paperback copies of my two favorite books. I figured it would be fun to share my favorite books with other people. All I ask is that in return you share two of your favorite books with me! That's the rules. In order to be entered for the drawing, tell me two of your favorite books in the comments. You can even write your own post about it if you'd like and post your link in the comments...it'll be fun to share our favorites with each other. I broke this into 3 separate giveaways because I figured some people may have one or two of these books already, so just let me know which titles you want to be entered for. Feel free to enter for all 3!The first book up for grabs is Orson Scott Card's Speaker For the Dead. This book is truly amazing and is my favorite book ever written. It's the sequel to Ender's Game, so you may want to read that one first, but you could read it as a stand alone...it'll work. This book won the Hugo and the Nebula and really defines what a great book is to me. Card created a completely new world with two alien races that co-mingled with the human race. Both alien races have amazing cultures and the traditions of the pequininos or "piggies" is just beautiful. Here's the great thing about Card: This book is sci-fi...definitely classified as sci-fi, but it will appeal to anyone. It's main aesthetic is based in the relationships of the characters and the book is deeply philisophical. This is really a beautiful book and I hope that whoever wins it finds a special place for it like I did!

The second book up for grabs ranks right up there with Speaker for the Dead. It's Neil Gaiman's American Gods. Words can't describe this book. It blew my mind the first time I read it and it still does each time I go back to it. Anyone who reads my blog knows my love for Gaiman. His writing is just wonderful and has a certain dark charm to it. American Gods is just one of those once in a lifetime perfect books where all the cards line up right. It's a modern dark urban fantasy set against the background of the sprawls of America as it becomes a battle ground between the ancient gods and the gods of modern society. And that's to put it VERY simply. Beautiful book.

The last book is definitely NOT a favorite of mine...in fact it's a total opposite, but well...I can't just throw a book away, now can I :p Scar Night... I wanted to like this book so bad. In fact, I've already bought the prequel, Lye Street, from Subterranean Press because of the Dave McKean cover. The premise of this book is really cool. There's a city suspended by chains, angels, heaven, hell, murder, magic...sounds great, right? I just can't get into it! I gave it like 5 nights worth of reading and only got about 140 pages into it. It'll be the first "did not finish" of the year. Amazon reviews are decent though so maybe someone else will like it. Please take it so it's not abandoned! As incentive to take this one, I'm including a little Lisa Snellings-Clark hand bookmark (the ones that come packaged with poppets).

So leave a comment with your two favorite books and let me know which of the three books you want to be entered for! If you don't own any of them, enter for all 3 drawings! Even if you do own it, it may make a great gift...so let the entering begin! Drawing will be next Sunday, November 4th at 12:00 Noon US Central time. Drawings open to everybody anywhere in the world :) Spread the word.

NaNo Day 3 And Last Call

I'm very whiny right now because the NaNoWriMo site is so frickin' slow! And now it's just completely gone down. All I want to do is update my word count :( It's amazing how much you actually strive for that word count by the way once you do this. It's fun to see that little blue bar rise a little bit higher :) I've officially gone up to 6,433 words on my third day. I'm happy with that. I've completed the prologue and 3 chapters so far, so tomorrow should see chapter 4.

For anyone who's considering doing this next year, I have to say...DO IT! It's so much more fun than what I thought it would be and I'm so glad that I stuck with it. I had envisioned this super stressful thing that I would end up dreading every day (and that may indeed happen), but as of now I'm loving this and I find myself craving my own story which is such a neat feeling. It's like my characters and story have taken over and I'm along for the ride. Every day, I sit at my computer thinking "ok, now what the hell am I going to write" and the story just goes. I love it! Now it's not great writing by any means, but the process is fascinating. I'm enjoying it.

I'm also finding where my weaknesses are which is great because I know where I can focus my energies on improving. For instance, I'm HORRIBLE at writing action scenes. I can't write suspense. I just can't do it as hard as I try. Now Bookfool can write suspense! She posted an excerpt on her profile which you can find by clicking on my writing buddies and I was blown away! I wish I could write a scene like that! But it's neat to see where you need improvement and now that I know I'll try to put a little more effort into that area.

In other news, there's only about 12 more hours until the drawing for the 3 books I'm giving away! So here's last call. You have until 12:00 noon Central time on 11/4 to get your comment in if you want to be in the draw for any of the books I'm giving away in the sticky post!

A Winner, Short Story Sunday, And Purple Poppets!

Let's take care of business first! It's time to pick a winner for the book giveaway for The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo. So without further ado, the winner is BECKY of Becky's Book Reviews (one of her many blogs ;). Becky's very cool and I'm happy to send this book her way. She's an Orson Scott Card fan, which automatically makes her one hip chick in my book! Send me the address you want the book sent to, Becky and I'll ship it out to you. My email is chrisa511 at gmail dot com.

I guess today officially kicked off the RIP Challenge for me with Short Story Sunday. I read the first two stories in the Wizards anthology which were Neil Gaiman's The Witch's Headstone and Garth Nix's Holly and Iron. Nix's story was a bit disappointing. It was a high fantasy story told in a short story format which was it's main problem. Pretty cool concept...2 kingdoms battling for a crown, one uses "holly" magic, the other uses "iron" magic, main character can use a bit of both, but the problem was that I really just didn't care about the characters. I think the story was just too big to fit into 30 pages. This story may have worked better as a novel. Two major characters died in the story, and you can tell that it was supposed to be an emotional scene, but it wasn't, because I as a reader wasn't attached...I may have been though if he would've introduced us to the characters a bit more. And I know that Nix is capable of doing this as I LOVED his Abhorsen trilogy. I'd like to see this story told in a longer format, I really think it has potential.

Gaiman's story on the hand was excellent! It's the story of a boy named Bod (short for Nobody) who lives in a graveyard and is raised by the spirits of those who have passed on. He meets the ghost of a witch who was buried in a potter's field with no headstone. Bod feels bad for the witch for not having a headstone and decides to leave the graveyard after finding an item that may be worth some money in the hopes of buying her one. This story is actually the first chapter of Gaiman's future book, The Graveyard Book, and I am super excited about this one now! The latest news from his blog was that he had begun typing it from the written draft...so progress is being made!

And finally, I predicted in a previous post that it was going to happen! If you let the red and blue poppets hang out together, well....purple poppets will eventually come along, and it seems that they have. Lisa Snellings-Clark has some very cool items up on eBay right now including Little Purple Poppets! I've already bought one for myself of course ;) There are 6 left as of this post, but I'm sure she'll post more if those sell out, so keep checking if you want one. They're quite cool!

*Sticky Post* 10,000 Visitors Book Giveaway!

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It seems like I just started this blog, though at the same time, it's quickly become a very familiar part of my life. My first blogger post was on January 3rd and since then, this blog has evolved into something that I never imagined it to be, but something that I'm very happy with. It's grown into a community of readers and friends and a celebration of things I love and enjoy and a place to ponder on life...a far cry from my old myspace blog.

What I never imagined was that 8 months later, my blog would have it's 10,000th visitor!! That's incredible. Thanks to the wonders of StatCounter, I found that the 10,000th hit came from a google search for "Tale of Despereaux Review". I thought that it was the perfect hit for this blog. Kate DiCamillo's The Tale of Despereaux sums up what this blog is about. To begin with, it's a book :p It's fantasy related, it's a wonderful, heartwarming story filled with adventure and memorable characters, and it's visually stunning. It's one of those books that's a joy just to hold in your hands. So I'm giving away a copy!

I really wanted to give away a hard back copy, but couldn't find one :( But the soft cover version is even wonderful with it's antiqued pages, wonderful illustrations, and the Newbery medal on the cover. Just leave a comment on this post and let me know that you want in on the drawing. Even if you already own a copy, feel free to enter...maybe there's someone else in your life that would enjoy it. While it was written for children, anyone will enjoy this book, I promise. I certainly did. You can read my review of it by clicking here. The drawing will be held on August 26th!! Spread the word!

A New Kind Of Challenge And A Winner!

Carl V. is hosting yet another wonderful idea for a challenge! This one is the 10:4 Challenge. Here’s the deal. This one’s not a book challenge. It’s a physical health challenge. The challenge is to lose 10 pounds in 4 months. What a great idea! Now I actually have someone to report to which will make me a little more disciplined and responsible in losing weight. I’ll finally put that gym membership to good use. So I’m in. I’ll lose the 10 pounds and hopefully more. The challenge goes from May 1^st (today) through September 1^st. The prize – feeling better about yourself! Can’t beat that. I have a friend, the author of Why Do I Need A Title?, who has lost near 100 pounds since August 2005 and totally turned her life around! So she’ll be my inspiration for this. So, starting weight – 195.8 lbs.

Brandon Mull’s new book comes out today. It’s the second in the Fablehaven series, a truly wonderful series. This one’s called Fablehaven: Rise of the Evening Star. I’m so excited about it! But due to a lack of money and reading time, I’m going to have to wait a couple of weeks L I highly recommend that any fantasy fan check out this series. You won’t be disappointed!

I got my book in the mail today from Bookfool and I love it! It’s The Tibetan Art of Positive Thinking and looks like something that’s right up my alley! Thanks Nancy :D

And finally, we have a winner for the Mirrormask giveaway! Congratulations to Deslily! I had never read Deslily’s blog before, but I’ve really been enjoying it. She seems to be a big fan of fantasy and a great person all around. Deslily, send me the address you want the book sent to and I’ll get it out to you ASAP. Hope you enjoy it. My email is chrisa511 at gmail dotcom.

*Sticky* I'm Thinking It's Time For A Giveaway

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Ok, so I have had EXCELLENT book karma recently as can be seen in the post under this one :) In addition to all of that, the lovely bookfool is sending me a book that didn't work for her and Carl was kind enough to replace my Lord of the Rings set with an extra that he had. You blog people rock! So, to keep the good book karma going, I've decided that I'm doing a book giveaway. Subterranean supplied me with that wonderful signed, numbered, limited edition of Mirrormask: The Illustrated Film Script yesterday. So now I have an extra copy lying around (the one I bought from the store which isn't as nice as the Subterranean edition but still beautiful!). It's the hardcover version with beautiful art work and film stills from Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean. Who wants it? Leave me a comment on this post and Tuesday night around 9:00 P.M. I'll draw a name from a list of people who leave a comment on this post. Good luck!

Migraines, Migraines Go Away

No migraine today, thank God, but I did go to the neurologist this morning to have the meds switched up a bit. I've been taking Amitryptiline for awhile now for migraines. It's an antidepressant that's also used to treat migraines. It hasn't been working too well, but it has helped with my depression...go figure. So I think I'm going to stay on that medication in addition to the new one. The new one she prescribed is Topamax...anyone else try this one? It's a seizure medication, but hopefully will work in the migraine prevention area as well. It's got some brutal side effects which I hope won't come my way, although I wouldn't complain about the weight loss ;) I've found that Relpax works really well in getting rid of headaches. It's just so damn expensive ($30 co-pay for 6 pills!), but it's worth it.

As for the rest of the day, school is on the menu. blah...I'm going early though so that I can stop by the bookstore and get a diploma frame for my Master's which will be in my possession on May 19th :D

What a boring post...

Don't forget to get your name in for the Mirrormask giveaway. I'm picking the name tomorrow night!

Lisa Snellings-Clark's Gallery Is Opening!

Just a quick little note to let everyone know that Lisa Snellings-Clark is reopening the gallery via eBay with Poppets and Rats galore. The gallery is officially open tomorrow, but Little Red Poppets are available now for only $9 a piece. I'll definitely be picking up a new friend :) This time around there are Alice in Wonderland poppets, Poppets with Masks, and Rats available! Good luck to everyone!

By the way, I've made the giveaway a sticky post...feel free to advertise on your blog for the book so that we can make this a proper competition ;)