Bye, Bye Blogger!

Moving day is finally here so it's bye, bye Blogger! I'm moving over to www.jjbonds.com/blog.


If you've been following in Blogger, you can now get my feed a few different ways:

1. Google Reader or add my feed to your favorites (www.jjbonds.com/feed).
2. Direct - Check out my new site!
3. Sign up to receive all new posts via email on the new site.

Follow My Book Blog Friday



Q.If you could have characters from a particular book meet and form an epic storyline with characters from a particular TV series, which would you choose and why?

I really had to think about this one, but eventually, it came to me. For me, it's go to be Buffy (The Vampire Slayer) meets Evie (Paranormalcy). Why? Both of these chicks are smart, sarcastic, well accessorized, and completely able to kick butt. Between Buffy's right hook and Evie's Tasey, the creatures of the night wouldn't stand a chance! Just imagine the fun they could have bagging and tagging?



NaNoWriMo

A fellow blogger/writer recently introduced me to NaNoWriMo and I’ve spent the last few days deciding whether I’m going to take the plunge. What is NaNoWriMo? NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. But it’s so much more than a time to celebrate the creation of literary prose-- It’s a challenge!

Write your own novel (50,000 words or more) in just one month. Starting at 12:01 am on November 1^st and ending at midnight on November 30^th aspiring authors all over the country will begin penning what might turn out to be the next great American novel. Or not.

Either way, it’s a big commitment and a daunting endeavor. Call me a skeptic, maybe even a coward, but the following (which was borrowed from the NaNoWriMo site), almost scared me off. Not because I think the logic is flawed, but because it’s counter to everything I know, and frankly I just don’t know if I have it in me to let go of my perfectionist nature and just write, write, write without a backward glance.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. This approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

I’d like to take a cavalier attitude and say, “How hard can it be?” But I know how hard it’s going to be, not just to write the words, but to find the time. Still, it sounds like fun. So, call me a Wrimo, I think I’m going to go for it.  Want to learn more? Check out http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/whatisnano

Any other Wrimos out there?

 

Bad Blogger (Who me?)

A few people have commented to me recently that my blog has been, well, less than active. (I'm pretty sure they mean absent, but friends have a way of putting things so nicely, don't they?). So what's been keeping me from posting? What could be so all consuming and important? Well, lots of things!

First and foremost, I'm excited to announce that my husband and I are expecting our first child! While the baby won't be here until March, it's been a little overwhelming and tiring. Silly me. I thought I could just do it all! However, I'm constantly reminded how much work blogging really is and I again commend the pros for their planning, dedication, and consistency. I'm working to be better and if I could just get a few more hours in a day, I'm sure I'd be successful, but I'm not giving up just yet. I still love to read and I still love to talk books.

I've also been working full steam ahead to finish my manuscript, Crossroads, the first book in the Crossroads Academy series, and prep it for publication. I've partnered with a wonderful designer and we are very close to not only introducing my blog makeover, but launching my website http://www.jjbonds.com/! I am so excited and can't wait to share her work with you all because it's awesome!

I hope to have my book published and the new site launched by Halloween. If you want to grab a sneak peak, check out my link on GoodReads!

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12732267-crossroads

In short, I know I've been a bad blogger, but I'll be working with renewed focus in the coming weeks to keep things fresh and up to date!

Review: Half-Blood

DESCRIPTION

The Hematoi descend from the unions of gods and mortals, and the children of two Hematoi-pure-bloods-have godlike powers. Children of Hematoi and mortals -well, not so much. Half-bloods only have two options: become trained Sentinels who hunt and kill daimons or become servants in the homes of the pures. Seventeen-year-old Alexandria would rather risk her life fighting than waste it scrubbing toilets, but she may end up slumming it anyway. There are several rules that students at the Covenant must follow. Alex has problems with them all, but especially rule #1: Relationships between pures and halfs are forbidden. Unfortunately, she's crushing hard on the totally hot pure-blood Aiden. But falling for Aiden isn't her biggest problem--staying alive long enough to graduate the Covenant and become a Sentinel is. If she fails in her duty, she faces a future worse than death or slavery: being turned into a daimon, and being hunted by Aiden. And that would kind of suck.

REVIEW

Jennifer L. Armentrout has done it again! Half-Blood was as action packed and juicy as its prequel, Daimon. Daimon whet my appetite and I couldn’t wait to learn more about Alex’s fate or the Hematoi world. And Half-Blood delivered. While it wasn’t a one-sit read, it might have been if I didn’t have such a hectic schedule. Armentrout’s modern day mythology is vastly different than anything else I’ve read and I thoroughly enjoyed the change of pace. Half-Blood provided a much more thorough understanding of the Hematoi world, introduced the reader to some new mythology, and expanded on the political and social structure of the Covenant. Most importantly, we finally learn why Alex left the safety of this secret society in the first place.

What I loved:

Alex reads like a real teenage girl. She’s emotional, hot-tempered, passionate, and sassy. It’s easy to identify with Alex and understand how her personal experiences have shaped her views and ultimately the way she responds to her environment. While there were several times I wanted to scream at her to keep her mouth shut and follow the rules, that just wouldn’t have been Alex. Her defiant attitude was part of what made her so endearing and despite her propensity for trouble, she had a big heart and good intentions. We also get to see a softer, more vulnerable side of Alex in Half-Blood. Not only does she have to deal with the loss of her mother, there’s the ever tumultuous world of young love which breeds insecurity in the best of us.

Half-Blood is action packed and moves swiftly. There is literally never a dull moment and I found myself not wanting to put this book down. Not only do we get to know Alex better in Half-Blood, we get to meet an entirely new cast of well-developed (and swoon-worthy) characters which were missing from Daimon.

My only hang up? The story was a little too predictable. Maybe because it followed a common formula. Maybe because I’ve read a lot of similar plot lines. Either way, I hope for a bit more mystery in Pure, Covenant #2, which is scheduled for release in April 2012. Bottom line, a fantastic novel -definitely recommended!

(FTC Disclosure: After reading Daimon, I was anxious to get my hands on the first official book in the Covenant series and downloaded it on my Kindle at my own expense.)

Follow Friday

Q. Do you have a favorite series that you read over and over again? Tell us a bit about it and why you keep on revisiting it?

 

For me it has to be the Janet Evanovich Stephanie Plum series. Although book 17 left me sorely disappointed, the early books were a riot. If I'm having a bad week or just need something light and frivolous to read, Evanovich delivers. With crazy characters (some of which vaguely resemble my own family) and outlandish misadventures, it's hard not to appeciate the series.

Another reread for me (as I suspect it is for many bloggers) is Harry Potter. I enjoy reading the books again before seeing the movies to refresh my memory and give myself a better basis of comparison! And while the movies are generally pretty true to the books, they'll never be a replacement!

Calling It Quits

I can't remember the last time I didn't finish a book. Maybe that's because it's never happened. To be fair, I'm not sure either way. If there was a book I didn't finish (and there probably was), it was so lackluster that I don't even remember it. So this week was a first of sorts for me. A friend lent me a book by an author whose previous works I did enjoy, and while the premise of the books was interesting, I only got about 1/3 of the way through before putting it down and saying enough.

Why couldn't I finish the book? For starters, it was depressing. I knew it was going to tug at my heart strings a little, but I was still expecting a little levity-- or something to offset the negativity. Another thing that kept me from really connecting with the story was the lack of actual action (and interaction). The main character was retelling the story so everything was colored by her perspective and left me unable to connect with the other characters in the book. I won't say it was a bad book. It just wasn't for me.

Sure, there's a part of me that is curious about the ending, but not curious enough to forge ahead. With piles of good books out there, I just don't have the energy to force myself to read to the end.  It makes me wonder though, how many readers drop a book without finishing and more so, how many finish books they wish they hadn't? I'm the kind of person who never wants to quit and generally feels obligated to finish anything that I start so this is kind of a new experience for me. (The good news is that there isn't exactly a librarian breathing down my neck waiting to slap my hands with a ruler for being a quitter!)

Maybe if I were to stick it out, I'd be pleasantly surprised, but as a writer I'm not sure I'd want a reader to keep going if they weren't really interested in the story. I can't imagine anything worse than getting to the end and disliking the book even more. (Yes. I think this might be worse than getting a DNF rating). And frankly, I'd want my readers to be in love (or least engaged in) the story. I'm a realist. There may be a reader for every book, but not every book is for all readers.