What's Up Wednesday! | 09/07/14

What's Up Wednesday is a weekly blog hop created by Jaime Morrow and Erin L. Funk as a way for writers and readers to stay in touch!

What I'm Reading

Sadly I haven't really done any reading this past week, so I'm still in the middle of Equal Rites, Deadline and The Tenderness of Wolves. I'm hoping I'll get the chance to finish one of them soon!

What I'm Writing

I'm still working away on my portfolio, which is the main reason I haven't really done any reading. I still have quite a lot of work to do, and I end up making myself feel guilty for not doing any work if I sit down and read for a bit.

What Inspires Me Right Now

Oddly enough I think knowing most of the other people on my course are stressing about their portfolios as well is making me feel better, and giving me a little more confidence. I think it's easy to convince yourself you're the only one going through something, and when you realise you're not it takes a real weight off your shoulders!

What Else I've Been Up To

On Saturday one of my friends was celebrating her birthday, so a group of us were invited to her house for a BBQ - it was my first BBQ of the year, and it was a really warm, sunny day so it was lovely. Plus I got to try some ginger wine which was very yummy. We spent the majority of the day playing Bullshit (I'd never played a card game before, so that was interesting) and Werewolf, which is sort of a more sophisticated version of Wink Murder. It was a really fun day, but thanks to the trains being ridiculous I didn't get home until midnight, despite leaving my friend's house at half past nine!

Other than that I've just been working on my portfolio, applying for jobs (wish me luck!) and organising a visit home. I'm off home on the 20th for two weeks just for a change of scenery - last year I managed to get all my coursework done at home by taking over the dining room table and setting myself a routine every day, so I'm hoping I can get a good chunk of my portfolio done while I'm there.

What's new with you?

What's Up Wednesday! | 02/07/14

What's Up Wednesday is a weekly blog hop run by Jaime Morrow and Erin L. Funk as a way for writers and readers to stay in touch!

What I'm Reading

I'm trying to get through as many witchy books as I can right now, so at the weekend I read Witch Hill by Marcus Sedgwick, which is a middle grade novella. It was a fun read, but I felt as though it could have been better. 

Then I came across an old, battered copy of Terry Pratchett's Equal Rites for just £1. I'm about a third of the way through it now and I'm really enjoying it - it's so much fun!

What I'm Writing

Progressing with my novel has had to stop for now, as I now have two months left to put together my 30,000 word MA portfolio. I have a few new scenes I need to write, but mostly I have a lot of rewriting to do. A lot.

What Inspires Me Right Now

It's been really warm and sunny here lately, and it's a lot easier to get out of bed when the sun is shining outside!

What Else I've Been Up To

Since last week I've seen The Fault in Our Stars and How To Train Your Dragon 2, and I enjoyed them both. It took me a while to convince myself to go and see TFiOS, and in the end I decided to see it because I was interested in seeing how it was adapted, and I think it was done well! However, I still can't help feeling a little put out that Shailene Woodley claimed in an interview that she isn't a feminist because she 'likes men'.

I just think it's sad when women who are in a position where other women, and young girls, will listen to them, decide to pull the whole 'anti-feminist' thing. There are people who claim to be feminists and basically ruin the name for everyone else, but the majority of feminists - myself included - just want to live in a world where women are considered as people, not objects, and where they're not blamed for being sexually harassed and made to feel guilty if they choose to have an abortion.

Anyway, there's my mini rant over!

How To Train Your Dragon 2 isn't officially released in England until July 11th, but for some reason there were showings on at my cinema last weekend so a friend of mine and I went to see it! I really enjoyed it; the animation and the music are gorgeous, and the story was great, too. I just wish I had a Toothless of my own!

What's new with you?

July Reads!

This month I gave myself a fairly ambitious TBR and then fell into a horrible reading slump, so next month I'm going to set myself less to read with the hope that that somehow helps me to read more. Reverse psychology's weird.

All three of the books on my TBR this month are books I'm already a substantial amount of the way through, and I want to finish them soon!

Deadline

by Mira Grant

Shaun Mason is a man without a mission. Not even running the news organization he built with his sister has the same urgency as it used to. Playing with dead things just doesn't seem as fun when you've lost as much as he has. 

But when a CDC researcher fakes her own death and appears on his doorstep with a ravenous pack of zombies in tow, Shaun has a newfound interest in life. Because she brings news-he may have put down the monster who attacked them, but the conspiracy is far from dead. 

Now, Shaun hits the road to find what truth can be found at the end of a shotgun.

Equal Rites

by Terry Pratchett

The last thing the wizard Drum Billet did, before Death laid a bony hand on his shoulder, was to pass on his staff of power to the eighth son of an eighth son. Unfortunately for his colleagues in the chauvinistic (not to say misogynistic) world of magic, he failed to check on the new-born baby's sex...

The Tenderness of Wolves

by Stef Penney

1867, Canada: as winter tightens its grip on the isolated settlement of Dove River, a man is brutally murdered and a 17-year old boy disappears. Tracks leaving the dead man's cabin head north towards the forest and the tundra beyond. In the wake of such violence, people are drawn to the township - journalists, Hudson's Bay Company men, trappers, traders - but do they want to solve the crime or exploit it? 

One-by-one the assembled searchers set out from Dove River, pursuing the tracks across a desolate landscape home only to wild animals, madmen and fugitives, variously seeking a murderer, a son, two sisters missing for 17 years, a Native American culture, and a fortune in stolen furs before the snows settle and cover the tracks of the past for good.

What are you planning to read in July?

J.