Bruno Wants a Nose Horn

Alright guys, it's time to talk books. 

Publishing books in particular. Publishing one book in particular.

When I went to OsFest (Omaha Science Fiction Education Society's annual sci-fi convention), I met Nikita Rose Woltersen aka Nikita Dragonrose. This lady is amazing. She sculpts, she illustrates, and she's also obsessed with dragons. I bought some hair sticks from her with a dragon curled around the top of one and while she was showing me how to easily put my hair up with them within a few seconds (something I'd previously thought beyond my hair's capabilities) she showed me her new book. She's been working on a book called Bruno Wants a Nose Horn and it's an adorable book about a dragon names Bruno who was born without a nose horn and goes about searching to find one, getting into trouble along the way. She illustrated the book herself and has also made sculptures of the various dragons within the story. She hopes to expand the story after this first book gets published and to write more children's books starring the other characters in her series. For that to happen though, she's got to get this one published!

So if you have time out of your busy schedules (trust me, I hear ya!), check out her site at Dragonrose Designs to see her work. If you really want to support her, her Facebook site has the most recent updates for her book. 

She did a Kickstarter project earlier this summer to try to raise money for a hardcover publication, but it didn't reach full funding so she didn't get to keep any of the money. Publishing a book is actually a lot more expensive than you'd think, unless you can self-publish. Self-publishing works great, unless you want an audience other than those who know you already. Nikita Dragonrose travels to several conventions and such within the mid-west (as judged by the two that I've ran into her at and the schedule posted on her website) promoting her book and selling her dragon-related creations/wares. (Trust me, they are GORGEROUS!) This is a large step in getting a fan-base, but I really would like to see her get a larger following. So if you're out there and appreciate children's literature or at least books with dragons that learn valuable morals about loving themselves the way they are, I'd suggest looking up one of this lady's sites!

(She doesn't know I'm doing this, but I really wanted to see if I could try to get her a little more of an audience, and if we're really really lucky, maybe a donation? I don't want to push that too heavily on you though)

Don't Worry, It Gets Worse: One Twentysomething's (Mostly Failed) Attempts at Adulthood

This book started out as hilarious and ended up as touching. As a newly graduated college student, I found this book by Alida Nugent as a great find. I originally picked it out because I had just started my first job out of college and was feeling like I wasn't the right fit. Alida made me laugh with her as she was wallowing on her parents couch and not knowing where she was going to end up. I loved that she still kept acting like a college student who was coming home for vacation every time she visited her parents throughout the couple of years in the book. It was comforting knowing that some things change really slowly. That made me feel much better and as I kept reading, I was adapting to my new job.  I may be done reading it now, but as the last few chapters of the book aimed more towards being encouraging for the future rather than comedy, I remain hopeful. I'd recommend this book to any new graduate feeling a little unsure about their world at the present and who appreciates a good night of binge drinking.


Photo Google'd and taken from : http://powerhousearena.com/arena/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/9780452298187_Dont-Worry-It-Gets-Worse1.jpg

Storytime! I have a short story to share with ya'll!

Okay gang, I know I haven't posted an actual review in a while... Maybe I'll post for the couple of books that I've just finished reading for class. I'll work on something for them! In the meantime, remember that last post about the story that I was writing for a class and needed help on? Well here's the finished product!!!

Click to delve into the story via my LiveJournal account.


I hope you all like it, please leave a comment if you read it on here or on LiveJournal. I don't care if they're good or bad comments, but constructive criticism is always nice. Please keep in mind that this writing style is not very high on the Lexile range, it's just meant to be a humorous and slightly fictionalized account of what my April Fool's Day was like this year. I had to change some of it to make the story better or less dramatic, and others to protect names of people involved.

Nevertheless, I hope it provides enjoyment.

Strange Angels

After just finishing the third Strange Angels book by Lili St. Crow, I've decided I'm in love. The way she writes it keeps you drawn in and excited and it's the first in a month or so that I couldn't put down (besides Ghostgirl).

Dru is the main character and she's a kick-ass heroine. She doesn't really care about clothes or money, just about staying alive. She's kind of a tomboy and she can definetly kick some butt! She was raised mostly by her grandmother because her mother was killed while she was still a really little kid. Her grandmother and her share something called "the touch" where they can tell when danger is near and a few other things as well. Her grandmother taught her a lot about what you might call witchcraft. When her grandma dies, she goes to live with her father, who is always gone for periods of time to hunt creatures of the night such as vampires, ghosts, shapeshifters, what-have-you. That is just the background information.

The next parts involve zombies, dhampirs, werewolves, loup-garous (like a werewolf without all the bad side-effects, like the hair), evil vampires, dreamstealers, and more. I really wish I could tell you what happens in the first book because you would be hooked, but I want you to find out for yourselves how awesome this series is!

http://www.lilithsaintcrow.com/journal/the-books/strange-angels/

Ghostgirl, Ghostgirl: Homecoming, & Ghostgirl: Lovesick

Ghostgirl is such a cool book. Its about a girl who spends all summer trying to figure out how to finally be cool and popular and then the first day of school, she chokes on a gummybear and dies right when she finally is about to get to talk to Damen, the local hottie. And that's just the first couple chapters. Ghostgirl, Charlotte, has to go to DeadEd and figure out how to help the rest of her class advance on to whatever happens after they graduate from class.

Scarlet is my favorite girl ever. If I could be anyone from a book, I would be her. She's her own person. She has a huge love of music and can tell when the person recording it is actually having fun and loving the song versus just doing it to do it. She dresses kind of odd at first, but she makes it work for her. She starts out liking slightly baggy clothes and bright red lipstick and this becomes a signature for her, but she makes it work for her. She's just a really cool person that I don't even fully know how to explain how much I love her.

Petula is Scarlet's older sister. She is the most popular girl in school, she's trendy, she's tan, she's fake in many many ways, and she's "perfect". One of those girls. Her sidekicks are two blonds called The Wendys and while they're not very smart all of the time, Petula likes it that way. She knows that she can control them and to be popular, you need a loyal posse.

Damen is the main boy in the entire series. He's gorgeous, into music, and just looking for the right girl to love. He's the boy that Charlotte dies trying to talk to while she chokes on her gummybear and there is so much more I could say about him but it would give away what happens in the other books.

CLICK ON THE TITLE TO GO TO THE WEBSITE

The website is really fun because it has several games to mess around with, a guitar contest, and an audio reading of part of the story. I really recommend this as a twist for people who don't necessarily like Sci-Fi but want something different than your average high school story.

SAVE THE SCOTTISH WILDCAT!!!! + Book Series Recommendation - Confessions of Georgia Nicolson

SAVE THE SCOTTISH WILDCAT!
there are less then 400 pure bloods left! soo sad because they're amazingly cute & adorable!


http://www.scottishwildcats.co.uk/


http://www.scottishwildcats.co.uk/wildcat.html for a discription of them


Okay, now for the book recommendation (where this cause actually came from)


The Confessions of Georgia Nicolson series is fun for light reading and once you understand the lingo (for you Americans out there, its in British English and she just makes up a lot of words anyways so its actually fun to start using them in everyday life)

She's a girl just starting high school and having to deal with boys and maturosity and sophisticosity :P


1. Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging

2. On the Bright Side, I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God

3. Knocked Out by my Nunga-Nungas

4. Dancing in my Nuddy Pants

5. Away Laughing on a Fast Camel

6. Then He Ate My Boy Entrancers

7. Startled by His Furry Shorts

8. Love is a Many Trousered Thing

9. Stop in the Name of Pants

10. Are These My Basoomas I See Before Me?


(note: if you live outside of the U.S., the names will be slightly different)


Rating: Jr. High to teen level. While the titles say sex god and such, she doesn't actually engage in the act of it as the book is meant more to be light-hearted and funny so its more misadventures snogging boys and getting boyfriends and crazy things like the Viking Disco Inferno Dance and such... (a GREAT laugh btw, I urge you to try it)


http://www.georgianicolson.com/


seriously, I actually laugh out loud as I read these and have urges to share parts with people around me (usually my poor mother)

Book Recommendation - Rachel Caine's Morganville Vampire Series

1 Glass Houses
2 The Dead Girls Dance
3 Midnight Alley
4 Feast of Fools
5 Lord of Misrule
6 Carpe Corpus
7 Fade Out
8 Kiss of Death
9 Ghost Town - not out yet.

http://www.rachelcaine.com/page1/page1.html

Click on a book for the first chapter or so, and if you read all of them and just can't wait till the next (Kiss of Death JUST came out recently) than click the tab Free Fiction to see more stories (the ones marked MV are about this series....duh lol)

Fellow nerds, this is my favorite book series. Hands down. They're great for a quick, light read and the vampires are actually the scary ones that today's teen fiction has seems to have forgotten about. While in some cases they cooperate with the vampires, they don't forget to be wary of them and carry an extra stake at all times, just to be safe.

Book Reccommendations! this week - Melissa Marr's fey series

http://nerdfighters.ning.com/profiles/blogs/book-reccommendations-this

Hey, I'm a librarian at a public library in my hometown and a student worker at my college library. I think I'm going to start sharing with you different types of books that I think you may enjoy if you like certain other popular genres. At the moment, I specialize in Young Adult Fiction so I'm sorry if you like something completely different. Even if you do, keep checking back to see if there is something that you like. Or try something new, at least this won't kill you like cliff-diving could!
So for today I'm going to recommend the series of 4(+) books by Melissa Marr.
Wicked Lovely
Ink Exchange
Fragile Eternity
(soon to be released) Radiant Shadows

These books are about faeries set in the present mortal world, they are very beautifully written, and they feature tattoos, love, passion, danger, really dark-weird stuff, jealousy, greed, and a million other things that you should really check out!

If you really really super love them, I'll give you the link to Marr's secret social network for her fans. Its pretty freakin awesome if you can navigate it correctly and follow the rules. Also, Marr herself is on the site and answers questions the readers may have (beware, read through the old questions before just asking because chances are, it has already been posted and no one likes repeating themselves one million times.)