For those of you who may not have heard of NaNoWriMo before, it is 'National Novel Writing Month' and the aim is to write 50,000 words in the month of November. For more information check the website here.
Back in 2012 I attempted NaNoWriMo and it's safe to say it didn't exactly go to plan. I didn't even get a fifth of the way through the word goal and if I remember rightly my story was, to be quite honest, horrendous. While I wanted to attempted it the following year I was just too busy and I knew there was no point even trying it, as I did not physically have the time to write due to school being pretty hectic at the time.
But that leads us to this year, where I have a lot more time and have found friends who also thought it would be fun to attempt NaNoWriMo 2014 so after a few conversations about it and setting up a Facebook chat between the three of us, we have decided to do it and motivate each other. I think one of the issues I had back in 2012 is that no one knew I was doing it, meaning I had no one to motivate me when I was finding it difficult to write. I was so worried about not finishing it that I decided the best option was to not tell anyone I'd started it. This year I've decided that I'm not going to do that. While it would be annoying if I don't manage to finish it, that's not the point for me. I love to write, as you can probably tell my the fact I run four separate blogs, but I've never seriously attempted writing something as long as a novel, so this will be a very new experience for me!
If you're looking for a writing buddy, feel free to add me as one!
Have you done NaNoWriMo before? Are you attempting it this year? If you've got any tips for me leave them below! I have a feeling I'll need them!
As it's been a busy few weeks and I've not got much reading done, I don't have a book review for you today. I thought instead I'd do a different kind of post for a change and realised there are a few things you may not know about A Book And A Brew. So here we go! I present to you some fun facts you may not have known about A Book And A Brew!
1) If you comment on my blog, I will without a doubt check out your blog.
As I'm still at a stage where my blog is relatively small in the blogosphere I don't get many comments on what I post. This means I have the time to have a little nosey look at who is commenting on my blog and what their blog is like. Very often I will then proceed to follow them on bloglovin so if you want a new follower on there and think I'd like your blog, leave me a subtle comment some time! (Or just a very obvious one below telling me you think I'd like your blog and we should be friends either works)
2) This is not my only spot on the internet.
Something that may come as a bit of a surprise is that this is not my only blog. I have a few other ones such as my personal/lifestyle blog lucytregidon and my beauty blog itslucyslook. Some of you may wonder why I don't just throw everything in together on one blog but I've found as a reader of other blogs I am often far more interested in one style of post. I may enjoy someone's book reviews but not be quite so fond of their beauty posts. That's why I like to keep things separate, so people know where they stand with each blog! I'm also a musician and as such have a YouTube channel. I don't upload videos regularly (we're talking a few a year) but if you'd like to head over there and watch a few of my videos, leave me some feedback and maybe even subscribe while you're there you'd make me a very happy Luce.
3) I love the name of this blog more than you probably realise.
It's such a great feeling when you have an idea and instantly think it is a brilliant idea. It's even better when you do that and then still think months later that it's a brilliant idea. For a long time this blog was called thebeautyinwords.blogspot.co.uk but it never really sat right with me. It wasn't what I wanted my blog to represent and it didn't capture my writing style at all. That's when I thought of A Book And A Brew. I shared the idea with one of my best friends who was as excited as I was by it meaning it wasn't one of my ideas that only I find good (that does happen quite often) and I proceeded to change the url. Not only that, but I also created a google account (although 'abookandabrew' was taken so I had to miss the first 'a' off which was why my contact email is 'bookandabrew@gmail.com') and then later a twitter account.
4) The banner for this blog is more perfect than I could have ever hoped and I didn't even give my friend my ideas when I asked her to make it for me.
For those of you who aren't aware, my banner was made by my wonderfully talented friend Ishani. Knowing she was good at this sort of thing, I asked if she could consider making me a banner because I was really struggling. That was all I said and she got back to me very quickly with the design you can see at the top of the page. It was exactly what I had in mind and I feel like it encompasses the spirit of my blog so perfectly I will never be able to thank her enough.
5) I'm 17.
Those of you who pay attention to the side bar will already know this but I feel some of you may have accidentally over looked it. I am 17 meaning I am still in school and blogging has to be a secondary thing for me no matter how much I love it. You may have noticed that blog posts decrease dramatically during term time and although it is sometimes that I don't have enough time to write posts then, it's often that I don't have the time to read the things I want to review. I try to schedule posts so I keep uploading regularly although it's not always possible as I'm sure anyone in their last year of school will tell you!
So there we have it! 5 fun facts about A Book And A Brew! Let me know if you enjoy this kind of post. It's something a little different to the norm but I enjoyed writing it so I hope you enjoy reading it and I'd be happy to do more things similar in the future!
After seeing endless good reviews of this book, when I saw it was available on amazon kindle for £1.99 I decided to give it a shot. I went in to it not knowing anything about it because I'd heard it was best to go in blind and while I still agree that it is best to not know the plot, I didn't enjoy it as much as I was expecting to.
I had to convince myself to keep reading with this book which is usually not a good sign. If I hadn't heard so many good reviews I would've probably given up with it and that is something I very rarely do. I can see why people enjoy it as the good points raised are definitely things I can see, but I just did not enjoy it at all.
It would seem that this is a real marmite book: you'll either love it or you'll hate it. Unfortunately I didn't love it but that doesn't mean that you won't.
Have you read We Were Liars? What did you think of it? Did you love it or hate it?
