Guest Post!

Today we have a guest post from Melissa! Trigger warnings for death and suicide. --

I am an avid reader. I don’t remember a time in my life where I didn’t have a book in my hand. Growing up, the library was my favorite place to be, and then when I managed to save some money, I traded the library for bookstores. To this day, I can’t walk past a bookstore without going in, looking at all the books I want to read, and wondering where my books (once I finish writing them!) would end up.

But throughout all the books that I’ve read, there are some that just stuck out and changed my life. Here are four of them:

Summer Biannual Bibliothon TBR

Hello! Today I am here with a readathon TBR! I am participating in a few readathons this month and the first one is the Summer Biannual Bibliothon which runs from 14^th July to 20^thJuly. This readathon comprises of optional reading challenges, video challenges and Instagram challenges. Here is my TBR for the reading challenges:

1.       Group book:

So the first challenge is to read the group book which is The Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw. This is a book that I was planning on reading at some point. In this book, three witches are said to come back every year and lure boys to die by drowning.

2.       Choose from someone else’s TBR:

The second challenge is to read a book from someone else’s TBR. I researched the TBRs of booktubers, book bloggers and bookstagrammers and decided to read Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire which is on Little Red Reader’s TBR. This is a short book that I have wanted to read for a while. This book series follows children who have come back from other worlds such as Narnia.

Lucy's Reading Diary: July 10th

Hi everyone! I absolutely love watching reading vlogs and I wondered if I could translate this to writing somehow. I came up with the idea of an ongoing blog diary, writing about my thoughts whilst reading and my progress. I hope that you like these posts!

I started reading Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton and I was really enjoying it. You can definitely tell that the author has a scientific background but I actually like the technical speak. It isn’t too overwhelming and as someone who enjoyed studying biology, it is a welcome return and it is about dinosaurs which I find interesting too! I won’t write too much about the book because I will be describing it in my review. I have been making slow progress. I find that when I start a book, I am really excited about it but if I don’t get too much time to read my excitement wanes and it takes me longer to read.

Yesterday I felt like reading but I didn’t want to read Jurassic Park. I thought of a few books that I would like to read and posted a poll on Twitter. I ended up picking up Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. I’m not very far into it but so far I really like it. It is a fast-paced mystery (although at the moment I feel like I have figured out the mystery but we’ll see). This book also has a scientific element but how heavy that is, I cannot yet say.

What are you currently reading?

The Fifty Bookish Questions Tag

I am really enjoying doing book tags so whilst I am making slow progress in my current read I thought I would do another one! Here is the fifty bookish questions tag:

1. What was the last book you read?
I’m currently reading Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. The last book I finished was Fairy Tail volume 1.

2. Was it a good one?
Yes.

3. What made it good?
Comedy, fantasy, magic.

Reviewing my 2018 So Far

Hi everyone! I saw some people discussing their goals so far this year and going forward and I thought I would do a little review post of my year so far and what I hope to accomplish in the future.

So in 2018, I started my blog! January 17^th to be precise so my blog is nearly six months old! I have done some temp work and I have been applying for jobs. My end goal is that I would love to be able to blog full-time. I love blogging so much and I really want to be able to do it as my career. In the meantime, I am going to be working part-time whilst I continue to blog so wish me luck!

I want to post more book reviews and after a reading slump, I am slowly getting back into reading. I am currently reading Jurassic Park and I am loving it so far.

The Opposites Book Tag

Today I am going to be doing another book tag! This one is called the opposites book tag:

First Book In Your Collection/ Last Book You Bought

I’m not sure what the first book in my collection is but I know that one of them is the first Harry Potter book.
The last book I bought was The Surface Breaks by Louise O’ Neill which is on my July TBR

.

A Cheap Book/ An Expensive Book

One of the cheapest books that I own is Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, that I found in a charity shop.
An expensive book that I own is any of the Harry Potter Illustrated Editions.

A Book with a Male Protagonist/ One with a Female Protagonist

Beautiful Creatures follows a male protagonist and at the time, that was something fairly new to me in the YA genre.
Let’s go with one of my recent favourites for a book with a female protagonist: Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder, you can read my reviews of the original trilogy here.

The Ups and Downs of Blogging

I was trying to think about what I wanted to talk about, what is going on with my life at the moment, what kind of issues am I facing? So I decided to talk about the ups and downs of blogging.

I absolutely love blogging, I have always loved writing and I get to talk about topics that are important to me. I get to speak to others who share the same issues and interests and there are so many lovely people out there! I get to work with companies that I am passionate about. I get to share my content with so many people and I get to hear the opinions of others.

There is just one thing I don’t like about blogging and that is the stress. For many of us, blogging is something that we enjoy so much that we would love to make a living from it. For a lot of us, there isn’t much other choice. Not that blogging is some sort of last resort but that in comparison to other jobs, we either can’t do them or struggle to do them because of health issues. When you find something that you love doing, it is natural to want to build a career doing it. And blogging isn’t, or shouldn’t be any different. However, with trying to earn from a blog, comes a lot of stress. Blogging is hard work, enjoyable work but hard. I can’t speak for everyone but I think that I spend beyond full-time hours on blogging, social media for my blog and talking to companies about my blog. We have to think about posting regularly on social media platforms (which I do enjoy) but we have to keep hoping that our followers will increase so that we can get more opportunities. We have to check social media regularly and keep up to date with comments. We have to go searching for companies and contacting them in the hopes that they will work with us. There are a lot of rejections and most companies don’t even reply. There’s not just that. A lot of us use affiliate links where we gain a commission if you shop through our links. No matter how many views you receive, the click-through rate is low and the buying rate even lower. So let’s look at this, bloggers can spend hours upon hours on their blog and related activities but receive very little return. It can take a really long time to grow social media accounts and blog reputation to receive more paid opportunities. The majority of opportunities that I have seen, are either receiving a free product in return for an honest review, free products are great but they are not going to pay the bills.

I hope that you do not take this post the wrong way. I love blogging and I will keep doing it. I just wanted to show people the negative spiral that bloggers can become stuck in on a daily basis. We love what we do and I doubt that there are many bloggers who exist purely to gain a lot of money because they would not last long. If you are thinking of blogging then please do it for the enjoyment and not for the sole idea of earning money.

I hope that any blogger who loves their content and would love to become a full-time blogger reaches that height and if you read blogs, please support bloggers, even just sharing their content on social media is a huge help and we really appreciate everything that you do. Thank you.

Mid-Year Book Freakout Tag 2018

Hi everyone! There are a few book tags that I have been wanting to do, so here is the Mid-Year Book Freakout Tag!

1. Best book you’ve read so far in 2018: 

Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder, an amazing read and I ended up reading the trilogy really quickly altogether!

2. Best sequel you've read so far in 2018:

I haven’t actually read very many sequels this year but I did enjoy Death Note Black Edition Volume 4, it made me want to read the next book straight away which is always a good sign!

3. New release you haven't read yet, but want to:

It’s not actually out yet but I really want to read Vengeful by V. E. Schwab, the sequel to Vicious. Vicious left on an interesting

4. Most anticipated release for the second half of the year:

The same answer as above.

5. Biggest disappointment:
Bookish Boyfriends. The concept was really interesting but I didn’t like how it was written.

6. Biggest surprise:

I was actually surprised with how much I have enjoyed contemporary romances, including The Dating Debate and The Rules of Rebellion.

Blog/Life Update

Hi everyone! I feel like I have a lot to tell you about so I wanted to do an update post!

Book Reveals

So for the past few weeks I have been sharing book reveals for upcoming books or re-releases and although I love supporting authors, I have decided to stop doing these. They take up a lot of time and I want to dedicate more time to my creative writing.

Creative Writing

I have wanted to be an author for a long time. I have tried finishing a book before and have yet to accomplish that but I want to keep trying! I was posting chapters on Wattpad but I decided to come off of there because I didn’t want to be thinking about how many views I was getting instead of the love for my story and working on finishing and improving it. I would also like to write more poems and short stories. I was trying to work out where to publish these and I think that I will submit to magazines and writing competitions but also post some of my work on my blog. I have a few creative writing books that I am working through at the moment (see my Instagram for the picture!). For a long time my writing motivation and inspiration disappeared and I feel that it is now starting to come back. I am hoping to stop it going away again! If you have any advice on how to prevent this let me know! I think that doing little writing exercises often might help.

Blog Posts

I haven’t been finishing many books lately but I recently had my birthday and I got some new books! I really want to get back into reading and posting book reviews because I love it so much. I am aiming to get into a routine which implements regular reading because I have been spending a lot of time on my blog and social media. I also want to post some small creative writing pieces and then just anything that I want to write about, such as mental health and writing.

Routine

I have an idea of a routine which includes working on my blog, writing, reading and then also playing games and possibly creating crafts and art. I have tried many different art forms in the past so I can never decide what to do! What kind of arts or crafts do you like?

I hope that you are all well and that you continue to enjoy my blog. Don’t forget you can follow me on Twitter, as well as Instagram too.

Your Mind Is A Muscle, So Create That Mental Strength Inside!

We all wish that from time to time we didn't have so much stress and anxiety

in our lives, that it could all just go away so we can finally relax. But instead, let's view it from another perspective. Instead of wishing this stress and anxiety would go away, can you think of how you can better cope with it? This is all about developing mental strength, rather than wishing everything away, which is a negative mindset. Developing mental strength is something we should all do, no matter how strong or weak we perceive ourselves to be. But how can you give your brain a workout needed to build this mental muscle?

Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone

Our comfort zone is that invisible barrier we hold between ourselves and the world. Getting out of this is something we all fear, but by gradually stepping outside of it, and feeling a sense of discomfort, we can get the sense that we've achieved something, as it's something we are afraid of. By doing one thing every day that makes you feel uncomfortable, or it's something you find immensely difficult, the feeling of self-satisfaction is unlike any other.

Change Your Perspective

We could easily play the victim in life. A negative mindset is a death sentence for a lot of us. We can let people push us over constantly in life, which means we constantly get injured, either physically or mentally, and we view this as the norm. Instead, we could get help after an injury, or we could look for the reasons why we view things the way we do. A negative mindset isn't something that can be changed overnight, but with the determination to change your interior monologue from self-effacing, or self-damaging comments, to more positive ones, the benefit can be felt in every aspect of your life.

Make Things Easier For You

It's not about overcoming every single obstacle if you want to be a success in life. You can change your surroundings so they benefit you better. For example, if you are prone to indulging in junk food, which in turn, has an effect on your health, simply remove the junk food from the cupboards! It's not just about working hard, it's about working smart. And by providing these little bits of help along the way, it is keeping you on track, and if this means reducing temptation, this isn't cheating! You wouldn't hang around with people in life who are bad for you, and it's exactly the same process when understanding what's good for your day to day living.

Building this mental strength requires determination, focus, and a desire to succeed. As a result, it's something that takes a lot of energy to maintain. But by working out your brain as you would work out your muscles, you develop resilience, and an ability to tackle the problem better next time. Your mind is like a muscle, and if you want it to function optimally, you have to put some stress on it.


This is a collaborative post and it may contain some affiliate links