Sunday Six, July 15, 2012

Well, last week was even more of a challenge than the one before that. Things kept coming up that needed my attention, so I wasn't sure whether I'd be able to meet my goals.

Last week

1. Created several genre shelves so that I could add at least one to each book listed as "to read" on Goodreads. That way, if I'm in the mood to read something from a particular genre (horror, classic, etc.), I can just pull up the list for that shelf and make my choice. I resisted doing that at first but finally conceded that it's a useful thing to do.

2. Finished reading two books. I finally finished one that I'd started a while back. Before that, I read something else from start to finish; it was pretty short, though.

3. Posted a review of Wheat Belly. This is the one I had intended to post a week earlier but hadn't quite finished the final draft.

This week

1. Post on at least two blogs. I haven't been online much lately, so I'd like to start catching up.

2. Start reading a new book. I don't have any books in progress right now, which means it's time to choose another one and start reading.

3. Finish writing my latest book review.

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Do you read in a wide variety of genres, or do you tend to stick to a genre or two?

Sunday Six, July 8, 2012

Last week was a challenge. Despite some major time constraints, I did manage to accomplish a few things.

Last week

1. Finished reading The Scarlet Pimpernel, which I'd been meaning to read for years.

2. Wrote and posted a book review of The Scarlet Pimpernel. I actually intended to post a review of a different book, but I wanted to tweak it a bit, so I postponed that one.

3. Revived Diary of a Non-Person with a post about SnackWell's cookie cakes.

That means I did what I set out to do last week.

This week

1. Organize my "to read" shelf at Goodreads. It has almost 200 books right now, so I'd like to add a few genre shelves for classification purposes.

2. Finish reading a book. I'm hoping to finish the other book that I've been reading so that I can finally start another one (or two).

3. Post a book review. This will probably be the one I intended to post last week but replaced at the last minute.

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Do you have a long list of books you'd like to read?

Wrapping Up the A to Z Challenge

The Blogging From A to Z Challenge wrapped up on Monday, April 30. I took some much-needed downtime for about a week, but now it's time to reflect on how the challenge went for me.

This year, I entered three of my blogs, and each had a theme for the challenge:

Ellie's Blank Book (this blog) - things you'll find on Pinterest
Ellie's Couch - music videos
Help Michigan Pets - pets in urgent need of help

My Self-Imposed Rules

1. Post at all three blogs for every letter.

2. Stick to a naming format. I like looking at the sidebar and seeing the posts in (reverse) alphabetical order by the first letter of the title.

3. Write and post them on the day they're due. In other words, no writing or scheduling posts ahead of time.

4. Make-up posts are not allowed.

What Do I Have Against Doing Posts in Advance?

Absolutely nothing. As someone with three blogs in the challenge, I can certainly understand why it's a good idea. Nevertheless, I didn't do it, for two reasons.

1. It's more of a challenge to me if I write the posts on the days they're actually due. This isn't procrastination; it's just how I choose to challenge myself. For me, the challenge isn't just having a post for every letter of the Roman alphabet but also writing those posts on the days they're due. I do allow myself to research, take detailed notes, and write rough drafts in advance, but not the final posts.

2. For my pets blog, it wouldn't have been possible to write the posts very far in advance, since they were about specific pets in urgent need of adoption. Although some have been designated as "urgent" for a quite a while, others are constantly being added, and some are removed from the list (which we always hope is for happy reasons).

Results

I read an incredible number of fantastic posts. I got many new followers and followed quite a few new blogs myself, with more to come.

Even if I had entered just one blog, I would have had a hard time keeping up with return comments and visits. That's something I'll be working on now that the challenge is over.

Will I Do This Again?

I hope so, although probably with fewer blogs. I've already been thinking about possible themes. In fact, a few days into the challenge, I remembered that I'd chosen and started planning a completely different theme months ago. Oops!

Thanks

Thanks to Arlee Bird and the rest of the A to Z team for hosting the challenge.

I'd also like to thank everyone who visited, commented, and/or followed any of my blogs.

Writing

The popularity of writing has increased tremendously over the last few years, thanks to the internet. If you're a writer, you're sure to find support, advice, ideas, inspiration, and much more in the online writing community.

One place to find a large community of writers is Pinterest. Many of its members are writers who are interested in various types and aspects of writing. Because writing is such an important part of their lives, they often maintain writing-related pinboards that focus on one of the following:

- writing inspiration
- the writing life
- writing for specific genres
- writing tips
- grammar
- how to teach writing/composition

Here are just a few of the pinboards dedicated to writing:

Tiffany Brown - Inspiration for writing

Breebers T - Writing Necessities

Kathryn Barker - Write, write, write.....

Virginia Allain - Memoir Writing

Julie Schroeder - Writing

Annie Roland - The Art of Letter Writing

Stephanie Abney - Writing Tips

Sandy Thomason - Fantastic Writing Ideas

Dilly Ward - Write Right

Elisa Koranda - Grammar/Writing

Down to the Wire: Blogging from A to Z

If you're interested in joining in on this year's Blogging from A to Z Challenge but haven't signed up yet, there's still time. You'll have until Monday night (April 2).

Check Arlee Bird's latest post for a terrific last-minute check list to help you prepare. There's even a cool countdown clock on the right sidebar.

As for my own preparations, for the last few days, I've been devoting most of my online time to getting ready for the challenge. While I don't write the final drafts in advance, I do as much as I can beforehand.

As I previously announced, three of my blogs are participating. The info is here.

Have fun with the challenge, and I hope you enjoy my posts.

Vampires on TV

If there's a TV show about vampires, chances are very good that I've seen it. In fact, many of my all-time favorite shows were about vampires.

Here are my favorite TV vamps:

Caleb Morley (played by Michael Easton on Port Charles)

Damon Salvatore (played by Ian Somerhalder on The Vampire Diaries)

Spike (played by James Marsters on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel)

Recently, I started wondering which actors had portrayed Count Dracula, the most famous (or infamous) vampire of all time, on television. We all know that he's often been depicted in movies, but he's also been on TV plenty of times. Since I was curious about it, I decided to do a little research. Satisfying my curiosity was so time consuming that I figured I'd go ahead and write an article about my findings. I get paid for page views, so please feel free to check it out if you're also curious about TV Draculas.

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This post is part of Alphabe-Thursday.

Quotation Marks

While trying to decide on a topic for my first Alphabe-Thursday, I came up with a few possibilities. Then something interesting happened.

I came across The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks recently while trying to figure out why some people put quotation marks around the names of pets. The last paragraph of Marinka's comment is the reason it showed up in the search engine, and it's a good one.

All I can figure is that people who do this think it isn't the pet's real name. For example, Sir Barks-a-Lot of the Waggy Tail might be affectionately called "Waggy" or "Barkie," complete with quotation marks. I can understand this; I don't agree with it, but at least I understand it.

However, this theory breaks down when a pet already has a simple name, such as Jasper. Even if that's his whole name (other than the owner's last name), the same people who would use quotes for Sir Barks-a-Lot would also use them with Jasper.

Why use quotes with animals but not with people? If Ellie, Kenny, Angie, and Mike are pets, they'll often end up with quotation marks around their names. If they're people, that's unlikely to happen.

Blank Books

I've always been drawn to blank books--you know, the pretty journal-type books you see in bookstores. They come in a wide variety of colors and designs, and the ones intended for writing purposes usually have lined pages. I'm partial to the ones with fabric or cloth covers, which were the first ones I ever started buying. It was hard to choose just one, so I would think about possible uses and then buy at least two.

Blank books are good for many things. You can keep one as a type of diary or journal in which to write your thoughts as they come to you. You can have one to keep track of expenses, another for lists of books you have read or want to read, and another for article topics, to name just a few ideas. They're large enough to be useful but small enough to fit inside all but the smallest purses as well as tote bags, briefcases, backpacks, and diaper bags.

When trying to come up with a name for this blog, I rejected a few ideas before Ellie's Blank Book came to me. Thinking it over, it just seemed right.