I've got free stuff! And I'm giving it away too - generous or what? Crossposted from www.myfavouritebooks.blogspot.com .
Remember the pic I took of Cassandra Clare's new book?
I got to chat with the most amazingly helpful chap who listened to me witter on about books, Cassandra Clare, the site etc. and somewhere along the line he decided that the easiest way to shut me up was to send me whatever I wanted. So behold this morning I received bucket load of book related swagg!
We have taster copies of the following three books, all published by the amazing Walker Books:
- City of Ashes, by Cassandra Clare
- The Penalty, by Mal Peet
Please email me over at myfavouritebooksatblogspot@googlemail.co
I do have a limited amount of these to send out - so please note that it will be a first come, first served basis. But please, I don't want to not send these out, so even if you are in the outer reaches of Mongolia, I'm prepared to post them onto you for reading enjoyment.
- Location:work
- Mood:
accomplished
Fellows!
I have got the amazing Natasha Mostert doing an interview for me to celebrate the release of her newest paperback: Season of the Witch over at my site: www.myfavouritebooks.blogspot.com . I am also running a book giveaway as Bantam sent me two copies of this absolutely awesome book. If you scroll a little bit further down, on the main MFB site, the review of Season is also available to check out.
More calls and work interviews this week - hold thumbs!
- Location:dining room
- Mood:
accomplished
2,460 / 120,000 (2.1%) |
After last night's party at Cafe Royal on Regent Street we slept till twenty to twelve today! The latest I had ever slept. But then dancing nonstop like a complete lunatic does that to you.
We had a brief "breakfast" before pootling off to Coffee Republic for some fantastic Caffe Freezers where Mark played PSP games and I wrote. The result of which is copied above.
I've got a massive file on this story, having done loads of research in the past and it keeps growing as I find more and more bits to add to it. I really hope I get to stick with it this time around. I've written several starts to it in the past but never felt that it worked all that well. This one feels real and good.
Hurrah!
- Mood:
relieved
I was offered a role internally but turned it down - I am convinced the universe is kicking me up the butt to do something else with my life and that the internal role was not 100% me, not by a long shot.
I feel a brand new person after making this momentous decision. My last day at the office will be 16th July, after which I will either have a new job lined up in a permanent capacity OR I will have a temping job. Either way, I am positive. As Napoleon Dynamite kept on telling the world "you gotta have skills!" And I don't think I'm arrogant when I say that I do. Admittedly these are not nunchuck skillz but they are handy nonetheless!
Thanks for my best wishes earlier on this week to everyone. The market is pretty bad at present, but to be honest, the leaving the old job was not my decision in the first instance but I am working on making it a positive change!
I will keep my LJ Posse updated!
Liz
- Location:Office
- Mood:
pleased - Music:Office Noise
Jittering anxiously.
Interview lined up with publishing recruitment agency tomorrow.
Please hold thumbs they are going to love me and send me out to the perfect job for an interview where I will be even more loved and then offered a fabulous job which I will naturally take on the spot and tell the crummy property company I pretend to work for to take their their ... well, you get the idea.
I promise to bake scones and muffins for the person who gets the gods themselves to pull this off!
- Mood:
anxious - Music:gypsy kins
The amazing and talented kazdreamer has agreed to do a guest blog for me over at my site - www.myfavouritebooks.blogspot.com .
Kaz is a soon to be snapped-up author who writes YA urban fantasy novels. The blog should be up and live tomorrow - Wednesday - AND Kaz is also offering a competition and she's prepared to post the book she's offering to anywhere! in the world.
You would be daft not to pop over to go and see.
- Mood:
chipper
Dear LJ Friends
Many thanks - especially to all the very cool people over at Musemuggers - for your patience with me. I've not been writerly inspired for a little while now - I purely blame the looming exams as a reason and nothing else. However, after tomorrow, Tuesday, life will be back to normal. I will be able to read and review and write to my little heart's content without having to worry about assignments and exams. Hurrah!
So, thanks for bearing with me. I look forward to being creative again!
Liz x
- Mood:
anxious - Music:muse
The above is the name of my rapidly growing and expanding book review blogsite. I am seriously endeavouring to have it grow (organically) so if there are any authors out there who want their books reviewed, do get in touch! The website is: www.myfavouritebooks.blogspot.com .
I've got a few things lined up - a lot more books to review along with one or two competitions. The first one looks like it might be Lilith Saintcrow's new Jill Kismet book to be published officially here in the UK (buying them from Amazon.com does not count!). The others are in the process for consideration by one or two other publishers.
It is exciting stuff. I love reading and combining reading with reviews works really well for me - it forces me to make sure I keep ontop of what is coming out in the genres I like reading! Oh, and people skills. A lot of those need sharpening and smoothing out.
I am pleased to say my final legal assignment is now in - only one more building technology assignment to go .. and then the exams on the first of July. Needless to say, I am sort of breathless in a pained kind of way about this!
But then I will have the summer off to read, write and mooch about.
- Location:Lounge
- Mood:
ecstatic - Music:Muse

I can’t really begin to describe the strangeness of today.
I like writing, I like reading and today I have resolved quite a few things. Things like: never take friends for granted, they surprise you every five minutes; be positive about your own creativite work; the world is an amazing place, be grateful for your part in it (I know, chick moment) as it is constantly changing, giving you different views on things; realise that your small little life you lead is what you make of it and by allowing others to glimpse some of that internal, if sometimes bizarre dialogue, you are probably doing yourself a favour because they get to see the real you.
I spent the day working on an assignment, chatting to Jamie via email, arranging to bake a butterfly birthday cake for a 2 year old in May and pondering my own writings - the working title of which is Heart Of Darkness. I spent some time mucking about with two pages of it, wrote a bit more and then decided to print it off and hand it to a colleague at work to read. I used to be shy about writing - admitting it was like admitting that you were addicted to drugs or booze - a totally guilty secret. I’ve gotten over it and now happily (for me) I chat to people about it and like to get imput on ideas and such (unhappily for them). So we wait to hear what Carla has to say if she remembers to read it tonight.
Strange old dreamy emotional day. It feels like I’ve come to this momentous decision - but I’m not entirely sure what its about. I am sure the Muse will wollop me over the head with it when she deems it necessary.
Off I pootle to double check the old assignment.
Carry on!
- Location:Dining Room
- Mood:
accomplished - Music:David Jordan

I am absolutely thrilled to have met Holly Black land Tony DiTerlizzi last week at Waterstones. It was their last official stop in the UK and both her and Tony were in fine form.
I've not been to many author signings or presentations, but to me, they were consumate players. They played the audience, showing a slideshow of the Spiderwick movie and giving running commentary of "behind the scenes" happenings.
I was thrilled to have found out that Tony was a huge Arthur Rackham fan, which is just fine in my book (thank you Stuntman Mike) especially as I've been to one of the rare exhibitions of this Victorian artists' work. Tony drew some creatures from the Spiderwick Chronicles and Holly chatted about faeries, goblins, hobgoblins, the Sight and all interesting manner of things. Adults and kids were literally gawping at them and laughing, don't forget the laughing.
It was truly amazing. Naturally, there was the meeting and signing afterwards which turned out to be easier than I thought it would be. Purely because I managed to speak eloquently and not just giggle and repeat over and over saying: Holly, Holly. You're Holly Black. Yep, words are my weapon, ladies and gents!
I left, having spent an obscene amount of money on the day. But feeling fantastically smug and inspired to write. And be creative.
Now, for their next tour....
Beautifully written – real teenagers, real angst, in a surreal setting.
And she is also the author of the Spiderwick Chronicles that have been made into a movie of the same name.
Holly Black & Tony DiTerlizzi have wrought magic. I kid you not. And the real reason I am excited is – not because of the movie, which is naturally a HUGE deal – but because they are coming to London. To the Waterstones on Piccadilly. And I have tickets to go. They are free, for the asking – so I am praying to meet the two creative geniuses…who knows, it might rub off!? Oh, and the funniest thing is: the tickets are numbered and I’ve got tickets 1, 2 and 3.
Yes, I am an unabashed fan girl.
- Location:Work
- Mood:
ecstatic - Music:Office Noise In Background
Spent two absolutely lovely days in Paris earlier this week for my birthday with hubby. We had a blast. We walked the place flat, ate croissants, drank hot chocolate, said “minky” like Peter Sellers and scrambled all over the Louvre like insane people. Needless to say, I am stiff and sore from walking and walking and walking. And yes, photos. We took hundreds. We love the Louvre and it is, by my estimate, one of the better museums we’ve been to and we’ve been to quite a few across the country and world.
Everyone we met were unfailingly polite and kind. To the extent that when I managed to leave my mobile phone behind in my hotel room, our hotel owner insisted we come over to collect it and we could stay free of charge. They are sending it to us in the post – which I think is magic. If I had lost it here in the UK, it would have been stolen and calls would have been made to all and sundry in Eastern Europe.
I am pleased to say this coming weekend will see us do very little – no socialising, as such, just relaxing, going to gym and the library. I will also be knuckling down and starting on my legal studies coursework. I’ve started reading some of it, notably on the train this morning. I got some really filthy looks from the one guy next to me – he clearly thought I was a law student (or something like an attorney in training or sumat) and felt that I should be laid across the traintracks and driven over. I made sure he got off the train before I did, in case he decided to push me onto the tracks.
- Location:West End
- Mood:
artistic - Music:Office Background Noise
Pity the organisers were pretty useless, sitting there, not interacting, taking hordes of photos of the fluffy toys on the table - weird people. I would have assumed that as municipal liasons they had to work the room, maybe welcome people and get them to introduce themselves? Oh well, eventhough they were deathly miserable and socially inadequate, everyone else, once they got there, seem to cotton onto the fact that if they didn't create the vibe, it was not going to happen.
A few days to go. Nerves are fraught. Yah Nanowrimo!
- Music:Soundtrack to Elizabeth
I have to smile, reading what I've written for MuseMuggers and previously for my other writing group. I seem to have a refrain, a religious pattern running through my writing - and I pondered that and have come to the decision that it is just such incredibly rich grounds for storytelling, how could I not - the little pagan in the corner, who was once a believer - plunder these works of old and twist and turn them into something different, a wider perspective, a narrower perspective.
Now, I'm just waiting for the gorram muse to come back from her teabreak so I can write the piece for the next challenge on musemuggers.
Yawn. It's eleven at night. I wonder if anything will come of it.
- Mood:
pensive
- Mood:
contemplative
I recently joined / was invited to join musemuggers, an online writing community - thanks y'all! - and this past week was my very first chance to write for them. I did two pieces as the muse decided to leap out at me. So, here is the one tiddler I did.
Enjoy.
( Angels and Demons )
- Mood:
content - Music:Loreena McKennit
What I have also done is sit down and write something that I thought was going to turn into a little nonsense novella. But, the story is evolving and I am having so much fun with the characters and the situations, that this might turn into an impressive little keeper. I've had a look at some publisher and agents websites and here's hoping that once I've got around 70,000 words done, I can approach them and show off the work. Thanks to a very sweet friend, who is an editor and all round literary giant, I will be able to polish the MS before presenting it.
Exciting times.
- Mood:
contemplative

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