Let Go & Appreciate What's in Front of You

Literary Gems

Let go and appreciate what’s in front of you

What do you guys see in this amazing photograph? Does time travel come to your mind? Does it reflect something else other than what’s obvious? Well for me, it reflects a phenomenal that a majority of people go through time to time. Something that sometimes we get way in too deep that you forget to pay attention to what’s in front of you.

This photograph symbolizes so many things, but to me it’s a girl trying to get a hold of time. A girl who feels time is running out. She tries to stop time, get a hold of it, and pull it to make it go slower. But the harder she pulls, the faster it goes. She’s trying too hard to change its speed, but she’s also losing herself, she’s losing her focus and her dreams. She’s surrounding herself with the darkness that she’s slowly creating.  She’s focusing on the future, on the things that are not yet there, and forgot to focus on the present. Where everyone is surrounding her, where the light shines on. And that is something that many people suffer from.

We as people tend to focus on time, on our future that we forget to see who surrounds us, what we have now and who we are. We get too caught up on things that don’t matter, because at the end time will always go, no matter how hard we try to stop. No matter how hard we try to pull it, time will always go. But what we have to learn and understand is that even though time goes by, we have to focus on what is in front of us, on what we have and to never let ourselves go. We need to keep our focus, our goals, here in the present. Because the present is a present. The present is something we will not have tomorrow. The NOW is what we will only have now, not tomorrow or the day after that.

So, remember always focus on the NOW. We will never have the now that we have now.  Make the best of it. Don’t ever waste it. Don’t think way too ahead. JUST THINK OF THE NOW.

Writing your novel on a notebook VS. Typing it out

Literary Gems

Writing your novel on a notebook VS. Typing it out

Welcome back! Today’s post will be about whether or not to write your novel on a notebook or typing it out, but before I go into that, I have a few announcements! I will announce them at the end of this post, so make sure you stick around! *insert excited emoticon here*

Is it better to write your novel on a notebook or typing it out on your laptop? This question has been asked very often ever since technology got here. I, myself asked this question various times as well. Since, I’m the type of person that tries mostly everything especially when all I hear are a lot of pros and very little cons. I decided to try them out both. I already write all my outlines and novels out, but I decided to type out my current novel instead of writing it down like I used to.

Writing on a notebook has always been more efficient to many people, this means you get to take your notebook that contains your novel with you everywhere! That’s what we, as writers, need. We need to have our project with us at all times, because our ideas for our novels comes at unexpected times. Now, many people would ask, but what about laptops, you can take them with you all the time too? Well yeah, you can and it works for many other people, but for some people like me, it kind of tends to make us more of a procrastinator and not wanting to write, in this case type out your novel. Let me explain what I mean by mentioning the pros and cons of each.

Writing your novel in your notebook:

Pros

     You can take it everywhere with you without worrying about low battery.

     You make an error, no problem. Just scratch it out and continue writing.

     When you’re reviewing your novel, you get to see your errors easily since you have it on your notebook! Plus you can easily just fix the error!

     There’s no excuse you could make as to why not to write.

     You could go back and revise all you want without having to worry about your computer getting messed up, because you keep on turning it on and off. Just because you keep forgetting something when you had it on.

Cons

Ø  You will make a huge mess with editing and going over it

Ø  You could ran out of paper (the worst thing it could happen especially when you’re at some place where you can’t get paper just like a doctor’s office or the waiting room!)

Ø  You will have to make the double work of having to type it out later after you’re done.

Typing out your novel in your laptop

Pros

     You don’t have to do the double work of typing it out after you’re done!

     You take it with you as well

     You can easily print out your manuscript

     You could put notes as well

     You could still do what you do on a notebook (highlight, edit, etc.)

Cons

Ø Battery runs low when you most need it

Ø Sometimes you can’t take it everywhere (depending on the place you’re going to)

Ø For some people, it only creates them to be a procrastinator (like me! *insert annoyed emoticon*

Ø Even if you have the charger to charge your laptop there’s no outlet to do so!

I love writing on my notebook! All of my novels are written down on them. You could see clearly my errors and my corrections. I would carry my notebooks everywhere I go. No exceptions. Every time I felt like writing, I had my notebook there with me, so I’ll just have to pick it up and write. That simple. But like I mention earlier, I like trying out new things, especially when there’s so much positive reviews and opinions about it. So, when I kept hearing writers typing out their novels and how better and easier it is for them, I decided to give my current novel a chance to be typed out instead of written down on a notebook. And Oh My! It is convenient to type your whole novel out instead of writing it, because you don’t have to do the double work of typing it out later!

But, no! Typing out a novel is just a big N-O for me. It is very… I won’t say hard, because it isn’t hard. It simply wasn’t for me. Now every time I feel like writing, I think about excuses of why not to write. My excuses consist of and not limited to: ‘Oh, I have to go get my laptop and turn it on and get my USB blah, blah, blah.’ Or if I’m out of town and I have my laptop with me and my charger, ‘I know if I turn it on right now, I might not have enough time to type it all out, because I’m about to get to whatever place.’ Or I’m simply out of battery and there’s no damn connection to be able to plug it! As you could see all my excuses revolve around the laptop having some type of problem. And that makes me procrastinate a lot!

So the question was, is it better to write or type your novel out? My answer to you guys is simple, just give it a try and you’ll see if it’s for you or not. Like I said for some people it is for them, but for some like me it simply isn’t.

Comment down below if anyone else have experienced what I have with the typing your novel. Also, let me know what you guys like to use for you novels, either writing it down or typing it out? I would love to hear from you guys! J

Announcements!

I have now created a schedule for me! So continue reading and you’ll see what’s going on every day of the week!

v Every Monday I will be making a small post on Twitter, Facebook, and occasionally on here about inspiring things for writers and for my readers J so make sure you’re following me on all those sites! J I will be using the hashtag: #MotivationMonday

v Every Tuesday there will be a new blog post! So please do subscribe to my blog so you’ll get an email about them. J

v Every Wednesday I will updating you guys on my novels using the hashtag #LosingFaith or #RosieLee depending on what novel I’ll be talking about. (Twitter & Facebook)

v Every Thursday I will be tweeting about your questions and give out advice for writers and readers! So please do comment below questions or things you need help on and I’ll be definitely giving you advice to my best knowledge. For this, I will be using the hashtag: #HangoutThursday

v Every Friday I will be doing small challenges, word sprints, anything else you would want to do! I will be using the hashtag: #FunFriday This will not only be for writers, but for readers as well, so make sure you join in on all the fun!

v Every other Saturday & Sunday, I will be recommending books for readers that I’ve read before. Maybe do some sprinting with writers. But for the most part it’ll be about books, books and more books!

Two (2) Online Booksellers Review

Literary Gems

Two (2) Online Booksellers Review

Ah, I almost forgot about the small review I promised you guys last week! Okay, so I’ll be reviewing two online booksellers I came across like about last month. One would be thriftbooks.com and the other would be TheBookDepository.com.  I will be mentioning the pros and cons of each website. Let’s get started, shall we?

I will be talking about Thriftbooks.com first. I completely love thriftbooks! I love their love prices that range from $3.29 to about $12 for books that are used, but just came out. (I hope I’m making sense on that!) But let me tell you that’s very rare! You mostly see used books from $3.29 to $5/6.

So the pros to that website would be the low prices, you find almost any book you’re looking for plus every purchase you make end up counting as points that end up adding up to your account. As soon as you get to their limit of points you’ll get a coupon for whenever you purchase again! Isn’t that amazing!? Who doesn’t like low prices plus coupons? (I know I do!)

 Now the cons… honestly there isn’t any, but one! All the used books you buy from them are from public libraries. I wasn’t so fond on that, but their quality still is good, so it didn’t bother me at all.

Also, depending from where the book is located, it’s the amount of days it will take to get to your house. My books were located 8 hours away from where I live and took 3-4 days to get here. It would have taken a day or 2 less, but Independence Day kind of through that off.

Now we move on to the next website that I ordered a book from, TheBookDepository.com. I love this site completely. Their layout is very clean and you can easily find whatever you’re looking for, mostly. All the books you buy from them are brand new so, no one has ever read from that book before, but you. So if you really want brand new books then this would be your site. Now their prices aren’t as low as thriftbooks.com. Their prices are all over the place, honestly. I wouldn’t be able to give a certain price range, because it all depends on the book itself.

So the pros to this website would be that you could easily find the book that you want, the books are brand new, and they also have a section for clearance on books. Now the con to this website would be that the prices are not as low as you would like them to be, and that’s about it.

The arrival time to books from here would be about a week or two. Mine took a week and a day to get here.

I didn’t had any type of problems with any of these websites at all. They all came as they say. You could also track your order on both sites, almost forgot to mention that. I have no complaints about them. The quality is good for both them as well. I would definitely recommend both sites to you all! They are great and are very easy to use. I would give them both a 5 out of 5 stars!

Have you guys ever head from these two websites? If so, did you order from them? Any problems you might have encountered? If so, comment down below! I would love to hear from you guys! Also, if you guys have similar online booksellers please do comment down below! I would love to find more websites like these!

Book Review: Want To Go Private? By: Sarah Derer Littman

Literary Gems

It’s been over a week that I haven’t posted anything! So, for that I am sorry. I honestly have no good excuse as to why I haven’t blogged other than I’ve been so into the book Want to Go Private? By: Sarah Darer Littman. In which I will be giving you my review shortly.

Okay, so I ordered books online! It was extremely difficult having to wait for them to come here! But I’m glad they got here before I started losing it, completely. (You can’t blame me for loving books so much that I’ll end up going crazy, because they haven’t got here, right? Right?)

I ordered 4 books from Thriftbooks.com and a book from Bookdepository.com (I’ll end up making a short review of the two websites by next week!) The books that I ordered are at the very top!

I decided to read Want to Go Private? First, because it kind of called to me; don’t ask me how, because I honestly don’t know. It was just a feeling that I needed to read first. I guess I could call it a gut feeling. Sort of.

Book Review: Want To Go Private?

Genre: Young Adult

Theme/Subject: Internet Safety, Sexual Abuse, Running Away, Sexual Experiences

Sensitivity: Adult Content, Objectionable Language, Violence

Summary: Abby and Luke chat online. They've never met. But they are going to. Soon.
Abby is starting high school; it should be exciting, so why doesn't she care? Everyone tells her to "make an effort," but why can't she just be herself? Abby quickly feels like she's losing a grip on her once-happy life.

The only thing she cares about anymore is talking to Luke, a guy she met online, who understands. It feels dangerous and yet good to chat with Luke; he is her secret, and she's his. Then Luke asks her to meet him, and she does. But Luke isn't who he says he is. When Abby goes missing, everyone is left to put together the pieces. If they don't, they'll never see Abby again.

            First of all, I wanted to say I loved the book cover! It was what lured me in to get it in the first place. I know they say, “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” But I couldn’t help it and yeah I bought it. Do I regret buying it? No! This book kept me entertained from the very first page to the last! Want to Go Private? Literally, was the reason why I stopped writing and went to bed at 4/5 in the morning, forcefully. Yeah, I had to force myself to go to sleep without thinking, ‘what’s going to happen next!?’

            At the beginning of the book when Abby starts talking to Luke, you know what’s going to happen next, especially when they agree to meet. But once they do, oh boy! That’s when you begin to say that famous quote, “Just one more chapter…” That’s the part of the story when you just won’t be able to put the story down.

It took me a few days to finish this book and it made me realize so many things that people out there especial teens/parents don’t know about. Although, Want to Go Private? Talks about a topic that brings sadness and anger most of all, it still made me laugh and giggle in some dialogue that I came across such as this one:

The main reason why I loved this book so much was the fact that Sarah brought a topic that happens every day out there. Sarah really did an extraordinary job by bringing this topic in her book, Want to Go Private?

            I give this book 4.5 out of 5 stars, because I loved her writing so much, she talked about the topic very well, she made it sound very realistic and I loved that. Now the reason I don’t give her the 5 stars completely is or the reason that I knew Luke was a bad guy. It sold it out in the summary, so I was just waiting until they met so I could know exactly what was going to happen next. That’s when a lot of question began to pop up. It was because of that Want to Go Private? Receives 4.5 out of 5 stars; But overall, it was a great read.

Would I recommend this book? Hell to the yes!

Will anyone be reading this book this summer? If so, make sure to share your thoughts on it! If you already read this book, would you give it the same amount of stars? Did you have the same thoughts about it? Comment down below! I would love to read what you guys had in mind about this book.