All Hallow's Read and Survey Results

I'm well-known for being a Halloween Scrooge, but this year Amy from My Friend Amy and Ana from Things Mean A Lot were inspired by Neil Gaiman's All Hallow's Read (giving someone a scary book on Halloween) to do a "spooky" book swap, and I was all in!



My "secret Satan" (har har) was Amy! Yay! She sent me The Ghost Writer by John Harwood (and another secret something that I haven't gotten yet, unfortunately), which looks really good. I can't wait to dig into it. Thank you, Amy! And thanks to Amy and Ana for hosting this great book swap.

As for NaNoWriMo, you might recall that on Sunday I asked you all to vote on what story you wanted me to write this month (see the post here). The survey is now closed and the winner is... SLEEPLESS IN PARIS! Thank you to everyone who voted and I hope the story lives up to your expectations. If you voted for one of the other stories, don't worry--I will get to them after NaNo. But for now I have about 8 hours to refresh my memory on 1920s Paris, so I'd best get started.

Enjoy Halloween!

TSS: NaNoWriMo, DNFs, Kindle Paperwhite

Hello, my bookish cabbages! Usually I do a "deep thoughts" post for Sundays, but there are a bunch of little things I want to mention this week, none of which have anything to do with the other, except as they pertain to this blog and my reading!

National Novel Writing Month

I'm participating in NaNoWriMo again this year. If you don't know what NaNoWriMo is, it's this super-fun thing where people try to write a 50k word novel (or more, if you're ambitious) in a single month. Last year was my first year participating, and I started writing with absolutely no idea where I was going. This year I have three stories plotted out, and I'm having a bit of trouble choosing between them, so I thought it would be fun to ask you all for help! If you would be kind enough to vote on the story you'd most like to see written, I'd really appreciate it. Just use the form embedded below or go to the survey's webpage. I've included blurbs for each of the stories in the survey.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

If history is anything to go by, I'm not going to be posting much during November because I'll be focusing on NaNo. Instead, I'm planning to cross-post some reviews from my other blogs here, and vice versa, once a week, plus new posts as I'm able to do them.

Reading

In book news, my reading has not been going at all well lately. I did manage to finish a book this week, but I nearly DNF'd it, and now I have NOTHING to say about it; or at least, what I do have to say seems very confused and my review is utter nonsense. All of my other last three books have been DNFs, too. I don't know if this has anything to do with my insomnia problems lately (it seems like changes in the seasons make it more and more difficult for me to sleep every year), but I end up reading very late at night and getting bored and annoyed. I mean, if I WANT to sleep, and I CAN'T sleep, the least I could be is entertained. BUT NO. The books I pick up are either really stupid or boring or I just don't care. That's probably the insomnia talking, of course, but it doesn't change how I feel about it.

So basically I've been watching a lot of movies.

Shiny Pigeon!



In other exciting news, I got a Kindle Paperwhite for my birthday (that was three weeks ago... slow shipping). Yay! I only got it yesterday and haven't even had a chance to read a book on it yet, but so far it's very cool. I love the cover and the ability to adjust the light, and the words are much sharper than on my keyboard kindle. The device is slow in processing highlights and typing, but at least the touch screen seems to be more accurate and sensitive than the Nook's touch screen. I'm kind of excited to use the glow screen during my next bout of insomnia!


That's the major news for this week. What's going on in your reading world?

TSS: Genre Ruminations and NaNoWriMo

Two of the biggest events in book blogging are behind us, BBAW and Dewey's Readathon; and while I had fun participating in both, I couldn't help but notice that both had a noticeable lack of romance bloggers. Only two romance blogs were shortlisted for Best Romance Blog during BBAW; and of the 249 participants in the Readathon, less than a handful were dedicated romance blogs (that I recognized, anyway). In other reading events and memes, romances seem to be taking a back seat, as well--FridayReads, for example, doesn't have a single romance blogger on staff and the closest thing to a romance novel I've seen on the "Best Read" list is Jane Eyre.

All of this would make one think romance was a small portion of the publishing market and that romance readers and book bloggers were a minuscule and inactive part of the community, but I think even people who don't read romance know that isn't true. Two of the most successful book blogs out there, Smart Bitches Trashy Books and Dear Author, are dedicated romance blogs; and some of the most prolific, well-read, and smart writers I know are romance bloggers.

Are romance bloggers being marginalized in the community, or are they just doing their own thing? I don't know, although I think it's probably a combination of both. If the bloggers running these events specialize in literary fiction or young adult, naturally the prizes and marketing for the event are going to be more prolific within those genres. But the main reason I'm concerned is because, among the more ridiculous things I worry about (aside from what job I'll be qualified for in our dystopian future) is if romance as a genre is dying.

Have you been to a bookstore lately? I admit I haven't because I don't have the monies; but the last time I was in one, it seemed like the romance section was taking a serious hit in shelf space. Even what was there wasn't necessarily romance, but YA and UF. Where haz all the romance gone? Are the sales all digital nowadays? Are people even capable of believe in romance anymore? I'm not sure I want to live in a world where truly romantic novels have to struggle to be noticed even among their own genre.

ANYWAY. I'll be the first to admit that although I still self-identify as a romance reader, I haven't been reading a lot of romance lately. Of what I have read, only a few in the past year have been "really like" books for me. This might have something to do with blogging--other books seem much more shiny when the people you know are also excited about them--but I don't think so. In 2008, I took a bunch of new releases I was really excited about with me on vacation. They included the new Mercy Thompson book, a Christina Dodd novel, and several other romances. On that vacation, my grandfather died and we wound up attending his funeral instead of doing any vacation things. When I got home, I put all those new releases on the shelf and I never finished a single one. I picked a few up and tried to read them but wound up DNF'ing them, and others I just gave up on and donated to the library. I also haven't pre-ordered a single new release since then.

That was really the start of my extended break-up with romances. It's not that I don't like them anymore or aren't interested in them, because I still do want to read romantic stories; and when I do go to the bookstore I buy a lot of romance. But once I have them here, on the shelf, I can't force myself to actually read them.

But the recent lack of romance representation within book blogging in general has inspired me. In the near future, I plan to read a lot more romances and do a lot more features about them here on my blog. I have several ideas in the works, so stay tuned for announcements pertaining to that in the future.



In other news, I plan on participating in National Novel Writing Month this year for the first time. Since I don't currently have a full-time job and aren't in school, I thought this was the perfect time to try something different. What this means for you, my lovely blog readers, is that I probably won't be posting very much this month. I will try to have at least one post a week (even if it's just Schnauzer Saturdays), but I will be focusing mainly on getting my 1600 words a day (cough cough cough) in. Don't worry, though, I'll be back in December with a vengeance!

Are you participating in NaNoWriMo or any other special projects in November?