Apologies and Authors.

Lets start this post with an apology.

I've been a terrible blogger over here. I could blame Harry Potter and going through Post Potter Depression, but that'd be a lie. I could blame Comic-Con and all the AMAZING panels that I watched over the weekend instead of reading, but again, that'd be a lie. Okay, maybe they're not LIES, but they are excuses. So I'm sorry that I've been so terrible over here.

On the bright side, I revamped my TV Blog called The Weekly Enthusiast and I've been able to keep up with it pretty well if I do say so myself.

Anywho, today I come to this blog to tell you about the new authors I've discovered in the past few months. I give a lot of credit to my book pimp Helen for introducing me to these books and authors. She and I have pretty similar tastes in books, like almost identical. So here are five authors that I've discovered this year and now love.

Kiersten White:
Author of Paranormalcy and Supernaturally(that came out on tuesday... you should go buy it). Helen and I discovered her at the same time when we went to our local independent book store. I had seen Stephanie Perkins (another one of our favorite authors), tweet to her and she mentioned that Kiersten was one of her crit partners. Based purely on that, I bought Paranormalcy. Granted I normally love paranormal books, and this one shot it's way all the way up next to The Mediator series on my list.


Caprice Crane:
Helen had been telling me that I need to read these books for a long time, as someone who doesn't exactly like change I protested at first. I enjoyed staying in my wonderful YA bubble. One day at the library, on a whim, I picked up 'Forget About It'. This book, is fantastic. I'd be reading it at work and actually burst out laughing, only solidifying the fact that I was weird to my other co-workers, but I didn't care. Even as I type this, I have her new book "With a Little Luck" waiting for me at the library. YAY!!!!


John Green:
I know, I know. I'm late to the party. Better late than never, right?
Discovering him through the Vlogbrothers channel was definitely one of the more interesting ways of discovering an author. The thing I love the most about John's books, is how real they are. When I would read them, I would think "Yeah, that's probably how I would respond". Not only are they real in the conversational sense, but when it comes to real life occurrences, they are pretty spot on. Chances are that that girl that you have been in love with since you were little, is going to slowly slip from your mind when she leaves. It may take a while, it may hurt like hell, but eventually it'll take a minute to remember her and think "Where's Margo?"

On top of all that, John is signing ALL first editions of his new book "The Fault in Our Stars". This man is just so good to his readers.

Natalie Whipple:
Okay, technically she's not published... YET! She just announced that her new book Transparent has been sold. I found this blogger through both Kiersten White and Stephanie Perkins (if there were ever a gang of women that reminded me of my own soul sisters, it would be these ones). Natalie, a fellow Utah blogger and author, is not only hysterical and adorable, but offers some really great advice to those of us just getting into the writing biz. Anytime that I'm curious about something in the writing business, I go to her blog. Her posts are helpful, funny and sometimes contain awesome drawings.

Lastly (but most certainly not least of all), Stephanie Perkins:
Technically I discovered her last year, but I didn't read her book until the very beginning of this year, so I'm counting it! Stephanie has not only led me to a bunch of other amazing authors, but when I read her debut novel Anna and the French Kiss, it was one of those books that made me want to write. Almost to the point that I stopped reading (but I couldn't do that, Étienne is too pretty). When an author adds to that fire that already burning for you to write, they tend to hold a special place in your heart, Stephanie, is one of those people now. Right up there with Meg Cabot.

I'm going to try and be better with this blog... Anyone wanna offer some advice to help, or maybe some ideas?
Or...

A World of Magic, A World of Wonder

With the last Harry Potter movie quickly coming to theatres, nostalgia keeps hitting me straight in the face. Kristina Horner, recently posted a video about how Leaky Con was collecting a whole bunch of responses thanking J.K. Rowling for certain things in their lives. Considering I'm slightly more charming in type than on Youtube, I've decided to do the same thing, but here.

Harry Potter will always be close to my heart. It is easily the main reason I love reading so much. When I first started reading the books in 6th grade, I got so annoyed with them. Mostly because being in 6th grade and not being able to pronounce "Hermione" frustrated me to no end. It wasn't until I saw the movie, that I decided to give them another shot.

Needless to say, I fell in love. Head over heels, no looking back, writing myself into a fanfic, highlighting the 'shipper' parts of books 1-3 - type love. This is where I became a fangirl. If you want to blame something for the reason for my obsessions, my graphics, my shipper heart, and my overall flailing self, you can blame Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling.

For those who say "Anna, It's just a book", I could go on about how much this book has impacted my life. However, that would fail to really get my point across. I can barely comprehend how much this book has affected my life myself, to try and explain to someone why this one series, this one author, means so much to me, would probably cause me to break down in tears and babble incoherently.



J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Dumbledore, Snape, All of these characters hold a special part of my heart. JK Rowling for creating this fantastic world. Harry Potter for taking me with him on his adventure. Ron Weasley for being the person that kept them all grounded. Hermione Granger for showing all the nerdy girls out there that it's okay to be a nerd. Dumbledore for helping us believe in magic just a little bit more. Snape for proving his loyalty and surprising us all.

These characters will live on long after the movies are over.

Donate for Water...

When it comes to charities, I'm normally a pretty avid giver.

I recently did a two mile walk for The Lupus Foundation, where I got severely sunburned (by severe, I mean the worst sunburn in my entire life...), but it was worth it. Lupus is such a difficult disease, and actually knowing someone who has it puts the charity that much closer to my heart.

Another charity that I'm rather fond of is the This Star Won't Go Out Foundation that was established on the memory of a nerdfighter named Ester, and is created to financially aid those families who have children living with cancer.

The most recent charity that I've become interested in is the water charities. There are a few, but there are two that stand out to me Charity: Water and Water.org. Yesterday while attempting to create something on Photoshop, I again Stumbled Upon one of these websites, and was struck with inspiration. Though it didn't turn out EXACTLY the way I wanted it too... I think it gets the message across.



If you'd like to donate to any of these charities please click on the links provided.

Resources for graphic.
3D continents
clean water
dirty water

Caffeine. A writer's life's blood.

It's been a while since I've made something on photoshop that didn't have some sort of fandom tie.

Today, in between taking care of my wounded husband, I was playing on StumbleUpon. Now let me tell you, this thing is your best friend and your worst enemy. It is the procrastinators BEST FRIEND. While flipping through sites, I 'Stumbled Upon' a site full of photoshop tutorials.

Normally when I run across these, I'll click on one and it involves ACTUAL drawing. Which is something I don't do. But this site had a lot more 'Use the tools of photoshop' type tutorials. After flipping through a couple of pages I found a tutorial that I wanted to use for a wallpaper.

This is how it turned out...

Though I'm not a coffee drinker. I figured a cup of coffee would look better than a can of Dr. Pepper or Pepsi. I also chose to use one of my favorite quotes by Caprice Crane (the full quote can be found in my sidebar).

I'm rather proud of it.

I blame May Sweeps....

It's been a while.

Not much has been up in my life. With the small exception that I'm pretty sure all my tv shows that are ending for the season are going to kill me.

I blame my lack of updates on May Sweeps.

For those who don't know, I watch a lot of TV. When I say a lot, I mean... A LOT! Blame the fact that my husband works nights, or that some TV shows are just too addictive, one way or another, this is the time that all of the shows pull out their big guns. Some shows are very upfront with how they're going to end their season, the show Chuck for example, entitled their season finale "Chuck vs. the Cliffhanger". Hmmm... I wonder how that's going to end. Whereas others are a little more vague in their titles like Bones' "The Change in the Game".

This got me thinking about how people come up with titles for things. Books, TV shows, Movies (that aren't already based on something), and so on. Most TV shows for instance have a theme with their episode titles. Shonda Rhimes' shows have the titles of songs, Friends episodes always start with "The One With/Where...", The Big Bang Theory episodes sound super scientific like "The Lizard-Spock Expansion", I could go on. I think that would be a really fun job. Just coming up with names for episodes of TV shows.

Authors and those who come up with Movie titles have it a little bit harder. The title has to be somewhat descriptive, but it also has to draw people into to read or see it. Take the (amazing!) book by Meg Cabot entitled "Every Boy's Got One". That's right, IMMEDIATELY your mind goes there. No matter how hard you try and fight it, it goes there. But turn it over and the first words are "Every Boy's Got One... A Heart". To me, that was enough for me to pick up the book and read it in just a few hours (the fact that I love Meg Cabot has nothing to do with that). As for movies, have you ever sat through a movie then thought "Why did they call it THAT?" It doesn't happen very often, but when it does I'm one of those people who have a hard time looking past the title to the movie.

I hate to say it, but I'm actually fairly judgmental of titles and covers for books. If the title doesn't grab me, or the cover art is rubbish, I have a hard time convincing myself to pick it up. I'm also one of those people who get frustrated really easily if I can't pronounce a name or something in a book. When I first tried reading Harry Potter in 6th grade, I remember getting so mad that I couldn't figure out how to pronounce Hermione's name that I didn't pick it up again until after the movie came out. At which point I've became obsessed, but that one name and frustration was enough to put me off the series originally.

Just one of the oddities that make up the dazzling person typing this while on break at work.