E. Menozzi's Blog, page 9

Top five favorite movies

Years ago, I used to have this list of top five favorite comfort food movies on the about page of my blog. I took it down at some point, but I save the list. Well… there are actually two lists. I’ll get to that in a minute.

First, here are the lists:

Top Five “comfort food” movies (re-watched more times that I care to admit): Pride and Prejudice (Keira Knightly version) Children of Dune (SyFy mini-series) The Fifth Element Hackers 10 Things I Hate About You Top Five “guilty pleasure” movies ...

That’s what she said…

Since it’s “Teaser Tuesday” today, how about a snippet from chapter four of Ash of the Fae, book five in my Modern Fae series?

This is one of my favorite bits! Here’s the quote from the image:

I sighed. “That’s never going to work. Fun always gets complicated. You were right the first time. Best to lay down the ground rules now and then stick to them.”

“Okay, but I’m still voting for fun. It’s not like I am going to get to find out what it’s like to make out with a ripped Fae who can tu...

Planning for a productive week

It’s the first Monday of June!

Did you know I love the start of a new month? I’m all about that monthly goal reset, and I’m always making tweaks to my productivity systems whenever I feel like I’ve stopped making forward progress.

I love my bullet journal for making lists and taking notes, but sometimes the bigger projects (like writing and editing a novel) get lost in the day to day grind. It’s way too easy for me to get distracted by crossing admin tasks off my list and forget about the ...

For the love of YA fantasy tropes

It’s been years and years since I wrote what became the second novel I ever finished writing. It felt really promising at the time. The first pages won contests. They got me full requests from agents. But nothing ever panned out.

Eventually, I gave up and shelved it. I moved on to what would eventually become the Modern Fae series. And I didn’t think I’d ever go back to that novel.

But I never really forgot about it. While I don’t really remember the moment I started writing Eve of the Fae...

May Reading Wrap-Up

May turned out to be an excellent reading month for me. I read four fiction and three non-fiction books. Plus, since it was my birthday month, I got a whole bunch of books that have been on my wish list! Some I received as gifts and others I bought with gift card money. Combined, I have so many stories to read that I should probably do a book haul post!

What I read in May… Starting with the fiction books:

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn — I think this was my favorite book I read in May. It’s...

June reading journal set-up

My June reading journal set-up is live!

Below is the link to the full video on YouTube…

In the video I mention the four books that are on my TBR for June. They are:

Engaging the Enemy by Elizabeth Moon — my current in-progress read Intuitive Editing by Tiffany Yates Martin — a writing craft book to help me with my current project (which I promise I’ll talk more about in a future post) A Dance With the Fae Prince by Elise Kova — my pick for International Fairy Day on 24 June How to Fi...

A different sort of writing fuel

I did it!

Day 200 of running every day!

Back on the 15th of November I decided that I was going to try to run at least one mile every day for as many days as I could before I had to take a break. At the time, I was really trying to keep myself moving through the long dreary winter when the days are short and wet and I’d much rather stay inside with a book than go outside and get sweaty.

Once I made it through the winter, I wanted to see if I could make it to 100 days. Then it was half a ...

Feels like Monday

It’s time for a mid-morning coffee break.

I don’t have a fancy espresso machine. Instead, I make my Red Bay espresso with my Rok and foam up some oat milk with my new cow-print foamer wand.

I’m off to a bit of a sluggish start today after taking the long weekend off.

I spent a good portion of the weekend reading (more on that when I do my May reading wrap-up post), hanging out with family, and reflecting.

Somewhere in there I had an idea. I had been thinking about getting more active...

May Reading Journal Set-Up

Is it nearly the middle of May already? Yes. Yes, it is.

Did I just finish editing and posting my May reading journal set-up video? Also, yes.

Better late than never, right?

Here’s the video if you want to check it out:

It’s short (less than four minutes)…

Since the video was late (and really short) this month, I’m adding an in-progress photo. This is the book stack list of books I’ve read this month, plus what’s currently in my TBR pocket.

So far, I’ve read three books: ...

April Reading Wrap-Up

It’s time for another reading wrap-up post! I participated in both the Magical Readathon and the Tome Topple Readathon in April. I managed to complete all my “coursework” for the Magical Readathon’s Orilium Academy spring session, and I finished one tome for Tome Topple! So, I’ll call that a successful reading month.

Here’s what I ended up reading in April:

Paladin’s Strength by T. Kingfisher (for the Orilium’s “Art of Illusion”) — I started the month with this fantasy romance. I reall...