Kate Willis's Blog, page 120

New York Times by the Book Tag

When Kellyn Roth nominated all bloggers for this tag from her hilarious birthday post, I knew I had to do it. She so kindly offered to let me use her idea of answering the questions with book covers, and I had a ton of fun putting this together. (Some of these covers are just for illustration; I can’t recommend the ones I haven’t read.) Hope you enjoy!

What book is on your nightstand right now?

What was the last truly great book you read or are currently reading?

If you could meet one autho...

Positively Negative

The other day on Goodreads, I thanked a reviewer for including an honest content advisory in her review. She replied by saying that I was welcome but she had a hard time writing negative reviews.

Can giving content advisories and writing positive reviews go together?

For the past few years, I’ve included a lengthy content advisory at the end of each of my reviews.Even ifthese things didn’t effect my enjoyment of the book, I felt as if everything needed to be mentioned for the sake of parents...

Virtual Avalanche

You know you’ve been spending too much time on Goodreads…

Fortunately mine’s just a digital shelf so I don’t have to worry about an avalanche.

What are you looking forward to reading next?

Inventing Words

Today I’ve been working on my story some more and following in the footsteps of William Shakespeare (except for the immoral characters and mix-ups) by inventingmy own words.

So far I’ve irritated spell check with two words–lunchers and snungry.Snungry, you say? Here’s a handy definition.

Snun.gry

noun

a state of hunger only satisfied by a snack such as ice cream.

synonyms: hungry, snacky, munchy

Shakespeare’s words have definitely become more well-known than my goofy one will ever be. Enjoy...

Book Review: Writer to Writer

“Have you ever wanted to captivate readers with a great opening, create spectacular and fantastical creatures, make up an entire country, realize a dastardly villain, write an epic love story, or make your characters leap off the page? If you answered yes to any of these questions, Gail Carson Levine can help you achieve your goals.Newbery Honor author Gail Carson Levine offers a behind-the-scenes take on writing and teaches you how to become a world-class author. Drawing from her popular b...

Seasonal Notebook Tutorial

Back to school season is so exciting! Sure the weather is cooling off, the pretty clothes are in, tea is finally a “must”, and my favorite season is coming soon for me to obsess over. (And I don’t have to do school anymore.) But the real reason I love the switch from summer to autumn?

Notebooks.20 cents each. One subject. Any color.

Last year, I bought myself a dollar’s worth and stowed them away for later use. I forgot about them until last week when I decided it was time for a new notebook....

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Day

I’ve been busy today cleaning up after our family shenanigans last night, writing approximately 1,350 words for my Noble Novels deadline, posting on Goodreads about how hard it is to focus on writing when I have a new book from the library, discussing violence in Christian fiction on the Rabbit Room, and watching Mary Poppins with my family. It’s been a great day!

How was your day and week?

Ten…Nine…Eight…

Time is running out. You must hurry. There are 28,800 minutes left until Read to Win 2016 ends. That’s only twenty days!

Hop on over to Amazon and pick up one of these books for 99 cents, review it on Goodreads, and get entered in the Homeschooled Authors’ giveaway!

Read my postFavorite Books from Read-to-Win 2016if you need recommendations.

Grammar Surprise

I posted on my Goodreads yesterday: “Moving to Britain. They have better punctuation rules.”

Let me elaborate. I was helping my brother with his grammar lesson yesterday when I noticed a sentence that bothered me: Today we read the story “The Observing Judge.”

Why did the period come before the quotation marks?It looked totally wrong to me since in all my years of grammar study I’d never seen anything like it. Logically, the period belongs to the whole sentence–not to the title contained in i...

Book Review: You’ll Be Like Faye

“In her second novel, J.C. Buchanan leaves the fairy kingdom behind and introduces her readers to Faye Corcoran, a regular 12-year-old girl in a typical suburban family. But is it a typical suburban family? And when Faye’s best friend convinces her there’s something suspicious about the new housekeeper, how far will Faye go for answers?”(from Amazon)

The writing style was exceptional; and, although I was figuring out the mystery pretty early on, there were still some shivers-up-and-down-my-sp...