How I Read A Lot—Without Picking Up A Single Book

These past few weeks have been the most hectic ones out of all my semesters in university: juggling among school work, extracurricular work and being a freelancer. I was able to manage it all in the end, but I did neglect something that I consider very important in my life: reading.

I used to read, on average, 30-50 books a year, and we are more than half way into 2016 and I have barely reached 10 completed read books. Shame and horror, I have not even been able to keep up with my daily 25-minutes reading time. Is this what I am becoming/what society is making me become? It reminds me of the time when my friend once said that her mom told her in her teenage years that she should make the most of her reading time while she is young, because once we reach the world of adults… it’s over. I was hoping to contradict this saying, but I believe this year got me.

I also realised that I have been on social media for more hours than I wish I did, however this is how I teamwork in my activities and how I learn about current events for my freelance writing.

Motivation Monday | Making Time for Personal Hobbies

Did I just make ‘Motivation Monday’ a weekly blog post series? Still thinking about it.

This is just going to be a quick tip for everyone who is as busy as me, whether it’s because of work, school or family, and have happened to just lose control over their time management and over their professional/personal life balance.

Aside from my workout morning routine, I have also set a kind of evening routine for myself. Since the beginning of the semester, at the start of this month, I have found myself to be caught up in my university schedule and studies, and extra-curricular activity. In fact, those who follow me on Goodreads might have noticed a sudden drop of activity.

I had stopped reading.

Bookshopping In Singapore!!!

Yes you read the title right! I recently went to Singapore  with my friend Sandra… for 8 consecutive days!

And there is only one word to describe our trip:

A.W.E.S.O.M.E.

Anyway, this time, I tried something new in terms of travelling activities and as you’ve obviously guessed from the title, one day we decided to go bookshopping! I don’t know if there is a specific legit word for it, but basically we googled about bookstores in Singapore and spent a whole day visiting them and buying books! And to our convenience, most of the interesting ones were found to be based in a single particular area: Tiong Bahru.

Sincerely, this place is definitely meant for book lovers and artists! It’s a small quiet area, so cosy!

Proof: we went there twice. Well that was because I became crazy…

Anyway, here’s the whole story… of our bookshopping adventure!!!

The first bookshop we went to was Books Actually, one of the most famous and beloved stores in Singapore.

The artwork of the store is just so beautiful! Bookworms be prepared to drool!

I Reached 50,000 Words!

This is a special post to announce that I’ve got past the 50k words mark in my novel-in-progress, a novel I’ve been writing since the beginning of the year – yeah if it was NaNoWriMo I would already be past 50k well before – as those who have been following my posts this year know.

And I didn’t realise that my previous post was actually my 400th! A neat number 🙂 This is the 401st one.

Back to the novel I’m writing, it’s actually a project I’ve challenged myself to complete before going to university in July, and being on the 50k words line, I’m halfway through! Wasn’t sure if I should write ‘only’ or ‘already’ 😉 I just feel that the story will evolve till past 100k words!

It’s urban fantasy, an idea, complex and continuously expanding, which was planted into my brain since I was 13 but which only became a story in 2012 for Camp NaNoWriMo in August and which I’ve been writing and re-writing since, never coming up with a completed story. Until now. Now I feel ready to finish that 3rd attempted first draft of this novel! I’m determined 🙂

If any of you want to know what this obsessive novel-in-progress of mine is basically all about, you can check out this short story I made based on it, for the Create A World Writing Contest by The Dark Globe which I actually won: CLICK HERE!

Anyway, thinking of novels… I made a book haul recently on my YouTube channel! Here it is:

Enjoy!

Tell me anything in the comments! About writing, reading… whatever! Let’s chat 🙂

An Evil Nymph.

Vlogging Is Back! | February Favourites

Yes I’m back to vlogging!

For my dear bloggers buddies, here’s the description of the video, in case you’re actually watching this rather long vlog of mine and want to know more about the links I mentioned in it:

Christmas Presents In Advance | Edition 2013

I remembered I made a similar post back in 2011 when I received my first and only Android phone, the Samsung Galaxy SII, in addition to a wonderful book of course.

Well this year, I also decided to get myself something tech-y as well as books and since I got my gifts way before Christmas (i.e. for more than a week)… today’s post is born!

But first, for the sake of the Christmas and holiday spirit, I’d like to share with you an event a group of YouTubers, including me, are doing to help other YouTubers, as during the holiday season we want to Do Good 🙂

Here it is:

Hope you have some spare time to watch it! If not, without further ado, here are my 2013 Christmas presents!

Weekly Photo Challenge | Grand

To a human being, a mountain is imposing, majestic, grand.

This is the Lion Mountain which is not far from my house and indeed watches over us.

“I’m Not Good Enough.”

This is something that is heard on many occasions, and in my surroundings it is heard especially from students, including me. Why such a low self-esteem attitude?

 

Peer pressure, you’d say? What about parent pressure?

5 Reasons Why I Prefer Evil Characters

Les « coeurs sur la main » n’ont pas d’histoire ; mais je connais celle des coeurs enfouis et tout mêlés à un corps de boue.

This French quote from François Mauriac very much describes my main motivation for siding with evil characters in my stories. I can’t really translate it though, because in English it won’t have that same impact it had on me, you see… The French language has a particular (charming and poetic) style that I just can’t reproduce in English. But basically, Mauriac tells us that he prefers to write on those who are ‘evil’ and unconventional instead of those who are good and virtuous.

I can totally understand why. (And I totally understand Mauriac thus that’s why I’m in love with his book, Thérèse Desqueyroux).

Weekly Photo Challenge: Resolved

There’s a resolution I missed when I wrote My 2013 Goals!

It’s to read the maximum of books I can!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Arranged

When I think of arranged, it reminds me strangely of my childhood, when everything was… arranged. I mean, I was very obedient, followed the rules, predictable… I have been ‘arranged’ in a particular way.

And I was fond of the Smurfs storyboards!

So well arranged, right? 😛 I don’t have the whole collection though.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Indulge

Sorry for I’m a bit late in this week’s photo challenge. Anyway these days, I’ve mainly been indulged in…

Yes, in the thickest of all school books I’ve ever had to study! It’s nicknamed the ‘dictionary’ of sociology. I’m fortunate that the subject is interesting… ^^

Getting serious about my studies hehe.

An Evil Nymph.

For those who have already reached 50,000 words…

Congrats!!!! 😀

I’ve reached 50k words too yesterday night ^^ (did you see my winning badge on the right??) but hell, my novel is nowhere near ready! I feel like I’m still halfway in the writing. I reviewed it briefly yesterday and realised that I have much much to edit and all that. But really, I thank NaNo because thanks to this challenge I am now determined to finish the story and maybe next year or when I’ll be ready for it: I’ll go and publish. My dad told me he’d help me if I do. 🙂

Back to Teens!

I’d never thought that I’d come back to teens’ books.

I usually read young adults or adults books, you know those which are 400+ pages 😛 As an avid reader since I was born (yeps my mom did the reading for me until I was grown enough to read by my own – I was so excited at that time and frustrated that I didn’t know many words), my reading levels went up very quickly. I read teens books when I went to secondary school therefore at 11 years of age. I read R.L. Stine, Christopher Pike, well there were so many. But NO Sweet Valley or things like that! Yeps at that age I was also very picky about books… and authors! There was a time when I would only read Pike’s books and no one else. Of course that changed. Then at 13 I think, I started with literary books like Jane Austen and Charles Dickens and Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo and…