Likaiars blog

Last week was apparently more inspirational then the week before. I have however not reached my goal, so that's left for this weekend.

I raised an interesting question with myself. In avoiding clichés I feel I cannot write freely any more. I have an idea and realise that it's been done before, so it changes in my head till it's something new (newer), but far away from what I planned. Maybe I shouldn't mind to much and just write... Maybe I should write freely and see what comes out of it.

I have felt however, that new ideas do come easier then they did some time before. Apparently it can be trained. I've been reading more again, and try to spend time thinking about my plots instead of random things. It's oddly satisfying.

Right, I finally finished Goliath and with that the Leviathan Trilogy. I really enjoyed it. I'm now reading Harry Potter again, and making good progress. :)

My goal for this weekend is to reach that 10000 word goal. The coming week I'm pretty busy with my studies, so writing will have to be postponed until further notice...
Right now I'm going into town and shop books. <3

Have a nice weekend all!
~Likaiar

Another week has passed.
I haven't finished Harry Potter 4 yet, sadly. I'm still finishing Scott Westerfelds Goliath as well. I guess I'm just not in a reading mood these days. I've been playing the Witcher though, and I'm enjoying it so much I'm contemplating buying the books, though I have to read a translation as my Polish is not that good - okay I can't read or speak it at all... On moments like these I'm a little sad that I can't just learn every language the world has to offer. What's stopping me? Well dyslexia for one, but mostly time. I need to much of it for my studies and writing projects.

Speaking of which, of those 3000 words I planned to write this week (before tomorrow ends) I wrote... *drumroll* exactly 0. In stead I started to write a short story for a contest. So I have some catching up to do today and tomorrow. Yes, I do feel I should still write those 3000 words. I'm trying to make a habit of actually keeping my own goals and deadlines...

Now this short story is a fantasy story - because that's what I like to write and the contest is in that genre. While I was starting I had some trouble getting inspiration. I knew what atmosphere I wanted, but I didn't know what to do with it. This gave me the idea of a 'inspiration group' her on booklikes. I figured it would be a great idea if writers could share how they came up with inspiration, and maybe help each other when stuck. I searched, but didn't find a group like that, so I made one: http://booklikes.com/groups/show/152/fantasy-and-science-fiction-writing-inspiration
I'm still building it, but it's open for anyone who wants to enter.

So, my plan for next week is to get to 10000 words on friday, the last day of Februari and actually read a bit. Have a nice weekend!
~Likaiar

I suppose I can post on saturdays as well as on sundays.

Last week I never said what I was going to do in the coming week.  I didn't really know actually.
I have given myself a goal of 4000 words tomorrow, and since I'm at 3740 right now, I'm confident I will make it.

Much more noteworthy is the fact that I entered a writing competition on wednesday. My friends and fellow writers where working on their own submissions, and asked me if I would join them. I did feel like writing a new story at the time, but didn't realise that the deadline was before thursday. I was still willing to try and in less then two hours I wrote a 700 words story that I actually like. So I submitted it. I wonder what they think about it.

I did very little reading last week. My studies kept me too busy.
I did read a little in 'How not to write a novel' by Howard Mittelmark. It's quite a funy book and I recommend it for all writers.
I also read a little in Harry Poter and the goblet of fire. (And just now I realised I added the wrong book to my 'reading' shelf...)

For next week I plan on reaching 7000 words, so that I can finish my goal of 10000 on the 28th of february.
I'll also be reading the rest of the Leviathan series and expect to finish the following week.

Have a great weekend!
~Likaiar

I decided to not name my posts after the day and date. Booklikes adds that information to the post, so it's obsolete for me to provide that information as well. I'm sure I can come up with actual titles.

So Polare... As you might remember from my last post, it's in some heavy trouble. They haven't opened shops and it looks like it's coursing towards bankruptcy after all. My hope is that their shops will remain bookshops under different owners. As I said last week it would be a shame to loose them.
In particular the one in my own home city as we seem to be a little short on bookshops... but all those bookshops should survive. I suppose I can claim (especially on a site like this) that bookshops should never cease to exist!

Last week I also mentioned that I would proceed reading HP4. But since the book was on my own place, and I was at my mom's and I was bored, I started reading Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld. It's awesome! I finished it on Friday and the rest of series is at my mom's as it belongs to my sister. So now I have to wait a week before I can continue the series -_- So I read the 3rd How tot train your dragon book by Cressida Cowell. Guess I can now continue HP4.

I did a little writing too this week, my wordcount right now is 2267, which means I wrote a little over 1000 words in a week. (Glad I'm not doing Nano with this speed).
I'm often too distracted by plotting to write.

Well... anyway. That was my week.
I'm kinda new to this blogging thing actually, and I'm not entirely happy with my own style. I guess, just as writing, blogging is something you have to do and practice.
Have a great week all,
~Likaiar

note: this is kind of the first review I've ever written, so I'm probably not very good at this...

So I just finished reading 'The Wild Road' by Gabriel King. I've read it before in a Dutch translation when I was younger. Possibly to young to really understand what it was about. In any case I remembered little of it so it was once again a new read.

It's a story about a young kitten 'Tag' who goes on a journey to save the world and becoms a cat.
It's a cross between a coming of age story and an epic journey.

Personally I like how there's a multitude of characters, among which several women (or females - as it's about cats). They're a diverse group and each has it's own way of adding to the journey.

All in all I found it an enjoyable read!

Behind me lies an interesting week.

It started out with the news that one of the greatest chains of book stores has temporarily closed their doors to reorganise (Polare). This chain was created out of two chains that were on the verge off bankruptcy, they merged to share the expenses. Now they've been in trouble for the past two weeks before this one. Halfway through the week I discovered that the chain is for sale.
I think it will be horrible if they would disappear. It's great to browse through books on shelves, in stead of in web shops, where you cannot feel them.
As the week progressed all kinds of people had all kinds of opinions. Most said, that even if they would go bankrupt, the stores themselve would probably survive, as we cannot manage without them. That's a kind of relief.
Latest news is that the problems are allmost solved, so there's hope yet. We'll see.. nothing I can do about it anyway...

Last week I mentioned I would finish my first chapter that day, but I only managed the first real scene on Tuesday...
After that I didn't do much. I have to do some things for non writing related stuff, and that's eating all my time.
Coming week I have some more time, as the new sememster is barely starting. I'm hoping to get some plotting and writing done. I put 10.000 words at the end of Februari as my goal - that should be easily done as I've done 1029 words allready and I know I can make it in a week. I do however like to know what I'm writing about, so I gotta do some plotting.

I'm still reading 'The Wild Road', but I'm nearly finished. Guess I'll be reading HP after that.

Have a nice day all!
Likaiar

So, in this week I found out about this site. I think it'll be interesting and usefull. So what else happened to me?

This week I saw the movie Frozen, and the song 'let it go' has been on repeat since then. I'm seriously considering buying the DVD when it comes out. I seriously love this movie!

I'm still reading 'Harry Poter, the goblet of fire'. But the books have become to large and heavy to take with me to read in the train, so I also started reading 'the Wild Road' by Gabriel King. I read this book a few times when I was a child and forgot what it was about completely, so it's a new read entirely. Okay, I'll admit that maybe I never understood what it was about in the first place...

For my writing, I switched projects. I'm back to my Nano 2012 project. My first plan was to make a series out of it, but it just wouldn't work the way I wanted. I used it for camp nano last year and nothing came out. So for nano 2013 I used an entirely new idea, and that is giving me enough ideas for a series as well.
So this week I was thinking I need a shorter story. Something like a novel, but not a series, so I could possibly debut with it. (I suppose one could debut with a series, but it won't make it easier..). So I figured to give my older project a shot as a shorter story.

So today I'll fix this blog up a little. I'll write a bit about it and about myself. Maybe I'll change the title. I can't fix up a nice picture yet, since I'm at my moms with only my side computer with me...
I'm also going to try and finish the first chapter of the project I'm working on.
If I can find enough motivation I'll try and find an english dictionary for the Firefox spell check. (Sorry for any wrong use of the language :| )

I have no specific plans for the coming week. I'll mostly be lazy. :)

Have a nice day all!
Likaiar

I think this can be really interesting! I'll drop by here from time to time then!

So, about me:
I'm an amateur writer who hopes to one day publish a book.
Besides that I am a mathematics student and teacher.