I haven't blogged in ages and here's why: I've been reading and working. Since the later is boring, I'm going to blog about the former.
For quite sometime now books have been reproducing on my shelves. I don't know how they get there, they just do. Strangely enough, money has been disappearing from my bank account. I suspect the two are linked.

Anyway, with all of these books lying around, I feel like such a cheat. All these books, so few of them read. Now I KNOW I am not the only person with this problem, am I? Yeah, that's right admit it. It's okay, we're all mad here!

Now! How to solve this problem? I came up with an EPIC solution. The To Read Lottery.
First, I separated out stand alones and series books (unless the series was less than two books out). Why? Because series are a bigger time/ money commitment and I wanted to get stand alones knocked out before I started on the bigger ones.

So, I opened Excel (neeeeeerrrddd...) and created a spreadsheet with all the titles alphabetically and then assigned all the titles a number 1-39. Then I go on trusty Twitter and ask for random numbers 1-39. First come, first assigned. Easy!
The only exceptions are for events, signings, etc. and new neurotic purchases are added in. As numbers are crossed off, they are renumbered for repicking.

The first drawing was:
#1 - The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan
#2 - The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan
#3 - The Demon's Lexicon (followed by Demon's Covenant) by Sarah Rees Brennan
#4 - Liar by Justine Larbalestier

Ultimately I'd also like to read 100 books. I'm already 10 in and on my 11th! Win!

I'll post when I do my next drawing! Maybe it'll be paired with a contest...

So here's a very abbreviated version of the whole tale behind this. I read Spells, LOVED Laurel's hair decorations piece she gets in Avalon and was like, Hah! I can do that.
And I did. Turned out great. So why did it take me from June till NOW to get a picture up?
I needed a hair model. After many crisscrossing schedules, I finally decided, aw, hell, I'll put it in my hair. Which poses another problem. I needed someone to take the picture for me.

Anyway, I finally coerced someone to do it. YAY!

Wanna see pictures? I know you do...




Yes, that cursed last picture was the thing that took forever.

However, I'm proud. The last picture is the white version of the strand. I have red hair and pink looks awful with red... alas.
I DO have these for sale on my Etsy!. Please take a look and share around!

Curses to Blogger! This was supposed to auto-post at noon. Unfortunately thanks to irritating Blogger, it did not. So sorry for those of you expecting it then!

Guess what! Shadow Hills is getting re-jacketed! I’ve seen it and it is so very pretty. I can’t wait for May!

If you missed yesterday’s pieces, they are here: Ticket to Anywhere and Reading Angel.
There is also another piece today at: Books Out Of The Bookshelves
The next two blogs with puzzle pieces are The Book Cellar and Meow Mix Blog

Trivia Question:
What kind of car does Graham drive?

The prize for this trivia question is SIGNED poster of the hardcover of Shadow Hills!
If more than one person answers the trivia question correctly, I will use a random number generator to pick from the correct answers. Good Luck!



Don’t forget to check out Anastasia’s site, blog, Twitter
And the Shadow Hills Facebook Page

Want to buy Shadow Hills now?
Indiebound
Book Depository
Amazon
Barnes and Noble

So I've been utterly embarrassed about my lack of posting lately. As well as my lack of crafting. *face of shame*

However!!
I am doing prep work for a new craft that will be linked with a giveaway! So yay!!
And on that note...

I'm entering a giveaway for MATCHED and you should enter it too!!
Jen Bigheart is a local book friend and her blog has hit 250 followers so go on over and check it out!
http://jenbigheart.blogspot.com/2010/11/250-follower-giveaway.html

There will also be another post tomorrow for the Shadow Hills Street Team!

This the first of several giveaways I'm doing! These things have been sitting since Smart Chicks and this stuff needs to leave my room. Hah!

Okay so, for the Texas Book Festival they had a Zombies vs Unicorns panel with 18 young adult authors including Holly Black, Justine Larbalestier, Scott Westerfeld, Meg Cabot, Kami Garcia and Margie Stohl, Heather Brewer, Andrea Cremer, and oh so so many more!

It was an evening of hilarity with two teams versus each other. The two teams were asked to create mascots. Team Z created Fierce Dorable, a zombie Hello Kitty and Team U created Horny, a unicorn with a giant, giant horn. All thanks to Margie Stohl on that one. The crowd, which was originally Team Zombie, was turned thanks to Horny. Myself included.

AND guess what? They did a drawing for Z vs U audiobooks and guess what I won?!
A Z VS U AUDIOBOOK!!! However I don't do audiobooks (blame the ADD) so you know what that means? A GIVEAWAY!

Unfortunately, Meg Cabot had to leave early and I didn't get her to sign it (and I was pretty bummed about it) but here it is! Shiny, pristine Zombies vs Unicorns audiobook signed by Holly Black, Justine Larbalestier and Scott Westerfeld AND two bookmarks!

So how can you win this? SUPER, DUPER easy.
Respond with the following:
Name
Team (Unicorn or Zombie or Zombie-Unicorn)
Email
That's it!
If you're a follower, mention it and I'll give you an extra entry, but it's not required!

This giveaway ends November 7th at midnight CST! Have a happy Halloween!

I'm about to head off for about two weeks and I will have internet, but I've been really guilt-ridden over this very neglected blog. No more!!

So I will *try* over the next two weeks to start on Movie Mondays! Movie Monday is basically Movie of the Week, but with a cuter title. And rather than going on why I love a particular film, I'm going to tell you *why* you should see it.
Have you ever watched a film (possibly even a classic!) and heard it was oh, oh so good and then been like 'um, what? Why did I waste my 2 hours on that?' Well I'll try to take the task on of what makes it good. Or not.

Also! Thanks to an awesome week of Smart Chicks Kick It tour and meeting some kick butt authors, I'm planning on some giveaways AND a very cool craft project giveaway that I'm still mentally planning before executing, but here's a hint: Beautiful Darkness by Kami Garcia and Margie Stohl :D
Excited? I am.
(Please note: no, I have no read an ARC of Beautiful Darkness, so crafty ideas are based on Beautiful Creatures... which everyone should go read, it's fabulous!)

See ya!

So I've spent more hours than I care to admit talking late night on Twitter to some rather dubious sorts. Okay, not really. More of that "losers I call my best friends" kinda thing.
The players: are myself (obviously), Carla from The Crooked Shelf and Jeremy and Jeffrey West from Novel Thoughts. It started as We Americans want to hear Carla talk (she's from the UK, you know!) and then I guess to be fair, we all decided to do it!
The challenge: read a chapter (or so) of a book and vlog it.
Good Lord, I did not anticipate how anxiety-ridden this would be! I HATE reading aloud. I can much better talk aloud to a crowd just freelancing it. But with reading off of something, I tend to skip over and add words at whatever my brain feels like doing at the moment... and I know I did that here. But I wasn't going to record it again so, oh freaking well! No one is really reading for the story, we're reading for accents.
And I'm from Texas, so go ahead and watch and hear what Texans sound like. (Please note that not every Texan sounds like this... I so happen to be from a pretty urban area.
ALSO! My hair was cut recently and gah! I hate it... especially my bangs. So yeah. Apologies. *hides*



Here's Carla's Vlog Off: Here
Here's is Jeremy's Vlog: Here