Lately I've been thinking about my stagnant and somewhat boorish author website, http://brittanylandgrebe.com/, as well as the blogs I run for myself. I need to make several changes, some small and some very big. Enter stage left - Bloggiesta!

My wonderful friend Amanda over at the Zen Leaf book review blog has mentioned this to me several times, and I finally looked it up. Lo and behold, it's what I've been looking for all this time! 3 days to dedicate myself to working on my blogs, from the layouts to the content and beyond. Bloggeista is set this year for January 8-10, a challenge to spend 18-24 of those 72 hours working on all that goes into running successful blogs.

I can't wait!

I've got big plans for this blog, and I hope you'll like what comes when I'm all done!

This button is only for emergencies.

Its October the 20th, and this means I only have ***12*** days left.

Really, I shouldn't even be writing this blog. But I will for YOU, because you have NEEDS.

I still need roughly 40K, so that puts me under 3.5K a day until October 31st, but I really need/ want to finish with a day or two to spare. I really want to be able to spend some time fully figuring out what the heck I'm gonna do with the nanowrimo plot.

See, I've stupidly come up with a more complicated style and plot than the one I'm currently working on. I'm going slow here, I think, because I've been at this WIP for quite a while, and I wish I could let it alone for awhile and come back to it when its time to edit and revise. Problem is, I won't have much to edit and revise if I don't actually finish the damn thing. So words must be written, many many more words.

So I've been hearing about NaNoWriMo from just about every writer on Twitter. I've checked it out before, but because I'm working on a WIP already, I was all "Eh, I'll do it next year, I'm not prepared." Then today my friend @allikat was all "Go to the San Antonio Forum on NanoWriMo, talk to my friend Jami she's awesome!" (I'm sure you she is) so I did and it looked neat as usual but my muse was all "Nah, we're not ready, don't press that button that says sign up and put in all the required information". But then I wanted to post to to one of the forum topics and so I clicked that damn button and input all the required information, thinking I'd sign up on the website and be kind of like a motivator with pompoms and confetti with GLITTER (if you follow me on Twitter, this should be familiar by now) and not actually be writing 50k words in one month during the holidays, but no, as it turns out I WAS SIGNING UP FOR THE WHOLE SHEBANG.

I'm on Chapter 2 of a major rewrite for the current WIP, and because I can't write two novels at once, I need to finish it by November. I don't even know how many words this WIP is supposed to be, so I've no idea how many words a day to aim for. Do you know what all this means? I HAVE TO WRITE A WHOLE NOVEL IN 29 DAYS, THEN AN EXTRA ONE IN *counts days in November* 30 DAYS. *dies*

I won't back out of NaNoWriMo now, but I feel like my muse is toying with my emotions, being all "Oh, no I don't want to do that, we aren't ready" then recruiting a Twitter friend into her little scheme and sneak attack me into signing up for it and now she's laughing at me. Do you hear that? Its maniacal.

Oh wait. Thats me.

So now that I'm signed up, I'm going into a panic attack. Thanks.

So, Carrie Ryan, author of The Forest of Hands and Teeth, is giving away two personalized/ autographed copies of Diana Peterfreund's RAMPANT. Carrie and Diana became critique partners during NaNoWriMo in 2005, and Carrie's been hoarding her copies. But no more!

Forget everything you ever knew about unicorns…

The sparkly, innocent creatures of lore are a myth. Real unicorns are venomous, man-eating monsters with huge fangs and razor-sharp horns. And they can only be killed by virgin descendants of Alexander the Great.

Fortunately, unicorns have been extinct for a hundred and fifty years.

Or not.

Astrid Llewelyn has always scoffed ather eccentric mother’s stories about killer unicorns. But when one of the monsters attacks her boyfriend in the woods – thereby ruining any chance of him taking her to prom – Astrid learns that unicorns are real and dangerous, and she has a family legacy to uphold. Her mother packs her off to Rome to train as a unicorn hunter at the ancient cloisters the hunters have used for centuries.

However, at the cloisters, all is not what is seems. Outside, the unicorns wait to attack. And within, Astrid faces other, unexpected threats: from crumbling, bone-covered walls that vibrate with a terrible power to the hidden agendas of her fellow hunters to – perhaps most dangerously of all – her growing attraction to a handsome art student… and a relationship that could jeopardize everything.

I have been looking forward to this book for ages! It has suck a great twist to the everyday notions of Unicorns. And such a unique work! I don't see a hint of sparkly vampires or raging werewolves, though those can be good. Even better, there's this awesomely hilarious video at http://www.killerunicorns.org/. And here it is for your viewing pleasure.

If you want to join in on the contest, its at Carrie Ryans blog.

I love receiving emails from Traveling To Teens about new contests. Their newest one is for Prophesy of the Sisters, a great looking book by Michelle Zink, an amazing writer I follow on Twitter.

PROPHECY OF THE SISTERS

“Have you been waiting long?”

I shake my head. “Waiting is made easy in a place like this. A place that reminds me of you while I wait.”

He tips his head, taking a finger and tracing my face from the loose curls at my temple, down the angular jut of my cheekbone, across the curve of my jaw.

“Everything reminds me of you…”

Twin sisters Lia and Alice Milthorpe have just become orphans. They have also become enemies. As they discover their roles in a prophecy that has turned generations of sisters against each other, the girls find themselves entangled in a mystery that involves a tattoo-like mark, their parents’ deaths, a boy, a book, and a lifetime of secrets.

Lia and Alice don’t know whom they can trust.

They just know they can’t trust each other.

O. M. G. I am so looking forward to this book! I myself am a twin, so it'll be interesting to see if the twin dynamic in the book is similar, or if its strong enough to last or what!

There are so many contests out there for readers young and old, and there are several books that I've been trying to get my hands on has still eluded my personal library. Here are two, from a contest by Traveling To Teens. If you want to enter, better hurry! Contests end on July 31, so follow the link at the bottom. Yay! I love Traveling to Teens and contests for books.

Eyes Like Stars by Lisa Mantchev:

(Blurb by Traveling To Teens)

Beatrice Shakespeare Smith has lived for as long as she can remember in the Theatre Illuminata – a magical place where the characters of every play ever written can be found behind the curtain. She is not a player herself, and when management thinks she’s starting to upset the balance of the theatre, she’s tasked with making an invaluable contribution or leaving. So Beatrice decides to do what she knows best – stage a play. But it’s not going to be easy, and there are forces at work against her…

Link to Lisa Mantchev's site: http://www.theatre-illuminata.com/

O.M.G. I so want to read this! I was in Theatre all four years of high school, and I loved it - I have a small playbook, As You Like It, thats over 100 years old. And bringing so many characters together! I would love to see how the cast of this book gets along.

The Demons Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan:

(Blurb by Traveling to Teens)

Nick and his brother, Alan, have spent their lives on the run from magic. Their father was murdered, and their mother was driven mad by magicians and the demons who give them power. The magicians are hunting the Ryves family for a charm that Nick's mother stole -- a charm that keeps her alive -- and they want it badly enough to kill again.

Danger draws even closer when a brother and sister come to the Ryves family for help. The boy wears a demon's mark, a sign of death that almost nothing can erase...and when Alan also gets marked by a demon, Nick is desperate to save him. The only way to do that is to kill one of the magicians they have been hiding from for so long.

Ensnared in a deadly game of cat and mouse, Nick starts to suspect that his brother is telling him lie after lie about their past. As the magicians' Circle closes in on their family, Nick uncovers the secret that could destroy them all.

This is the Demon's Lexicon. Turn the page.

Link to Sarah Rees Brennan's site: http://www.sarahreesbrennan.com/demonslexicon2.html

I love books that contain some aspect of magic, demon/angel, faerie... anything sci-fi, really. And the flow of the book seems to be fast paced and exciting - a great book for me to read in one sitting in the middle of the night. Excitement abounds!