I usually just post these things in Twitter and/or Tumblr posts but they’ve all cropped up in the last couple of days so I thought I may as well do a proper post… Ahem.
I got an email earlier that most of my Etsy shop’s listings are expiring really soon, so if you’ve ever fancied any of what’s there head on over ASAP. Plus I am going on holiday for ten days on Friday so any physical orders after the 11th July won’t be shipped until the 23rd at the earliest, by which time most of those items will have gone. So get on it!
Society6 is having one of its free-shipping-on-most-items days if you follow this link and this link only. It’s weird and they don’t tell you how long the offer lasts, presumably to whip you up into a frenzy. It’s until the 13th according to that very link.
I’m currently taking story commissions on DeviantART (all the info is on the right hand side below the advert). Once again, when I’m away I will technically be on holiday so if you request anything then you won’t get a response for a few days.
I hate doing what are effectively sales pitch blogs but at least this way it’s one lone social media post, as opposed to eighty over the course of a day… plus this trails on nicely to what I really want to talk about, which is HOLIDAY READING.
You know the drill. I take more books than I can carry, I read most of them, set up blogs talking about them and always include one novel that is totally depressing and/or gross. The first year I did it I took Trainspotting, which I haven’t read since; last year was We Need to Talk About Kevin which I then chose to study for my A Level and never want to read again… the further I explored it, the more effed up it became. I think this year will be Goodnight Mister Tom, which I have never previously read because I saw the TV adaptation about ten years ago, got so distressed I cried and have refused to open the book ever since.
But I’ll probably take this fortnight’s Private Eye and The Son of Neptune so it’s okay! There will be laughs all round! I will also take a book of codewords because since I stopped going to school my vocabulary has been on the downturn, which is bad for everybody. If I’m not careful I’ll only be able to speak in dog chatter… “Don Don, why are you barking? No one cares. Shhh. Hello Fred. You look very handsome. Go away that was my flapjack. Snuggles time.”
I love snuggles time. Speaking of which.
Francesca's Thoughts 
have you read The Fault In Our Stars? if not, take it with you and read!! the film doesn’t do it justice – then again, if you haven’t read the book, you probably wouldn’t go to see it anyway, unless you’re easily swayed and will follow the crowd of friends who are going, but then again, they’d be going cos they’d read it, so you would’ve followed the crowd at the point at which they were all reading it …. are you as confused as me?
I don’t read a great deal – I should, but I don’t. The last book I read was a trilogy, so more than one book then!! yes, it was that dreadful trilogy – no, not LOTR (that’s an excellent trilogy). the other one, the fanfic one, the bdsm one. i know, it’s appalling – both the fact that I read it, and the book itself. Actually, 2 & 3 are marginally better – but it’s all exceptionally repetitive. and boring. In my defence, it was for research – sorry, but 50 Shades of Way is no further along. I should make it my summer project!!
But back to TFIOS. Read it on a train journey to London (Tate Modern, Ruin Lust exhibition) – so it’s an easy read in terms of timescale. But a good read too. You’ve probably heard on the grapevine how it ends – but when I read it, I got to one part where suddenly it hit me what was actually going to happen … and it really threw me. and a train is not a great place to have a literary wobble.
so, that’s my summer reading recommendation!
enjoy your hols 🙂
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I think I get you… I have actually been meaning to read it for ages, I just have to get hold of a copy…
I’m assuming by ‘the fanfic one’ you mean ’50 Shades of Grey’ and not some MCR fanfiction? Because when I first read the comment I hadn’t had any coffee and that is what I thought.
Hmm.
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Sorry, yes, that one! I’m too ashamed to say it out loud!
The only MCR fanfic I’ve read was The Dovekeeper, which I thought was pretty good, though I’ve nothing to compare it to so what do I know! I tried to read the follow up, The Rainbow, but it was too much of a mish-mash of stuff, kind of shoe-horned in to meet some minority-inclusive criteria (at least that was my perception).
That was one of my issues with 50 shades – the bdsm stuff was kind of there just to make it different. And it wasn’t convincing – it was as if she had decided ‘ooh, need to write something kinky’ then gone online to find out about it. The old saying ‘write about what you know’ rings very true. As soon as you start reading it’s obvious it’s basically a love story and you soon know how it’s going to end. The limitations of publishing mainstream means it (presumably) can’t be too (porno)graphic but there was so little characterisation to engage the reader. There’s only so many times you can read her reaction to any sexual activity as being ‘Oh my!’ before you hit the brick wall of monotony. And seriously, there must be plenty of ways of describing her lady-parts that don’t sound as twee as ‘down there’. I wonder if there’s a list somewhere of acceptable phrases to use in fiction for anything related to sex – and whether that list has ever been updated … and what phrases people would be happy to see in print, given that fanfics online use all sorts of debased vernacular and Muppet Kid & T-Shirt Boy’s parents commonly use such words in everyday conversation (and by that I mean when they appear on the Jeremy Kyle show!!)
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Actually it was the awful description that turned me off (hardihar) 50 Shades… if something’s written well, even if it’s fanfiction posted online, it’s decent work. That shit was literally shit.
Muppet Kid and T-Shirt Boy are fast becoming cartoon characters in my head.
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Haha, I want to agree by saying ‘yes they kind of are’ but that sounds like such bad English – split infinitive? It should be ‘yes, they are, kind of’ but that still sounds poor. hmmmm ….. how about “I concur” … too posh? ah, the dilemma that is the written word.
We need to pitch this to Gerard!! I shall set my son to work on it as I can’t draw for toffee (or any other confection) and we’ll force our way to the front of the stage at Leeds and get it to him. Have you got a story in mind? We already have character profiles (once I search back through to find out which blog they first appeared), just need sketches and a story!
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I’ll work on it during my holiday – pretty sure there will be enough tourists of a similar ilk to provide inspiration… Instead of solving crimes, they could commit ’em.
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