International Bookworms: Favorite Local Publishers

Hello fellow bookworms! The super awesome Ayla over at Books & Babbles created this great meme, International Bookworms Meme. I'm posting a few days later because it seems that in my advanced age of 29 years I completely forgot to write my post on the actual day of the prompt. Remember how one of my resolutions was to keep a journal/some sort of calendar for my blog?

Anyway... on to the prompt.

Wednesday Chatter #12: The Struggle To Write A Decent First Paragraph

Wednesday Chatter is a weekly feature at Ruby's Books where we'll be talking about anything and everything related to books and reading. Click here if you want to see what we talked about in the previous weeks


WARNING: Some bad words might be used in the following post. Don't say I didn't warn you!

Hey guys! Happy Wednesday!

Last week I was trying really hard to get some book reviews done and I noticed something. I always have a problem starting the review in a semi-intelligent way. You know, something other than "OMG THIS WAS SO GOOD" or something similar. The funny thing, though, is that not all reviews are so difficult to write, for me. Oh no, my issue is with books I've received for reviewing. This struggle led to this discussion post and I really hope I'm not the only one that has this issue.

See, here's the thing. I've always felt the pressure of a perfect beginning when reviewing books that I'm supposed to review. This probably has to do with the fact that, in school, I was told that all essays should have a strong, good beginning. That a good start will always make the readers enjoy the entire article more than they would if the first paragraph is mediocre or bad. Is it true? I have no idea. Maybe, maybe not. I don't judge an article by how it starts, unless the first paragraph is full of typing errors that are really "in-your-face". But for me there's this huge pressure to sound intelligent and somewhat professional. Like I know what I'm doing. Which, spoiler alert, isn't always the case.

For some reason this pressure, this strange idea of mine regarding reviews and the first paragraph, only comes to me to kick me in the butt when I'm writing reviews for books I've received for review.

Do you guys have that issue? I know I need to loosen up a bit, I'm not denying that. But am I the only one really struggling with this? Also, do you have any tips? 

2016 Book Blog Discussion Challenge Sign-Up

One of my resolutions for 2016 was to post more regularly on my blog. But for me having a blog full of reviews and the occasional meme post isn't all that enjoyable. I also love discussion posts, but I suck at writing them. Last year I saw a lot of bloggers doing the 2015 Discussion Challenge, so I decided that if the challenge will be up and running in 2016 that I'd join in on the fun. And so here I am, joining in. See, I'm also socializing more. Two resolutions in the first month of this year. I'm growing up, guys!

This challenge is hosted by Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction and Shannon @ It Starts at Midnight. To read the rules or to sign up, click on the graphic above or click here. The challenge has 5 levels:

1-12 – Discussion Dabbler

13-24 – Creative Conversationalist

25-36 – Chatty Kathy

37-48 – Terrifically Talkative

49+ – Gift of the Gab

I'm aiming for 25-36 discussion posts. I want to publish a discussion post a week, every week, but I'll be honest with you and myself and say that that might not be always possible. So I'm choosing Chatty Kathy as my desired level. If I manage to post more than 36 discussion posts, I'll feel immensely proud of myself.