Tag Archives: mama kat’s writer’s workshop

This Week in Books: All the Feels

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This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. That means that if you click the book covers and make purchases through those links, I earn a small commission to support Take a Second Glantz.

Not feeling well this weekend, I got a LOT of reading done. Silver linings and all that jazz.

THEN

It’s incredibly unusual these days for me to read a book in less than 48 hours. I just happened to read two such page-turners back to back this week. Denton Little’s Deathdate by Lance Rubin is delightful! With a clever premise of (most) humans knowing the day they’re going to die, we see how 17-year-old Denton Little chooses to spend his last few days. Surprisingly hilarious, I couldn’t get enough of Denton and his friends, and I can’t wait to read the sequel (yes, you read that right).

During my afternoon with Jay Asher, I knew that I’d like his newest book, What Light, but I had no idea that ALL. THE. FEELS would keep me reading it all night long. Besides being a really sweet romance and a great reminder that people are capable of change and deserve second chances, the premise of being a Christmas tree farmer and having two lives because of it (one on the farm 11 months out of the year and one in another state selling tress on a lot from Thanksgiving to Christmas) was fascinating.

NOW

A dystopian novel about a reality survival show, The Last One by Alexandra Olivia was difficult to get into at first with chapters alternating between the first-person perspective of the main character, Zoo, and an omniscient third-person narrator’s point-of-view (so that we learn about the other contestants of the reality show). Being a fan of Survivor, and reality TV in general, I’m kind of loving the premise. If the twist is what I think it is, the story is much darker than it first appears. I’m about halfway through and am looking forward to seeing where the story takes me.

NEXT

My friend Amy Carol Reeves, author of the awesome YA Ripper trilogy, invited me to Joy Callaway’s book signing on Tuesday where I picked up her hot-off-the-press historical novel, Secret Sisters, about the very first sororities. I can’t wait to dig into this rich history and learn these sisters’ secrets.

What does your week in books look like?

 

Linking up with #TWIB and Mama Kat’s Writing Workshop (Prompt 4: Book Review!)

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Mama’s Losin’ It

 

 

 

 

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The best part of my day

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I love hearing the happy sounds of my child stirring after a good night’s sleep. I love feeling his arms around my neck and his head on my shoulder as I breathe in his scent after almost 12 hours apart. I love his smile when he sees me sneak into his classroom at the end of the day, his running leap into my arms, excited to see each other after a long day at school and an even longer day at work. I love the happy chatter in the car on the way home and his increasingly animated tales about what happened (at least in his mind) at school.

I love when my husband comes home from work and all three of us sit around the table for dinner. I love my first sip of wine for the evening. I love relaxing with my husband after the kiddo has gone to bed.

The best part of my day, though, is when I can finally curl up in bed with my book.

reading before bed

No story can be as entertaining as my child. No fictional hero as wonderful as my husband. But reading before bed means I did it. I made it through another day. No matter what that day was like, I’ve made it to the final level of the game and I can finally escape into whatever other world is waiting for me.

Sometimes it lasts only five minutes (before I fall asleep and drool on the pages). Sometimes it lasts for hours (the silver lining of insomnia). But no matter how short or long the time is, it’s all mine.

Mama’s Losin’ It

Writing Prompt: 1. The best part of my day is…

The year of momentum

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I’m a planner. By the time eighth grade rolled around, I already had my entire high school course load mapped out. My senior year in high school barely began, and I knew every class I was going to take for my college major and which clubs I was going to partake in. My dad would chuckle and remind me, “When people plan their lives, G-d laughs.” It wasn’t long before I understood my father’s meaning: I graduated from a college I never intended to attend; I reside in a place I never dreamed of living; and my career doesn’t remotely resemble what I studied. Still, I plan. But with much more flexibility and the knowledge that it can all go to s#*! at any moment.

Last year, my planning stalled. For lots of different reasons, I threw my hands up in the air and asked, “Why bother?” You know what happened? Nothing. I didn’t blog. I barely wrote. I created virtually nothing. I stood still. Sure, I thought about doing all those things, but life circumstances paralyzed me. Spending the better part of the year spinning my wheels, I ended the year (in terms of my personal goals and passion projects) in virtually the same place where I started. And that felt BAD.

As 2016 was moving toward the rear-view mirror, I stumbled upon Belong Magazine on Instagram; and as I got to know the founder, Brooke, through her daily photos and accompanying words, she became an inspiration. I recognized her struggles with her goals as my own, and her encouragement to take baby steps became a mantra of sorts in my head. The one thing I did a LOT of in 2016 was read, and so I added books like Gretchen Rubin’s Better than Before: Mastering the Habits of our Everyday Lives and Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear to my reading list.

All of this inspiration led to my one little word for this year…

momentum: one little word 2017

Belong Mag’s Instagram post a few days ago sums up the reason behind my word momentum perfectly: “If you don’t take a step forward, you’ll always be in the same place.” In her book, Elizabeth Gilbert told a story about her mother that beautifully illustrates the concept of doing your future self a kindness. This resonated with me to the point of almost haunting me. It is my future self that I must keep in mind when faced with the choice to move forward or remain in place. From something as simple as trying to decide if I should take five minutes to make a sandwich for lunch, I think of future me, who is going to be hangry if I opt to do something else with that time. When it comes to my goals, I must also think of the future me and make decisions that leave her in a more positive place than she was.

What is your one little word for 2017?

Mama’s Losin’ It

Photo credit: Mubarak Fahad via Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND

 

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