WWW Wednesday | 11th September 2019

WWW Wednesday is hosted by Sam @ Taking on a World of Words! All you have to do is answers the following three questions:

What are you currently reading/playing?
What did you recently finish reading/playing?
What do you think you’ll read/play next?

I’m continuing to have quite a difficult time at the moment as my depression has taken a bit of a nosedive, likely in response to stress around my dissertation which I’ve had to get an extension for. However, I’ve actually been able to use this time to seek solace in books rather than sitting in a massive blanket puddle not doing anything and I’ve been able to get a lot of reading done this week which is great!

Wrap Up | May 2019 + the unintended hiatus

Hey friends!

Some of you may (or may not) have noticed that I’ve been absent for pretty much the entirety of May. I had planned to take a little step back from blogging anyway as this summer is going to be really busy for me on my Master’s degree, but then I managed to catch/develop gastroenteritis – a nasty contagious stomach bug – which completely knocked me out for almost 2 weeks. Then I had to return to work, start planning my long summer of uni work, and celebrate my partner’s birthday on Sunday. Before I knew it, I found myself at the end of May? I feel like I blinked and missed it.

A couple of weeks ago, I tweeted about my concerns around being able to manage book blogging alongside starting my PhD in September (not to mention squeezing it in amongst all my Master’s work this summer) and I’m still not sure what the outcome of my ponderings will be. It’s definitely something I’m planning on writing a discussion post about so that I can talk about it more in-depth and speak to other book bloggers who manage their blog alongside busy lives. What I do know though, from having my unintended break this month, is that I feel a lot less happy when I’m not blogging and I felt so isolated from my book blog friends. Writing this post is already beginning to lift my low mood but I’m also anxious about how much work I have to do. Anyway, that’s not a decision to be made right now – instead, I want to share with you all what I did manage to get up to during Moody May ❤

WWW Wednesday | 13th March 2019

WWW Wednesday is hosted by Sam @ Taking on a World of Words! All you have to do is answers the following three questions:

What are you currently reading/playing?
What did you recently finish reading/playing?
What do you think you’ll read/play next?

Mailbox Monday | Catch Up

Hey everybody! I didn’t have a post planned for today but wanted to see how everyone is and share some positive things with you ❤

WORK 

For those who’ve missed my last few Mailboxes, things haven’t been going great for me at work lately. I had a pretty good weekend at work though, which has really improved my mood and I’m looking into some other employment options to either supplement my weekend hours or possible graduate development programmes to apply for. So I’m feeling a lot more positive today and much less depressed!

OPPORTUNITIES

I’ve had some exciting new opportunities crop up which I’m really looking forward to. I have my first ever author contact me asking me if I want to review their book which was exciting! I’ve pitched a few more writing ideas to various anthologies and websites, and I’ve completed 2/3 of my first paid writing article. I’ve also just joined the blogging team over at Queerly Reads where I’ll be contributing as a regular blogger and taking part in some of their events.

Life & Lit

Speaking of events, did you know that I’m one of the moderators on the fantastic facebook group Life & Lit and I’m hosting an LGBTQ+ read for Pride ❤ For Pride month we are running a Blind Date book event where me and 3 other mods including Destiny and Melanie selected our chosen LGBTQ+ book to host. We then announced which book we chose last week and mine is, obviously, The Song of Achilles! If you want to take part in reading The Song of Achilles and participating in the event then you can join in here! Destiny will be hosting How To Make a Wish which you can join here, Melanie has chosen The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo which you can join here, and Terry is hosting Every Heart a Doorway which you can join here!

Bookish Things

When I went to take my library books back last week I promised myself that I wouldn’t get any more books out. I already have a lot of ARCs I need to get through, AAPI Heritage Month reads, and all of my birthday books that I haven’t yet touched. But of course… it’s never quite that simple. To be fair though, 2 of the books are for the Ramadan Readathon, 1 was Volume 5 of Saga which I breezed through already, one was a book that has been on my TBR since 2012 but have never been able to find anywhere other than Amazon, and the last one is a book which I wanted to read in my first year of uni but never had time! I have very justifiable reasons… obviously…

I won Kate’s ebook giveaway which I’ve been so excited about as it’s the first ever blogger giveaway I’ve won and I’ve requested The Whale Rider which I’m really looking forward to finally reading. It’s been really tough to find books by Pasifika authors, my local library has a grand total of 0, and I don’t have enough money to buy them from Amazon. I did manage to find a copy of Once Were Warriors though on eBay for £2.50 though, and I managed to find another book for AAPI Heritage Month, Flame in the Mist, for £1.80 in a charity shop!

Read this week:

 

Currently Reading:

That’s all from me!
How are you all doing?
How has the past week been for you?

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Mailbox Monday | Writing with anxiety + catch up

Hey friends! Hope that everyone has been having a lovely time since the last Mailbox Monday a month ago. I haven’t been able to post Mailbox Monday as regularly as I would have liked so I wanted to bring you a little update to you all today as to what’s been going on and also talk about something that’s been bugging me for a while now – writing with anxiety!