Illuminating!

Posted on August 14, 2012 by Ileandra Young

In an effort to stay on top of things – mainly because I feel twitchy if I don’t – I’ve decided to catch this award sooner rather than later.

Very many, many thanks to JM Mcdowell who nominated me for the Illuminating Blogger Award. Illuminating Blogger Award bannerI always appreciate getting these things 1) because it means someone is thinking of me (which is always nice) and 2) because it means I can spread the love. Its for this reason, more than any other that I want to do this while its in my mind, so I can draw your attention to some blogs that I enjoy.

But first… the rules!

Visit the award site, leave a comment, tell everyone who nominated you, and thank the blogger and include a link back to their site.
Well that’s taken care of now, thanks again JM! ^_^
 

Share a random thing about yourself.
Oooo… erm…. Every now and then I find a brand new birthmark somewhere on my body. The last one was inside my belly button which popped out while I was pregnant.
 

Select five or more nominees and notify them.
Okay here we go:

  1. Felix O’Shea @ Grumpy Comments
  2. Tiffany @ Eternal Changes (Creations From A Woman’s Mind)
  3. Jami Gray
  4. Robin Coyle
  5. Nephele Tempest @ A Literary Agent’s Industry Musings

 

Put the award on your blog somewhere.
Take a look at the sidebar on the right. ^_^

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Bonus Blog: Change In Schedule

Posted on August 13, 2012 by Ileandra Young

Hiiiii folks!

Its just hit me that despite the major changes in my life, the responsibility of two ickle babies, I’m still keeping to a crazy-busy blogging schedule. I’ve somehow managed to never miss a post in line with my current schedule (Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday & Sunday). I know… superwoman, right?

Well I’m flagging a bit. And I also think that four posts a bit is a little too much. If you guys are anything like me, then you probably have dozens (and the rest) of subscribed blogs sending you emails that you need to catch up on when you have time spare. So… I think it would be a kind thing for you (and me) if I took the schedule back to three days (which is what its supposed to be).

Six Sentence Sunday will be continuing until January 2013, at which point the site and the initiative will close, so I will include those posts in the three days. Following up from that, there will be two more posts each week on… hmm… Fridays and Tuesday. Yeah, I think that’s nicely spaced.

So… make a note dear followers; as of now, until further notice, the new posting schedule for this blog is Tuesday, Friday, Sunday. ^_^blank calendar from OpenClipArt

See you tomorrow. 😉

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Six Sentence Sunday 12/08 #27

Posted on August 12, 2012 by Ileandra Young

Its Sunday again! You know what that means, right?

Oh yes! Welcome once again to Six Sentence Sunday the home of tiny titbits of delicious prose. This week, still working through my A-Z of Flash Fiction we’re looking at the letter ‘R,’ the trigger word for which is race.

One of the M/M pieces of flash I’ve been working on here there and everywhere. I quite enjoyed putting this together; its light and playful, short and sweet.

~Mark and Simon race to the top of a hill in the wilds outside their home, planning for some alone time….

Simon turned around to face down the hill just as Mark finally made it to the top. “You planned this!” He cried, pointing an accusatory finger.

Mark bent down with his hands cupping his knees, glancing up through a curtain of sweaty dark hair. He quirked one eyebrow and smiled. “Well duh!”

Naughty, naughty Mark! Why would you propose a race you’re certain to lose?! 🙂 You’ll have to wait until I publish the whole piece of flash to find out. :p

Until next week friends!
Oh and don’t forget to check out the other authors taking part by using the banner below. Ta! x

Six Sentence Sunday

Posted in A-Z Challenge, Flash Fiction, Ileandra's Posts, Other Writings, Sample Sunday | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Book Review: House Of Night (Series)

Posted on August 11, 2012 by Ileandra Young

Author: PC & Kirsten Cast
Title: The House Of Night: Marked, Betrayed, Chosen, Untamed, Destined, Hunted, Tempted & Burned
Genre: Young Adult
‘If you are Marked, you must leave your home and move into the House of Night school, where you will take your place as a fledgling and live for four years….’

I thought I was at the end of the series with Burned, but it seems that this mother daughter team are still going. That means I have more of the story to pick up. However, in the meantime, it seems that I have more than enough to talk about.

I’ve talked about this series before and even back then I was thrilled to read something so damn cool. Since then, I won’t take back my glee at the first book in the series, but I can see how my reading tastes have matured.

This series is young adult (YA) and I have to remember that. Its not going to have the levels of sophistication that I’ve recently enjoyed because the audience is significantly different. The language, style and pace are not for me even though I have no problem reading them. But from a critical point of view, I really do feel this series has so much more to give and it would have been able to take advantage of that in a much more comprehensive way if it was aimed at adults.

That aside… I’m still loving it! I powered through these books on my Kindle while at the hospital and then when I left and I’d pretty much finish one and dive straight into the next. Zoey Redbird’s adventures continue to hook me and have me straining to see what’s coming next. Her love life is in shreds and the source of more than a little irritation for me (seriously, how wrong can you get it, over and over and over?!) but at the end of the day she’s seventeen. I certainly wasn’t handling ‘boy problems’ very well when I was seventeen. Couple that with the good vs evil war she’s right in the middle of and the incredible responsibility she has to deal with, she’s not doing all that bad.

The cast of sidekicks (The Nerd Herd) continues to delight me with the colourful personalities and the comings and goings of bit characters do keep the story moving rather than distract from it by giving you a bunch more names to remember.

All in all, I am going to keep reading. It would be a shame to get this far and then not finish the series and, frankly put, I really want to see how the hell Zoey plans to save the world from her crazed nemesis. I just need to fit that in around sleepless nights and mad-busy days.

Posted in Books, Ileandra's Posts, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

More Catch Up

Posted on August 9, 2012 by Ileandra Young

I talked about this back in May. I had mentioned that I’ve been nominated for a couple of awards and that I didn’t have the time to go through them properly. Well since then I’ve got (three) more (!!! – you’re all far, far, far too kind!) so I thought I’d better play some catch up.

As I’m sure you’ll understand, time is still against me (the boys are sleeping right now and I’ve no idea how long that will last!) so I’m going to cheat just a tad and bundle them all up. I hope you’ll forgive me.
So… the Reader Appreciation Award comes from both Vanessa Grassi and Erin Brady Pike (who also nominated me for the One Lovely Blog Award, as did Tiffany).
Reader Appreciation Award
 
 
 
The Versatile Blogger and the Beautiful Blogger awards come from Roberta Gordon.
Versatile Bloggerbeautiful blogger award banner
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The Kreativ Blogger Award comes from JM McDowell.
kreativ blogger banner
 
 
The rules for these awards generally ask that you share seven facts about yourself, so I’ll do that now (I hope I don’t repeat myself with these; I talk about myself a lot on this blog, if you hadn’t noticed :p).

  1. I had a phase (I might not be out of it actually) during which if I ever saw mushrooms growing wild I had to stomp on them. Like stomp them flat and scatter them to the seven winds. o.O
  2. I have size nine feet. Which wouldn’t be a problem except its really, really hard to buy shoes! That is of course until I got pregnant which magically seemed to shrink my feet to a size seven. Weird.
  3. My DVD collection is in alphabetical order and I get really twitchy if someone messes it up. I can’t help it… it just makes me feel better.
  4. I have been in three musicals and been cast in the male chorus because my vocal range is so low that I can’t handle soprano and alto parts (it still stings, to this day).
  5. I have a reasonable collection of ornamental swords and daggers, accumulated during my student days (y’know… when I had money to spare). I also have a wicked cool pair of sais! ^_^
  6. I still try not to step on cracks in the pavement, though I still haven’t broken my back for missing any.
  7. My mild OCD (CDO!!!) insists that the volume measurement on the TV is always an even number, if if that’s a touch too loud or too quiet.

^_^ Yeah… I know… I’m a bit weird.

Anyway, that’s that.

Next, I’d like to direct your attention to a selection of other blogs I rather enjoy. Not so much passing on the awards as inviting you to look into blogs that I love reading.

Kirsten Lamb

Level 51

Limebird Writers

First Draft Cafe

Slaying Dragons

Phoenix Writers

Kana’s Chronicles

4am Writer

Writerlicious

jmmcdowell

Vanessa Grassi

How To Disappear Completely

Craig Hallam

Writing Is Hard Work

Grumpy Comments

Phew! That’s a bigger list than I was intending. Well, I hope you enjoy those blogs anyway. All that remains for me to say is please, please forgive me for cheating, look up these other fabulous bloggers and thank you again to Vanessa, Erin, Roberta, Tiffany and JM for the nominations!

Until next time! ^_^
 
 
 
 
 
 
ADDITIONAL
I should also mention, that since writing this post, I’ve received further nominations. You guys are all far, far too sweet! I’ll be doing my best to respond to those properly in the coming weeks and post the responses up as normal. Stay tuned.

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