The Unread Shelf, or My Tsundoku

Are you a practitioner of tsundoku?

After reading a blog post on tsundoku and learning what it was, I wanted to create a more prominent reminder of my tendency to buy books that I want to read…and then never actually read. I own books that I bought as far back as early college, nearly ten years ago, that still sit unread on my bookshelf.

I discovered I needed a space for my habit of tsundoku.

tsundoku, 積ん読 (Japanese)

(n.) the act of leaving a book unread after buying it, typically piled up together with other such unread books

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City Guide: Denver

Travel- DenverOkay, I know I’m super behind on my travel blogs for 2014. I don’t know how many people follow the travel part of this blog (let me know in the comments if you like these!), but I promise I’m going to be more on time with these in 2015. There are just two of these left to finish out our adventures from last year, and up next is Hawaii and Harry Potter World.

In September 2014, we had another wedding to attend — this time in Denver, Colorado. While I’ve flown in to Denver several times to ski at Keystone, Vail, and other nearby resorts, I hadn’t spent much time exploring the Mile High City itself before this trip. Turns out Denver has a lot to offer beyond its ski resorts!

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Top 5 Screen Actors for Books Made Into Movies

A few days ago, Heather over at bitsnbooks tagged me to write a post on my favorite screen characters. This challenge has evolved, since Heather was originally tagged by someone who listed their top 10 screen characters, and then Heather narrowed it down to her top 10 book characters on screen.

Since I don’t watch a lot of movies (or much television) and since quite a few of my favorite book characters have yet to make it to the big screen, I split up my list into five favorite book-to-movie actors and five favorite book characters I’d like to see on the big screen.

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Three books I loved in 2014: Honor's Lark, The Book Thief, and Republic.

The Best of What I Read in 2014

In 2014, I read 23 books, almost making it to an average of 2 books a month. Like last year, I wanted to share some of my favorites, but unlike last year, I’m only highlighting a few of them. I made one-liner descriptions for the rest of what I read at the end of this post, which might be my new style of reviews since it was so fun to do.

And The Favorite Is: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

My favorite book of last year was The Book ThiefContinue reading “The Best of What I Read in 2014”

City Guide: Spokane

Spokane, Washington, is the home of my husband’s alma mater, Whitworth University, and while we were dating, I visited him there several times. But all my past visits ushered in multiple feet of snow, so seeing Spokane in the summer was like visiting a different city. This time, we were in town for another wedding, the occasion for many of our trips in 2014.

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Should You Write Your Story in Chronological Order?

I wrestled with this question leading up to NaNoWriMo this year. Should I attempt to write my story in chronological order, even in the first draft?

You see, until the story I wrote for NaNo, I had not yet written any fictional story in chronological order. In fact, it’s rare that I write much of anything in order, including essays for school or documents for work. I tend to start with what I know or what seems like the most fun part to write, and then I rearrange later as I shape the work and figure out what I want it to be.

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Winning NaNoWriMo

I did it. I won NaNoWriMo!

I wrote 50,035 words, and I did it in the span of 30 days. And honestly, it doesn’t feel real yet. Even though I’ve scrolled through all of that text — all the good and the bad, the parts I love and hate. Even though I know that quite a few hours of my November were spent writing, I’m still in awe. Me? The procrastinator? The “I don’t write fiction” girl? The one who used to say “I don’t have time to write”? The same person who frantically wrote 15K just this weekend because I wanted to win? Yep. That girl. Somewhere, somehow, and quite possibly by magic, I did it.

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NaNoWriMo 2014: Week One Check-In

It’s hard to believe one week of November, and thus, one full week of NaNo is already behind us. I can’t believe it. Next thing I know, it will be over and I’ll be putting up a Christmas tree!

So, how’d week one go? Well, for me, it went better than expected, all things considered. This week was busier than I thought it would be. (I thought this was going to be my “quiet” week in November. Oh, how wrong I was.) Thus, with not anywhere near as much time on my hands as I had hoped, and only two dedicated writing sessions this week, I’m happy to report that my word count is not abysmally off par.

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My Plans for NaNoWriMo This Year

Throughout the month of October, I’ll be posting a few blogs about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), which is in November. As I had such a positive experience last year, I’ll be talking about why I recommend it and how to survive it. #WhyNaNo

Now that I’ve talked about why you should do NaNoWriMo and how to survive it, what are my personal plans for NaNoWriMo this November?

Before I answer that, let’s take a moment to examine what’s led up to now in the past year.

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6 Tips for Surviving NaNoWriMo

Throughout the month of October, I’ll be posting a few blogs about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), which is in November. As I had such a positive experience last year, I’ll be talking about why I recommend it and how to survive it. #WhyNaNo

The main way to survive NaNoWriMo is to just keep writing. NaNoWriMo’s point is to produce a first draft, not a brilliant masterpiece. Sit down and write, every day, and fifty thousand words or not, you’ll be somewhere you weren’t a month before. Aside “just keep writing,” here are six tips for staying on track.

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Books on Bicycle - Ready for adventure?

My Roundabout Path to the Title of ‘Writer’

I recently updated my about page on this blog to start with the following:

“Kaitlin identifies first and foremost as a writer, and is often happiest when she can let her fingers fly over a keyboard. Whether she’s writing a novel, a news article, a press release, a blog, or just an email or a tweet, she is inspired by the power of language. Kaitlin’s love for writing has led her many places, from journalism to marketing to communications to public relations (and of course to this blog), and she expects it will continue to take her on exciting journeys, even if they’re only in the world of her own stories.”

It’s practically dreamy, and it’s safe to say my relationship with writing is pretty starry-eyed these days.

But it wasn’t always this way.

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5 Reasons to Participate in NaNoWriMo

Throughout the month of October, I’ll be posting a few blogs about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), which is in November. As I had such a positive experience last year, I’ll be talking about why I recommend it and how to survive it. #WhyNaNo

1. Seriously, why not?

NaNoWriMo!This question propelled me into NaNo last year. In college, I said that I would write a book before I turned 25. As that birthday approached, I realized I had done nothing to try to obtain that goal. NaNo seemed like as good a way as any to write a novel.

And honestly, it’s just 30 days. That’s what I told myself. If this goes horribly wrong and I hate it, what have I lost? A few evenings and weekends in one month? I figured that was a small price to pay to see if I could accomplish something I’d always wanted to try.

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Internet Slowdown: What if spinning wheels were the future?

Did you notice the spinning loading wheel on my site today? Wouldn’t it be annoying if it was always like that? What if the sites you love — for instance, sites like foursquare, Etsy, vimeo, and Reddit, who are all participating in the Internet Slowdown today, if you want to see what that’s like — made you wait for them to load much longer than you’re used to?

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