Tag: 2018

Posted in Reading, Review, Updates

What I Read In 2018

Posted on by Tegan Anderson

I’m still working on a post about my favourite books of 2018, so here I am instead to write a recap of the year! I’ve never done one of these end-of-year posts before but Goodreads has this thing where it shows you all your reading statistics for the year and I am a number nerd.

Reading wise, this year has been exciting. It’s been my most ambitious reading year to date, I’ve fallen in love with the stories of many new authors, and I’ve started getting back into reviewing books and reading advanced copies again. This year has also been pretty tough. My mental health has been the worst it’s ever been and I’ve fallen a bit out of love with writing, the one thing I’ve loved for a huge proportion of my life.

But this blog isn’t going to focus on that: it’s going to focus on all the good books I’ve read this year and how I suddenly need to buy a new bookshelf because I’ve filled my third one.

This post might be long. Let’s begin!

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Posted in Reading, Review

Underhyped YA Books of 2018 | #HypeYour5

Posted on by Tegan Anderson

This year, I’ve finally accepted that I truly do love hyped books. I’ve always been torn about this because not every book can be hugely hyped, and I can’t possibly read every book that came out this year even if I read more than the average person (probably?), and it’s frustrating knowing that so many good books have come out and not appeared on my feeds or in my recommendations at all. I’m so behind on all the books.

(I’ve just done some Googling – the average number of books each person reads a year is 12, but that’s inflated by avid readers. The most frequently reported number was 4 books per year.)

So, for this post, I’m going to talk about some of my favourite under-hyped books of 2018 with the #HypeYour5 tag. This was created by Mackenzi Lee on Instagram, and I will stick to genuinely underhyped books rather than books I love but are averagely hyped or else this post would be The Song of Achilles ten times.

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Posted in Maggie Stiefvater, Review

The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater [REVIEW]

Posted on by Tegan Anderson

I read this back in February but (ten months later) suddenly decided to review every book I’ve read this year. So, here I am.

I said this in my review for the first book, but I am still hopelessly in love with all of the Raven Boys. As someone who has finished reading the entire series before writing this review, I can say that Stiefvater’s foreshadowing is phenomenal.

The review…

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Posted in Maggie Stiefvater, Review

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater [REVIEW]

Posted on by Tegan Anderson

I read this back in January but (eleven months later) suddenly decided to review every book I’ve read this year. So, here I am.

I am hopeless in love with all of the Raven Boys, especially Ronan. As someone who has just finished reading the entire series before writing this review, I can say that Stiefvater is phenomenal at foreshadowing.

Before I get to some actual points, I remember reading this book and expecting it would revolve a lot more around the ghosts and dead people and curses and prophecies. The blurb was about seeing dead people at the graveyard and killing your true love with a kiss, so I expected more of the plot to revolve around those things, or that they’d hold a larger role in the book rather than just the opening scene and a few mentions throughout.

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Posted in Heart, Updates, Writing

NaNo 2018 Updates

Posted on by Tegan Anderson

‘Beautiful People’ is a project created by a book blog that I love (Paper Fury), aimed at writers. They used to post a list of ten questions for people to answer every month, designed to help you get to know their characters – their quirks, their flaws, their personality, and who they are. Occasionally, there are groups of questions aimed at the writers and their writing progress, rather than just what they’re writing about. In this case, it’s inspired by NaNoWriMo!

For this blog, I’m going to be answering a group of questions. I believe that this is the November 2016 group and I’d love to see everyone else’s responses to these questions. I’ll put the complete list of questions at the very end of the blog.

Let’s begin!

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Posted in Heart, Tags, Writing

‘Your Story’ Tag

Posted on by Tegan Anderson

It’s currently National Novel Writing Month and, as I am participating in NaNo this year, I thought I’d dedicate all blogs and YouTube videos I make this month to my current project. This week I’m going to be doing the ‘Your Story’ tag, which I currently can’t find the creator of. If I do find them, I’ll update this blog.

This story is called ‘Heart’ and it owns my heart.

Let’s begin!

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Posted in Heart, Tags, Writing

All About My NaNo 2018 Project

Posted on by Tegan Anderson

It’s currently National Novel Writing Month and, as I am participating in NaNo this year, I thought I’d dedicate all blogs and YouTube videos I make this month to my current project. This week I’m going to be doing the ‘Work In Progress’ tag, which I currently can’t find the creator of. If I do find them, I’ll update this blog.

This story is called ‘Heart’ and it owns my heart.

Let’s begin!

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Posted in Personal, Writing

Writing With A Mental Illness

Posted on by Tegan Anderson

Many writers (and creative people in general) struggle with mental illness, myself included. And it’s not as charming or helpful or inspiring for our work as some people try to make it seem. At the very least, writers are often stereotyped to be depressed. And I’m not joking when I say that there are people out there in the world who believe that creatives have to be mentally ill in order to create some kind of art. My opinion, in one word, is just… no.

Writing while being mentally ill (from my experience) is occasionally borderline impossible. On a good day, it can be incredibly difficult. It’s not fun and it makes you feel like quitting or missing out on opportunities or not enjoy something that you truly love. It’s a fight to keep going, and sometimes you just need support. Being stigmatised or told you’re ‘broken’ or that you should be mentally ill because you’re a creative are some of the worst and least helpful things.

So, from the experience of a writer with a mental illness, here are some things I do to keep me writing.

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