Tag: book

Goodreads 2018 Reading Challenge

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, eBook, ReadingLeave a comment

2018-08-26

I recently recommended books based on a Facebook challenge, but I myself have not actually read a book in the last 2 years. The last book I read was called Liar’s Blade, a Pathfinder Tale’s book, apparently number 13 in the series, which I did not know until just now. Before that, the last book I read I finished in November 2014. So, how can I be recommending books to people when I am terrible at reading a book?

I actually started reading 2 books recently. I started reading V: The Original Miniseries earlier this year in February. The Nook version has 595 pages, and I’ve already read 125, so I’m on chapter 4. I also started to read Question Quest which is the 14th book in the Xanth series and I’m on chapter 8. That book has 271 pages and I am currently on page 100. So I am at least making an attempt to read.

Last night I decided I need to take the challenge since I am recommending books, so I challenged myself to read 7 books, and I added 7 books to a new Goodreads list called 2018-challenge.

2018-08-26 (2)2018-08-26 (3)

I’ve been waiting a long time to read some of these books, like for example I bought Gladiator’s Master in 2012 and it’s literally been sitting in my Nook library waiting to be read, same with Question Quest. I stopped reading the Sookie Stackhouse books after True Blood ended, and I really want to go back and finish them. Splinter’s is a book that was recommended to me by the author himself when he visited and spoke in front of a group I belong to and I bought the Nook book when I came home that night and I guess I just never gave it a chance. Then this year I bought V, and read a few chapters, but that was it. I’ve actually been holding on to Queen of Sorcery for a lot longer, I have the Belgariad volume books which has 3 books in the first volume, and I read the first book in the series in 2010 after my aunt recommended it to me in 2005, I just never moved on to the 2nd book, so I added it recently for this challenge, and since I am reading V The Original Miniseries, I figure I might as well read the Second Generation while I’m at it, you know?

The order in which I read all of these books doesn’t matter, I mean obviously I’m not reading the first one on the list. These were listed this way based on the dates they were added into my account, not based on the order I will read them. And it doesn’t matter what I read first, Goodreads will only count the book for the 2018 challenge after I’ve finished reading it.

Anyway, I had to stop reading for the night because I have been reading for several hours today, and I can only read for so long before the words stop making sense to me, so I figured I’d write this blog post instead, and hope it makes sense lol.

Have you taken the Goodreads 2018 reading challenge? And if so, have you completed the challenge or are you still challenging yourself?

Edit: I’m going to cheat a little. I added a new book to my 2018-challenge list called Zombie Day Care because according to “Details” it’s only 134 pages. A lot of the books I’ve chosen to add to my list are almost 300 or in some cases almost 600 pages long, so in order for me to read 7 books this year, I’m going to need some easier books that I can go through quicker to basically catch up.

Dungeons & Dragons Wilderness Tiles

On By Michel McDonaldIn GamesLeave a comment

D&D tiles

I am still waiting for my dice, which is supposed to be here by Monday, my D&D starter set and all my miniatures, which will be here on Wednesday. In the meantime, I thought it would be prudent to start putting together the Wilderness tiles. These are really difficult because there are so many pieces that are pretty busy heh. They are 2 sided and some of them are just plain old grass with rocks and trees on them, but there are also some pretty neat tiles with towers and houses and huts. There are more than a few tiles of fires, which I assume are all trees on fire, but I won’t be using those because they are too busy. Although, I may use one burning bush to add a element of danger. We’ll see.

The thing I love about these tiles is that they are so colorful and thick and hard like a regular board game. The thing I hate about the tiles is that they aren’t interconnecting like a puzzle. The reason is because they slide around the table so much and it’s difficult to keep the pieces together. If I were to start playing with this, I would have to either hold my breath every time I move a miniature, or buy one of those rubber liners you put under rugs to keep them from sliding around on the hardwood floor. I think the latter.

I’m not sure I like layout that I have chosen so far, but when I buy a rubber rug liner, I’ll redo the whole thing so it doesn’t look so busy. I am not quite sure how I will place the pieces though. I tried to Google the Dungeons & Dragons wilderness tile set and I found a bunch of pictures and a few YouTube videos, but they were basically unboxing videos where they said “Oooh I’m opening a box. Oooh look at the tiles.” Okay so they didn’t say ooh, but you know what I mean. The pictures didn’t have any finished boards, so I couldn’t really see how other people put their tile set together. I would love to get some inspiration, so it would be awesome if someone showed me how they put theirs together. Of course I won’t copy theirs, I just want to see how I can improve mine.

There is still a lot of time before I get my packages, but I would like to have this tile thing finished before then so I can dig in to my new adventure so I can get a head start on my book.

Dungeons & Dragons

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, GamesLeave a comment

D&D The Wilderness Tiles

Call me excited! I am finally buying the things I need to write my fantasy fiction novel based on my character from the game EverQuest. I’m going to be using the Dungeons & Dragons style of gameplay to write most of the book. The reason is because I have a somewhat okay imagination, but it’s not that good that I can just start saying “this guy did this with his blade” and “that guy did that with his staff” and “this enchanter cast this spell on the orc.” I played EverQuest for many years, but I never really paid too much attention to the mechanics of the game. I kept all the battle spam out of the guild/group chat window.

dwarven steel D&D diceMy partner actually bought me this tile set at Barnes & Noble today. I actually read the description on the back wrong. I thought it said it included the D&D starter set, the Dungeon Master’s kit, Miniatures and tile sets, but it just has the Wilderness tile set. Last week I bought these dice from someone on Etsy, it includes a bracelet lol. I just want the dice, but I can give the bracelet away. The dice just shipped today and they said it should be here by next Monday. UGH! Well, I’ve waited all these years to get started, I can wait another week.

I decided that I wanted to buy some other things that are also important when playing, or learning to play Dungeons and Dragons, such as the starter kit and some miniatures, which are what I thought came with the Wilderness tiles. The starter kit will come with its own pair of dice, but I figured they would probably be plain white or something, so I don’t regret buying the extra dice from Etsy.  I also bought 3 sets of miniatures. Fantasy Figures, Army Builder and Skeleton Warriors. I figure the army builder one will be the characters in my story, the fantasy figures will be the bad guys which I will place in random spots on the tiles, and same with the skeleton warriors.

army builderfantasy figuresskeleton warriorsstarter kit

I didn’t realize it at first, but the army builder characters are lego characters heh. That’s fine, they don’t have to all be the same exact thing, as long as they fit on the wilderness tiles and don’t fall down, it’ll be fine. Now all I need is a good story that won’t bore anyone to death.

The Never Ending Book

On By Michel McDonaldIn AutobiographyLeave a comment

Just when I thought my book was finally ready to be published, I read it again and found more mistakes and then have to start all over again.

I sent my book out to several people a few weeks ago and they sent me feedback with highlights and notes so that I will know what needed to be fixed.  Up until recently I thought my grammar was correct considering I used spell and grammar check “After The Deadline” which told me I was right.  Apparently not.

I went through the book correcting everything that was highlighted.  I did search and replace and fixed countless issues and read the book again to be sure I had it right.  Naturally I found more errors.  I fixed the new errors, but to be 1,000,000% sure that it is ready, I will have to read it yet one more time.

The more I read my book, the faster I get at reading it.  When I first began, it used to take me a week or more to read it, now it takes 2 days.  I guess the more you read the same story, the easier it gets.  Now if only I could read other books that fast, I would have a bigger library under my belt.

I will start reading it again tomorrow from the beginning and hope that I don’t have to make any more changes.  I feel that when I can read my entire book without opening the document file on the computer to fix something, that is when it’s finished.

I’m going to be blind by the time this book is done lol.  At least I’m learning better grammar which will help me be a better blogger.