400th Post

This right here is my 400th post(!), and I still can't believe that that is how many I've done!

I started in October 2013 with five reviews back to back (Graceling, Hunger Games, Gallagher Girls, Throne of Glass, Infernal Devices - all the ones everyone were reading). Actually, maybe I should go back and re-read Graceling and see how a review now would compare to my very first one? I'll put it into my thinking cap.

Then in 2014 I had a whopping 97 posts, with 12 alone in July! I started out with posts twice a week, T5W's (Top 5 Wednesdays) were here for a while.

Now it's just every other Saturday, a comfortable amount to me, with everything else going on. I haven't wanted to stop - and don't plan on for a while - even though my reasons to continue aren't all the reasons why I started.

I wrote about why I started in my very first post, and made another post four years later "Revamping an old Post" (link here). If you've read that post, then you know what I mean when I say thank you. Thank you for reading, even though it's not what I initially even really wanted. Yet here we are 400 posts later.

Read on lovelies,

S

New Schedule?

I've been writing here since winter 2013 with up to 11 posts one month (!) with T5W ones on wednesdays, regular posts on saturdays and wrap-ups at the end of the month for a long time.

Each summer I'd have a break or post every other week, like I have been doing now, and I've been really enjoying it. It forces me think carefully about what I really want to write about since I only have three posts per month with one being a wrap-up.

So I've decided that's what I'll continue to do, at least until Christmas. At the end of each month there'll be a wrap-up. Then every other post will probably be one review (or I've been thinking about doing a couple small reviews in one post) and every other either a tag or something else I'll come up with. But we shall see!

Read on lovelies,

S

If I Wrote a Book

People ask me if writing a book is a dream of mine, but my answer is always no. I don't think I could ever be able to:

a) write one,

b) have a story developed enough

or even c) have a original and creative story.

Every once in a while I do think of characters or a world or story and might even write some scenes down, but a novel? Nope.

But if I were to write one, these are things I'd have to consider:

1) Who is the target audience?

2) What makes it special

3) Genre

4) POV

5) Style (readability)

6) Organization: coherence, consistency, flow
7) Length
8) Possible message

9) Characters

-strength

-weakness

-goal
-backstory
-possible names!

10) And then what actually happens:

setting, character, conflict, climax, resolution, details...

Personally I would probably write a fairy tale retelling with adventure, action and hints of magic and romance.

Read on lovelies,

S

Revamping an Old Post

[TAG]

Revamp an old post: The Beginning, four years later


I looked at my first post and I felt like I needed to add to it and go through what I started out with.

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Out With the Old (link)
Oct. 25th 2013

The Start of Booksonal

Dear you,

I started this blog to write about books. Shocker, since the title is there...

Anyway, so as you can assume I love reading books. I don't have that many, but I read loads. I decided to make a blog for writing about them. About what I have read, how much I loved them (if I even liked them), overall about books and I'll maybe make some book tags.

I'll try to post every Saturday, but probably I will be delayed sometimes...

So hope you will like my posts,

and as always read on.

Love,

Sally

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In With the New
Oct. 21st 2017

Booksonal Four Years Later


This blog has brought me good & bad times, new perspectives & people, long nights & lots and lots of notes and ideas.

I started out with Word documents, post-its and full notebooks about what I've read. I took the jump to a blog in 2013 (I wasn't always as active though), so it's been four years next week!

I didn't start so that people would read it - it was actually not something I wanted. Let me explain that with this:

            About the name Booksonal. Well I started this blog more like a journal that was               therapeutic in a way. My thoughts are always mine and so they feel personal and so -               hence the name.

So no I wasn't looking for readers, I wanted - still want to - express my thoughts and people who read it and can relate are just a bonus. But to all of those who have been reading, for a shorter or longer time, thank you.

If you've never written down why you like or don't like a book it can really organize your thoughts and your star ratings. And if you've been reading the blog for some time you know I love being organized.
               The point is try it out - you might be surprised.

Read on lovelies,

S

What Makes a Book Good

Feelings, statistics, both or neither

When rating a book I try to make an effort to distance myself from looking at purely the ending and my feelings right after finishing it. Looking back at books it's easier to see things that you really liked and what were unique and stayed with you.

So what makes a book good?
The feelings, the memorableness, the characters, the plot or something else entirely?

When I review a book I try to look at the book as a whole and work from there. But when rounding half stars on Goodreads - I just go with my feelings.

My STAR SYSTEM:
* Nope, maybe even DNF
** Decent? but wouldn't recommend
*** Good & Promising
**** Great & Entertaining
***** Unique & Loved it

Questions to ponder:
-Sensation after (is the book still good if the ending and only the ending was bad?)
-What do you remember (characters or feelings etc.)
-Which do you have rather lived? (like regret more what you did or didn't do)
-I love suprises and twists, isn't that just playing with your head & feelings?
-Should the book be a world that you are submerged in? - and you don't have a "wait a minute why is..." moment
-The importance of the writing, characters, plot, world and the development. If one is lacking are the others also affected?

The fact of the matter is - it's your opinion, and yours alone.

Read on lovelies,

Sally

Things We Don't Know We Know?

Language

Many of you probably saw Matthew Anderson's Twitter post circling around bbc, twitter, tumblr, pinterest - anything and everything. If not though, here is the BBC article regarding it - link.

“Adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that word order in the slightest you’ll sound like a maniac. It’s an odd thing that every English speaker uses that list, but almost none of us could write it out.”

He raised multiple good points on things that native english speakers know, but don't know they know. I for one was tought this rule - I'm not a native speaker - but still when I came across this post I was amazed at how I haven't thought of it in years! While writing I don't think of this rule since when getting the order wrong, it just sounds horrible.

Green great dragons? Nope.

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Then he raises another rule with a bridge from the previous one.
There are some exceptions to the previous order rule like: Big Bad Wolf. But apparently not, since it follows another rule: the rule of reduplications.

Reduplication in linguistics is when you repeat a word, sometimes with an altered consonant (lovey-dovey, fuddy-duddy, nitty-gritty), and sometimes with an altered vowel: bish-bash-bosh, ding-dang-dong. If there are three words then the order has to go I, A, O.

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Then he goes to the tenses. Daunting to starters, natural to natives. To start of do you know what the future present is? Exactly. Daunting.

There are so many tenses you can use without even thinking about it, and almost certainly without being able to name them. It depends how you count them, but there are about 20 that you deploy faultlessly. The pluperfect progressive passive for an extended state of action that happened to you prior to another action in the past is, when you put it like that, rather daunting. But then you’d happily say “I realised I’d been being watched” without breaking sweat or blinking.

Another thing the author mentions is the rules of stress... I'll let you read more on that from the article.

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I remember two poems we read in class five years back and thought they would be a great addition to this post - on the daunting prospect of english as a language.

Hints on Pronunciation for Foreigners

By TSW

&

De Chaos
by Gerard Nolst Trenité

(both can be found here)

So try reading them outloud. There are also videos on YouTube to check how you did.

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Also to get a grasp on the fascination of intuition in regards to the english language check out this link I was sent: http://english.printexpress.co.uk/  to test out how well you can do with the order of adjectives.

Read on lovelies,

Sally

Auhtors, why...

I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding...

What's up with that sentence. Authors seem to think it's magical and write it in every. single. book. There are variations of course, and of which the most obscure one was "He let out a breath I didn't realize he was holding". Now that doen't sound that weird, but the thing is the author used the same line, not twice nor thrice, but four times during a small time span.
         
So I started thinking that there are things like these which we don't even notice anymore. They come and go as a norm and I don't think this should be one.

Another example is from movies and tv shows. How and why is one always in the middle of the elevator when the doors close, so we see your nose for the longest?

Love at first sight. I just don't get it.
Then again if two people hate each other why should they end up together? There is a thing called friends and I like reading about them more than love triangles...

I'm sure there are people with different opinions, but these are just some of mine.