Spring Break Marfa Photo Diary + Vlog

For spring break we went to Marfa like in past years.  It was really nice and fun! The first day we hiked and just lounged around. The next day we went to Big Bend National Park! It's such an amazing park and it's so beautiful! This time we got to go to this natural hot spring which I think was my favorite part of the trip. It was so relaxing and I just kind of laid there. Plus the Rio Grande aka the border of Texas and Mexico aka a really freezing cold river was right by it. I got to swim in the Rio and I ended up going to the other side so I also went to Mexico this spring break.  I'm just cool like that. The next two days we stayed there we were just lazy and we also walked around a lot.

Oh annnnndddd I filmed a vlog! Check it out and make sure to follow my channel!

What did you guys do for spring break??? Comment down below!!

How are you?

I don't know why you stay here
With me
I'm crazy
I'm this girl
And I'm one of the broken ones
I'm not normal
No
Haha
Far from it
You are this amazing person
And you're kind
And just wonderful
And I'm me
You know I had an interesting childhood
Yeah
My parents divorced
When I was 8
I had two rooms
One at my moms
And one at my dads
My mom was lawyer
A good job and all
So she could support me
Which was good I guess
But she was never really home
My dad on the other hand
Well...
For lack of better words
He was a drunk
A couple months after my 14th birthday
He was found
On the side of road
Dead
My thing with loss
Is that I just can't
I just can't rap my head around it
Like how could someone live
And breathe
And then the next second
Just not
Like what about there soul
Where does that go
I think
Well I was raised christian
But I think that it goes into the ones closest to them
To watch over us
I mean
I'm over it
Don't worry or anything
But yeah I do have to admit
It is still hard
I lived with my mom after that
But she was never the same
After
After well my dad died
Or as she called it
"The incident"
Whatever the heck that means
I think she still did love him
Or at least care for him
Even when they weren't together
He was an idiot though
At least as far as I could tell
She started staying home more
Not with me though
Looking back now
I think she had some mental problems
Runs in the family I guess
I actually approached her about it
But she denided everything
Saying I didn't know what I was talking about
I retorted with
Actually mom I'm 17
And I know what I'm talking about
More than you do these days
You know I've always wanted a brother or sister
I'm an only child
Mom has had some interactions with men
But not much of anything serious
She was kind of dorky
In that weird agressive way
And I think that drove guys away
But also who wants to marry a women
Who's husband died
And has a child
And is probably crazy
I think you've been like that for me
A sibling I mean
I mean not that I would know
Haha
Now that I think about it
Yeah no I was wrong
I think I like you actually
Not that it matters
Because I'm pretty sure
Well that you don't
But you know
Its ok
We can keep being friends
I mean only if you want
But
Ummmmmm anyway
How are you?
                                                                                                                                               

Did y'all like that? Maybe possibly?? I need validation OK. LOL. If you are not following my blog, it would make me so

happ could! You can follow my blog with either email or bloglovin both on my sidebar! Last week was spring break for me!! I may or may not do a post on my trip so comment down below if I should! If you want to keep up to date with my life feel free to follow me on Instagram! 

Spirit Women Blog Tour Interview + Giveaway!!

Hellllloooooo everyone! Today I have a special post! An interview with the wonderful author of Spirit Women, Zara Quinten, and a fun giveaway! Let's get started.

A Bit About The Book:

Title: SPIRIT WOMAN

Author: Zara Quentin

Pub. Date: January 30, 2018

Publisher: Zara Quentin

Pages: 355

Formats: Paperback, eBook

Find it: Amazon, B&N, iBooks, Goodreads

A missing dragon. A friend in mortal danger. A young woman’s quest to save them both…

Jade Gariq is wanted for treason. After narrowly escaping death at the hands of her uncle, she’s hiding
in the Premyan jungle. Separated from her mother and brothers, at least she’s safe and
alive—for now. But when a friend falls suddenly ill, and her fate is linked to the mysterious
disappearance of a Dragon-God, Jade cannot hide any longer.

Sent beyond the Portal, Jade is not the only one searching for the Dragon-God.
She faces invisible cities, a criminal underworld, and an old enemy disguised as a friend.
To make matters worse, she’s a wanted criminal with a reward out for her capture.
It will take all of Jade’s determination to pursue her quest.
Can she evade her enemies and find the Dragon-God before death claims her friend

About Zara:

Zara Quentin is the author of Airwoman, the first book in the Airwoman series. She was raised in Adelaide, Australia, with one younger sister. Zara grew up with a strong sense of adventure, which she inherited from her parents, who took her and her sister on trips to the United States, Europe, and Asia.

She also inherited a love of reading from her mother. Throughout her childhood she explored fictional places through books, and in particular, through fantasy novels. She’d turn the black and white text on the page into the colourful worlds of her imagination.

After graduating from high school, Zara studied at the University of Adelaide and has lived in France, London, and Auckland, New Zealand. She is always determined to fit in as much travel as possible, spending time in Europe, the United States, southern Africa, Morocco, Peru, the Pacific and south-east Asia. 

Zara now resides in Melbourne, Australia with her husband and three children. She is currently working on the next instalment in the Airwoman series.

Find Zara:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Goodreads | Amazom

The Interview Part!

Let's welcome the wonderful Zara Quentin! 

1. First so we can get to know you what are some of your main hobbies other than writing?

I love going to the beach (we have a beautiful local beach), reading and drinking coffee
(preferably together), hanging out with my husband and kids, and binging TV shows on Netflix.

2. Binging Netflix is definitely one of the best things. How did you get the inspiration for Spirit Women?

In general, I get lots of inspiration from travel, especially for the world-building aspects of my books, and
this comes out in the Airwoman series, as continued in Spirit Woman (the second book in the series).
Looking specifically at Spirit Woman, I had an idea of how I wanted the series to end when I was writing
Airwoman, so when I sat down to think about what I wanted the second story to be, I set myself to thinking
about how Jade (the main character) would be feeling after the conclusion of the first book, and what the
antagonist and some of the other important characters would be doing or wanting to do, then I considered
how these different aspects might play out. I did a lot of brainstorming about what might happen and how
the characters might react until I settled on the plot for the story.

3. Cool! What does your average day look like?

I have three young kids so my average day involves less writing than I would like. Most of my day is taken
up with looking after kids, school drop-offs and pick-ups, entertaining a toddler, cooking and persuading the
kids to eat, and trying to fit in a little exercise. I don’t usually get time to write until after I’ve put the kids to
bed. Then, I try to do an hour or two of writing before I collapse into bed myself! This goes some way to
explaining why I am not the most productive of writers…

4. What advice would you give your younger self if you could?

Practice, practice, practice. When I was younger, I thought creativity and story-telling was some sort of
innate gift that I didn’t have. As I’ve grown older and braver (and given myself permission to make
mistakes), I’ve come to learn that talent is a combination of both gift and practice. I wish I’d spent more
time when I was younger practicing my writing and learning about the craft of storytelling.

5. Yessss same! What’s your favorite thing about writing?

First and foremost, it’s an outlet for my imagination—it’s an excuse for dreaming with my eyes open!
I also love the challenge of writing stories—coming up with ideas that make me want to take to the
keyboard, developing the ideas into a story that will keep readers turning the pages, improving that story
until it is the best I can make it. Writing a novel is a big project and impossible to get right the first time
around. The challenge of taking an idea, then molding it into a story, remolding it until it stands up by itself,
then polishing the finished product until it sparkles—that’s what I love about it.

6. That's so beautiful and I so agree! If you could have coffee and sit down with one author who would it be?

I think I’d like to sit down with Leigh Bardugo, who is my current favorite author. I loved her duology
(Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom) and I’d love to chat with her about where she gets her ideas and how
she develops them into the awesome stories that she tells.

7. I love her books so much!! What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?

The best writing advice is to learn the craft of story-telling. While we instinctively know what a good story
is when we see it, it’s not so easy to reproduce that effect when we’re telling our own stories. It is important
to pull apart stories that you love, work out what it is that makes them so good, then apply that to your own
work.

8. How long did it take for Spirit Women to go from an idea to an actual book and could you tell a bit about the process?

It probably took me about 15 months from sitting down to develop my ideas for the second book of the
Airwoman series before I hit publish. Since Spirit Woman is the second book in the Airwoman series,
I had a starting point and I had an idea of what I wanted the third book to be, but Spirit Woman was a much
vaguer story in my mind. It took me awhile to get to the point where I felt the story wouldn’t fall into
‘second book syndrome’ (where the second book in the series is just setting up the third/ final installment
in the series), which I really didn’t want for this book. So I spent several months brainstorming, planning,
and took the time to get some feedback from a story coach about the story outline, before I started drafting.
Then I took a couple of months on the first draft, rested the manuscript for awhile, went through a
self-editing process which took another couple of months, then sent it off to my editor for a couple of rounds
of edits, then proofreading, before I felt I had the story ready to publish.

9. What are the easiest and hardest parts of the writing process for you?

I’m not sure that any part of the process is particularly ‘easy’ (which is one of the things I enjoy about
writing—it’s a constant challenge), but one of the most enjoyable parts is the first draft. Once I’m into the
flow of drafting, I get to put myself into the main character’s shoes and imagine myself moving through the
story just as she does. I find that part of the writing to be very creative and very rewarding. One of the
hardest parts of the writing process is making a start. I find it difficult to take the first leap into drafting the
first draft. I tend to procrastinate at the point when I’ve done enough planning to dive into the writing,
but there’s a level of fear that I’m not going to be able to pull it off, which stops me from taking the first
step. Once I’ve taken that step, then the process gets really enjoyable, (and I know this) but taking that first
step is hard!

Check out the other stops in the tour:

3/12/2018- Blushing Bibliophile- Review

3/12/2018- Hot Town Cool Girl- Interview

3/13/2018- jrsbookreviews- Excerpt

3/13/2018-Jaime's World- Spotlight

3/14/2018- Don't Judge, Read- Excerpt

3/14/2018- lori's little house of reviews- Review

3/15/2018- Sincerely Karen Jo- Spotlight

3/16/2018- A Dream Within A Dream- Excerpt

Annnnnnddddd noooooowwwwww what everyooonnnne hasss beeeennnn waaaaitttttinnnggg forrrrr

The Giveaway!

You can enter for your chance to win one out of two 25$ book vouchers for your favorite ebook retailers!! Pretty coolio if I do say so myself. :) You can either enter here!

I hope y'all liked that! It is currently spring break for me so I'm planning on filming a travel diary of the place I'm going, catching up on everyone's blogs, and writing some more posts! If you aren't following me on both Bloglovin' and Instagram I would love if you could!

Should I do more posts like this? What kind of posts do you want to see from me in the future? What's your favorite book? Do you have any book suggestions?

Enough Is Enough

So, I was having some feelings the other day

So, I was like

Oh, why don't I write a post

So here are my feelings

As everyone should know

There was a shooting recently

At a high school in Florida

17 innocent people died

The really truly sad thing

Is that

Well I'm not that shocked

By that sentence at all

Honestly when I first heard the news

I was sad of course

And crazy annoyed

But was I surprised?

Or think it was maybe out of the ordinary?

Not really

BECAUSE IT IS NOT

12 school shootings already this year

Like that makes so much sense

You know the US only has 5% of the population

And 43% of the guns if I remember correctly

And guess what

It also has one of the biggest deaths by firearms

So, I was looking up recently

Why this shooting was being talked about so much more

And longer than the others

And I found an article

That I can't find anymore

But it was talking about how

The reason is

Really because of the students

Of people like Emma Gonzales

Who gave this crazy amazing speech

And all the students who went to Parkland

And all the students around the country

Who are standing up

And organizing walkouts

And marches

And just everything

SO CRAZY INSPIRING

Like seriously

Fun fact did a walkout at my school!

And this might be just me being like overly optimistic

But I'm one of those people

Who isn't ever that optimistic

Without proof or logic

But I really do think

Some things will change

And that is so crazy amazing!!

Because things do need to change

The gunman

Was 19

Why was a 19 year old allowed to have a gun???????
And one with a record of bad behavior

Like ummmmm what???

So, he pulled the fire alarm

And then walked out with the other students

I must say kind of smart actually

And now 17 more people are dead

Yes, the right to bear arms

Is in the Constitution

But see those guns

Could fire what like one bullet a minute

Yeah some of ours now can fire 45

The guns have changed

And now the laws should as well

That Monday after the shooting

In my theatre class

The teacher sat us down

And she talked what to do in an intruder drill

We already knew but she was going over it

And people kept asking questions like

Well what if someone is pointing a gun at you

Or how would we escape the room if we had to

And my teacher answered honestly

Which was amazing

She's amazing

But it made me sad

And then one student

Decided to ask

If the teacher would put herself in the line of fire

For a student

And my teacher said yes

Without any thought

Because she said it was her job

Like why do we have to have these conversations????

WHY IS THAT EVER SOMETHING A TEACHER SHOULD HAVE TO THINK ABOUT?

I'm like kind of tearing up

You know just a bit

Oh and then guess what Trump says

He says we should then arm teachers

So that they can you know protect people

HOW STUPID CAN YOU GET

I know he doesn't believe in science or any statistics

But it has been proven so many times over

That more guns

Equal more death

And that a good guy with a gun

Does not defeat a bad one

Just sayin

But then I was also having a conversation

With someone in my class

Who is smart

And he was saying

How he couldn't decide if the arming teachers thing

Was good or not

I like flipped out on him

But that also made me realize

This maybe isn't like an all-around held opinion

Even with people who are for gun reform

Oh, and while I was talking to him

This other guy interjected

And said something for guns

I forgot what it was

And me being me

Started saying how he was wrong

And explaining facts and probably just being like super annoying lol

And then he stopped, saying how he didn't want to talk about something

If his opinion wouldn't be respected

That honestly interested me so much

Summary:

Change needs to happen

This was sad

Participate and help in any way you can

Thoughts and prayers aren't enough 

                                                                                                                                 -2/23

Edit: Trump actually started talking about something against guns and stuff??? I'm surprised?? And like confused?? But this is good I guess???

                                                                                                                                -3/4

                                                                           

Yeah as you can see I have some feelings LOL. I really want to know everyone’s thoughts and everything so comment them down below!! 

What did you think when you first heard the news? What are your thoughts on the whole gun subject in general? Have you participated in any walkouts or anything like that in your school or community?