Beautiful Blogger Award

A few weeks ago, the extremely lovely Dani of Dani Reviews Things tagged me in the Beautiful Blogger Award. I thought I'd wait until now to do it for two reasons. One) this was my next free day in our schedule, Two) in a few hours, I'll actually be traveling up to Oxford to meet Dani for the first time!

So what are the rules of this tag?

1. List seven random facts about yourself

2. Place the badge below on your blog (and no, I couldn’t find a less grainy version…)

3. Nominate seven more beautiful bloggers

MY SEVEN FACTS

1. I really love strawberries. They are my favourite food ever. I could honestly eat my weight in them, and I'm pretty sure I have a few times. I especially like them because they don't have carbs in, making them one of the very few foods I can eat as many of as I want without having to worry about how they are affecting my diabetes.

2. As a child, I was very interested in Ancient Egypt, especially Cleopatra. I remember my older brother was supposed to watch the film with Elizabeth Taylor in for his English class, but I ended up stealing the DVD and giving him a summary afterwards.

3. I have an obsession with journals. Every type of journals—personal, art journals, travel journals, writing journals etc. etc. I spend way too much time looking at beautiful journals online. 

4. I'd never read a fairy tale until this year. I don't even know why, but I was never interested in them when I was younger and for whatever reason, I never had them read to me in school or by my parents.

5. My biggest fear is sharks. When I was younger, I used to be scared of those circle things at the bottom of pools because I thought a shark might come out of one of those.

6. I had speech lessons until I was about five because I refused to speak. I'm still an incredibly quiet person now. In fact, it's pretty much impossible for me to talk to people I don't know.

7. My childhood was mostly filled of soccer (my grandpa played professionally when he was young), toy cars and video games—either war ones or Grand Theft Auto. Can you tell I really liked spending time with my brother?

THE BEAUTIFUL BLOGGERS

I tried to tag a few different people than who I usually go for, so I'm sorry if you've already done this.

1. Krystianna of Downright Dystopian

2. Brit of Crash My Book Party

3. Busy Brunette's Bookshelf

4. Inge of Bookshelf Reflections

5. Kate of Fictional Thoughts

6. Olivia of Olivia's Catastrophe

7. Eugenia of Genie in a Book

Bookish People I Love, Part Two

I made this post about four of my favourite bookish people the other week, and I mentioned that I'd be doing another part because I have a long list of favourites. And here we are, PART TWO! Let's go.

Firstly, the whole reason I needed a part two. The incredibly lovely and hilarious, VAL of The Innocent Smiley. (Not so sure about the 'innocent' thing). This girl, I tell you, this girl. She honestly makes me cry with laughter, like every single post—there's something that gets me. My favourite thing is the fact that our friendship is mostly like this...

Secondly, Kelly of Diva Booknerd. Kelly is the sassiest, most ridiculous blogger you'll ever follow. I've honestly had the weirdest Twitter conversations with Kelly that revolved around hairy mermaids (?) and stealing Alice in Wonderland bags from people. She's kind of that crazy, but really nice family member that makes you look slightly more sane to the rest of your family.

Speaking of really nice people...Chiara of Books for a Delicate Eternity/Chiara Sullivan is a gorgeous human being. Chiara's been there for me through some of the suckiest times of my life and she's a great listener and friend, but she's also a really awesome blogger and LGBTQ+ writer. You should definitely check out. (Also, winner of the most gorgeous blog designs, yes?)

Keeping with the writing them, there's the lovely Inge of Bookshelf Reflections. Inge and I have recently become critique buddies, and the ideas she has for her novels—just wow. Seriously, just read these posts she has about writing and be envious with me. Also, she also talks about anxiety and depression and I really, really like those posts because one) we don't see them on book blogs very often, two) they're incredibly real. Just, Inge, you guys.

Do you follow any of these awesome people? Or have you become obsessed with one (or more) of the four I mentioned last time?

UPDATE: SCHEDULING MY LIFE

Hello! Remember me? Haha, yup, it is your other co-blogger Chami who has been missing in action for quite a long time! I know, I know, I need to stop doing this but do not fear, I haven't forgotten about you all. Quite the opposite actually! I've been writing a lot of posts that I plan to deliver when university starts so I won't go too long without posting like I tend to you. Honestly, I've been in kind of a writing slump lately so I've been finding it very difficult to not only write my stories, but blog posts as well. I just really needed a break from writing and I kind of stepped back a little and let my creative juices flow towards my booktube channel on youtube. Alas, I am slowly coming back. So, this is my rough plan for my part of the blog that I've been working on:

Post Three Times A Week
- First Post: Display Most Recent Booktube Video
- Second Post: Display pre-scheduled post 
- Third Post: Display blog post written that week.

Hopefully, this will help me with my very busy life and still allow me to give all the bookish stuff to you guys through multiple mediums. 

Sorry for the very long wait and for your enjoyment, I've left one of my recent Booktube videos down below.

1# CHARACTERS THAT I WISH I COULD DROWN

July TBR

I know it's already a week and a bit into July, but I decided today in my 'currently running on less than three hours sleep' state (cancelled flights *shakes fist*) that I'd make a little July TBR. I'd like to mention that this is entirely Lori's fault because I saw hers and I wanted one too.

I've got two very big book events on this month so my reading is catered towards though. Firstly, I'm going to YALC on the 17th-19th and then the Make Me Read It Read-a-thon goes from the 20th to 27th. I've already made TBR's for both of those, so today I'm just sharing a few others I'd like to get to.

1. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
I started this about two weeks back and I was really enjoying it, but then I put it down so I could read some YALC books. I'm about 170 pages or so in.

2. The Apprentice by Tess Gerritsen
I read the first book in the Rizzoli and Isles series, The Surgeon, recently and loved it so I'd really like to read the second book too.

3. Wild Hearts by Jessica Burkhart
I got sent this by Allen and Unwin a few weeks back and then my absolutely gorgeous dad sent it to me all the way from Australia so I could read it. If you're reading this dad, then I love you!

4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
This is a reread for me, but obviously I want to reread it before...

5. Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
I know this is out already but I haven't gotten my hands on it yet. I adore TKAM the first time I read it so I'm super psyched for this. I probably won't get to it until the end of the month/start of August.

So I don't think I'm being too ambitious here. I think I can honestly get through these five books as well as some from YALC and #MakeMeRead. What are you planning to read this July? Now, it's time for me to try and sleep.

Writing Resources: Those Pesky Little Things Called Blood Sugars

Welcome back to another part of my writing resources series. I’m sorry this one took a little longer to come out. I’ve had so much to post lately that this was the only time I could sneak it in. Never fear though, there will be two other writing resources posts this month to make up for that!

Today I’m continuing with the Diabetes theme, but my other two posts this month will be about something else. So I’m talking about blood sugars, which I briefly touched on in my last post.

‘Blood sugars’ refers to the level of sugar in your blood. These are incredibly important because knowing these levels allows us to know how much insulin we need and how much we need to eat.

We learn the levels through finger pricking (there are other methods, but this is the easiest). On that little machine I mentioned last time, a number will come up. The range of numbers depends on the machine, mine goes from 1.5 to 25.0 anything below that is labelled as ‘LO’ and anything above as ‘HI’—those are not fun to see.

Different doctors will tell you they want different levels. In my experience, they usually want these levels between about 4 and 8. Anything below a 4 is considered hypoglycaemia, or low blood sugar. This is probably what most non-diabetics are aware of. This is when the jellybeans and the full-sugar drinks come out.

Hypoglycaemia can be extremely dangerous. Everyone gets different symptoms and is affected differently. I know some people get no symptoms at all, I’m the opposite though. Some of the symptoms I get are shaky hands, headaches, muddled thoughts, overly emotional, rise in body temperature, lethargy and loss of focus. Basically, I tend to stare at walls a lot and not really understand what’s going on.

Anything above about 12 is considered hyperglycaemia, which is high blood sugar. This is the worst thing in the world, or at least it is for me. Like with hypos, I get headaches, muddled thoughts, overly emotional, rise in body temperature, lethargy and loss of focus but I also get very, very grumpy and sick.

Yep, the symptoms are pretty much exactly the same. Hypoglycaemia is easily treated, you have some glucose of some kind and a carb and then you should feel back to normal within about half an hour. Here’s the fun thing about hyperglycaemia—there’s nothing you can do. You can drink water and keep up your insulin, but you can still feel like crap for days.

If your sugars are too high, you develop ketones in your blood. Ketones are the diabetics worst enemy. These things are nearly impossible to get rid of. They’re the ones that get you admitted to hospital with a drip in your arm, having saline pumped into your body. (I’m not bitter about this, though).

How I feel walking into the emergency room.

Maintaining blood sugars is hard. In my opinion, it’s the hardest part of having diabetes. If you ever plan on writing a diabetic character, this stuff is incredibly important because this is our pretty much hourly reminder that we’re different, that we have this stupid disease. It’s just another thing to remind us that we aren’t like our friends, and that sucks.

Writing Update #2

It's time for another writing update! I think this is pretty self-explanatory, but if you want to see the first update then just click here.

Some exciting things have happened since that update. I'm sure most of you know that Camp NaNoWriMo has officially started, and we'll be talking about how I'm going with that in a little bit but first, let's talk about the pre-Camp writing that went on.

I planned out my entire storyline for my Rebecca retelling, which is what I'm writing for Camp. I actually did this the day after that original post went up in which I said I was in the beginning stages of planning. I also did a chapter-by-chapter, scene-by-scene outline. As you can tell, I'm definitely a 'planner' rather than a 'pantser'. I'm really excited by where it's going at the moment. I even wrote the first 200 words, mainly because I really struggle with starting things and I wanted something to spring off for Camp.

I've also been writing a few poems, which isn't something I've ever tried out before but am really enjoying. I don't know whether I'll ever share these. At the moment, they're really just something for me to try out.

Most excitingly though, I wrote another five chapters—7,000 words of my main WIP, Tied Together. I haven't really been writing this one in the last few weeks because I've been stuck, so I was incredibly happy to finally push past that and get more written. This brings up my total word count to 53,000 which is just great!

The truth is...I haven't written anything for Camp NaNoWriMo so far. I've been in Barcelona this whole week visiting my cousin so I've been exploring the city rather than sticking myself in a very hot room and writing. I know I'll write once I'm back in the UK so I'm not really worried.

A Collection of Books I've Bought in England So Far

This was meant to be a video, but I've haven't been able to upload anything because the internet has been too shitty for that. Instead, you'll just have to put up with pictures...sorry! I even included prices/reasonings because I know Michelle is judging me.

As you can tell, I'm an amazing photographer. I totally could have moved that other stack of books, my iPod and that box of needles, but no—it all adds character! 

Bag of Bones by Stephen King (free) | The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan (free) | The Daphne du Maurier Companion edited by Helen Taylor (novel research) | White Teeth by Zadie Smith (1 pound)

Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales by Angela Carter (um, gorgeous) | All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (Let's be real here) | The Opposite of Loneliness by Marina Keegan (4 pounds) | Daphne by Justine Picardie (1 pound, also novel research) | The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt (Entirely Rachel's fault) | Miss Garnet's Angel by Sally Vickers (the words 'Angel Raphael' were on the back. You get me) | Purple Hibiscus by Chimanda Ngozi Adichie (I needed a book from this author) | The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot (50p and I've already read it)

The Hungry Ghost Festival by Jen Campbell. Jen Campbell is one of my absolute favourite booktubers, and this is signed, personally to me and I've read it and it was beautiful and GAH. More on this again lately.

I know that Michelle is still judging me, but what about the rest of you? Is there anything here that you really liked, or really didn't? Also, any suggestions of how the hell I'm going to get these all to Denmark with me would be greatly appreciated.