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I decided to join Bloglovin’ since it’s efficient: all blogs I follow in one spot. I welcome you all to follow me on there as well.

Thanks for your continued support! 🙂

Mess is Where the Books Are

Daily Prompt: Sweeping Motions

What’s messier right now — your bedroom or you computer’s desktop (or your favorite device’s home screen)? Tell us how and why it got to that state.

It used to be my bedroom. Papers and books scattered across the floor like a second layer of carpeting with art supplies lining the walls but all that has been picked up and cleared away because of the attack of the silverfish. Now the messy place is my nightstand, where bills are thrown and forgotten.

Actually, it’s not a nightstand but a small office bookcase (too broke to buy a nightstand). The spillover from my bookcase is stocked on it as well as art supplies and a few electronics. On top, I have a lamp, alarm radio, batteries, medicine, Bible (of course), an exiled Nook Color, a few articles I’ve printed, an old purse, Our Daily Bread (a daily devotional), Christian Rudder’s Dataclysm (which I just completed), pens and highlighter, a bottled water, booklight, and a stack of bills I try hard to make invisible by the force of my mind.

I’ve tried tidying it but every time I succeed in doing so, it refills within a few days. Sometimes I wonder if my family contributes to the mess. It simple cannot be just me. The thing is my nightstand has become an easy place to throw things I’d rather not think about—bills—or to place things that I can quickly access from my bed—currently-reading books, medicine, Bible, and water, a bit in that order.

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“Everything Wrong With Divergent” — CinemaSins

Blogging 101 Assignment: Try a New Posting Style

I hardly post videos so I decided to do one for this assignment. Plus I have a review of Divergent coming soon. The following video is from CinemaSins, a YouTube channel that posts critiques of movies. Their most popular videos are the “Everything Wrong With…” series.

I highly suggest you visit their channel to watch the other videos in the series. They’re totally hilarious!

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• Random Thoughts at 1am: Dodge Dart “How to Change Cars Forever” Commercial (zezeewithbooks.wordpress.com)
• Cinema Sins (knowyourmeme.com)

Inktober: Drawing #1

It’s Inktober!!! I wasn’t aware of this event until I read a post on Somnivision Art’s blog detailing what it is. I was immediately enthused to partake.

Wanting to know more, I did a bit of digging (which means I typed “Inktober” into Google) and found Jake Parker’s website on which he talks about how he came up with Inktober, the rules for the event (I’ll paste them below), and the possible tools one can use for it. He also has Inktober badges and other items for the event on his site. The badge above is from there.

I’ve seen a few of the artists I follow on Youtube participating in the events as well and that made me even more interested in it. I won’t have the time to do a drawing each day but I’ll try my best to do as much as as I can. I’ll be using Pigma Micron pens and I’ll mostly do some geometric-looking design thingies as seen in the picture above (sorry about it being so blurry). It’s my first drawing for Inktober and it’s unfinished. I got upset with it because it wasn’t going the way I wanted it to but I’ll continue with it and hope for the best. It might look great when done.

Well, for those of you interested in joining the fun of Inktober, here are the rules (as posted on Jake Parker’s website):

1) Make a drawing in ink (you can do a pencil under-drawing if you want).

2) Post it on your blog (or tumblr, instagram, twitter, facebook, flickr, Pinterest or just pin it on your wall.)

3) Hashtag it with #inktober

4) Repeat

Note: you can do it daily, or go the half-marathon route and post every other day, or just do the 5K and post once a week. What ever you decide, just be consistent with it. INKtober is about growing and improving and forming positive habits, so the more you’re consistent the better.

 

 

Related articles

• #inktober: Flying frog targets its meal (moreart4all.wordpress.com)
• Reading with paperclip bunnies for #inktober (debbieohi.com)

A Wandering Mind and Other Things

Blogging 101 Assignment: Make a Prompt Personal

I guess this post can be a mash-up of today’s assignment and an assignment from a few weeks ago that I didn’t get to: Be Inspired by the Community.

Today’s Daily Prompt—The Great Divide: When reading for fun, do you usually choose fiction or nonfiction? Do you have an idea why you prefer one over the other?—made me immediately think of a quote from a recent post over at The Librarian Who Doesn’t Say Shh! The quote explains how a person’s personality influences her preference for either science fiction or fantasy:

“Fans of science fiction (and dystopia) want to explore ways to change our existing world. Fans of fantasy want to explore ways to escape the limitations of this world.”

I begin with this because when I read for fun, I always gravitate towards fiction and the type of fiction I tend to choose is fantasy. Even when I decide to take a break from fiction and choose a nonfiction book, I still tend to pick up compendiums of essays that discuss fiction or mythology.

The quote above helps to explain why these are my choices. I do seek ways to escape the limitations of this world, even in my simple everyday tasks. While walking down the road, I may see a structure or doorway that tickles my imagination into wondering if it’s a portal to a world that operates on a different time (faster or slower than ours), and that’s filled with magical creatures and odd experiences waiting to happen. Sometimes I walk through such imagined portals, excited at the prospect of what could happen to me: Would I immediately exit through the other side, or would I first live a separate life before exiting to continue my present one? Sometimes I think C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe has left too strong an impression on my imagination. (My friends and family probably think this too.)

Hi! My name is…

Blogging 101 Assignment: Say Your Name

Zezee with Books.

I’ve decided to deviate from the assignment a bit since I already have a name and tagline for my blog that I’m pleased with. Plus, I did a post on my blog name last year when I decided to change it from Zezee’s Link to Zezee with Books since I mostly discuss books on here. This time, I’ll discuss why I chose to call myself Zezee.

Frankly, I do not know why. My real name isn’t Zezee. It’s Anais, which I think is a wonderful name. I could have used my real name, but I decided to go with a made up one instead. Why? I guess it’s because I am shy. Using Zezee is a bit like putting on a mask, a persona, through which I interact with those who choose to visit my blog. It’s not that I’m not being myself by using this persona, but that it’s easier for me to open up and share a bit of myself. I’m otherwise a private person and the web is a public place.

Zezee is also a barrier. When I started my blog, I didn’t know what to name it and I went with the first thing that popped in my head, Zezee’s Link. Naturally, whenever someone comments on one my posts, the person refers to me as Zezee, assuming that is the blogger’s name. The first time this occurred, I considered telling the commenter that my name is actually Anais but it seemed simpler to just let everyone assume my name is Zezee. Plus, if my blog sucked, no one would know that it was Anais’ blog that sucked. So Zezee it remained.

Now I’ve grown to like to the name Zezee and I doubt I’ll change it even as I become more confident and proud of my blog and my growth as a blogger. Blogging is relatively new to me since I recently began to blog more often and commit myself to it. My tagline—“random  as my thoughts go”—will remain because that sums up the persona behind the blog and gives the blog freedom from the limits of its name. So I’ll mostly discuss books but a visitor can also expect posts on other things (art, TV shows, etc.). It all depends on what catches my attention and propels me write.

I hope you enjoy visiting my blog! 😀