GRE Boot Camp: Posts Hiatus

Greeting Followers!

The first thing I want to say to all of you is how appreciative I am for you guys deciding to take an interest in my book blog. I reached over a hundred followers some weeks ago, and I could hardly believe it! Thank you!

I started this book blog because, like so many others book bloggers, I love books, and it just made sense to me that I should create a place where I can discuss, analyze, and, yes, sometimes rant about the books I’ve read or things going on in the book world.

Unfortunately I don’t have any book-related posts for you guys this week. I am currently undergoing preparation and studying for the ego-crushing GRE, the Graduate Record Exam, so that I can go to graduate school in the near future. After months of studying for the test, it’s less than two weeks away, and I’ve arrived at the point of my preparation that I’m officially dubbing Boot Camp.

I’m cramming words like disabuse, defray, and vicissitude into my cranium because these are, apparently, words we should all theoretically know and use in everyday conversation. Not to mention, we need to be able to distinguish between malapropistic words and words, such as ‘wanting’ which means ‘lacking’ and ‘fell’ which means ‘terribly evil.’

What.

Here’s the funny part: according to the standardized testing evaluation, my weakest area is reading comprehension.

Again, what??!

And it’s apparently one of the hardest areas to improve on. Yayyyyyyyy.

In preparation for The First GRE, I’m putting in more hours into practice tests, flashcards, etc., which sadly means I need to temporarily put any book-related posts on hold.

I’ll resume posting on Wednesday, June 10 and will hopefully have ready for you a post reviewing a Classic.

One last shameless promotion: If you feel so inclined, follow me @myhermitsanctum and get updates about my recent posts and/or book-related links.

Thanks again for following!

 

Book Review Hiatus: Mini Blog Series

During the month of February, I will take a minor hiatus from writing book reviews to focus on composing a series of letters inspired by events throughout my life. I’ve always wanted to do something like this, but I’ve been reluctant and preoccupied with other writing projects. It’s also a way for me to make sense of things. Things in my life have been complicated, the only appropriate word at the moment, and it’s messed up my reading groove. So I need to write, AND this blog is designed for that purpose. It also lets me really write. Editing my novels is fun, challenging, and exhausting, and relatively a constrained process. Writing is unhindered, which is what I need.

Inspired is the key word. I can’t imagine any truths will be revealed. Maybe some logic. Maybe some nonsense. I will try to remember these moments the best I can, but I’m sure I will forget things. I’m sure something will be exaggerated or absent from these letters, removed intentionally or carelessly. There are people who have affected me greatly in good and bad ways, which I will fail miserably to write accurately because of their sheer awesomeness or ostensible villainy. Names, of course, will be changed. Probably.

Here are the ground rules:

• One letter per week (maybe an extra one on Wednesday. Busy schedule!)
• Each letter dedicated to a different topic
• Each letter addressed to “Dear Z”
• Each letter under a 1000 words

Since I am a passionate about writing, feedback is appreciated. I’m doing this for me, experimenting with a different writing format and different concepts. I’m really excited about this project and curious what it will produce.