The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, May 8th and runs through Sunday, May 14th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 19 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team

So there’s the possibility that I forgot this readathon was happening, but as the sign up form is still on the website then I will gladly participate! My goals for the readathon are:

1. Finish reading The Name of The Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
2. Listen to The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
3. Participate in three challenges throughout the week

and if I manage all that then I will try and read 1000 pages throughout the week as well! I will update this post with my progress at the end of each day.

Monday:

Pages Read: 26

Challenges: one – introduce yourself in six words: voraciously reading while drinking decaf tea

Notes: I would have liked to have read a few more pages but as I didn’t know the readathon was happening until quite late in the day I only had time to read before I went to sleep. On Tuesday I will easily break the 100 page mark!

Tuesday:

Pages read today: 91

Total pages read: 117

Notes: I listened to the first few chapters of The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and will probably finish it on Friday when I have the day off work. Having broken the 100 page mark I am hoping to break the 500 page mark by Friday!

Wednesday:

Pages read today: 22

Total pages read: 139

Notes: I had a few other things to do today that didn’t leave much time for reading so I only managed to listen to a few chapters of The Handmaid’s Tale but 22 pages is better than 2 pages!

Thursday:

Pages Read Today: 45

Total pages read: 184

Notes: So I no longer have the day off on Friday, instead having the day off work on Saturday instead. I am not in work until the afternoon on Friday so will be able to listen to a good few hours of The Handmaid’s Tale in the morning.

Friday:

Challenges: two: Bookspinerainbow -There’s more than seven books because I was trying to make the colours blend into each other – I think it sort of worked…

The books are: Coraline by Neil Gaiman, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherine M. Valente, Fahrenheit 451  by Ray Bradbury, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, Amanzimtoti: The Ridge by Carmen Shea Hepburn, King’s Cage by Victoria Aveyard, A Year at The Star and Sixpence by Holly Hepburn, A Hat Full of Any by Terry Pratchett, A Storm of Swords – Blood and Gold by George R.R. Martin.

Pages read today: 90

Total pages read: 274

Notes: Not that bad for a day when I had an 8 and a half hour shift at work – ok I didn’t start until 2:30 but still that’s a pretty good amount – Tomorrow with my day off I am hoping to reach 500 pages. This should mean I finish The Handmaid’s Tale and read a few chapters of The Name of The Wind.

Saturday:

Pages read today: 124

Total pages read: 398

Notes: Might not have broken the 500 page mark today but am going to listen to the last few chapters of The Handmaid’s Tale before work tomorrow.

“Write what you know” is a pretty standard piece of advice given to writers when they are first starting out but the book I am working to get published is not “what I know”. It involves a fantasy land with magic and faeries and one character who has lived for over a thousand years – none of which I have ever experienced and will never experience in, but surely if everyone only wrote what they knew then there would be no fantasy stories?

While the story I am writing is very much a fantasy, it could still be classed as what I know, indeed everything I write can be classed as what I know, why? Because it came from my head.

I may never have seen a faerie or met anyone over a thousand years old, but the core elements of my story are death, family and friendship all of which I do know about – even if I am using a fantasy world with magic to talk about them that doesn’t mean I don’t know about them so by extension I know about faeries because they are related to the topics I do know about.

All stories that a writer writes are going to have an element that they know, and the writer will build on that element with other things like magic or aliens – besides if you do want to write about something that you don’t know there’s always google.