The Monday Mix (02)

While I did enjoy doing A Sunday Retrospective, I've made the decision to stop posting on the weekends. I rarely open up my laptop during that time, and I'd prefer to keep it that way. The only thing that made me really sad was the fact that I would no longer have an outlet to share my favorite links from the past week. I mourned that for all of ten seconds before realizing that I could just start a new feature - and so, The Monday Mix was born.

The Monday Mix basically gives me the opportunity to share with all of you the links I loved online from last week, everything from reviews to articles about writing and perhaps other things too. I've always valued the opportunity to share the great things I've read or seen, and this is my way to share the love.

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1. Susan Dennard (author of Something Strange and Deadly) shared her opinion about working on multiple projects. (P.S. You should see her list of projects - it's amazing and also very, very exciting!)

2. The girls over at Epic Reads shared some advice about bookshelves. Warning: this post will make you want to buy all of the shelves to store your pretty books. My personal favorite? The revolving shelf.

3. My friend Elena (of Novel Sounds) is so creative! Here's her amazing wallpaper inspired by Scarlet (my review!). I actually am using this one as the wallpaper on my laptop right now. I'm using her Anna and the French Kiss wallpaper on my iPhone, her Second Chance Summer (my review!) wallpaper on my iPad and her Amy & Roger's Epic Detour (my review!) wallpaper on my work computer. (They are all equally awesome, just so you know.)

4. Estelle (1/2 of Rather Be Reading) wrote a review of 15 Days Without a Head, and it got me very interested in checking this title out. Estelle always brings books I would never have thought to check out on my own to my attention, and I love it!

5. Giselle (of Xpresso Reads) shares some incredibly helpful advice about ARCs. Seriously, if you were wondering about how to go about requesting them, her post is the one for you!

6. The girls at Pub(lishing) Crawl shared this link to videos showing how a book is made. It's pretty fascinating for a reader & aspiring writer like me!

7. You have a couple of days left to enter the giveaway that Rachel (of Hello, Chelly) is hosting. It's an indie book, but it sounds pretty fantastic. It's elementals, you guys. That's all the reason you need to read it!

8. The cover for The Too-Clever Fox by Leigh Bardugo is absolutely lovely. I'm already intrigued and I didn't even check out what it was really about until much later. Foxes are one of my favorite animals!

9. Jodi Meadows (author of Incarnate - my review!) shares her thoughts on writing with interruptions. I get interrupted while I'm writing all the time (since I do it largely at work) and I also get interrupted creatively when my muse refuses to play nice, so her thoughts were certainly very welcome.

10. This has nothing whatsoever to do with books or blogging, but I love Demi Lovato. Her story is incredible and she's very talented. Check out her new video for Heart Attack!

11. Magan (1/2 of Rather Be Reading) and her husband Dustyn are an adorable couple. Don't believe me? Here are photos to prove it!

12. CJ Redwine (author of Defiance - my review!) gave readers her tips on writing an effective villain. I'm awful at writing the bad guys, so I definitely devoured her post when I first saw the link go up!

13. Marissa Meyer (author of Cinder - my review!) also shared some tips this week, and hers were about writing a synopsis. Plus, this post contains some very good news!

14. Cat Winters (author of In the Shadow of Blackbirds) wrote an amazing Turning Point for the series on Distraction No. 99. I found it incredibly relatable - and it made me excited to check out her book!

15. I've always been curious about Bird for Bird by Anne Lamott. Lauren Morrill (author of Meant to Be - my review!) shared a bit about the book in her post.

16. In case you were curious about how to get on tours for books, here are two of my favorites! My friend Giselle runs Xpresso Book Tours (a few international ones here, I think), while Amy, Katelyn, Lisa & Tara are currently running the Debut Author Challenge ARC Tours (US only).

17. How cute is this birthday cake martini?

18. There's nothing quite like getting a comment on your blog. Commenting is just as important part of blogging as writing up a post, and Gaby (of Ella Bee Reads) shares her thoughts on how to be better at commenting.

19. Need a change in your reading material? Feel free to check out these awesome adult titles, care of Estelle. There's also a recommendation from Ginger (of GReads!).

20. The manicure Mandee (of Vegan YA Nerds & The Bookish Manicurist) did for The Diviners is absolutely divine. It's her best one yet, I think!

21. Elena shares some tips for Twitter! I think you guys should read these, as they're very thoughtful and will definitely help a lot of people.

22. Another music video is making an appearance on this list. I was obsessed with Cups (as sung by Anna Kendrick) from Pitch Perfect. This official video for it is so awesome!

23. There's a new project being hosted by a bunch of bloggers that might interest some of you. It's called Classics Retold, and the idea is simply cool. For more information, just check out this post. (I'm doing Romeo & Juliet for it!)

24.  Speaking of R&J, I JUST saw this trailer for the upcoming adaptation - and I'm in love! (It's a major bonus that Ed Westwick is in it, just saying.)

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I wanted to add a new aspect to The Monday Mix. Since I'm an avid Twitter user, I thought sharing my top tweets of the week would be fun. Every week, I'm going to pick one author tweet and one blogger tweet that I personally really liked. Without further ado, here are this week's favorites:

 

 

I hope you enjoy reading these posts as much as I did! Now it's YOUR turn - are there any posts (on your blog or other blogs) from last week that I missed out on? Please feel free to share links in the comments and I'll try to check them out.