Got a Friend Who Doesn't Read Much? Here Are Some Things to Let Them Know


Believe it or not, but some people don’t read much. In fact, some people don’t even like the idea of reading, very much.

This is often a difficult realisation for book-fiends to come to terms with, but it shouldn’t really be too much of a surprise. Reading books requires you to get into a certain mindset. It demands a lot more attention than watching TV, or film, and it can seem boring until you get into your stride.

Combine that with the fact that more visceral forms of digital entertainment are now so prevalent, advanced, and easily accessible, and it’s easy to see many people never really give good literature a chance.

Of course, the issue with all of that is that good books can be absolutely life-changing, and can transport people to worlds of the imagination, and expose them to deep and rich concepts, in a way that few other things can.


So, if you’ve got a friend who doesn’t read much — here are a few things you can let them know in order to try and sway their interest.

Image via Pixabay

Just A Few Ways To Use The Internet Differently

If you’re someone who uses the computer, or your phone regularly, then you know just how much time the internet can suck up out of our lives. It’s the place where we can meet all kinds of people, watch all kinds of videos, read all kinds of stories and articles, and ultimately, craft a whole new persona for ourselves. But does that ever get boring? Does that ever take up just too much time, and you know something’s got to change?

Using the internet is something we all do in our own way for our own ends. And because of that, everyone has a different experience
with it! But all in all, the internet can be a great place to broaden your horizons, and let yourself experience some new and fun activities - and here’s just a couple you might not have thought of before.

No matter where we are, there’s a very good chance we’ve got an internet signal. (Image)


November Book Haul!

This month I was able to pick up some popular (mainly fantasy) books that coincidentally are all quite red! It has been a while since I have stepped into a bookstore and this month, I went in not one but two bookshops! #heaven

Here are the books I picked up this month:


Scythe by Neal Shusterman 

I have heard quite a bit about this book. It follows a world where everything has been cured and the only way that people can be killed is by the hand of a scythe. Scythes are members of society that are chosen to have this duty. They are told to 'glean' humans according to the statistics of how people died and the demographics of people that died before death was stopped. Everyone fears the scythes but they leave them to 'glean' as it is deemed necessary to maintain the size of the population. In this book we follow two characters who are chosen to potentially be scythes.

I have already started reading this book and I am really enjoying it so far. It is quite unique from what I have read in the past and I'm finding the writing style fast-paced which is perfect for me.

4 Spiritual Ways To Improve Your Mental Health

When it comes to your mental health, you may feel like you’ve got self-care covered. And yes, self-care is keeping your body clean and healthy, and it may be applying a facemask some days. However, embracing the spiritual could bring you one step closer to finding your true and happy self, and if that’s true, then we think it’s worth a try. Even if you currently think it’s all made-up fluffy stuff, it has actually been linked to good mental health and a strong sense of self. So, here are four ways to give it a go.


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1. Meditation

Meditation is really good for your mental health, even if you think that it sounds a bit cliche. Taking some time out to think about what has really happened in your day - what you’re happy about, and what you want to change going into tomorrow - will keep you in touch with your inner sense of self, and focused upon the little goals that you’ve set for yourself. Headspace is a useful app if you need a bit of guidance.

2. Get a Psychic Reading

I know what you’re thinking, what does this have to do with my mental health? Well, keep reading. This is another way for you to secure your sense of self, as you’ll be able to hear what your future may hold, and what the implications of your past are. Whether you believe in it or not, a Psychic Reading will help you to think about the future, and we can’t see anything wrong with that. Especially if they tell you that you’re going to win the lottery, and buy a private yacht.

3. Exercise kindness

This one doesn’t require too much spirituality, but it is deeply important to the Buddhist tradition. Exercising kindness will not only improve the lives of those around you, but you’ll see it come back into your life as well. Though we can all be a bit worried about interacting with strangers, helping someone you don’t know will make you feel great afterwards, too. Win-win, good karma all around.


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4. Reconnect with your body

Reconnecting with your body, and giving it all of the nutrients and love that it needs, will give you a more positive all-round aura, and affect your life in more ways than you can imagine. Ditch the alcohol in favour of something that your body really needs, and remember that it really is something worth looking after. It’s yours, after all, and you’ll be navigating the world in it for the foreseeable future. So give your body some love!

So, there are four things that you can do to utilise spirituality, and improve your mental health in the process. Recovery from any mental health issue is ongoing, and always a process of coming back to yourself. Trying some of these things could help you to not only spend more time on yourself, but also strengthen your connection to others. So give them a try, we’re rooting for you!


This is a collaborative post and it may contain some affiliate links

Mastering Your Own Mental Health


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As time goes one, it is becoming less and less of a stigmatized issue to talk about mental health.
That is just as well, as looking after your own mental health is always going to be hugely important, and it’s something that we all need to think about doing. It’s not just for those with apparent or obvious mental health signs who need to focus on this - everyone can benefit from ensuring that they are looking after their mental health in the right way. In this article, we are going to take a look at some of the ways in which you can understand and improve your own mental health. As long as you do that, you should find that you are much more able to be happy and well in the long run.

Keep An Eye On Your Vices

We all have one or two vices, and in a sense they are necessary to ensure that we don’t lose our sense of ourselves. More often than not, these vices are there to help us with difficult times and to keep stress down. But as a rule, they tend to be things which are not so healthy for us, and which we would therefore be well advised to keep a close eye on. If you have vices, you should make sure to do this, and not to allow yourself to fall prey to them too much, as that could easily lead to further problems. You might well like a drink, and as the answers to a wine quote quiz will testify, that can help in the short-term - but you should make sure not to get too carried away with that, or any other vice.


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Manage Your Stress

But if you are to do that, you might need to find a more productive means of keeping on top of your stress, and that is something that you should think about as well. There are fortunately many ways of managing your stress, and as long as you are aware of some of them you will find that you can easily make it easier for yourself to manage whatever stress may arise for you. Deep breathing and meditation exercises are generally advisable here, as are methods for keeping the stress down in the first place, such as not over-working. Do this, and it will have a profoundly positive effect on your life in the long run.

Look After Your Body

It is enormously helpful if you are able to look after your body as well as the mind, as actually the two are very much closely related, and likely to be affecting each other. If you are looking after the body, then you can be sure that you are also looking after the mind, so this is definitely something to consider. You might even be surprised at what a difference it can make in the long run. The more you look after your body, the better a state your mind will be in.


This is a collaborative post and it may contain some affiliate links

Spookathon TBR!



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Spookathon is a week long readathon hosted by Lala from BooksandLala. It begins today, October 15 and runs until 21st October. The aim is to read anything that is spooky. There are optional challenges and you can do as many as you like. I don't expect to read all of these books but I thought it would be fun to create a TBR anyway!

Why You Should Never Give Up Learning As An Adult



(image source)

You may have thought your learning days were behind you. The minute you walked through those school gates as a teenager, celebrating the possibility that you may never have to look another teacher in the face again, you probably thought you had learned all you need to. Well, from a textbook anyway. We all learn something new about ourselves every day; it's all part of growing up and learning from experiences, so we are never too far removed from learning something.

But it's still important to pursue learning, whether that's going back to school, browsing the internet to expand our knowledge beyond the info we gain from our friends on Facebook, or picking up a book or two from the local store or library. Despite the everyday learning we all go through as adults - there are reasons why you should make the effort to tantalise your brain.

By continuing learning, you will…

Guest Post!

Today we have a guest post from Melissa! Trigger warnings for death and suicide. --

I am an avid reader. I don’t remember a time in my life where I didn’t have a book in my hand. Growing up, the library was my favorite place to be, and then when I managed to save some money, I traded the library for bookstores. To this day, I can’t walk past a bookstore without going in, looking at all the books I want to read, and wondering where my books (once I finish writing them!) would end up.


But throughout all the books that I’ve read, there are some that just stuck out and changed my life. Here are four of them:

Summer Biannual Bibliothon TBR

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Hello! Today I am here with a readathon TBR! I am participating in a few readathons this month and the first one is the Summer Biannual Bibliothon which runs from 14th July to 20thJuly. This readathon comprises of optional reading challenges, video challenges and Instagram challenges. Here is my TBR for the reading challenges:


1.       Group book:


So the first challenge is to read the group book which is The Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw. This is a book that I was planning on reading at some point. In this book, three witches are said to come back every year and lure boys to die by drowning.


2.       Choose from someone else’s TBR:


The second challenge is to read a book from someone else’s TBR. I researched the TBRs of booktubers, book bloggers and bookstagrammers and decided to read Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire which is on Little Red Reader’s TBR. This is a short book that I have wanted to read for a while. This book series follows children who have come back from other worlds such as Narnia.

Lucy's Reading Diary: July 10th

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Hi everyone! I absolutely love watching reading vlogs and I wondered if I could translate this to writing somehow. I came up with the idea of an ongoing blog diary, writing about my thoughts whilst reading and my progress. I hope that you like these posts!
I started reading Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton and I was really enjoying it. You can definitely tell that the author has a scientific background but I actually like the technical speak. It isn’t too overwhelming and as someone who enjoyed studying biology, it is a welcome return and it is about dinosaurs which I find interesting too! I won’t write too much about the book because I will be describing it in my review. I have been making slow progress. I find that when I start a book, I am really excited about it but if I don’t get too much time to read my excitement wanes and it takes me longer to read.

Yesterday I felt like reading but I didn’t want to read Jurassic Park. I thought of a few books that I would like to read and posted a poll on Twitter. I ended up picking up Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. I’m not very far into it but so far I really like it. It is a fast-paced mystery (although at the moment I feel like I have figured out the mystery but we’ll see). This book also has a scientific element but how heavy that is, I cannot yet say.

What are you currently reading?

The Fifty Bookish Questions Tag



I am really enjoying doing book tags so whilst I am making slow progress in my current read I thought I would do another one! Here is the fifty bookish questions tag:

1. What was the last book you read?
I’m currently reading Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. The last book I finished was Fairy Tail volume 1.

2. Was it a good one?
Yes.

3. What made it good?
Comedy, fantasy, magic.

Reviewing my 2018 So Far


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Hi everyone! I saw some people discussing their goals so far this year and going forward and I thought I would do a little review post of my year so far and what I hope to accomplish in the future.

So in 2018, I started my blog! January 17th to be precise so my blog is nearly six months old! I have done some temp work and I have been applying for jobs. My end goal is that I would love to be able to blog full-time. I love blogging so much and I really want to be able to do it as my career. In the meantime, I am going to be working part-time whilst I continue to blog so wish me luck!

I want to post more book reviews and after a reading slump, I am slowly getting back into reading. I am currently reading Jurassic Park and I am loving it so far.

The Opposites Book Tag

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Today I am going to be doing another book tag! This one is called the opposites book tag:


First Book In Your Collection/ Last Book You Bought


I’m not sure what the first book in my collection is but I know that one of them is the first Harry Potter book.
The last book I bought was The Surface Breaks by Louise O’ Neill which is on my July TBR
.

A Cheap Book/ An Expensive Book


One of the cheapest books that I own is Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, that I found in a charity shop.
An expensive book that I own is any of the Harry Potter Illustrated Editions.


A Book with a Male Protagonist/ One with a Female Protagonist


Beautiful Creatures follows a male protagonist and at the time, that was something fairly new to me in the YA genre.
Let’s go with one of my recent favourites for a book with a female protagonist: Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder, you can read my reviews of the original trilogy here.

Mid-Year Book Freakout Tag 2018

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Hi everyone! There are a few book tags that I have been wanting to do, so here is the Mid-Year Book Freakout Tag!

1. Best book you’ve read so far in 2018: 
Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder, an amazing read and I ended up reading the trilogy really quickly altogether!

2. Best sequel you've read so far in 2018:
I haven’t actually read very many sequels this year but I did enjoy Death Note Black Edition Volume 4, it made me want to read the next book straight away which is always a good sign!

3. New release you haven't read yet, but want to:
It’s not actually out yet but I really want to read Vengeful by V. E. Schwab, the sequel to Vicious. Vicious left on an interesting

4. Most anticipated release for the second half of the year:
The same answer as above.

5. Biggest disappointment:
Bookish Boyfriends. The concept was really interesting but I didn’t like how it was written.

6. Biggest surprise:
I was actually surprised with how much I have enjoyed contemporary romances, including The Dating Debate and The Rules of Rebellion.

Your Mind Is A Muscle, So Create That Mental Strength Inside!

We all wish that from time to time we didn't have so much stress and anxiety

in our lives, that it could all just go away so we can finally relax. But instead, let's view it from another perspective. Instead of wishing this stress and anxiety would go away, can you think of how you can better cope with it? This is all about developing mental strength, rather than wishing everything away, which is a negative mindset. Developing mental strength is something we should all do, no matter how strong or weak we perceive ourselves to be. But how can you give your brain a workout needed to build this mental muscle?

Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone

Our comfort zone is that invisible barrier we hold between ourselves and the world. Getting out of this is something we all fear, but by gradually stepping outside of it, and feeling a sense of discomfort, we can get the sense that we've achieved something, as it's something we are afraid of. By doing one thing every day that makes you feel uncomfortable, or it's something you find immensely difficult, the feeling of self-satisfaction is unlike any other.

Change Your Perspective

We could easily play the victim in life. A negative mindset is a death sentence for a lot of us. We can let people push us over constantly in life, which means we constantly get injured, either physically or mentally, and we view this as the norm. Instead, we could get help after an injury, or we could look for the reasons why we view things the way we do. A negative mindset isn't something that can be changed overnight, but with the determination to change your interior monologue from self-effacing, or self-damaging comments, to more positive ones, the benefit can be felt in every aspect of your life.

Make Things Easier For You

It's not about overcoming every single obstacle if you want to be a success in life. You can change your surroundings so they benefit you better. For example, if you are prone to indulging in junk food, which in turn, has an effect on your health, simply remove the junk food from the cupboards! It's not just about working hard, it's about working smart. And by providing these little bits of help along the way, it is keeping you on track, and if this means reducing temptation, this isn't cheating! You wouldn't hang around with people in life who are bad for you, and it's exactly the same process when understanding what's good for your day to day living.

Building this mental strength requires determination, focus, and a desire to succeed. As a result, it's something that takes a lot of energy to maintain. But by working out your brain as you would work out your muscles, you develop resilience, and an ability to tackle the problem better next time. Your mind is like a muscle, and if you want it to function optimally, you have to put some stress on it.


This is a collaborative post and it may contain some affiliate links

Wicked Uncle Big Kidz Range Review

Wicked Uncle are an established company of children’s presents who have recently introduced a new range for adults. I was fortunate enough to receive some products from Wicked Uncle’s new big kidz range. These include items varying from lighting, games and useful gifts. I ordered two products:

product review, sun light, light box, wicked uncle review, toys review, gift ideas, adult gift ideas, adult gift shop, gift shop, presents, fun toysSun Jar
This is a solar light in a jar. I placed it on the window sill and it charged up during the day and then produced a lovely glowing purple light in the dark. It uses a rechargeable battery which came with the light.







Emoji Light Box
This is a little display that comes with emojis and letters. I am using it for photos for my blog and Instagram and to display quotes. It uses 6 AA batteries which you need to supply. It can stand up or be laid down for photos. I found this light box to be the perfect size for me; there is enough room to insert a few words in letters or a few sentences in emojis and it is compact enough to not take up too much space in your office or room.







Wicked Uncle really excelled with their customer service, they were friendly, informative and fast throughout. I received the delivery quickly and the products were amazing. I have really enjoyed using them so far. I would definitely recommend Wicked Uncle’s big kidz range.


Did you know Wicked Uncle also has a USA website? Click 
here to find out more.

*These products were sent to me in exchange for an honest review

bakerdays Personalised Birthday Cake Review




I recently had a birthday and bakerdays were lovely enough to send me a personalised birthday cake! They offer a range of flavours and I asked for chocolate chip. 




The cake came in time for my birthday in a small box that can fit through some letterboxes. When I opened the box, I was greeted by a beautiful tin. This cake is the small version and it is big enough for a couple of people.

Let’s Talk About E3: Games That I am Excited for


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This week has been great for a lot of gamers with announcements of new games, release dates confirmed and new footage of upcoming games. E3 is essentially a gaming conference for all platforms and you can watch it from the comfort of your own home online. I was really excited to hear more about Kingdom Hearts 3, the eagerly awaited new game in the Kingdom Hearts series and hopeful for a new Animal Crossing main game for the Switch. Unfortunately, we did not get an Animal Crossing announcement but we did get plenty of exciting surprises and I am actually really pleased with what I discovered during E3.

A new set of Pokemon games were recently announced: Let’s Go! Eevee! and Let’s Go! Pikachu!. The graphics looked amazing, a new main Pokemon game, based on Pokemon Yellow featuring a pokeball gadget that you can use to play the game and interaction with Pokemon Go? Yes please! This game is to me, a dream come true and I cannot wait to play it. During E3 we got to see further gameplay from this game and it all looks wonderful.

Aside from Pokemon, I was also thrilled to finally hear a release date for Kingdom Hearts 3! It is coming out in January 2019! I am so excited for this new instalment in the series. Pokemon and Kingdom Hearts are my two main gaming favourites so this upcoming season is great for gamer Lucy. New gameplay for Kingdom Hearts 3 was also shown and I am so excited, I do not want to spoil too much in case you want to be surprised when you play the game, so if you do want to check any of this out, videos are on YouTube.

E3 actually provided me with a complete surprise. A new main Fire Emblem game for the Switch was announced! I absolutely loved Fire Emblem: Awakening on Nintendo 3DS and I still need to complete Fates and Echoes: Shadows of Valentia but I have really enjoyed what I have played so far. Fire Emblem combines the great storytelling and character development of traditional JRPGs with a tough and clever strategy battling system. Fortunately, there is the option to play in ‘casual mode’ where fallen units return after a battle. I didn’t use this when I played Awakening and I ended up restarting the game so many times because I wanted to get through each battle without losing a character. The new Fire Emblem game looks great and it seems to even have a new mechanic of attacking all opponents in one go, something that could make battles shorter.

Another game that I am interested to play is Super Mario Partywhich is essentially a mini game/board game video game on the Switch. I have played a Mario Party game before and it was okay but the board game level could take a while. I think that with an addition on the Switch, the game will play faster and it will be easier to play with others.

We also received slightly more detail on a release date for The World Ends With You: Final Remix on the Switch. I played the original gameon Nintendo DS and really enjoyed it. I am not sure if I am going to play the remake yet but I feel like it would be so fun to play on Switch! It is coming Fall 2018, however, it does not seem to be available to pre-order yet, in the UK, at least!

I love it when E3 comes around and I know that there will be Nintendo Directs until the next one. What did you like from E3?

Raise Money for Mind: The Mental Health Charity



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Mind is a charity that raises awareness of mental health issues. They campaign to improve services and they provide support. There are a range of ways that you can fundraise for Mind. Here are some of them:


Donate:
You can donate on a one-off or monthly basis.


Fundraise:
You can raise money through a variety of activities such as running, cycling, swimming, running a music event or craft afternoon or you can create your own challenge.


Support through a big event:
You can support Mind on your wedding day, birthday or make a big donation. You can also donate through your payroll.


For more information on these: https://www.mind.org.uk/get-involved/donate-or-fundraise/

When Working On Your Mental Health Makes You Sick

Mental health is not the kind of thing you can ignore and pretend it isn’t there. When you have issues with your mental health, you need to stay focused and find ways of dealing with the problems. It doesn’t mean that you can always get rid of the issues. But, more often than not, a change of lifestyle can do wonders. Indeed, your body is a complex machine that handles many biological, chemical and neurological reactions. It’s fair to say that most things are connected, so something as simple as eating a healthy diet can actually improve your mood in the long term. Ultimately, everyone develops their own coping mechanism to manage their mental health. But, have you considered that sometimes the way you choose to cope can be aggravating your health problems?



Can fitness boost your mood?

What's On Your Mind? Why It's Good To Talk About Mental Health

When somebody mentions the word ‘health’ in a conversation, what kinds of images or phrases pop into your mind? For many of us, the subject of health is automatically linked to getting fit, eating well and being a healthy weight, but there’s so much more to health than your BMI. Mental health is as important as physical health, but most of us aren’t as inclined to talk about that aspect of our wellbeing. Although times are changing, and more and more people are opening up, there’s still a long way to go. If you’re guilty of neglecting your mental health, or you’d like to try and be more open in the future, here are just some of the reasons why it’s good to talk.


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Talking as a coping mechanism

If you’ve ever had something weighing heavy on your mind, you may have experienced that sense of relief and release when you tell somebody about it. Talking can be cathartic, it can help you process and deal with your emotions, and it can prompt you to seek advice from people or organisations that may be able to help you. Opening up can give you a sense of perspective and help you compartmentalise your feelings. If you’ve had a bad day, or you’ve got thoughts running through your mind, and you can’t seem to switch off, try talking to a friend, a relative, a partner or a therapist about how you feel. You might find that it’s a far more effective strategy than bottling things up.

Protecting your body by focusing on your mind

Looking after your mental health isn’t just a positive step in terms of your happiness and wellbeing. It can also have an impact on your physical health. Mental disorders and addictions can have incredibly negative implications for your body, as well as your mind, and talking can help you to work through problems and difficulties that affect every aspect of your health. Facilities like Ana Treatment Centres use a combination of therapies, including treatments that are designed to protect and treat the body, as well as group sessions and one-to-one counselling, to combat alcohol addiction, for example. Using both physiological and psychological techniques enables you to become mentally and physically stronger. Talking can also help you make others aware of what you’re going through if you do have symptoms of a mental illness or you’re worried about an eating disorder or an addiction. If people don’t know that you’re struggling, there’s a limit to what they can do. If you talk to them, you may be surprised at how eager they are to help and support you.

Encouraging others and influencing societal shifts

In the last few years, mental health has become a subject of interest, and society is more open to discussion than ever before. There’s a long way still to go, but you can play a part in putting mental health on the agenda. By talking about your feelings and emotions, you may encourage others to do the same, and the more people who can open up, the more comfortable wider society will feel when the topic of mental health crops up.


Picture credit

If you tend to bottle up your emotions, or tell everyone you’re fine when you don’t really feel that brilliant, it may be time to talk.


This is a collaborative post and it may contain some affiliate links

Top Tips that will Seriously Boost your Mental Health

Sometimes you may feel as though your life is so busy that you just don’t have time to focus on the things that really matter. One of those things is your mental health, and this happens way more often than you’d like to think.

Start Your Day with Coffee

It helps to start off your day with a cup of coffee. Coffee is actually linked to much lower levels of depression, but if you can’t drink coffee because of the caffeine then try and drink green tea instead. This is packed full of antioxidants and it can really help you to get the energy you need to make progress. If you suffer from depression then at times, you may find that your low energy levels make it really hard to get things done, but a quick cup of coffee can really help you out there. If you want to try other methods, Next Day CBD are a great option.


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Have a Getaway

You need to have one place that you can visit, where you can truly be yourself. This place could be a vacation home or it could be somewhere you can go camping with your family. You can easily boost your happiness by planning something like this and it can help to get you through the toughest of times. You would be surprised at how easy it is for you to book a vacation on a budget as well, so do keep that in mind.

Focus on your Strengths

It’s super important that you work your strengths. Try and do something that you are good at, whether it is cooking, gardening or even art. This will give you an instant boost and it can really help you to feel happier in your day to day life as well. When you take the time to really focus on yourself and the feelings you have, you can then start to really understand the way that you are and this can help you to deal with situations better.


Think of How You Can Improve

When you are feeling down in the dumps, it helps to focus on yourself so that you can stop these feelings from coming back time and time again. If you want to try and get the help you need then one thing that you can do is try and find something that you can focus on within yourself, before trying to improve it. For example, if you are not happy with how you are performing at work then think how you can turn this around, and then take the right steps to getting that done. This is very easy for you to do and it can make you feel way better about yourself as a result.

Get Creative

We all know the positive benefits of being creative in terms of our mental health. But the great thing about being creative is that it's not a one-size-fits-all approach. Being creative can be about feeding your brain in the most obtuse of waves. If you are a big fan of art or you want to get into the mindset of contemporary or classic art you can delve into the history of it and find interesting outcomes. From the history of art to the common lawsuits in the art world, there is a lot to find out there. Creativity can be about that little spark that sets you off in a whole new direction. And being creative is one of the fantastic ways to make you feel alive and imbue yourself with a sense of purpose.

So there are plenty of things that you can do to try and boost your mental health, and when you take the right steps, you can be sure to really turn your whole life around. Why don’t you try the above steps today to see if you could feel better about yourself tomorrow?


This is a collaborative post and it may contain some affiliate links

The Anything but Books Tag



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Time for another tag! This one is a series of questions that are not about books.


1.       Name a cartoon that you love
I haven’t really been watching cartoons but I do watch Spongebob Squarepants sometimes. I feel that as an adult there are more things that I pick up and I still find it funny.



2.       What is your favourite song right now?
I heard Teenage Dirtbag by Wheatus the other day and it has been in my head ever since.



3.       What could you do for hours that isn’t reading?
Watching drama boxsets.

The Try a Chapter Tag #1



spinning thorns sleeping beauty retelling try a chapter tag books book reading reviews book blog

The online book community often do ‘tags’ which are usually a series of questions around a particular bookish topic. The try a chapter tag is when you read a chapter of a few different books before deciding which one to read.


I recently reorganised my bookshelf and ordered books in terms of those that I have read and those that I have yet to read and the order that I might read them in. I had some books left and I wasn’t sure whether I was going to read them or not so I decided to try a chapter of each book to decide whether I want to read them.

Going Back on Wattpad and Getting Back to Writing my Novel



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Hello! So for a while I have been going through a creative writing slump. I have been writing blog posts and working on social media and brand relations for my blog but I just haven’t felt the motivation or inspiration to write my book. Earlier this year I started posting my current work in progress on Wattpad. This is a novel that I have been working on, on and off for two years. I have almost half of the novel written and I was editing those chapters and uploading them regularly on Wattpad. However, I got to a point where I seemed to have lost my writing muse. It was as if the writer in me had hibernated.

Avoiding The Sale Of A False Hope

The very first time a product comes off the manufacturing line is a cause for celebration. So many companies that have made it and become worldwide recognised names have had a small party when they had this moment. Little did they know they would reach the stars and have such massive acclaim with consumers from all over the world. It's only right that you expect yourself to one day, be just like them so have yourself a small huzzah. They got to where they are now because the made sure to tread carefully. Although they believed in their product, the knew that they couldn’t oversell it and give customers any false hope. The marketing campaigns could be hugely expensive and make the product and brand look like the saviour of the customers’ dreams. Yet when every person bought the product they were left in no doubt about what it could and could not do. Avoiding selling a product that promises more than it delivers could cast no doubt over your reputation as a trustworthy business and a lawsuit.

Wording the label

Almost every product you can think of comes with a label glued onto it somewhere. The label is there to do simply one thing and that’s harbour product information. A pasta sauce bottle will not just list the ingredients and the levels of sugar, fat, carbohydrates and so on. It will also give consumers instructions on how and where to store it. How to cook with it and how long you can leave it alone in the fridge once opened. It will also make any disclaimers such as saying that although the company works hard to make every bottle the exact same, results may vary. All of this is taken for granted by consumers because we’re all just used to it. Maybe we don’t care or we don’t have the time to care, but all businesses cannot take a chance on selling a false hope to anyone. Your product isn’t invisible and nor is it going to always satisfy customers. So clearly state in the label on your products these declarations.

What I Have Been Up To #3

Hi everyone! Today I am going to be talking about what I have been up to lately, let me know what you have been up to in the comments!

1. Education:

I am hoping to do a masters in creative writing! I have been writing for years, I started with poetry and then also began writing short stories and potential novels. I have been thinking about doing a masters for a while and if I can that will be amazing. I would love to develop my writing skills, learn more about writing and get a masters (hopefully I could pass!).

My Favourite Pokemon Games and What Is Currently Missing from the Franchise

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I want to talk about my favourite Pokemon games and what I feel is currently wrong with the Pokemon games that have been coming out. Here are my top 3 Pokemon games:




1.       Pokemon LeafGreen 


This was the first Pokemon game that I ever played and it will always be my favourite. If I could only play one Pokemon game it would be this one.





2.       Pokemon White/Black 2


I loved the Pokemon Black and White games and their sequels. It was the first time I felt like I had seen a lot of new Pokemon and the story definitely picked up. Furthermore, there was an amazing feature of seeing how many Pokemon are available to catch on each route which made catching many different Pokemon a lot easier and more fun.

Why I Want to Listen to Audiobooks More


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I haven’t listened to many audiobooks in the past. I absolutely loved the Pride and Prejudice audiobook, having wanted to read this book for a long time but I was put off by the writing style as I had read a sample during my studies that I did not like. The audiobook was a great way to go.

I’ve been in a reading slump for a while and I have realised that I am almost always doing something else. If I have spare time I try to work on my blog. I want to start fitting in gaming again and I thought that it would be a great idea to listen to audiobooks whilst I play games (not when there are big dialogue scenes in the game). This would also mean that I am reading more and I can listen to audiobooks whilst doing social media which I spend a lot of time doing.