#RevOfKindness challenge week 5 Choosing Kindness @NikiMeadowsWA #SundayBlogShare

Week 5 is about choosing kindness.

Choosing Kindness Exercise-

Think of times you find it difficult to automatically respond with kindness. Is it at home? Is it at work? When you’re stressed? In certain situations? Pick one area you especially find yourself struggling to respond with kindness and work on being more kind in that particular instance this week. Note how you do each day.

If you prefer, take note of people in your life you find it difficult to extend kindness to. Find ways that you can be spontaneously kind to them in addition to how you can respond in kindness. If it’s not someone you’ll see this week, can you write them a letter, send them a thoughtful surprise, or just call to check on them?

As for being kind when it’s not hard, you can sign up over at Kindness Ninja to receive 100 ideas of random acts of kindness. This is a great way to incorporate kindness into your life on a regular basis. I personally enjoy doing this list with my kids.

If you can think of a different exercise to incorporate, feel free to do so. ❤

My own challenge

Well this has been my most challenging week.

There have been highs; for instance, when I met up with Julia Gibbs @ProofreadJulia and Alison Williams @AlisonW_Editor in London. I had been contacted about a book launch and invited Julia and Alison to join me. We had a lovely lunch in Spitalfields Market and then went on to the launch held by Triskele Books  at The English Restaurant.

Then there have been the lows, and I shall admit it has been difficult to show kindness. I have been grinding my teeth and not saying all that I may have wanted to. Instead, I headed off for a stomp around the woods to get my head back in a better place.

I’ve read a thought provoking book this week; Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher. Have you read it? There was a quote I thought suitable for this week’s challenge.

“No one knows for certain how much impact they have on the lives of other people”

Here is the book Description:

You can’t stop the future.
You can’t rewind the past.
The only way to learn the secret . . . is to press play.

Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a strange package with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker–his classmate and crush–who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah’s voice tells him that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he’ll find out why.

Clay spends the night crisscrossing his town with Hannah as his guide. He becomes a firsthand witness to Hannah’s pain, and as he follows Hannah’s recorded words throughout his town, what he discovers changes his life forever.

Goodreads

Did I Meet You In 2016? A Year in Review #NewYearsEve #WeekendBlogShare

Hello Lovely Readers – Did we meet in 2016?

On this New Year’s Eve: My 2016 year in review

I think many folks will be looking back at 2016 and wondering what it all meant to them. I’ve handpicked some of the highlights for me.

In April I had a planned meet up in Glasgow with Barb Taub, Cathy Ryan and Alison Williams. These lovely ladies are all part of my review team. Barb is an author and her blog posts are just the best to entertain you. Cathy is a book reviewer and her book reviews are extremely popular, check out her blog here. Alison is an author and editor, check out her rates and recommendations from satisfied customers.

In June I went to the Bloggers Bash in London and met lots of faces from social media. Sacha Black, Ali Isaac, Hugh Roberts and Geoff Le Pard are the bash organisers. It was the second year of this event and if you can get to London easily and want to meet a variety of bloggers and network, this annual event is a great opportunity. Next year’s date is June 10th, more details here. I chatted with Shelley Wilson, Christina Philippou, Mary Smith, Lucy Mitchell (Blondewritemore), Sarah Hardy and Suzi from Suzi Speaks, the founder of #SundayBlogShare.

Shelley is a very inspirational blogger and author, splitting her work between fantasy and non-fiction self help. I’m thrilled that she will be running a four week guest series on ways to motivate yourself here on the blog every Wednesday this January.

In August had I an enforced two weeks off as I was required to do jury service, not something I wanted to attend, but you can’t wriggle out of it very easily these days. However is was interesting to see how the system works, how strict it all felt and how sad that the case I had, ever came to court. On a positive note, whilst in Guildford I made a renewed contact with Christina Philippou and this lead to me attending her book launch in September.

At Christina’s book launch for her debut novel (Lost In Static), I met Neats from the Haphazardous Hippo ( lilac Hippo) a book blogger who lives near by and we met Chris’ publisher Matthew from Urbane Publications. This is small up and coming publisher check it out here.

My links with Chris and Neats took me to a Blogger/author meet up in London. Event organisers; Kim Nash @kimthebookworm and Holly Martin @hollymartin00  run these events alternating between London and Birmingham. This was a fun afternoon with a mix of authors and book bloggers all chatting in a relaxed atmosphere. I particularly enjoyed chatting to; Author Jessica Norrie, Book bloggers Susan Hampson, Anne Williams and  Jo Robertson, authors Barbara Copperthwait,  Jan Brigden and Steven Hayward

Another day I met book reviewer Liz Lloyd for an Autumn walk around a local village.

Late November Neats invited me to a book launch. We spent a Saturday afternoon in Farnham meeting author Kristen Bailey as she launched book #2 of her contemporary women’s fiction  “Second Helpings”. We also networked and by chance met another Urban Publication’s author Shirley Golden.

December saw me heading to Leicester to meet Lizzie Lamb, June Kearns, Adrienne Vaughan, Margaret Cullingford and several other members at their monthly RNA meeting. Lizzie, June, Adrienne and Margaret are also know an the New Romantics Four. With me came author, reviewer and Twitter Queen Terry Tyler, Cathy Ryan, Shelley Wilson, and Proofreader Julia Gibbs. It was great to meet Terry’s sister Julia, who was recently on the TV quiz show Pointless. If you need recommended help with copy editing or proofreading do check out her site here.  In the evening we met with authors Mark Barry and Georgia Rose. Mark runs workshops in schools encouraging reluctant readers to pick up books and Georgia has been a guest speaker for Mark, she also runs her own self publishing workshops.

The 2016 Goodreads Reading Challenge tells me I’ve read 175 books this year, however I’ve also beta read 4 books and have read others which aren’t yet on Goodreads, this bumps the number up a little.

What am I going to do next year? Perhaps I’ll meet you. I plan to go out and meet lots more authors and bloggers, nothing beats a face to face meeting.

I’d like to wish all my readers and reviewers a very Happy New Year.

Here are useful Twitter handles of people I’ve met this year.

@barbtaub

@CathyRy

@AlisonW_Editor

@sacha_black

@aliisaac_

@HughRoberts05

@geofflepard

@ShelleyWilson72

@CPhilippou123

@urbanepub

@marysmithwriter

@Blondewritemore

@sarahhardy681

@suzie81blog

@lilac_hippo

@KimTheBookworm

@hollymartin00

@jessica_Norrie

@susanhampsom57

@Williams13Anne

@jocatrobinson

@BCopperthwait

@JanBrigden

@stevieboyh

@LizanneLloyd

@baileyforce6

@shirl1001

@lizzie_lamb

@june_kearns

@adrienneauthor

@CullingfordMags

@newromantics4

@TerryTyler4

@ProofreadJulia

@GreenWizard62

@GeorgiaRoseBook

@rosieamber1

Stepping Out From Behind the blogging computer #wwwblogs

Stepping out from behind the blogging computer

Our group

What does it take to dig a book blogger out from behind their computer? About as much effort as it does to dig out an author!

In a bid to step out of my book reviewing bubble, I’ve been pushing myself to go out and meet new bloggers and authors, and I’ve been inviting along several others, too.

Our latest road trip was to Leicester to meet with the ladies from the Romantic Novelists’ Association (RNA). Joining them at their monthly meeting in the Belmont Hotel, we were made to feel very welcome by Lizzie Lamb and our hosts. From my book review team came: Terry Tyler, Cathy Ryan and Shelley Wilson, and Terry’s sister Julia (Proofreader Julia) asked if she could come too. We also managed to get Georgia Rose and Mark Barry to meet us in the afternoon.

Speaking to people face to face that you’ve only met virtually is wonderful, and being able to talk about all things bookish is even greater; it gives a depth to your friendship. Yes, it’s networking, but it doesn’t feel like work when you’re having fun.

There were five of us who stayed the night, but even twenty four hours wasn’t long enough to talk about all the books in the world, so we’ll be planning another trip soon. I have ambitions for 2017, perhaps, to head to Wales and the North East, plus have a meet up closer to home in the South or London.

Big thanks to Terry for the photos, you can read her own post about our trip here do click through it is a brilliant post.

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