Hats, Boots, & Chocolate

     Merry Christmas, everyone! As a little Christmas present, I'm back again with six  more entries for clean reading!     These six aren't all on my pre-compiled list of books I like, because I just got them recently, and I've enjoyed them quite a lot. Ready? 1. Gossamer , by Lois Lowry     This is a shorty, which at first I didn't appreciate, because it's just so good (then I wrote a shorty of my own and realized length doesn't matter as much as I thought it did). If you ever wanted to read a book about the fantastical origins of dreams, this one has you covered.     Mild content warning with this one, not because it isn't clean, but because this book is, in part, about a kid who grew up in a tough home, with an abusive dad and both parents alcoholic. The message is good, but there's a few scenes that are a bit hard to read. 2. Chalice , by Robin McKinley     I honestly can't believe I haven't covered this book yet. I legitimately thought I ha

    I know! Two  Bonus Posts in five days! I must have a lot to say this week or something.     Well, sort of. I'm around... seven weeks ahead on blog posts right now, and I didn't want this coming out in February. There's too much interesting stuff happening in my life January-March this year that I know I'll want to talk about, so no point getting any farther ahead.     So, this is my Christmas gift to all of you folk out there who are always late, no matter how hard you try to be on time, and to all you folk out there who like to honk at me on the road because you're in a hurry to Get There On Time and I'm not.     I'll start with a story, of how I think I got the way that I am. Then I'm going to go through and analyze as many of my behaviors as I can, to hopefully give you a bit of insight on how to be early to all those wonderful Christmas things you have going on this weekend. Ready?     Here we go. The Journey     It all began one time when I was

    What makes something a "Christian fantasy"?     As a new author looking to publish her first book, a devoted Christian, and someone who really wants to combine those two things, this topic is something I think I know a good deal about--but as usual, everything I say here is my own opinion, and you can take it or leave it. I respect your agency. :)     A lot of so-called "Christian fantasy" attempts to earn the title by representing what I'll call "The New Convert's Journey". Basically, you have your main character, and somehow, they get into some kind of trouble. In doing so, they fall in with a bunch of people, who may or may not be magicians of some kind, who tell them about this higher power that fuels all their magic. As the story progresses, the main character grows more and more reliant on this higher power, and their magic grows stronger, and at the end of the story, there's a big face-off between this newborn saint and whatever repr

    The idea for this blog post came from a conversation I was having with imaginary people about the terms our society uses for things, specifically things relating to people. Also, if you think it's weird that I was having a conversation with imaginary people, go look at the 'About The Author' page; I think I specified on there that I do this. :)     The gist of this imaginary conversation was that I think the terms we use for "disabled" or "differently-abled" people are stupid. Those two terms imply that these people are somehow different from "the rest of us", when in reality, the only difference is in how they go about the daily processes of life. A blind person isn't 'disabled'; they merely can't see, and from what I've read, this doesn't have to diminish the quality of their life. The only thing it does is change the way they operate, such as using a cane or a guide dog. And, frankly, we all do things differently

    Hello, everybody! Welcome back to Hats, Boots, & Chocolate, where we discuss everything from hot chocolate and Christmas-light shows to cloaks and cozy beanies!     Today, I want to talk about influence.     Namely, how authors influence each other.     For those of you who write: Have you ever noticed, after reading a book, that your stories start to take on characteristics of the book you just read? I have. And there are a lot of other people who have, too, because this is a perfectly normal phenomenon. (Hah! Normal phenomenon. Do you like my oxymoron?)     Take, for example, the story I started after reading Jim Butcher's Codex Alera  series (which is a very good series, if not clean enough for my "Clean Books" list. Sorry.). It is the one labeled as Earthsong  on the "My Books" page of this blog. Earthsong , in its original inception in my brain, was supposed to be an assassin story (inspired by the Ravenwood Saga  trilogy, which is  clean enough for

     Hi!     Today, I want to talk about learning.     I know what you might be thinking. Oh, yay! Learning. So exciting.  With a hefty dose of sarcasm.     If that's what's going through your head right now, I don't blame you. I'd probably think the same thing. But I think this is an important topic, and while I don't feel quite as strongly about it as I do about modern body image issues, I've had this one stored up in my files for a while, and am only now adapting it to the blog.     I initially came up with this idea when I was heading into my second semester of Calculus, prepping for the AP Calculus test. Now, I've never liked math, and I hate making mistakes in math because it's long meant I have to redo the problem I missed. But I learned some valuable lessons from my Calculus experience, and they had nothing to do with the actual math of it.     Rather, they had to do with exponential graphs.     Maybe you've seen these graphs, where your line

      Hello! This week, I present you with four more books from my list of favorites. Enjoy! 1. The Ravenwood Saga,  by Morgan L. Busse     I. Love. These. Books.     It's a rare book that I'll actually reread, let alone one that I reread within a month, and then again within three more. These three books hit that mark, to the point that I bought myself physical copies of them so I wouldn't have to wait for them at the online library anymore. I rate them as high as The Books of Bayern,  they're so good.     Sure, they've got their own little eccentricities. They're not perfect books. But they're pretty incredible, all things considered, and loaded with Christian themes that I, sensitive reader that I am, didn't catch on to until Book 2.     They've also got some really delightful subgenre-switching going on between books. Book 1 is your kind of standard Fantasy Assassin/Rogue story, with a good dose of politics and lots of wonderful internal conflict

     Welcome back, everyone! It's good to see you again!     So, on my "Meet The Author" page I promised a blog post about the cloak shown in the first picture of me. I am here to tell you that today, that promise is going to be fulfilled, because we're thoroughly in winter and it's cold outside, and so I get to wear cloaks almost every day, if I want to!     As a disclaimer, I'm not discussing every kind of cloak, cape, or medieval garment there is. That's not where my interest lies, and I'm a big fan of taking historical clothing and adapting it to suit my fantasy needs, not  trying to document all the historical styles in all the time periods. If you want a more in-depth analysis of a bunch of different kinds of cloaks, visit this video . Further links will be provided as I mention different types of clothing and how they can be used in fantasy.     All right!     My favorite kind of cloak is the ruana cloak, otherwise known as the Irish wrap. It is