Weekly Geeks! 2-in-1 Special Edition

Last week's Weekly Geeks was asking for recommendations.

Abby's been waffling about NaNo this year. I'm not waffling. I have an idea. My only waffle is how many characters are in my group of friends. And what their names are.

But, I'm still thinking about last year's NaNo (and the one before that. And the one before that.) The earlier ones I have ideas on how to fix. Last year's though... I really like the concept and want to continue to play in this world I built. BUT! It turns out I can't write political and court intrigue. AT ALL. So, maybe if I read more books that handled such things really well (especially political and court intrigue set in medieval or slightly fantasy-esque) then I could get some ideas on how to fix my NaNo, so... if you have some titles, lay 'em on me.

This week asks us about the tricks of the trade to help us with our blogging. I'd be lost with out 2 things:

1. My reading notebooks (I did a post about my reading journal last spring, when I was looking for a new one. I also just have a small notebook that I can jot down thoughts and awesome quotations as I read)

2. My GoogleDocs spread sheets. Books to review, ARCS to read, challenge lists, books to read etc etc)

I am an avid user of LibraryThing, but I use that to organize the books I own, which doesn't always relate to the books I read.

But, what keeps me going isn't my reading journal or my obsessively color-coded spread sheets. Those are actually rather recent additions to my blogging life. What makes me keep going is you, dear reader. (Yeah, I'm going there. Sorry for the schmaltz.) After the super-inspiring kidlit conference this weekend, it really affirmed how important the community is for me. It's why I started blogging in the first place. If the knitting bloggers were such a cool community, surely there were book people blogging, too! And there were. It took me a while to find my place and to find my friends, but here I am and here you are and that's why I'm sticking around.