Ok all you writers and budding writers and people who want to be budding writers, NanoWriMo starts in just over a month, so who is up for the challenge?

What is NaNoWriMo and what is the challenge?

National Novel Writing Month 1-30 November
The Challenge is to write 50,000 words starting on 1st November and finishing on or before 30th November.

So who wants to give it a try and join our Writing Group in the process?

Book Addicts Writing Group <—– clickie the linkie and let’s get planning. Oh yeah, no writing before 1st November, but we can plan, plan, plan and talk, talk, talk

Besides which you will be helping me and I really need the help lol  I have a ton of work to do and two new courses starting today, and I need to keep motivated and squeeze NaNo in too, so come on!

Book Group 2008

We are currently seeking suggestions for books to read with the group next year, and to that end, have started some suggestion threads.

You can find them in the Online Book Group 2008 board. You will have to be a current member and logged in, to be able to see the board.

We are looking for suggestions in the following categories:

Sci-Fi, Fantasy, & Horror

Contemporary & Modern Fiction

Crime, Mystery & Thriller

Romance, Paranormal Romance, Chicklit Suggestions

Non-Fiction & Biography

Classic & Historical Fiction

Within these categories you can include Children’s and Young Adult books, books to movie books, prize-winning books etc.

We are already committed to continuing some books in series, so you do not need to suggest those books as they are already scheduled.

We will consider discussing books that were discussed with the Book Group in 2006 for those who may have missed some excellent books, but not 2007, as that is too recent to be done again.

Next year’s Book Group will have a bit of an overhaul, and will be much simpler to use thanks to a nifty new feature. In addition to the monthly and weekly discussions, Book Buddy, and My 52 Books, there will be a few new challenges for you Book Addicts to get your teeth into!

Keep checking the forum for more updates and information.

Book Group 2008

We are currently seeking suggestions for books to read with the group next year, and to that end, have started some suggestion threads.

You can find them in the Online Book Group 2008 board. You will have to be a current member and logged in, to be able to see the board.

We are looking for suggestions in the following categories:

Sci-Fi, Fantasy, & Horror

Contemporary & Modern Fiction

Crime, Mystery & Thriller

Romance, Paranormal Romance, Chicklit Suggestions

Non-Fiction & Biography

Classic & Historical Fiction

Within these categories you can include Children’s and Young Adult books, books to movie books, prize-winning books etc.

We are already committed to continuing some books in series, so you do not need to suggest those books as they are already scheduled.

We will consider discussing books that were discussed with the Book Group in 2006 for those who may have missed some excellent books, but not 2007, as that is too recent to be done again.

Next year’s Book Group will have a bit of an overhaul, and will be much simpler to use thanks to a nifty new feature. In addition to the monthly and weekly discussions, Book Buddy, and My 52 Books, there will be a few new challenges for you Book Addicts to get your teeth into!

Keep checking the forum for more updates and information.

* suggestions have to be made in the forum threads for them to be considered, otherwise it would be chaos.

Here are the books we will be discussing in October with the Book Group:

The Stand – Stephen King
Synopsis When a man crashes his car into a petrol station, he brings with him the foul corpses of his wife and daughter. He dies and it doesn’t take long for the plague which killed him to spread across America and the world… Hosted by Coffeesaint

Thief of Lives (Noble Dead #2) – Barb & JC Hendee
After she had taken care of the vampire problem in Miiska, her and Leesil’s adopted village, Magiere assumed her vampire-hunting days were over. Now a successful tavern owner, she wants nothing more than to forget about vampires. But when a vampire kills a councilman’s daughter in the city of Bela, Miiska officials pressure her to go hunt down and kill the vampire. At Leesil’s urging, she reluctantly agrees. The trip gets off to a bad start when three hired thugs try to kill Magiere aboard the ship to Bela, and when she and Leesil begin investigating, Magiere is puzzled by the deliberate nature of the crime. Clearly, someone was trying to send a message. But was the sender a vampire or some other sinister, dark force? Hosted by Cat

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – Robert Pirsig
One of the most important and influential books written in the past half-century, Robert M. Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a powerful, moving, and penetrating examination of how we live . . . and a breathtaking meditation on how to live better. Here is the book that transformed a generation: an unforgettable narration of a summer motorcycle trip across America’s Northwest, undertaken by a father and his young son. A story of love and fear — of growth, discovery, and acceptance — that becomes a profound personal and philosophical odyssey into life’s fundamental questions, this uniquely exhilarating modern classic is both touching and transcendent, resonant with the myriad confusions of existence . . . and the small, essential triumphs that propel us forward. Hosted by Jvstice

Are you excited yet? huh? Are you? We have three great and very different books to choose from this month. I have signed up for two out of the three – that’s gonna be hard enough as I will be back in study mode, but I’m gonna try!  So if you want to join in, just follow the links to the Book Group.

I’m really quite concerned that the BBC have bought the rights to season 2+ of Heroes.

OK for a lot of people it’s better than Sky snatching it up and putting it on Sky One, I know, but at least Sky would have aired it fairly close to the US dates.

The BBC are talking about airing it next summer - that’s summer 2008!!!

N e w s l e t t e r

This month’s newsletter will be short and sweet but very important!
October Book Groups:

We have three groups for you next month

The Stand – Stephen King (Hosted by Coffeesaint)
Thief of Lives (Noble Dead #2) – Barb & JC Hendee (Hosted by Cat)
The authors will be joining us again

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – Robert Pirsig (Hosted by Jvstice)

I’m really looking forward to reading some great books next month! Hope you can join us.

IMPORTANT

What books will we be reading next year with the Book Group? Well that really depends on you!

There are only 100 days left of this year, so we need to get planning so that everyone can be prepared for the New Year kick-off. Yes I know, 100 days sounds like a lot and do we really need to think about this now? Well, yes we do, because we have halloween, and thanksgiving and christmas and new year and vacations all between now and then. Plus we need to get the suggestions in so we can vote, so we can plan the schedule and find people to host the discussions. Authors have to be contacted, people need time to get a hold of books… well you get the idea I’m sure.

So with that in mind, the 2008 suggestion threads went up a few days ago. You can find them all by clicking here. You will have to be a member to see this part of the board.

We are looking for suggestions in the following categories:

• Romance, Paranormal Romance, Chicklit
• Sci-Fi, Fantasy, & Horror
• Classic & Historical Fiction
• Contemporary & Modern Fiction
• Non-Fiction & Biography
• Crime, Mystery & Thriller

Within those categories you can include children’s books, graphic novels, prize-winnng books, books-to-movie and so on.

When suggesting a book, please include author’s name and any information that might be helpful to other people, when it comes to voting for the books you want to read. If the book is part of a series, please give details of the series.

Remember, you should be suggesting books that YOU want to read with the Book Group next year. They will then be put to a vote and the books with the most votes will be shortlisted. There are some series that we will be continuing to read next year automatically so you don’t have to waste your votes on them.

Note: We got some cool new features coming up in the new year, which will affect the Book Group in particular. Things will be much easier, discussions will be easier to find, there will be no signup threads, and there will be a funky new way of accessing the book group!

The server where the empireofthecat.com lives, is moving tonight to another datacenter.During this time, the site will be unavailable. Apologies for the short notice but I just got the email today, and apparently the datacenter didnt give the required notice to our host either. It was originally scheduled for April but was delayed until now.

Because the server is in the US, and the move will take place during the night, it is more likely to affect early risers in the UK – though at that time I am well and truly asleep sleeping

Here are the details regarding the time and the possible effects:

Move Date: Thursday, Sep 20th 2007
Beginning Time: 2:00 AM
Ending Time: 4:00 AM
All times are GMT-4

You will note that they have blocked a 2 hour period for this to take place. Apparently the last time they did this, it only took 30 mins, but please be aware that the site may be unavailable for up to 2 hours during the time stated above.