Hey everyone! This is Mariel again for this week's Scarlet Wednesday post. My partner, Karen, is a bit busy as of the moment, so I'm taking over her spot this week, and as it's already Friday, mind if I call this one the Scarlet Friday post instead? Harhar.



Anyway, being the nomad that I am, after a year of working my ass off in distant places, and after a month and a half of making, finding, and losing my way around Metro Manila, I am finally back home. This was what welcomed me inside my room.

My "new" bookshelf

 I used to have two tall bookshelves before I left home, but was surprised to come home to a different one. Someone had rearranged my room while I was gone. That bookshelf used to be the one in the family room that doubled as a play room and a library, and for some reason that bookshelf was exchanged for the two tall ones I used to have. I gladly welcome the change, though. If only, the one who made changes to my room made an effort to arrange the books in the right order, too.

The Bestsellers; My New Moon is missing :(

Books are my favorite things in the world! I have a lot of them, as you can see, and my dream is to have my own private library at home. I am working towards that dream little by little. Among the authors I have are John Grisham (which are technically my brother's collection), Amy Tan, Stephenie Meyer, Edgar Allan Poe, Og Mandino, J.K. Rowling (of course!), Eoin Colfer, and Michael Crichton among others. I also own a few books by local authors like my favorite Bob Ong and the cynic Jessica Zafra.

I started reading as a hobby when I was still in grade school, and with it came a lot of ideas and imaginations in my mind  that can only be made known by writing. Thus, my passion for reading gave birth to my interest in writing.

My Complete Set of Harry Potter Books

I can't exactly remember the first book I read, but the ones that have and will always have a special place in my heart are my Harry Potter books. They were my childhood, and my entire teenage years, and I could not even tell you how much the Potter Fandom means to me, or how many Harry Potter fanfictions I wrote when I was a kid. Simply put, I was obsessed with Harry Potter.

I remember writing a fanfic once where it turned out Hermione and Draco were half siblings, that Lucius Malfoy had actually fallen in love with Hermione's muggle mother when they were young, and produced Hermione as a love child. However, due to the Malfoys' obsession with purebloods he couldn't marry Hermione's mother. I can't even tell you how ridiculous that sounds to me today.

There was also another one where Hermione married Draco. The story was told in Harry Potter's point of view. As Harry told the story, he was actually across the house of the happy couple, watching them through the window, and secretly wishing that Hermione could have married him, instead. The plot was so cliche, but I was a kid back then who knew nothing much, really. I could go on and on talking about Harry Potter, but I know I'd bore you to death.

I also have some Nursing textbooks, and other reference books that I only opened when I needed to check a fact or a meaning of a term. Honestly, who reads textbooks? Haha!

And finally, these two books. The one on the left (News Of A Kidnapping by Gabriel Garcia Marquez) is the one I am currently reading. It is about a series of kidnappings of ten notable Colombians during the 1990s that turned out to be a national dilemma. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is one of my favorite authors. The way he writes is so eloquent, almost poetic, that you feel drawn into his books right from the very first page. His characters are so vivid, and though most of the time he simply narrates, his narration will not bore you one single bit. He also has a way of going back and forth events in the story, but manages to stay coherent. The way he weaves words will simply blow you away. Another of my favorite books by him is Love In The Time Of Cholera, one of the greatest love stories I have read.
The one on the right, A New Guide To Better Writing, is one of my favorite reference books. It has given me a lot of tips in writing, and it also has little seatworks for you to do after every chapter, so it's also like a workbook. Unlike most guide books about writing, this one is not boring, and will really help you improve the way you write.

So that's it for today. Hopefully, I made up for the lateness of this post in length and content (although I seem to be incoherent in this one). Hehe! Happy Friday everyone! Let me and Karen read your Scarlet Wednesday posts as well by linking them below. 

Love, Mariela.k.a The Geek Goddess