The first time I heard the word snowflaking I imagined it had something to do with skiing, a sport I've tried once and spent more time with snow up my nose than I care to ever do again.
Snowflaking, in a writer's world, is the method of taking a simple plot and expanding it into novel length. The visual that the creators of snowflaking give is starting with a triangle. Then you split each side into two pieces. Then split each of those six pieces into two more pieces and pretty soon you have a complicated little snowflake. Nice analogy that I've utilized in my writing for some time now. 
Today I find someone else is using the term snowflaking as it applies to finance, specifically saving money. The idea here is that Dave Ramsey advocates snowballing (ooo, dirty! lol) by paying off your smallest debts and then taking the money you were paying for that debt and applying it to the next smallest debt, knocking out what you owe and gaining the emotional reward of having fewer debts.  One blogger's concept of snowflaking is to take small amounts of money for each snowball. For example, if you sell a book on Amazon or Ebay as soon as it is deposited into your checking account transfer it as payment for one of your credit cards. Then at the end of the month when you make the minimum (and hopefully more) payment you've already been making little payments along the way.

Thus, my decision that snowflaking is my new buzzword! It makes a lot of sense for most people because trying to accomplish anything big takes lots of little steps. Whether it's saving for a house, losing weight or learning a new language, most everything requires babysteps. It would be foolish to attempt to read Russian without a rudimentary understanding of the language, right? So how does it make sense to "pay off that credit card balance of $6,000 by next month!" without a plan?
Thankfully, my financial situation is incredibly stable and safe compared to a lot of the blogs that I read regularly. Instead of feeling morally superior I stick to three goals:
1) Don't add to my debt in foolish ways
2) Pay off what I owe now
3) Help others avoid debt

When I was younger I was a big reader. One of those kids who could spend the entire day in the library reading and then check out twenty or so books for the week... after reading four paperbacks that day. Now I was an equal opportunity media freak. I watched plenty of television (Saved by the Bell rocks) and played my share of Nintendo. Those were the days when there was only Nintendo. But during the summer especially when my brother and I were home together for three months without a referee I retreated to my room, lounging in my bean bag chair (remember those?!) and reading for hours at a time. 

Since I've been unemployed (going on six weeks now) I have made a concerted effort to clean up all the crap on my computers, consolidate a little. While going through a folder titled "Books" I found lists upon lists of books I read as a kid and books I want to read as an adult. Since I credit reading as saving me in the public school system-I tested at college levels in reading comprehension in the 8th grade- I think it's time to revive the good old reading list.

It took nearly three hours to organize the books by author and title in an excel document. I cleaned it up and sorted to my heart's content, deleting duplicates and even creating seperate documents for entries like "Tom Clancy Novels", a 12 part series I own and hope to tredge through someday soon. The result, not including series like Harry Potter, is 1200 books. The saddest thing is that I would really love to own each of these masterpieces of classic literature. 

So, long-winded, I know, here's the project: my goal is to read one book per week for the remainder of this year and place a review of said book on this website.  I won't pretend to be a literary expert in any sense but I will do my research, because I love research. Because I'm poor (see unemployed above) I'll start with the books I currently own and ones I've read in recent years to warm up.

My livejournal looks pretty dead, doesn't it? Well, I have been writing entries but they're all set to private since this is the central place where I collect my long musings and ramblings which I hope (and pray) will one day become my novel. 

Here's all you need to know: I'm fabulous.  Just kidding. I'm in my 20s, a college graduate and pretty average. I'm a huge nerd and proud to admit it. I love research and history and reading. I could sit all day and read just about any genre. But please don't recommend me any new books, my reading list is miles too long already.

Okay, this is a boring entry but here it is. For the public, the adoring public. I won't post my chapters from the novel, you're gonna have to pay to read those someday. Until then, check out my fanfiction site where I write characters that other amazing producers have created.