August 2019 Doings!

Welp. That's another month gone. For once, I was aware of the time passing . . . if only because I was painfully aware of how much longer I had to work on my Camp NaNoWriMo novel at times. Speaking of which, let's jump into the Doings!

Writing!

• Obviously, the main event of the month was Camp NaNoWriMo. My 12 Dancing Princesses/Hades and Persephone retelling is turning out significantly longer than I anticipated, which is . . . I don't know how I feel about it, honestly. I do know that I forgot how talkative some of these characters are.
• I'm not going to lie; a lot of this month was a struggle. I had a week where I barely had time to write, and another few weeks after that where I didn't want to write or do much of anything creatively productive. I'm pretty sure I know why — because most of the books at the top of my TBR were Asian fantasy, which I didn't want to read while I was still starting my new book for fear that they'd influence the setting or story more than intended. But that meant I basically didn't read anything, which meant that once my well of inspiration started getting low, it never got refilled. Lesson learned, I guess.
• I did manage to finish the month, though, after a weekend trip that involved a lot of writing time in the car and after binge-re-reading Today Nothing Happened, a journal webcomic that's about as far in genre from my WIP as possible. My final count for the month was 20,140 words. So that's great.
• And, in case anyone was curious: no, the book doesn't have an official title yet — particularly since my comment in my last Doings post about how the term Earth might not exist in this world sparked a discussion about why not and a revelation that I got mixed up on my etymology. (That is to say, the Earth is named after the dirt, not the other way around.) So now I'm trying to decide between two names:
  • Blood in the Earth. (Fits really well thematically with the book's setting and certain plot elements, but I'm not sure if people would see the term "Earth" and think our planet first, rather than dirt or soil — which would be a problem; while the world of the book resembles Earth strongly, it is not actually Earth.)
  • Blood in the Soil. (This avoids the confusion about Earth and fits most of the same themes that Blood in the Earth does, though it has somewhat different connotations. My main concerns with this one: for one thing, I'm not sure it would lock me into "Blood in the [insert s-word] for future titles, and for another, it kind of sounds like a Southern gothic novel to me? Though I could be wrong; I don't read Southern gothic.)
  • There were almost three names here, since I was still kinda considering Blood in the Night, but then I realized that it sounds like a vampire novel. So . . . that's out.
• I also worked a bit on my D&D campaign during some of the points where I didn't want to work on my novel. (You would think that would be just as draining, but it kind of depends which episode I'm working on.) I currently have a bunch of ideas for different episodes and challenges, and they're all kind of right around level 3 or level 4, so . . . good thing characters tend to stay there for a while. I am seriously excited for this campaign, though, even if it's a long way from done.

Reading!

• So . . . you know how basically tried to devour the library the last few months?
• That did not happen this month.
• Basically the only books I read were the other Five Golden Braids books — all of which are pretty great, by the way. But each of them gets a list-post next week in the blog tour, so I'll skip talking about them now.

Watching!

• The most exciting thing I watched all month: How To Train Your Dragon 3! In the theater! One of our local theaters was showing it again on special, so my sister, my mom, and my sister's friend and her family all went to see it. I liked it on the whole, aside from some intended-as-comedic elements that I thought didn't need to be there, but I also have mixed emotions about the ending.
• I mean, on one hand, it was a great ending — thematically fitting and all that. It definitely paid off all the character and plot conflict that we'd had over the rest of the movie.
• But on the other hand, I am sad about certain things because those things involved goodbyes and it was not OK.
• Also, this may have been the prettiest of the HTTYD movies, but don't quote me on that.

• The second-most exciting thing I watched all month: I finally saw Spider-Man: Homecoming. Like most Marvel movies involving Tony Stark, it was a good movie, but could have been better if certain people actually bothered to communicate. Seriously, that could have eliminated a significant number of the more frustrating plot problems. And it's not like the pieces weren't already in place! And I'm going to rant about how I would have written the movie differently if I were in control — it's been out long enough that everyone probably has either seen it or knows all the spoilers. If you don't fit in one of those categories and you care about staying that way, just skip past the whole indented section.
  • So, a lot of the conflict comes from the fact that after Germany, Tony is kind of ignoring Peter — or, not necessarily ignoring, but at least not responding. And he gives no explanation for why that we're aware of. Bad call. We'll give Tony a pass initially, 'cause Steve kind of did a number of him in Civil War. But once he starts pulling himself back together and saw that Peter was still all excited to be a superhero and an Avenger, what should or could he have done?
  • Simple. Contacted Peter, maybe even invited him to Avengers/Stark Tower and basically said "Look, kid, you did great in Germany, you're excited, all that is awesome. But you're not quite ready to officially join the Avengers yet. So, the next several months are training time. Keep practicing with the new suit, keep proving what you can do at street level, and when you're ready, you can go on another mission with me."
  • Even better: Tony also uses this as an opportunity to set up a regular "check-in" time when Peter can talk to either him or (more likely) Happy and let them know how stuff is going, ask questions, that sort of thing. Y'know. An actual mentorship. That would've been great, but not absolutely essential.
  • Possibly Tony also uses this opportunity to start whatever training program Karen referenced in the film for helping Peter learn how to use the suit's advanced features (though that would eliminate some of the tension and comedic elements later on).
  • (Possible counterargument to this part of the plan: Tony is a busy man. He has bigger things to worry about than a kid superhero. Counter-counterargument: the film makes it pretty clear that Tony was aware of what Peter was doing anyway, and also, taking responsibility for your choices is a thing.)
  • So. Now Peter's not as frustrated by the fact that he's not doing "real" superhero stuff because at least he knows he hasn't been forgotten about. He's still hero-ing every spare minute, probably, and so the film's plot goes more or less as it would anyway up through the first encounter with Vulture up through the bit where Peter finds out where the weapons deal is happening and tells Happy about it.
  • At that point, instead of Tony still pretending he's ignoring Peter and secretly calling in the feds, he tells Peter "Great work, kid; I've called in the feds and we'll take it from here." Peter probably protests that he wants to still be involved. Possibly he shows up anyway and still messes stuff up somehow, but in that case, it's his own storming fault and Tony is honestly justified in taking the suit away.
  • Or, possibly, it doesn't even get as far as the weapons deal. Possibly Peter instead tells Tony about tracking the Vulture and his crew to Maryland, Tony says "Great; thanks; we'll take it from here," and Peter interferes then and gets the suit taken away then — though, obviously, that would have made the Washington Monument scene go very differently.
  • After this, the film continues basically like it did anyway, and the climax goes down pretty much just like it did in the movie, 'cause that was honestly really great.
  • And after the climax, Tony still invites Peter to be an Avenger, and Peter probably still says "Thanks, but I think I need more training." Or possibly it's more low-key; maybe Tony shows up with Peter's new suit in hand and is like "Hey, you did great. You're still technically in training, 'cause you're a minor and probably shouldn't be doing full-time heroing, but you get to go on missions with me sometimes now. Speaking of which, suit up." That would lose the impact of Peter's choice, but I think it would still work thematically.
  • Aaaaand there you go. Spider-Man: Homecoming as rewritten by me.
• Ok, for those of you who didn't want to read spoilers: those are over now. MOVING ON.

• In other movie-watching news: I'm trying to figure out how I feel about western movies.
• See, my dad really likes western movies (specifically John Wayne western movies), and I like the idea of westerns (to the degree that I had a whole subplot in one novel that was basically "how close can I get to a western in a medieval-ish fantasy setting?"). But the only western movie I'd watched until recently was the original The Magnificent Seven, which is a good movie with great character development . . . culminating in the death of a lot of the characters I really liked.
• Needless to say, this did not make me feel terribly inclined to watch more westerns.
• However, my dad recently bought a collection of old John Wayne movies and wanted to watch some of them. And I was feeling bad about having judged an entire genre off of one work, so I said I would watch a couple of John Wayne movies before I went back to Cedarville. And that is how I ended up watching Blue Steel and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and why I'm now trying to figure out how I feel about the genre as a whole.
• (Blue Steel, for the record, was intensely unimpressive, but it was also obviously a low-quality movie with equally low-quality writing. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, on the other hand, was very well-written, very well-acted, and very well-staged. The scriptwriters and directors did an excellent job of showing you that even minor characters had lives and dreams outside of the plot, the conflict was pretty well set up . . . but certain things didn't happen like I expected them to, and I'm not sure if I like how they happened instead. Also, Tom Doniphon is problematic, but he reminds me of certain of my characters, so now I don't know how I feel about him or them. It's a problem.)
• Oh, and I watched more Star Trek. I continue to prefer The Next Generation to the Original Series, but I don't think that surprises anyone.

Life!

• I MADE PECAN PIE! Obviously this is the most important thing that happened all month.
• (It's not. But it was delicious and I'm very happy about how well it turned out.)
• Anyway. Even aside from Camp NaNoWriMo, July was pretty busy, especially the first half of the month. That's not a bad thing, but it doesn't help my ability to write.
• Independence Day was fun, but low-key: we went over to a friend's house, enjoyed some really great barbeque, and watched the DC and New York fireworks from the comfort of the friend's living room. (It had been threatening rain all day, plus no one was really that excited about going somewhere to sit in a buggy field to watch things explode, so we decided it was better not to risk anything.)
• Next on the lineup: Cow Appreciation Day! Yes, we did go to Chick-Fil-A for all three meals. But, look, if they're going to give me a free chicken biscuit or BBQ chicken sandwich or whatever and all I have to do is show up wearing a cow shirt, I will absolutely take that deal. (I mean, technically I got a breakfast burrito instead of a chicken biscuit, but my point remains.) This was also the day we went to see HTTYD3, so it was a good day all 'round, if not a terribly productive one.
• And shortly after that, my grandpa came to visit (as he usually does this time of year), so that was fun. That said, we didn't do a ton while he was here, since he's having hip problems. We did go to 7/11 on 7/11 day for free slurpees, though. And then, oddly enough, we then visited him a week or so after he left so that he and my dad could make my sister a desk hutch for Cedarville. (Why did we not just make it here? Basically, Grandpa is better set up for woodworking projects than we are, and we had to be in Pennsylvania anyway to drop my sister off for the camp she was volunteering at, so . . . why not?)
• So, yeah, that's pretty much all the event-y stuff. In non-event-y stuff: my sword is progressing fairly well. All the pieces are printed and sanded, so now I just have to epoxy them all together and paint the whole thing. I'm also toying with the idea of making some kind of sheath for it, but I don't have the skills to make a model for 3D printing . . . anyone have any suggestions?
• And, yeah, as you probably guessed from the start of this section, I've been baking! So far, I've made several loaves of sourdough bread (I still can't get it shaped right, though I'm making progress on the density problem), pretzels (twice! they were delicious), pancakes (also delicious), and pizza. I'm unreasonably proud of the pizza.
• (Also, I play Hearthstone on and off, but July was more an "on" month than an "off" one because they were running a special event and I absolutely loved their special twist on the game for the first two weeks of the month. I really wish there was a way I could play those characters outside the event, 'cause they made those particular classes two to five times more interesting than they had been. Well, three of the five did. The other two, not so much. Needless to say, this did not help with Camp NaNoWriMo, especially since the most interesting week of the special event coincided with the week in which I felt least inspired.)

August Plans!

• Mechanical Heart releases August 7! That's less than a week away! I am quite excited but also a bit stressed — more about the tour than the actual release. It should be good, though.
• On that note: you get a blog post every day next week on both my blogs. Different blog posts, even. On Light and Shadows, I'll be posting five reasons why you should read each of the Golden Braids books. Meanwhile, Dreams and Dragons will be hosting an assortment of interviews.
• And after that, I will probably take a week or two off of blogging, both because I'll be tired from the blog tour and because I'll be headed back to Cedarville the week after my book releases!
• This semester should be pretty solid on the whole. I don't have any classes that I'm dreading, though I am nervous about some of my graphic design classes — I've heard that the professor is tough. But, hey, I get to learn how to make fonts, so that's exciting. Plus, I get to take a creative nonfiction class, which was one of the creative writing courses I was most disappointed out missing back when I decided not to do a creative writing minor.
• Besides that, August will mostly be occupied with trying to finish up projects: the draft of Blood in the [Something], the first month or two of my D&D campaign, my sword, my knitted cloak (or, part of it, anyway), a few other dorm items, and so on.
• Also, I need to get back to the whole reading-all-the-books thing. And I have shows I want to watch.
• So, yeah.

How was your July? What are your plans for August? Which title do you think sounds better, Blood in the Earth or Blood in the Soil? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)

June 2019 Doings!

Ok, that kinda snuck up on me . . . which is ironic, seeing as I was basically counting down the days to Camp NaNoWriMo (in the sense of "how long do I have to do x, y, and z before Camp?") in the second half of the month. And yet I still got to June 28 and was like "Wait, what? July is in three days? That's not right. That can't be right." But, obviously, it was right, and here we are with a new month's worth of Doings.

Writing!

• PROOF COPY! It's so shiny!
• So, yeah; as you can see, I finished edits and formatting for Mechanical Heart and got my proof copy! I'm kind of ahead of schedule, but I wanted to get everything with the actual book finished before Camp NaNoWriMo. At this point, I just have to write blog posts and do marketing stuff.
• Seriously, though, it's so shiny. And big. Mechanical Heart is roughly three times as long as Blood in the Snow, and, like, I knew that? That's why it took so much more time to edit? But it didn't really hit me until I got the physical copy and could hold it and all that.
• Also, there was a cover reveal, and you can now preorder the book on Amazon and add it to your TBR list on Goodreads if you haven't already. I'd really appreciate it if you did.
• In other news, it is now, in fact, July, and I'm working on my Camp NaNoWriMo novel! The tentative title is Blood in the Night, though I might change it to Blood in the Earth (except that earth technically is not a term that exists in this world?) or Blood Beneath. As you may be able to guess (or may have heard from me elsewhere), it's a sequel to Blood in the Snow, and it retells the Twelve Dancing Princesses crossed with a very loose retelling of Hades and Persephone. Interested? Great! Have a rough sort of blurb/synopsis thing!

A year has passed since the events of Blood in the Snow, and Baili is determined to keep the promise she made to return the captives to their homelands. She, Xiang, Chouko, Gan, and Azuma travel to one of the Three Peaks provinces to put her plans into action — but mysteries await there that will make their task more difficult and dangerous than anticipated.
Azuma believed he'd put sorrow behind him when he found a new purpose as a member of Princess Baili's personal guard. But the journey brings the ghosts of his past back in a way he never expected. To make matters worse, a mysterious visitor hints at danger to Baili, and the province princesses are undoubtedly hiding a dark secret. It's Azuma's duty to rescue his princess — but when he's failed with only one life in the balance, can he hope to succeed with thirteen?
Meanwhile, Princess Choi Eun-Ji of Cheongaeui Ttang is determined to save her older sister, no matter the cost. But that's easier said than done when it means defying the incredibly powerful Lord of Beneath. Desperate, Eun-Ji strikes a bargain that may be her only hope of success — if it doesn't claim the lives of her and her other ten sisters first.

• So, yeah. It's going well so far. A few elements are showing up earlier than I anticipated, and an unexpected subplot sort of popped up and I don't know what I'm going to do with it, but it's still good. It's the first time in a while that I've written a new novella/novel-length work, so that's exciting. I've missed writing by hand, haha.
• (Also, the Lord of Beneath is stupidly fun to write. He manages to be intensely Extra and dramatic while also surprisingly straightforward and practical, and he does ominous quite well, and yeah. I think this is the most fun I've had writing an antagonist since . . . oh, I don't know. Binding Destiny? Between Two Worlds? One of those two.)

Reading!

• I kinda sorta definitely had to raise my reading goal multiple times this month because I kept hitting it or almost hitting it and was like "No! I can't hit it this soon! It's only halfway through the year!" The most recent raise — from 99 to 111 books — was last Saturday, and I'm still 40-ish books ahead of schedule. We'll see how many more times I raise it over the rest of the year.
• I think it helps that I basically just said to myself, "You can read whatever you want as long as it's not trash," instead of just requesting a heap of the latest releases and pushing through them. I mean, I want to read the newest books, yes — but I also have a big backlog, and a big list of books I want to reread, and giving myself the freedom to read those meant I was reading a lot more.
• And, yes, that would be why I reread all of the Percy Jackson/Heroes of Olympus books. I have exactly 1 regret, and that is the fact that I didn't finish reading the last two books before Camp NaNoWriMo. The whole thing started because I wanted to reread Son of Neptune, but then I got to the end of that and realized that I missed Leo, so I reread The Lost Hero, and at that point, I was super invested again, so I had to read the rest of HoO. And then I thought I was done, but Riordan's writing is super addictive and I kind of wanted to go back to the beginning, so I read the first three PJO books . . . and then got stuck for a few days because I didn't own book 4 or 5 and had to wait for the library. On a non-tragic note, I actually do own slightly more than half of these books, thanks to the giant used booksale my local library does every year.

• And I got non-Riordan books too! Behold!

• (The dragon was not from the booksale, but the space looked empty and he seemed to fit, so I filled it. Also, please do notice that I have Volume 1 of the Chrestomanci Chronicles, which means my collection is complete! Also, A Cast of Stones is signed, but I'm honestly more excited about Chrestomanci. Not going to lie; if I hadn't gone on a Percy Jackson binge, I probably would've ended up devouring the Chrestomanci Chronicles instead.)
• Anyway. Getting back to the non-PJO books I read. My other two rereads, Raven's Ladder and The Ale Boy's Feast, were good overall. They're frustrating books, honestly. In Raven's Ladder, basically everyone except Jordam and Partayn is a mess, and it's super frustrating, but the book overall is a very good metaphor for our current culture. And then The Ale Boy's Feast has great themes and great allegory, and I love Jordam, but I hate the ending. I don't mind if an author leaves an ending a bit open-ended, but that was too much.
• All that said, I love how often this series wanders into what's basically horror territory, then remember they're supposed to be fantasy. It's mostly present in these books three and four, but it starts in book two once you find out about the beastmen. It's almost kind of funny.
• Moving on: I cleared a bunch of meant-to-read-this-ages-ago books off my shelf! Most notable: Fawkes and Horseman, both of which are alternate histories/historical fantasies of a sort (though Horseman is a lot more distant of an alternate than Fawkes!). I loved both books, and would absolutely recommend them to others. Nadine Brandes did a great job with the historical element and the family relationship in Fawkes, even if I was a bit iffy about how one particular element was presented. And Horseman was just a bucket of fun; I'm alwasy very impressed with how well Kyle Robert Shultz can simultaneously have a really humorous story and really tough choices for his characters. (And right after I finished it, I read The Fourth Musketeer, which focuses on Julio and was also very fun. And I was able to read Deadwood right after it released, which was just as creepy as it should have been and also gave me feels.) Those were all definitely highlights.
• On the short story front, I read Ray Bradbury's I Sing the Body Electric! anthology and part of Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things anthology. The Bradbury anthology was a bit mixed, as anthologies are wont to be, and both depressing and disturbing at times, but the better stories made the whole thing worth it. (I definitely don't agree with Bradbury on certain points of philosophy, but he still presented his ideas in an interesting way.) As for the Gaiman anthology — I DNF'ed it after reading a perfectly horrible story relating to The Chronicles of Narnia. I'm still mad about it; don't read it. I quite literally wanted to wash my brain out with bleach afterward. And most of the rest of the anthology was a bit too interested in the worst parts of human life and intentions for me to recommend it, even if some of them had interesting concepts. The only exceptions are the poetry, a few short stories that you can also find in his children's anthology, and a new-to-me short story, "Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire." Yes, that sounds like it ought to be sketchy, but it's actually a concept that I love — basically, the fact that, to a character in a fantasy world, our world would be the fantasy one. I absolutely recommend it. Just find somewhere else to read it than this particular anthology.

Watching!

• I haven't really watched any movies this month, due to reasons which will be explained in the Life! section. However . . .
• I did watch a good bit of Star Trek! And by "a good bit", I mean about ten episodes, which is probably a laughably small amount to other people my age, but storm it all, I need sleep. And if I'm going to lose sleep, I'd rather do it with a book than a TV screen.
• Anyway. My family's been slowly watching the first season of the Star Trek Original Series, and I can definitively say that Spock is the best part and McCoy is the second best. Kirk is fine, but altogether too prone to impulsiveness for the sake of the plot. Aaaaand I'm also not crazy about how he apparently is contractually obliged to make out (or at least have an implied romantic connection with) at least one woman every episode. I have been told that this is because the show was made in the '60s, but I still don't appreciate it.
• In addition, my sister and I have been watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, and I honestly like it rather more than TOS. For one thing: a ship full of reasonably sensible, reasonable, mostly professional people! Hallelujah! For another: I currently like a bunch of the characters rather than just two. (And the characters seem to be better-developed in general?) And, of course: there's no obligatory kissing scene every episode. Again: HALLELUJAH. I mean, yeah, you've got two sort-of-couples? But neither are "official" couples yet, and it seems like they're going to take their sweet time getting there, and given the choice between pointless kissing scenes and less-pointless awkwardness, I will take the latter. (Ok, I'll be fair. The kissing in TOS isn't always pointless. But there's still more of it than there needs to be.)

Life!

Not my picture.

• June basically consisted of two exciting things (one good, one bad), a few weeks of various people having colds, and the book sale. And, obviously, lots of reading and writing and watching Star Trek, but we already talked about that.
• We'll start with the good exciting thing: Hershey Park! We were supposed to go at the end of May, but we got rained out, so we went the first week of June instead. It was definitely a good time, especially since there were so many rides that everyone wanted to go on together. For context: my parents and my sister are all roller-coaster people. My sister, in particular, is the type of roller-coaster person who will happily ride the most extreme coasters in the park multiple times. I, on the other hand, would rather be spun in about five different directions than get on most roller coasters — literally. Spinny rides are some of my favorite things, and I wish I got to go on more of them. (The problem, of course, is that they're best to go on with other people, and I am a single person. So, I can have a good time on the swings or the Scrambler, but anything like the teacups where you have to rotate something to spin more is out.)
• However, I make an exception for wooden roller coasters because I don't have a problem with speed (within reason) or even with a bit of rattling around; I just don't want to go upside down or get dropped at a 90-degree angle or such. In fact, I like wooden roller coasters — and Hershey has three of them, which is a pretty decent number. All of them are good coasters too. The Racer was the best, but I'd ride any of the three again.
• The downside of the day at the park: I came home with a particularly nasty cold that reared its head a few days after we got back and put me out of commission for two days before I could function semi-well again. It seemed like I'd mostly gotten rid of it by the next weekend, which was Father's Day, but then, that Saturday . . . Well, a bigger problem showed up.
• And by that, I mean that my dad went to the hospital with an infected or inflamed gallbladder.
• The good news: he's fine now. The doctors figured out pretty quickly what was wrong; they did surgery; he came home and took a week off to recover. But we did have to delay celebrating Father's Day (we still haven't caught up on all our plans), and it did freak everyone out a little.
• Also, for anyone who's interested: I didn't cook a lot this month (mostly due to the fact that I was sick — though I did make or assist in making a few skillet dishes). However, I did bake bread, which was one of the main things I wanted to try! A family friend of ours had some sourdough starter, and I asked if I could have some, since I love sourdough bread and wanted to try making it. And BEHOLD!

• It did not turn out perfectly; it's super dense and didn't really rise as much as I think it was supposed to, and I'm not 100% sure what went wrong. But hopefully, the next loaf will turn out better. We'll see how it goes.
• Oh, and Independence Day was fun! We went over to a family friend's house for barbeque and other assorted yumminess, which was great. We didn't end up going to see fireworks, though, since the weather was so wet. Instead, we just watched them on TV. (I don't mind, honestly. We got see fireworks back on Memorial Day weekend, and those were pretty great, so I got my fireworks fix then.)

July Plans!

• Obviously, the main plans for July are Camp NaNoWriMo and work — but I've already discussed the one, and the other hasn't changed much from last month, so I won't get into that.
• My grandpa is visiting this month, so that should be fun. His visits are usually pretty chill.
• Also, Cow Appreciation Day is July 9! Basically, you wear cow-related apparel (which could be, say, a cow-spotted bandana or other clothing article, or even just a white shirt with black spots taped on), go to Chick-fil-a, and you can get a free entree. You can do this at any meal; if you have enough Chick-fil-a's nearby, you can do it for all three meals. (That is a lot of chicken, yes. But it's good chicken, it's free, and if you plan what you're eating well, you don't feel like you're eating the same thing all day.) My family is very into Chick-fil-a, and we have four different restaurants in a twenty-minute radius of our house, so guess what we're doing? Plus, we plan to go see How To Train Your Dragon 3 that day, so, yeah. I'm going to get nothing done, but it will be a good day.
• I have some crafting stuff I want to do: I'm working on my 3D-printed sword and a knitted cloak, and I'm planning to make a cool sign for my dorm room door. (Of course I make it the last year I'll be there . . . oh well. It is what it is.) I'll post pictures of all the things here on the blog once they're done.
• In general, I'm hoping July will be mostly chill — or as chill as a NaNo month can be, in any case. We'll see what happens.
• (Oh, and this isn't a July-specific plan, but I picked up some games during the Steam Summer Sale because they were cheap and I wanted to reward myself for being on top of things with Mechanical Heart, and I'm suuuper excited. None of them are new or recent — one of them is Portal, for heaven's sakes — but whatever. I'm going to have fun and enjoy several good stories and that's what matters. Again, it probably won't happen in July, 'cause Camp NaNoWriMo, but maaaybe if I finish early . . .?)

How was your June? What are your plans for July? How do you feel about roller coasters (wooden or otherwise) and spinny rides? How do you feel about engaging with books, games, or other media years after everyone else discovered them? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)

May 2019 Doings!

Ahhhh. Finally a quiet month. It's so nice to be back home, away from classes and constant stress — even if I do miss my friends. That said, a quiet month doesn't mean there are no Doings at all, so let's get started!

Writing!

• The last major round of edits on Mechanical Heart is done! Finally!
• Ok, technically, I haven't been working on it that long; only since February. But the fact that I've been working on only Mechanical Heart edits, and the fact that I didn't have much of a break between the different rounds of edits, makes it feel like much longer. Also, I've literally doubled the length of the story every time I edit it. I'm pretty sure this is the opposite of what most people do. Oh well.
• I still have another round or two of mid-level to minor adjustments to get through (the exact level depends on what Kendra has to say about it in her critique). But those won't be nearly as bad, and with luck, they won't take me more than a week or two.
• (Hopefully, those won't be famous last words . . .)

Reading!

• So, here's what happened: I got home from college. I went to the library. And then I devoured all the books because that's what happens when I have plenty of time and limited energy (which, naturally, I decrease further by staying up late to read . . . ).
• Most of these were new-to-me reads, but some were rereads. I revisited Illusionarium around the middle of the month because I was losing motivation for Mechanical Heart and hoped that reading some good steampunk would help. (It did, thankfully.) I'm also rereading the Auralia's Colors series because a friend mentioned them and I wanted to see if they were as good as I remembered. I think the first book suffers on the reread; the author leaves too much fuzziness in an effort to create the magic the book requires. The rest of the series, however, improves, especially Cyndere's Midnight. My appreciation for Jordam has significantly increased, a fact I attribute in no small part to The Wingfeather Saga and the Tales of Goldstone Wood.
• Moving on to the really good new books: the Strange the Dreamer duology was pretty amazing. I wasn't sure about it at the start, but once we moved on from Lazlo's horrible childhood and introduced Sairi and her family . . . yes. I wouldn't recommend it to everyone just because it is rather dark at times and involves some adult topics, but overall, I can see why people like these so much. Tess of the Road was another one covering difficult or mature topics, and I quite enjoyed it as well, even though I'd heard bad reviews from a lot of people. (My take: just go in expecting a slow plot, no dragons, and lots of emphasis on internal conflict and you'll be fine.) And, of course, the one Discworld book that I read, The Last Hero, was pretty fun. It wasn't my favorite in the series, but it's the best of the Rincewind books.
• I also read a few anthologies! One, To Hold the Bridge, is by Garth Nix; I mostly read it because it had an Abhorsen short story in it. That short story was decent; the rest was highly meh. A Blink of the Screen, an anthology of Terry Pratchett's short fiction, was better — though, oddly, I enjoyed a lot of the non-Discworld stories better than the Discworld ones. And Neil Gaiman's M is for Magic was the best of the three; his short fiction reminds me of Diana Wynne Jones's in a lot of ways.
• Most of the other books that I haven't mentioned yet were good, but not amazing, but I will mention the two really disappointing ones. Etiquette and Espionage was, like Illusionarium, supposed to motivate me to keep working on Mechanical Heart. Unfortunately, the trope it's founded on (the magical boarding school) is hit or miss for me, and this one missed more than it hit. I definitely will not be continuing the series. And I picked up An Abundance of Katherines because I liked Turtles All the Way Down and thought that I ought to read more than one John Green book in my lifetime . . . and then I put the book down again after the third chapter. Sorry, John Green, but Colin is a whiney child, and like the Katherines who dumped him, I have better things to do with my life than wait around for him to get a grip on his.

Watching!

• So, yes. I saw Avengers: Endgame, and it did not kill me and I was very impressed with it. Go read my post on the topic if you want to know more about how I feel. I don't feel like recapping everything I already said more than I just did. Also, if you've watched Endgame since I wrote that post, go comment on my spoiler post and let me know what you thought! (Or just tell me in the comments of this post, if you put a spoiler warning on there.)
• Also, going to movie theaters by yourself is highly underrated. I wish I'd realized this sooner; if I had, I would've been caught up on the MCU much faster, and I might've seen other recent movies as well. The only downside is that you don't have someone to talk to in-person right after you leave the movie . . . but I'd rather wait to discuss it until I've thought over my impressions more anyway.

• In addition to seeing Endgame, I watched Mary Poppins Returns with my family and very much enjoyed it. Is it the same as the original? Not at all. It's a different, slightly darker story in a different, slightly darker era. Is it better than the original? Probably not. But is it worse? I don't think so. Honestly, I like the one just as much as the other. And while I will acknowledge that some of Emily Blunt's mannerisms and phrases seemed just the slightest touch off or forced, she stayed true to Mary's overall personality, and I appreciate that.
• Other than that, I've mostly been watching a lot of Hogan's Heroes with my family, which I'm thoroughly enjoying. I really like that show, ok? I know it's not perfect, but it's fun, and I love a good guile hero — of which Hogan definitely is one. And it's one of the fairly rare humorous shows that produces next to no secondhand embarrassment, so that's a relief.

Life!

• Honestly, there's not a lot to record in this section that I haven't written about already. I'm getting back into the routine of work, writing, and reading. I've been able to do some design stuff, both for professional and personal reasons, and that's been pretty fun. I'm trying to figure out how to get myself to draw more. (Also, I bought watercolor pencils because they were on clearance for really cheap, but I then realized that you need watercolor paper in order to use watercolor pencils, so now I have to buy that . . . gah.)
• Oh! We went to the Memorial Day concert and fireworks at Wolftrap, which is a National Park/performing arts center about half an hour from my house. The concert was excellent, and I may look up a few of the pieces to see if there are good versions available online. And the fireworks were fabulous, even though our seat was partially under a tree that seemed like it might block our view. On that topic, fireworks are amazing and I forgot how gorgeous they could be, especially when they're arranged with music.
• Um . . . I made food! That's something! One dish was just pasta and sausage in the skillet, which turned out well. The other was enchiladas, which also turned out well, but I had to make enchilada sauce, which almost burned and smelled terrible, but it's fine. It tasted good in the end. I did intend to cook more than I have, but there's still quite a bit of summer left.

June Plans!

• I'm hoping that June will be more of the same as May: quiet and mostly occupied with writing, work, and reading. It may not be exciting, but it's pleasant.
• Obviously, I'll be working on the next few rounds of Mechanical Heart edits just as soon as I get the final critique back from Kendra and have time to think through them. I'll also start working on the interior design and formatting for the Kindle and paperback versions . . . yay. I should probably try to work out how to do the paperback formatting in InDesign; maybe that'll be less aggravating than Word.
• Also, there will be a cover reveal soon! Keep your eyes open for news about that.
• Before I go back to work on Mechanical Heart (and possibly in the midst of that), I'm going to work on the D&D campaign I hope to run next semester. I'm hoping to have enough weekly adventures planned to carry me through the first month or two at least, if not more. I do have several of those adventures semi-prepared already, but I need to solidify worldbuilding stuff and figure out how those episodes might fit into the larger plot. (And, yeah, I'm doing this a bit out of order, but it'll work.)
• And, of course, I need to start figuring out stuff in earnest for Camp NaNoWriMo in July . . . but that'll be more towards the end of the month. (Fingers crossed that I'll have all my Mechanical Heart edits done by then, 'cause that would be amazing.)
• Outside of writing, it'll mostly be business as usual: work, reading, and so on. I'm knitting a cloak, so that's fun, and I have one or two other craft projects I'd like to work on if I have time. (Fun fact: you can 3D print a sword. And one of my local libraries has a 3D printer that patrons can use. Do you see where I'm going with this?) I may see a movie or two, which is a little out of the ordinary, but hopefully won't be much longer.
• There's also a pretty good chance that my family will be going to at least one amusement park, so WHOO! Now that I know I actually like wooden roller coasters, I'm super excited. (We were supposed to go to Hershey Park yesterday, actually, but we got rained out. Here's hoping that doesn't happen again.)

How was your May? What are your plans for June? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)

April 2019 Doings! (Plus the first third of May . . . oops)

Behold! I return!

So, yeah. April was super busy and I basically did all the things and then semi-collapsed. But I'm back now! And in case you think I was joking about "all the things", I have a Doings! post to show just how crazy this month was.

Writing!

• Obviously, the main writing thing of the month (and the reason I haven't posted but once since my last Doings!) was Camp NaNoWriMo. For those who missed it, I was continuing my rewrite/edit of Mechanical Heart: adding new scenes and reworking existing ones to be consistent with the changes I'm making based on beta comments.
• Because of the work I was doing and because of class projects, this was kind of a weird month. I'd bounce between way ahead of the game and barely keeping up depending on whether I was writing new words or just editing existing stuff. Plus, some days I couldn't get anything done at all. It was a mess.
• (I also learned that writing while other people are watching a TV show in the same room just doesn't work. Inevitably, I end up watching the show as well, no matter what it is. It's a problem.)
• In the end, I did win Camp NaNoWriMo, but it was the closest win I've ever had. I validated my final wordcount maybe twenty minutes before midnight on April 30. (It might've been closer to ten 'til, honestly.) Mechanical Heart isn't done with this round of edits either — but I've outlined the rest of the book and written short chapter summaries, so maybe it'll go faster?
• (At least once I get back my motivation . . . after Camp NaNoWriMo, I sort of switched over all my energy to finishing up final projects, and I've struggled to get back into writing ever since. So that's a problem.)

Reading!

• As you can see, April was a much lighter reading month than average — and technically, I only read three of these in April; the other two I read since getting home from college.
• Murder on the Orient Express was my first read of the month. It was a solid book, as one would expect given how famous it is. I don't think it's my favorite mystery novel I've ever read, but I'm certainly interested to read more by Christie. And I didn't guess the killer before the end of the book, so that's . . . probably good?
• A Darker Shade of Magic was, as the name suggests, super dark. C.G. Drews yells about this series semi-frequently, so I thought I'd give it a try. Ultimately, I'm not sure if I'll continue the series; the world is interesting, but I'm not super invested in the characters, and did I mention that the book was really, really dark and bloody? So, yeah. I'm glad I read it, but I don't think I'll repeat the experience.
• Between Jobs, on the other hand, is one I've been looking forward to for a while. It's part of W.R. Gingell's series of urban fantasy mysteries, and, unsurprisingly, I highly enjoyed it. I think I like her Two Monarchies books a bit better, but on the other hand, relatively clean urban fantasy is hard to find. I definitely intend to pick up the rest of the series quite soon!
• Moving on: A Branch of Silver, a Branch of Gold was a reread, obviously. I'm hoping to reread all of the Tales of Goldstone Wood sometime in the relatively near future, but didn't really intend to start here — it was just kind of a whim. I definitely like it better this time than I did the first time. The ending makes much more sense and is more powerful, and the whole book is just better when you know what's up and know what to look for.
• Finally, we have the Abhorsen Chronicles, which are technically three books, but I have them all together in one volume. I acquired the book ages ago, after a blogger friend recommended Lirael as one of her favorite books. That was years ago, though, around the time that Anne Elisabeth Stengl first started the Five Something Somethings anthologies, and it took me this long to read it. I enjoyed the trilogy, though I think Sabriel is my favorite of the books. They're a bit dark, but they're exciting and have a cool magic system and a nice interplay of fantasy and technology.

Watching!

• Oh stars. There's SO MUCH here compared to usual.
• For most of the month, I watched relatively little. Between Camp NaNoWriMo and college, I didn't have a lot of time for Netflix, YouTube, or so forth. The exception was one random evening on which my roommate and I both magically acquired some extra time and decided that I needed to be introduced to Leverage. So, we watched my roommate's favorite episode: a flashback episode about the crew all trying to steal the same thing before they were a crew. I think that format made it easier for me to keep up with what was going on (since I didn't really know the characters — other than Elliot, who I only know about because both my roommate and Deborah O'Carroll love him). I really enjoyed the characters and the show concept, though, so I'm hoping to watch more of the show sometime.
• Then Easter break hit, and suddenly I was watching ALL THE THINGS.
• For one thing, of course, I watched all the stuff that was distracting me from writing: specifically, four episodes of Love It Or List It (a househunting/remodeling show; fairly interesting but frustrating because the families literally never did what I thought they should do), a food truck cooking competition whose name I didn't catch (again, interesting, but I probably wouldn't watch it deliberately), and quite a lot of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. CSI, for the record, was pretty cool. Definitely for a more mature audience, but interesting nonetheless. (Also, the last episode I watched ended on a cliffhanger and it's not ok and I need the rest of the story, storm it all!)
• Finally, and most importantly: I'm almost caught up on the MCU because between Easter break and finals week, I watched three whole Marvel movies!

• The best of these movies was undoubtedly Captain Marvel, which my roommate, her family, and I saw in theaters on the Monday after Easter. I'm not going to claim that Captain Marvel is the best MCU movie ever, but it's still really good and highly satisfying. It hit all the right beats, had all the right elements, twisted some tropes and played others perfectly straight . . . and, ok, the final battle can't top the climax of Thor: Ragnarok, but it was still pretty awesome.
• The same day, we watched Ant-Man and the Wasp, which was great in terms of plot, cool tech, and awesome action, but not so great in terms of characters who I actually connected with, cared about, and wasn't annoyed with. (At some point, I need to compare my reaction to Ant-Man and the Wasp with my reaction to Guardians of the Galaxy 1 & 2. Technically, I should be annoyed with Guardians for the same reason I am with Ant-Man and the Wasp: the cast as a whole shows the fundamental selfishness of humanity very clearly, and a significant part of the main cast is populated by idiots. And yet I love Guardians and am just meh about Ant-Man and the Wasp, and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's the music, or maybe it's the fact that I enjoy Peter Quill's brand of idiocy more than Scott Lang's.)

• Anyway. Getting back on track: since I was so close to being caught up, during finals week, I decided to bite the bullet and take out the MCU movie I was most dreading: Infinity War. So, Wednesday, my roommate and I had our end-of-semester movie night, and watched that . . . and, honestly, I'm not overwhelmed with either awe or sadness. The movie did the best it could with the number of characters it had to include, and it had some fairly cool action scenes, a few nice pieces of humor, and some pretty touching moments. But it was still kind of all over the place, I'm annoyed with several characters, and Thanos just is not an interesting villain in my opinion. So, yeah. On the upside, now I can go see Endgame in theaters and actually watch an MCU movie before I get all the spoilers for once.

Life!

• Oh stars. There's so much. I don't know how I had time for all the stuff I did, what with Camp NaNoWriMo, but somehow it all happened.
• The first weekend of April was, of course, my hall's D&D one-shot. (Storms, that feels like so long ago.) Overall, I think it was successful. Everyone seemed to have fun, people liked my storyline and concept reasonably well, and a lot of the girls said they'd be interested in playing again in a longer-term campaign sometime. We had a few hiccups at the beginning due to the fact that six players are definitely too many people, especially when you're a first-time GM. However, things calmed down after a while, people got the hang of what they were doing, and we had some pretty fun moments.
• (Also: you know the joke about how D&D players will make any encounter a combat encounter? My group was the exact opposite. At the very beginning, I had set up a mini-combat encounter with an angry bear to give everyone a feel for how combat works. Instead, it turned into a mini therapy section as our Ranger talked the bear down, asked why it was mad and who hurt it, and got information about the cave below. This was a trend through most of the game. Giant snake? Chat with it and ask if it knows anything about the treasure. Flying snakes? Try to befriend and/or tame them. It turned out well, though, because I'd set up a dragon at the end, and I wanted them to talk instead of attacking, and they did. It was lovely.)

• The next weekend was the PWID spring trip, in which a group of people from my major headed down to Nashville to explore, visit companies, and generally have a good time. Also, I spent most of the trip with most of my really good friends in the major, which was fabulous.
  • We left on Thursday morning. I was able to write a lot in the car on the way down, which was good. After we arrived at the hotel and got settled in, most of us decided to head to a coffee shop to eat and do homework. However, only one of the three cars actually ended up at the right coffee shop. One of the others ended up at a completely different homestyle-type restaurant. My group found ourselves at a different coffee shop by the same name — which, honestly, was fine. We worked on stuff, ate crepes, and chatted; it was a good time. (We also established what type of animal each person would be; apparently, I'm either a dragon or an armadillo. I mean, I'll take either one.)

 

• • Friday was our most structured day. We visited two different marketing companies, one really big but also really new, the other older but smaller. Both were pretty cool and informative. Then, eight of us headed to the big event of the day: a Grey Havens concert at Trevecca University! That was super fun! They played several of my favorites of their songs, and when I got their autographs afterward, I actually managed to ask an intelligent question instead of just rambling about how cool they are. So that was pretty awesome.
  • Saturday we got a late start and headed into Nashville for a day that was pretty much defined by food. We walked around part of downtown and visited a Soda Parlor owned by a YouTuber who I didn't recognize. We had coffee with a published author who graduated from Cedarville (pretty cool, though I don't read her books and probably won't change that) and visited a used/vintage bookstore that definitely had the vibe of a magical shop. Then we went to a board game cafe, which I loved. We played Apples to Apples and Codenames and drank hot apple, and I bought a new d20 (which has served me quite well since).
  • Finally, on Sunday, we headed home. We actually got back in time for me to video chat with my family and get to D&D on time, so that was awesome. Overall, it was a great trip.
• Moving on: the weekend after that was Easter break. My roommate and I were able to leave a day early and stay a day late, since neither of us had Tuesday/Thursday classes. We mostly just chilled at her house and then at her grandfather's farmhouse (other than the time we went to see Captain Marvel). I wrote, we ate lots of good food, and we played board and card games that I thoroughly enjoyed. (Mysterium is a very fun game that I would absolutely play again given the opportunity.) Overall, it was a nice chance to rest and recharge.

• Finally, the last weekend in April featured Elliv and the TDK Formal. This was my first year going to Elliv (which is basically Cedarville's big end-of-year music thing . . . other people are better at explaining it than me). It was pretty cool, but I would've enjoyed it more if I actually knew more of the songs. I don't know if I'll go next year or not; it depends on what my friends are doing.
• The TDK Formal, on the other hand, was awesome. Everyone pretty much agreed that this year's formal was the best one yet, which makes me happy. I was in charge of the decorations, which turned out really nice — though I can't take all the credit; I had ideas and other people helped execute them. But the food was great, the hosts did a great job running it, and everyone seemed to have fun.
• Outside of all that, of course, I had classwork. Two of my final projects hit significant snags in the last week of April and the first week of May, which was very frustrating. We managed to work most of it out in time to submit things, though. So that's a relief. Better yet, I think I'm done or almost done with classes involving group work. Thank goodness! (Don't get me wrong; I know group work is important, and I see the value in it. But being in a group project, even when I like my group members, can be exhausting.) On the upside, my Web Design final project, essay, and exam all went well, and I'm unreasonably happy with how my website turned out.
• That covers pretty much all the major stuff this past month. There were a few other small events — CU Lead Kickstart, a morning spent in Cedarville, a DTR show, and so forth — but this post is long enough as it is. And now I'm back home, and all is well. Or, as well as it can be, anyway.

May Plans!

• Obviously, May is almost half gone at this point, so I don't have a ton of stuff to put here. But there is some. A lot of this is whole-summer plans, but oh well.
• Most importantly, I need to finish up Mechanical Heart as soon as I possibly can. I plan to join in the Go Teen Writers 100 for 100 challenge, and I want enough space between finishing Mechanical Heart and starting the challenge that I can take a bit of a mental break. (That said, knowing my luck, I'll probably finish up on May 19th, then have to start something new on the 20th.)
• Second most importantly, I'm working again this summer. I'll be interning again with the same company as last summer, which means I get to work from home on design and writing stuff. But since I don't have a required number of hours I have to get this time around, things should be more chill. (That's not to say that I won't work as much as I can, only that I don't have to stress if I fail to get a certain number of hours of work in a day.)
• Outside of those two things, I want to take a sizable chunk out of both my TBR list and my to-watch list, though that's definitely a whole-summer aim. I'm planning to start Star Trek: The Next Generation to see if I like it more than the original series. (I am, of course, also going to watch from the original series; I'd like to get through most of the first season, at least.) I also want to watch Endgame in theaters — that will probably happen this coming week, if it happens at all — and finally see the last few MCU movies that I haven't watched, namely Homecoming and Iron Man 3.
• My last significant plan for the summer: cook more. I know how to cook, but I definitely need more practice, and there are certain things that I've never done and want to try at least once before I'm living on my own. I mean, yes, I have another year at least before I reach that point, but it's not like I can practice much at college, and right now the things I'm best at are enchiladas and chili. So, yeah. That's hopefully going to happen.

How was your April? What are your plans for May? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)

Hello, friends! In case you haven't noticed, the month of March is almost over, and April is almost here. And that means . . . you know it . . .

I've participated in every Camp NaNoWriMo event I could since 2012 or 2011, one of the two, and I'm not about to stop now — especially since I need the extra motivation to finish certain projects. (Mechanical Heart edits/rewrites are taking so storming long. I blame politics.) However, I'm also pretty sure that this round of NaNo-ing will be more difficult than some of the other times I've done it. I'm busier; I have more stressful classes; and I'm having trouble with my project but I don't have time to take a real work-on-something-else-to-reset-my-brain break. I know others are in the same boat, so I thought I'd give us all a hand by posting some Camp NaNoWriMo encouragement for the month.

(Also, on a housekeeping note: because I would like to not die of stress, I will probably take a blogging mostly-hiatus for the month of April. I'll post Doings next Friday-ish, but that's about it.)

Camp NaNoWriMo Encouragement

1. There's a reason you're writing your story. There is a purpose to the fact that you are writing this story at this time. You probably have your own reasons for writing what you do, whether you just want to have fun or you're trying to finish a to-be-published book before its deadline. But there are other reasons too; there are plans at work beyond your own. So whatever you're writing, even if it's the "wrong" book in some sense, there is purpose behind it.
2. Imperfect but existent is better than the imagined ideal. Or, in other words, what you write doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be written. This is something I really need to remember this month, since I'm kind of in a weird spot with my WIP. I'm writing a lot of new material, but I'm technically editing the book as a whole, so I feel pressured to make everything perfect the first time around. But I need to keep in mind that what's written can be edited and made better, but what stays only in my head does me no good, no matter how good or bad it seems.
3. The only true failure is giving up. Did you put words on your page? Did you make words you had better than they used to be? Did you sit down and try to make the words go even if they didn't cooperate? If you did any of these things, you have not failed, even if you didn't accomplish exactly what you intended.
4. You are capable of more than you think. The only thing easier than overestimating your abilities is underestimating them. We so easily say "Oh, no, I can't do that; that's too big a challenge for me." And sometimes that's true — sometimes there is a story you're not ready to write or a goal that's too much of a stretch. But those situations are rarer than you think. And here's the thing: for me, at least, if I say "I don't know if I can do this, but I'll try anyway," I often succeed. Even if I don't, I learn more from trying than I would from doing nothing.
5. Camp NaNoWriMo is an adventure. Here's the thing about adventures: they're never easy. If they were, they wouldn't be adventures. But the challenges in adventures always mean something; they're never purposeless. And, y'know, every adventurer has bad days — it's not all ponie rides in May sunshine, as anyone who's read The Hobbit knows. But, as we also know from that book, even dragons have their endings, and bad days don't last forever.

In conclusion, whether you're pumped and ready for Camp NaNoWriMo or not at all ready but hoping to give it your best shot, don't forget that it's an adventure and you need to give yourself grace for the bad days and take full advantage of the good days. Best of luck, and may the words flow easily from your pens!
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)

July 2018 Doings!

So, I'm currently very confused, because I felt like I literally just did one of these? But, no, it actually has been a month. What the actual pumpernickel. Time is weird. And y'all sort of get this rant every few months, but  . . . yeah. Sorry. Sorry-ish, anyway. I also feel like this month has been more defined by what I didn't do than what I did, but oh well. Let's get to it anyway.

Writing!

• Yup, Camp NaNoWriMo as usual! This month's project was a first edit/rewrite of Mechanical Heart, my steampunk Rapunzel retelling. My goal was 20,000 words edited, which I knew would get me most of the way through the novella. I hit that literally two days before the event ended, so . . . yeah. I think that's the closest I've cut a NaNo win in a while.
• Snippets, 'cause I can. First, one from Breen's first chapter:

The clock struck two just as she reached the level she’d been working on. She couldn’t hear the strike anymore. She couldn’t hear much of anything anymore. But the sound made the floor vibrate beneath her feet, and all the gems on the gears flashed like sudden stars, and Breen stood still and savored the moment.

• Next, Josiah and his friend Luis (who honestly doesn't get half as much page time as I'd like him to, but I haven't figured out how to work him in more yet):

“No. And do you know why?” Josiah started pacing again, hands behind his back. “Because, despite the fact that the towers are government property, and the royal family is theoretically still a part of the government, I’m as unable to enter the clock tower as this young woman should have been! Ten separate people I asked! The ten most likely to have keys! And what did they say?”
Luis sighed and tried to turn one of the gears on the device. When it wouldn’t turn, he picked up his screwdriver again, this time to loosen some screws. “Since you’re ranting in my workshop, I imagine they said no.”

• That basically describes Josiah's relationship with a lot of people, for the record. He rants and paces. They work and let him talk until he hits a climax or expects a response. Everyone's happy.
• Finally, a piece from Josiah and Breen's first meeting:

The young man grabbed the edge of the floor just in time as the lift fell away beneath him. Breen scrambled back and grabbed a wrench from her toolbelt. She lifted it uncertainly, staring at the hole in the floor as the man struggled to pull himself up. Never before had there been an intruder in her tower— especially not a male one.

• (And, if you can't tell . . . yes, their first meeting does involve Breen almost dropping Josiah down a lift shaft and then threatening him with a wrench. It's lovely. I think it is, anyway.)
• In non-NaNo-news, I completed what I hope will be my final edit on Blood in the Snow. Of course, I hoped the last edit would be final too, but this one has higher chances of being actually final. And now I need to start sorting out other things. Which I probably should've been sorting out all month, but I've been busy.
• Also, one of the writing jobs I applied to back in February-ish got back to me with an assignment! It's realistic fiction, which isn't my favorite, but I like most of my storyline ideas, and it pays pretty well. So, yeah, I'm happy about that.

Reading!

• Though I was pretty busy for most of July, I still managed to do a decent bit of reading, including some books I was really looking forward to. I feel like it was a bit more of a mixed bag than past months have been? But in general, I'm pleased with how the month turned out.
• I read an uncommon number of short stories this month: three anthologies (Tales from Earthsea, Fantastic Creatures, and Mythical Doorways) and one standalone (Feather and Nettle). Of those, Fantastic Creatures was probably my favorite, with Mythical Doorways a close second. Both were free Fellowship of Fantasy anthologies, so I'm pretty happy about that. Tales from Earthsea didn't impress me quite as much as I would've liked, though it was still a good book in general.
• On that topic, I'm officially finished with the Earthsea Cycle. The Other Wind was a satisfying ending and a good book, though I don't know if I can wholeheartedly recommend it. Most of it was solid, but there were certain themes and ideas that seem . . . off? I'm going to have to think about them more before I go recommending the series to everyone.
• The Last Magician was another book I've been looking forward to for a while, but I'm sad to say that it wasn't as good as I hoped. All the elements of good were there: heists, conspiracy, time-manipulation powers, interesting characters, tragic backstories . . . but the character dynamics frustrated me to no end, and I didn't understand most of the magic system until the last quarter of the book or later. I think I've been spoiled by Mistborn, honestly, because that's what I kept mentally comparing it to.
• On a happier note, Gemina was an excellent sequel to Illuminae: same excellent writing style, but more action-y; more great characters; fabulous snark; awesome twists . . . yeah. My only complaints are that the author killed off a certain character and sank one of my ships. (I'm low-key still upset about that, because I don't ship the remaining couple half as much as I did the original pairing. But it's fine.)
• Also, The Master Magician was a wonderful conclusion to Ceony's story (even if she does get away with far too much at times). And the ending? Absolutely awesome. Then I read The Plastic Magician, which is arguably even better. Alvie is an interesting lead, she's less prone to getting into trouble than Ceony (she has a more practical head on her shoulders, to start with), and she's surprisingly relatable. 10/10, would befriend given the chance.
• Other fun thing: I finally reorganized my bookshelves, so now I have all my classics and nonfiction on one bookshelf, all my epic fantasy on another bookshelf (Bryan Davis and Brandon Sanderson each have a shelf mostly to themselves now! With room for all the new books they're going to write!), and a third bookshelf full of miscellaneous fantasy (and one shelf with historical, contemporary, and dystopian fiction). This makes me very happy.

Watching & Listening!

• I almost didn't watch anything this month. But then my family decided to watch The Parent Trap, because they wanted to watch a movie and I wanted to edit and then go to bed, so they were looking for something I didn't like. That backfired quite a bit, since The Parent Trap used to be one of my favorite movies, and I still like it quite a bit. But I enjoyed the movie, and I managed to get my editing in for the day anyway (though I'm pretty sure I stayed up way too late in the process), so it worked out.
• I also haven't listened to more podcasts, unfortunately. They take too much attention for me to listen to them while I'm working, and I haven't been walking as much as I should've been.
• I haven listened to Owl City's Cinematic album a ridiculous number of times, though, as well as Twenty One Pilots' "Nico and the Niners". So there's that? And I recently discovered Rachel Rose Mitchell, who does creepy-ish fairy tale/folk tale-inspired music, and I don't love all her songs, but I'm low-key obsessed with a few of them. This is the one that hooked me:

• Yeah. I really enjoy stories that deal with what life is like after you get back from "Wonderland" and the lingering desire to return. (I mean, I wrote a whole novel centered on that topic, so . . .) If you like that song, I also recommend "Something You Don't Know", "Glow in the Dark", and "The Ticketman," two of which are fascinating and emotional story fodder and one of which is just gleefully creepy.
• (I blame Elsewhere University for my current semi-obsession with mildly creepy folk tale-based everything, for the record. That and the number of times I read the Spiderwick Chronicles when I was young.)

Life!

• Mostly the month has just been work as usual. I'm nearly done with my internship requirements for it to count academically, so that's good. What's better is that my employer invited me to keep working part-time during the school year, which is like . . . yes please. I really enjoy the work I'm doing, and I'd love to keep doing it, especially if that also means I have a slightly more regular source of income than book reviews for the college newspaper.
• Seriously, I'm still low-key in awe that I actually get to do some of this stuff and get paid for it. The writing, not so much; I've always planned to get people to pay me for that, in some form or another. But design? That was my hobby until shortly before college, something I did just for fun, not because I thought I'd make a career out of it. And now someone's paying me to sit down with Illustrator and make things, which is still fun. I mean, there's more to my job than that, and there are still bad days sometimes, but in general? I really, really like it. Honestly, sometimes it's almost as good as getting paid to read.
• Anyway, yeah. I'm excited about that. I am having to rework stuff with my schedule, though, since I seem to have ended up with a lot of commitments and opportunities this semester that I want to take advantage of. I emailed my advisor a couple weeks ago, asking if he would approve a particular schedule change, and he still hasn't gotten back to me, so . . . That's stressful.
• Another benefit of the internship: I actually had money to buy a tablet! I've been thinking about getting one for several months now, since so many of my classes involve doing stuff on the computer, but don't involve enough of that stuff to justify dragging my laptop around all day. And then Best Buy had a sale, so . . .

• This is the Perpendicularity (named for the connections between worlds in the Cosmere universe). I actually went all-out and got the version with the S-Pen and a case with a keyboard, so it's almost like a mini-laptop, which is super nice. Most of my family members have iPads, so I did very briefly consider getting one of those. But the iPad in the size I want was twice as much as even the nicest Android tablet I found and the accessories for that tablet. Also, I like being different. That . . . may or may not have also been a significant factor in my decision.
• Much like last month, I spent a decent portion of July minus a sister, this time because she was volunteering at White Sulphur Springs. We drove up to visit her midway through her time there, which was nice (and which gave me a chance to do some solid editing on Blood in the Snow). Honestly, not having her home isn't half as weird as I thought it would be. So that's helpful.
• I also discovered that the church we're going to now has a college-age youth group type thing, which I've been going to. I think I might be slowly making friends? Everyone's very friendly, and I feel like people would notice if I was gone (which is more than I can say for some youth groups I've gone to), but it'll take time to find a place when so many of the people already know each other pretty well. Still, it's nice to hang out with people my own age; that's one of the only things I don't like about being home.

August Plans!

• Of course, next month (technically this month), I'll have plenty of time to spend with people my age, because it's back to college midway through! I'm excited; I'm already friends with half my hall, I have some pretty interesting classes (even if I'm stressed about rearranging my schedule), and I'm going to be the secretary for the Honors club. So . . . yeah. I'm going to be busy, with classes and an internship and friends and an official position and my writing and everything else, but it should be good.
• Before then, however, as I mentioned before, I need to start looking into the best ways to format both print and eBooks . . . I've been informed that KDP has a guide or guidelines or something, so I'm planning to start there, but I want to know how to do more than upload a Word Doc to KDP. (And you never know; if I like designing book layouts as much as I enjoy designing other graphics and print materials, maybe someone will pay me to do that too?)
• As far as writing goes, my plan is to finish up edits on Mechanical Heart, write my first two paid stories, and then spend the rest of the month taking a rest and just working on Dust of Silver enough to keep up with 100-4-100. Come September, or maybe sooner, I'll start another edit on Mechanical Heart, so I want a bit of a break between the two of those.

How was your July? What plans do you have for August? Please tell me in the comments!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)

June 2018 Doings! (For Real This Time!)

Allo, all! June's been a super busy month— a lot busier than I expected, honestly. It's a good busy, though, so I can't complain. Busy with what? I'm glad you asked.

Writing!

• The good news: Dust of Silver is still going fairly well. I've been working on it between other projects and I managed to get several more scenes written. It's going to be much, much longer than the original, though— I'm over halfway through my first notebook and only three days have passed in-story. (Of course, a lot has happened in those three days . . .) Of course, a longer novel isn't a bad thing; it's long because I'm trying to balance all the different character arcs and make sure that all the characters and relationships get the proper amount of development and so forth. But the length is a little discouraging when I look at how much of the plot I've written and how much I still need to write.
• The better news: as I mentioned earlier this month, edits on Fight Song are complete! Now it's time a break from the adventures of Callie, Jonathan, and company. I haven't yet decided if I'm going to write a sequel to Fight Song; I have a few vague ideas for character team-ups and minor scenes, but nothing solid.
• The best news: I finished yet another round of edits on Blood in the Snow. This one was based on the comments I got back from my beta readers (first time doing beta readers, by the way! Very exciting!) and mostly involved giving characters and relationships more space to develop on the actual page. Probably the most common comment I got was that Baili wasn't reacting enough to various events, which, to be honest, really isn't surprising. I think I have it fixed now, though, and I've sent the novella on to its next destination. (Some of you already know what that is; for those of you who don't, I'll be making a full post about it later, so stay tuned for that.)
• For my writing goal of the month, I decided not to aim for 30 minutes a day again. Since I've been pushing myself the last several months and Camp NaNoWriMo is next month, I decided that I should aim for a smaller goal. I was going to do the Go Teen Writers 100-4-100 challenge anyway, so I decided to just use that as my writing goal for the month. (That doesn't mean that I didn't sometimes write for 30 minutes a day, or longer, but I didn't have to.)

Reading!

• As usual, June was a really good reading month. (The picture doesn't actually cover all of it— there's another book and a short story not included.) Not only did I read quite a lot of books, but most of them were actually really good. I can't cover all of them, but I'll hit some of the highlights:
• The recommendations-from-Deborah front did especially well in terms of numbers. I reread The Beast of Talesend, then devoured the other two books in the series, plus The Last Days of Lady Cordelia, which is sort of a spinoff, I guess? Anyway. Those were all delightful. Then I read Halayda, which was fun steampunk-and-fae adventure. I will admit that I didn't enjoy it quite as much as I would've liked, but I think that's because I didn't click with the author's style. And I read the first two books in the Bright Empires series, which I also didn't like quite as much as I hoped I would, mostly because all my favorite bits and people are subplots and secondary characters. (Wilhemina is the best, for the record. That girl is goals. Kit, unfortunately, is just kind of boring and spends too much time muddling around.) I like the books enough to finish the series, though. So that's good.
• I also read Song of Leira and Lightporter, both of which were excellent. I also participated in the blog tours for both books this month, so feel free to scroll back through and check those posts out.
• I've been meaning to get to the Paper Magician books for a while, and I finally picked the first two of those up this month as well. And I have to say, I really enjoyed them. They do occasionally border on the romantic fluff side, but I'm actually ok with it in this case. The storyline is interesting, the magic system is fabulous, and Ceony is a delightful heroine even if she does get away with quite a lot. Also, I am in love with the covers. That's the kind of subtle style that I struggle with a lot in graphic design. (I'm working on it, but still . . . struggle.)
• Finally, I have to take a minute to mention The Penderwicks at Last. This is the final book in a series I've basically grown up with. I procrastinated a lot on reading it because, y'know, it's the last book. Once I read it, it's over. Finally I ended up listening to it on audiobook on a weekend trip my family took— I wanted to read the actual book first, but the audiobook hold was going to expire if we waited. And in the end, I'm really satisfied with how the series ended. Was it perfect? No, of course not. Did everything turn out like I expected? Again, no. But I do think that this book does an excellent job of wrapping up the series and bringing it full circle while still letting you know that the adventures and the legacy of the Penderwick sisters will live on.

Watching & Listening

• Movies worth mentioning this month were both classics. Just last night we watched The Wizard of Oz, which used to be one of my favorite movies but which I hadn't actually watched in years. It definitely is not my favorite movie anymore, but I still enjoyed it, and now I low-key want to reread all the Oz books. (I probably won't, because I most definitely don't have time for that, but you know.)
• The night before that we watched the musical Singing in the Rain, which I hadn't seen before. For the most part, I liked it. Some things could've been better (I think that the main couple fell in love awfully fast), but the concept was interesting, and the storyline fairly good. And it's a classic, so I'm glad I've seen it once.
• Other than that, the only thing I've watched all month was a comedy that I'm not going to name here because I'm not really interested in recommending it (but it's also not bad enough that I feel like I need to warn others off it). That said, it did end up being a bit thought-provoking— probably not the thoughts it wanted to provoke, but still.
• I've noticed, on the rare occasions when I watch comedy, that the violence seems a lot more than in other genres of movie. This is, of course, nonsense, especially when you consider the kinds of movies and shows I do watch. There is, without a shadow of a doubt, more violence in The Lord of the Rings or Avengers or Fairy Tail or even Howl's Moving Castle than in the standard comedy. But the violence in the comedy will bother me five or ten times more than the darkest scenes in any LOTR or Marvel movie. I think it's because the violence in sci-fi and fantasy and superhero movies and shows has a point. Either it's committed by the bad guys to let you know that the stakes are high and Our Heroes will have to struggle to save the day, or it's committed by the heroes in defense of those who can't defend themselves. But in comedies, the violence has no purpose except to humiliate the character in hopes of getting a laugh from the viewers.
• So, basically, the reason that violence-based comedy falls flat for me is the same reason why embarrassment-based comedy fails. I imagine how the character feels and I cringe and groan and wonder why the character is such an idiot as to get him- or herself into this situation. It's not a good time. And since a lot of comedy movies are based on those two types of humor, well, you understand why I avoid the genre.
• On a happier note, I've started listening to podcasts. I finished John Green's The Anthropocene Reviewed, up to the present day, and quite enjoyed it. I didn't agree with all his conclusions, but it's very thought-provoking and rather soothing as well. Now I'm working on the Dear Hank and John podcast, which will probably take me a while to get through. I've got time, though.

Life!

• As usual, we started off the month up in the mountains of Pennsylvania on our yearly cabin-camping trip. Normally, this is when I take a hiatus from the internet because I have no internet access, but this year's trip ended up being significantly less hiatus-y. I still made an effort to spend less time on the internet than usual, but it was nice to not come up and have three million and fifty-nine blog posts to catch up on. And we actually had quite a few good-weather days, even though the forecast called for rain most of the trip, so we were able to do plenty of hiking and such. The one downfall of the trip is that I ended up taking far fewer photos than usual, since I didn't want to carry my camera if I thought rain might start halfway through the hike.
• By the by, making s'mores with Pop-tarts in place of graham crackers is delicious. Also extremely unhealthy. But delicious!
• Normally, after our camping trip, we'd come straight back home, but instead we stayed at my grandpa's house a couple extra days and then headed up to Ohio so my sister could do an official college visit at my college. While they were doing that, I spent a pleasant day roving here and there on campus— and by "here and there," I mean that I alternated between the BTS and the library, but you know.
• We started the trip back the next day, minus my sister, who was staying on campus for a summer dual-enrollment class. For the record: it's mildly weird to be sister-less in the summer, but not as much as I expected. Mostly I've been too busy with work and writing to think about it much.
• The rest of the month, of course, has mostly been taken up by my internship. I'm still enjoying it; the assignments are sometimes challenging (or sometimes I make them more challenging than they otherwise would be by overestimating my ability to art), but it's not boring. Also, as I think I mentioned before, I got to research brand archetypes— basically an application of narrative and psychological archetypes to branding— and that was pretty interesting. I have had to increase the amount of time I spend working, though, which isn't a bad thing but does mean that I'm a lot busier than I was before.

July Plans!

• Work. I still need a lot of hours in my internship. Way more than I wanted to need at this point. (Unfortunately, when I originally calculated how many hours I needed per day, I used the wrong variables and I'm paying for it now.) I'm probably going to end up working on quite a few Saturdays and weekends, as long as I can find things to do.
• I am also doing Camp NaNoWriMo, because apparently I'm just flat-out crazy. My plan is to edit Mechanical Heart, the dark steampunk Rapunzel retelling I wrote two Aprils ago. For a while, I was thinking of writing something completely new (evil!Rapunzel? Lighthouse Rapunzel crossed with the Little Mermaid?), but I decided to stick with Mechanical Heart. If all goes well, it'll fit in well with long-term plans. If all doesn't go well, I'll stress for a couple hours (or a couple days) and then figure out a new plan. And, on the upside, it's shorter than most of my other projects that need edited, so I might actually be able to get the whole thing done in relatively short order.
• Due to the above two things, I may end up going on semi-hiatus from the blog next month. I'll try to post when I can, and I'll definitely keep putting up Fight Song, but it's not my top priority. Most of my time will be taken up with my internship and my editing, and when I do have free time, I want to be able to spend it on things that refill my creative well instead of draining it more.
• On that note, I really do hope to clear off my shelf full of library books next month. And I need to reorganize all my shelves, though that may have to wait until August. Who knows?

How was your June? Are you super busy? Or super chill? Any fun plans for July? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
 -Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)