Hey'a, all! As you may remember, this summer, I started a new quarterly blog series, On the Taleweaver's Desk, in which I give you an idea of the "big picture" of what's going on in my corner of the writing world. And now it's time for the second installment in that series! Please be aware as you read this that I'm still figuring out what does and doesn't work in terms of information provided, so please let me know if there's anything you think could be better here. Do you want more information? Less? Are you confused by anything? I want to know! Also, if you want more information on any of the projects listed here, you can find that on my Works in Progress page!

On the Taleweaver's Desk Issue 2: October 2021

On the Desktop

These are the projects you might find open on my laptop or desk if you took a peek at it during a normal day. They're currently in progress and at the top of the priority chart.

Bastian Dennel, PI #3

What is it? Exactly what it says on the tin.

Status: Vibrating eagerly in the back of my head and occasionally launching itself against to the walls yelling "Write me!" About to be started.

Technically this should probably go in "Awaiting Delivery," but given that I have a good idea of most of the plot and intend to start writing this as soon as I have time in which to do so, I'm putting it here. I was planning to put my third Bastian Dennel book on hold for a bit so I could focus on Blood in the Earth, but then someone (not naming names, but she knows who she is) gave me an idea that wouldn't let me go. And since an idea like that is what started the series and this one seems like it'll be really fun to write, I can't just ignore it.

D&D Campaign: Defenders of Serys

What is it? Defenders of Serys is the homebrew D&D campaign that I run for my D&D group.

Status: Finishing up the first module of Season 4.

I didn't get as much writing on this done in August/September/October as I intended, unfortunately. On the upside, it took us longer to finish Season 3 than I thought it would, and I almost have the first module done. Plus, one of my players and I ended up discussing backstory stuff because of a feat she took when the group leveled up, and, well, now I have another module/story arc planned for the next season. It's going to be great. I just need to finish writing the one I'm on . . . and I need to do that soon, since we start regular sessions again in a couple weeks.

Stacked on the Side

These are the stories that I'm not actively working on (at least not officially), but I'm keeping close at hand because I plan to get back to them soon (or I just work on them sporadically as the urge takes me).

Blood in the Earth

What is it? Blood in the Earth is the sequel to Blood in the Snow and a retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses crossed with the myth of Hades and Persephone.

Status: First draft finished; awaiting revisions. Despite my earlier hopes, I probably will not get back to this story this year.

Once Upon a Dream

What is it? A light steampunk (or gaslamp fantasy?) Sleeping Beauty retelling; the predecessor to The Midnight Show

Status: Edited several times over. Awaiting another round of rewrites/expansion/edits.

Shelved for Now

These are stories that are also on hold, but which I don't have specific plans to work on very soon. They're still within easy reach should I decide to return to them, but they aren't a top priority.

Dust of Silver

What is it? Classic-ish fantasy retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses crossed with Rapunzel, the first book in what has the potential to be a rather long series. Also, a rewrite of a book I wrote years ago that won't let go of me because CHARACTERS.

Status: Several chapters into the rewrite, though those several chapters haven't been touched in a few years. I swear I'll get back to this . . .

Between Two Worlds

What is it? A portal fantasy adventure about what happens when you come home from the adventure, only to discover that the adventure isn't quite as done with you as you thought.

Status: Awaiting another round of edits/rewrites while I write other things and daydream about its sequels.

The Way of the Pen

What is it? Self-aware fantasy adventure about a girl and her author.

Status: The first draft is sitting on my shelf, patiently waiting for its turn back in the spotlight, as it has been for some time.

Berstru Tales series

What is it? A classic epic fantasy series and the longest-running series I've worked on (either in the number of books written or in how long I've worked on it.

Status: Needs to be rewritten from the ground up, but the bones are good. I did come up with more new and exciting ways to make the characters' lives interesting, so . . . there's that?

A Tower of Portals Campaign

What is it? A second D&D campaign inspired by one of my favorite video games.

Status: On hold; worked on as I come up with new ideas and have time.

Awaiting Delivery

These are the stories that are on their way, but haven't quite arrived yet to the point where I can write them: ideas I'm toying with but haven't even started to draft because they're still too nebulous.

Super Secret Mystery Project

What is it? You don't know. It's a mystery.

Status: Idea that technically popped into my head a few weeks ago but is born out of a sort-of idea that I've had for a few years, and due to certain elements it contains, it's been pushed up the list in terms of priority.

Novellas from the world of Blood in the Snow

What are they? Currently, three and a half ideas for spinoffs, most of which are also fairy tale retellings: one Puss in Boots (no, really), one Orpheus and Eurydice (probably crossed with a similar Japanese myth, Izanagi and Izanami), one Snow Queen (that's the half an idea), and one that's not currently a fairy tale retelling but would be about Gan and Azuma before they were animal-keepers at the emperor's palace (inspired the summer I spent watching a lot of Hogan's Heroes.

Status: Won't be written until after I edit Blood in the Earth. And the half-an-idea Snow Queen, which had the best chance of being written before then, has been . . . supplanted. Of the others, I have rough ideas of scenes in two of them, and a general concept for the last.

Unnamed Fantasy Murder Mystery

What is it? Exactly what the headline says. A prominent noble is murdered; his adoptive daughter is poised to inherit his lands and position — but some are saying her hand was behind his death.

Status: Still just an idea. Still not going to be tackled until after Blood in the Earth.

Mechanical Heart Sequel

What is it? Exactly what the title says.

Status: Still half-formed. I do have a specific fairy tale in mind that I'd be retelling, though.

Worldhoppers Inc./Mythology D&D Campaign

What is it? Yet another homebrew D&D campaign. Or two. Technically it's two possible themes for series of connected one-shots and short-term adventures, with a few adventure ideas for each theme and a chance that I'll just try to combine them.

Status: Probably not going to work on this until I have a lot of spare time, need a new campaign for my D&D group, or have reason to prioritize the Welsh myth adventure.

I think that pretty well covers how things currently stand with me and my writing! Was this interesting or helpful? Are there any ways I could make it more interesting or more easy to follow or just better in general? (Saying "write all the stories" doesn't count.) Do you have thoughts on any of the stories? What projects are you currently working on?
Thanks for reading!

On the Taleweaver's Desk Issue 1: July 202

Hello, hello, hello! So, for a while now I've been meaning to start a new regular blog series, one that would orient readers both old and new to the "big picture" of what's going on in the world of what's-Sarah-writing-now. My daily and weekly writing goals (posted on Facebook and Instagram), I think, do a pretty good job of showing what's going on right now, and, of course, my Doings! posts include monthly progress updates. But I also want y'all to know how those daily and monthly updates fit together in the long term, which is the gap I hope this series — On the Taleweaver's Desk — will fill.

On the Taleweaver's Desk will cover four categories of projects, which I'll explain once I get into them, and will include both projects-for-hopeful-publication and side projects that are just for me and my friends (aka D&D campaigns, because I like talking about them, they're important to me, and they do take up a decent percentage of my writing time at this point). It'll go up four times a year; I'm thinking a month into each season. (So, July, October, January, and April.) It'll be posted on Light and Shadows, Dreams and Dragons, and my author site, so you'll see it no matter where you follow me.

And now, with those words of explanation out of the way, let's get on with the actual post!

On the Taleweaver's Desk Issue 1: July 2021

On the Desktop

These are the projects you might find open on my laptop or desk if you took a peek at it during a normal day. They're currently in progress and at the top of the priority chart.

Gilded in Ice (Bastian Dennel, PI #2)

What is it? Gilded in Ice is my next upcoming book and the sequel to The Midnight Show. It's a mystery retelling of "Snow White and Rose Red" and "East of the Sun, West of the Moon."

Status: Waiting for beta feedback, working on preliminary formatting

Not a lot has changed with this project since my last Doings! post. I've started to get a little bit of feedback from some of my betas, which means I can begin thinking about what needs to be adjusted in edits. The paperback cover is about 90% done (I just need to adjust the spine width), and the actual content formatting is . . . well, I haven't started that yet. But, since a lot of it will carry over from The Midnight Show, it technically isn't completely yet-to-begin.

D&D Campaign: Defenders of Serys

What is it? Defenders of Serys is the homebrew D&D campaign that I run for my D&D group.

Status: Writing Season 4 and thinking of what to do during our break.

As a word of explanation, since this campaign started during our senior year of college, I set it up to run more like a TV show than your average D&D campaign, with linked one-shots and breaks every so often for me to take a break from DMing and get ahead on writing the adventures (thus the term "Seasons"). While we've shifted from the linked one-shots to a more traditional campaign format, we still take breaks every so often, and we're coming up on one now. I've written all I need to get us to that break, and I've started prepping the first adventures for when the break ends. I have three in mind, and I'm very excited about ALL of them.

Stacked on the Side

These are the stories that I'm not actively working on (at least not officially), but I'm keeping close at hand because I plan to get back to them soon (or I just work on them sporadically as the urge takes me).

Blood in the Earth

What is it? Blood in the Earth is the sequel to Blood in the Snow and a retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses crossed with the myth of Hades and Persephone.

Status: First draft finished; awaiting revisions.

I finished the first draft of Blood in the Earth last October, right before I started writing Gilded in Ice. It's a mess, but there's a lot of good bones in it . . . it's just that the bones are, currently, the narrative equivalent of a Brontosaurus: mostly the right pieces, arranged in the wrong way to create an incorrect story. I'd like to start edits on it sometime this year if things work out.

Once Upon a Dream

What is it? A light steampunk (or gaslamp fantasy?) Sleeping Beauty retelling; the predecessor to The Midnight Show

Status: Edited several times over. Awaiting another round of rewrites/expansion/edits.

Once Upon a Dream was the novella I wrote, oh, some years back for the Five Magic Spindles Rooglewood Press collection. Like Blood in the Snow, it was a finalist in the competition, but it didn't make it into the actual collection. I've been meaning to polish it up and expand some of the parts of the story so I can publish it for a while now, especially since The Midnight Show and Gilded in Ice are set in the same world (albeit several decades later). That said, it's not a top priority, especially since I'd like to get at least a few more Bastian Dennel, PI mysteries written and published before I jump back in time.

A Tower of Portals Campaign

What is it? A second D&D campaign inspired by one of my favorite video games.

Status: On hold; worked on when I have new ideas.

This is a side project that I worked on for a few months in 2020, but which I set aside once I started running up against deadlines on other projects. It's very different from any of the other writing I do, and the format of the campaign and the need to adapt certain elements from the inspirational material to D&D 5e in a way that's interesting and fun and isn't just a carbon copy of the original makes it an interesting challenge. I'm not actively working on it, but when I have time and come up with ideas for a new section, I'm prepared to pull it out and write more.

Shelved for Now

These are stories that are also on hold, but which I don't have specific plans to work on very soon. They're still within easy reach should I decide to return to them, but they aren't a top priority.

Dust of Silver

What is it? Classic-ish fantasy retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses crossed with Rapunzel, the first book in what has the potential to be a rather long series. Also, a rewrite of a book I wrote years ago that won't let go of me because CHARACTERS.

Status: Several chapters into the rewrite.

So, yeah. I started rewriting this for the Golden Braids Arista Challenge, about two or three years ago. I didn't finish rewriting it because I decided to rewrite Mechanical Heart instead . . . I think because I thought it would be less work, or at least easier to finish on time? I'm not sure. I want to get back to it eventually because I want to eventually write the whole series and do all the characters and relationships the justice they deserve. (This is one of the most romance-heavy series I have, which . . . is still not saying a lot, to be honest. And most of the couples don't really show up until the sequel. But two of them get their start here, and I'm very excited about them.)

Between Two Worlds

What is it? A portal fantasy adventure about what happens when you come home from the adventure, only to discover that the adventure isn't quite as done with you as you thought.

Status: The first draft has been done for some time; the second version should probably just be restarted at this point.

This story sits near and dear to my heart, and I am going to finish it and publish it if it kills me. (It won't kill me. Unless I die of self-inflicted feels because there is so much pining in this book.) However, since it's not a fairy tale retelling or a D&D campaign, it hasn't fit nicely into my writing schedule since I started publishing things. That's ok, though, since this book gets into the multiverse of my storyworlds more than anything else on this list, and I really should have the workings of said multiverse figured out before I start doing more stuff with it. On the upside, I think rewriting it will take less work than some of the other projects on this list when it does move up the priority chart.

The Way of the Pen

What is it? Self-aware fantasy adventure about a girl and her author.

Status: The first draft is sitting on my shelf, patiently waiting for its turn back in the spotlight.

I wrote this around the same time as Between Two Worlds — I think Between Two Worlds came first, though I could be wrong. Anyway, they've both been sitting on the shelf for a while. Again, I love this story, and I want to go back to it, and I think it could be rewritten with less effort than some other things on this list, but it hasn't fit neatly into my writing schedule. Quite frankly, Rinna would probably be very happy if I just moved on and continued to leave her alone, but the whole story is about her dealing with being in a story, so I'd hate to waste all that character development. This is also one of the few books that still doesn't fit in the multiverse as a whole (or if it does fit, it does so in a different way), so it's my best candidate if I decide to submit something to small-press or traditional publishing.

Berstru Tales series

What is it? A classic epic fantasy series and the longest-running series I've worked on (either in the number of books written or in how long I've worked on it.

Status: Needs to be rewritten from the ground up, but the bones are good.

Some people might question why this is even on the list. I started writing it almost ten years ago at this point, and it shows in the storyline. But, as I said, the bones are good, and the characters are good (though some of their ages will need adjusting), and — look. The Way of Kings originated from the first character Brandon Sanderson ever wrote. The character and the story around that character changed and grew a lot before it became the story we know today, but I'm calling that proof that I shouldn't give up on Berstru just because I wrote it so long ago. It's going to take a lot of work when I do go back to it; like I said, it needs as dramatic a rewrite as Mechanical Heart did. When I go back to it, it'll probably be a project that I do primarily for myself (and to set up some other elements of the multiverse) more than something I write because I know a lot of my readers will be super into it. But I'm not letting go of it — not when I find myself thinking about it on a weekly, even daily basis at times.

Awaiting Delivery

These are the stories that are on their way, but haven't quite arrived yet to the point where I can write them: ideas I'm toying with but haven't even started to draft because they're still too nebulous.

Novellas from the world of Blood in the Snow

What are they? Currently, three and a half ideas for spinoffs, most of which are also fairy tale retellings: one Puss in Boots (no, really), one Orpheus and Eurydice (probably crossed with a similar Japanese myth, Izanagi and Izanami), one Snow Queen (that's the half an idea), and one that's not currently a fairy tale retelling but would be about Gan and Azuma before they were animal-keepers at the emperor's palace.

Status: Well, one is, as I said, only half an idea. Of the others, I have rough ideas of scenes in two of them, and a general concept for the last.

I'm not sure what else there is to say about any of these? I think they'd be fun, but the actual sequel takes precedence. Also, of the two I'm most excited about, one (the Orpheus and Eurydice one) doesn't even take place until after said sequel, and the other (the Gan one) would, I think, be best read after the sequel as well.

Mechanical Heart Sequel

What is it? Exactly what the title says.

Status: Half-formed ideas that have yet to coalesce into anything actionable.

I will be frank: writing a sequel to Mechanical Heart is not a priority right now. It ranks above some of the Shelved for Now projects, but not above all of them. Why? As things stand, it works well as a standalone, better than anything else I've published thus far. Also, Mechanical Heart was hard to write even though I loved the story, so I don't want to start a sequel until I have a well-formed idea that I'm really excited about. I apologize to anyone who's disappointed. (Don't worry, I doubt I'll be able to stay away forever. I never can.)

Unnamed Fantasy Murder Mystery

What is it? Exactly what the headline says. A prominent noble is murdered; his adoptive daughter is poised to inherit his lands and position — but some are saying her hand was behind his death.

Status: A growing, but often-shifting idea.

I've had this in mind to write for a while — since before Cedarville, in fact. I've mentioned it in a few posts, though none are recent. But until recently, I haven't had the courage to try my hand at writing a true mystery, let alone one that would be so heavy on politics and so light in magic. That's probably good, since that gave this story enough time that I think it's stronger now than it would've been if I'd written it when I first imagined it. Still, I don't think I'm going to tackle this until Blood in the Earth is done.

Worldhoppers Inc./Mythology D&D Campaign

What is it? Yet another homebrew D&D campaign. Or two. Technically it's two possible themes for series of connected one-shots and short-term adventures, with a few adventure ideas for each theme and a chance that I'll just try to combine them.

Technically it's two separate ideas that I might combine into one. Idea one focuses on Worldhoppers, Inc., an organization that takes care of your magical, strange, and paranormal problems . . . for a price. Idea two is more of a series of one-shots and short-term adventures based around fairy tales, folktales, and myths. If I combine them, Worldhoppers, Inc. becomes a more noble organization whose agents maintain the storyline in both fandom worlds and folktales.

Status: Mixed?

So, these ideas came from a few places — a realization that a particular Welsh myth would make a pretty good D&D adventure (though it wouldn't fit into my current campaign), players in my current campaign commenting on how fun it could be for their characters to end up in different fandom worlds, a few songs that gave me concepts for adventures, and so on. Eventually it settled into two ideas — Worldhoppers, Inc. (think adventuring guild, but in multiple dimensions!) and the mythology campaign (in which storylines would be pulled from myths, folktales, and fairytales) — which might be combined into one concept (an organization that deals with magical problems throughout realms while making sure the "storyline" of each world isn't interrupted). A few of these adventures, I'd like to write so I could have them on hand if I'm asked to run a one-shot or a mini-campaign. But, like many things on this list, I haven't had the time yet, especially since I prioritize novels over D&D writing.

All right! Hopefully that was interesting. I recognize that it was a lot of information; in future posts in this series, I hope that the status of most of the non-active projects will be much shorter. (I also hope to use some of this post to update my Novels page on this blog so I can point people there for more information.) But I think writing all this down was helpful for me, and I'd like to think it was helpful for some of y'all to read.

Is there any story or project in this list that you're especially excited for me to write? What are your current projects that you're working on? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

April 2018 Doings!

Well, that was an adventure. Or, rather, several adventures smashed together along with a heaping helping of stress and a lot of writing antics. Speaking of, let's get to the Doings! report, shall we? (Also— yeah, no Fight Song post this week, because I wanted to get this up sooner rather than later. Sorry.)

Writing!

• As I'm sure you all know, April was the first Camp NaNoWriMo of the year. My goal was 10,000 words of rewriting Dust of Silver and editing Fight Song. I can't say that I got anything done on Fight Song . . . But Dust of Silver hit 12,710 words on April 27! For a while, I had a really nice streak of writing every day, but that fell off around the last week of the month, once I started getting close to the goal and to the due dates for all my final projects.
• I have really enjoyed working on Dust of Silver, even more than I thought I would. I've missed these characters and this world— they may not be the most original ones I've created, but they include some of my favorite concepts and dynamics. I especially like that I get to write sister dynamics that aren't constantly on the verge of a train wreck. (I love my Alyron girls, but they have issues. And, ok, yeah, that's my fault, but it's what the story needed.) Also: the villains in Dust of Silver are very, very present, as in they're frequently on-screen and interacting directly with the protagonist, more than they are in almost any of my other novels. It's super fun, especially when I get to drop Significant Details (that look insignificant in the moment).
• I did work on one project in addition to Dust of Silver: a short story for the Indie e-Con contest! I wrote it up in about four hours on the very last day of the month, mostly on a whim but also because I keep forgetting to submit things to various writing contests and I wanted to change that. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out; it's sort of a Beauty and the Beast retelling? Except it's also really not. It's definitely urban fantasy, which I've wanted to try my hand at for a while. I'm not sure how well I mixed the "urban" and "fantasy" bits, but, y'know, it's submitted and I'm not going to stress about it.
• In the end, between Dust of Silver and my contest entry, I finished the month with a total of 16,051 words. Not too shabby for the busiest month so far this year!

Reading!

• Ahahahah. I . . . did not really read anything this month that wasn't for school. I had one free weekend when I meant to read a lot, but . . . I ended up writing instead.
• I did start a book towards the end of the month, but I'm only about halfway through. It's called Dread Nation, and I'm quite enjoying it, though it's a little outside of my normal brand of spec-fic. And by that I mean that it's historical fantasy-fiction about the aftermath of a zombie uprising that occurred midway through the Civil War. So, yeah. The concept is cool, the worldbuilding is great, and the protagonist is pretty awesome, and there's actually next to no gore, which is impressive.

Watching!

• In contrast to the pitifully small number of things I read this month, I actually watched a lot of stuff. On the Fairy Tail front, my roommate and I are still working our way through the Grand Magic Games arc. I think we only have about ten episodes left, but we've both been crazy busy the last couple weeks. (Also we've finished the actual games bit, which was the interesting part, and now all we have left is the "Oh, darn, we have to save the world again" bit, which we're both less excited for. And I know that sounds kind of horrible? But honestly, the Fairy Tail gang saves the world at least once an arc, and we all know they're going to do it again, so, yeah.)
  
  
• Besides Fairy Tail, the big watching highlight of the month was that I finally got to see Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2. I'm a big fan of the Guardians movies, even though they're a little bit of a guilty pleasure? It's super nice to see characters still working as a team, as friends, as family, after the incredibly frustrating-and-feels-inducing mess that was Civil War, and the Guardians movies are a lot more colorful and varied than a lot of the other Marvel movies- at least the ones I've seen. Also, adorable Baby Groot is adorable, and Yondu is awesome. I don't know that I liked Guardians Volume 2 better than Volume 1? But I think I liked it just as much.
• I also ended up watching, partially by accident, most of Leap Year, which is a rom-com and therefore not my usual taste. But other people were watching it, and I was working on a blog post in the same room, and, well, the male lead was snarky in a gorgeous Irish accent, and it was very distracting, ok? The movie itself was pretty decent for the genre; frustrating in bits and cliche in others, but overall sweet. I don't think I would watch it again by choice, but I would not be opposed to being in the same room while others were watching it again (which is more than I can say about the other rom-com that those same people watched earlier in the weekend, but I digress).

Life!

• The life highlight of the month was the PWID spring trip. I mentioned this in last month's Doings!, but basically, every year, a group of PWID majors travels somewhere, visits a company to see what professional writers do there, and then spends the weekend sightseeing and having fun. This year, we visited Samaritan's Purse in Boone, North Carolina. Since this trip occurred so close to finals— the weekend before the week before, if that makes sense— and since a certain Illustrator project took about five times longer to complete than I anticipated, I was basically a bouncing pumpkin of stress before and after the trip. But the trip itself was super fun! Boone is in the mountains, and we got to stay in a cabin with a porch swing and a gorgeous view, and we went on a short hike while we were there. That's also where I watched all the movies I mentioned in the last section and I went to the escape room that I mentioned in my last Friday 5s, which, I would like to reiterate, was incredibly awesome. It might've been my favorite part of the trip, honestly.
• Other than the spring trip, my month was mostly full of final projects and prep for final projects. I had projects rather than tests in five out of six classes, and— well, I'm not complaining; I'll take a project over an exam most days. That said, trying to balance everything got a little crazy at points. I'm quite satisfied with most of them, though, especially my Illustrator project! Our professor let us choose what we did for the final, and I decided to try something a little crazy and create a book cover for The Way of the Pen. I sketched out a few different variations, but finally decided to go for something close to my original vision. (That also happened to be the most challenging option because of the number of elements and the different techniques that I had to figure out.) In the end, I know some things about it could still be improved, but the cover as a whole turned out way better than I hoped.
• The upside of having projects, of course, is that I finished with finals the day most people started! I turned in my last project and my one exam (Earth Science, open-book, open-note, take-home) yesterday morning and then celebrated that afternoon with a smoothie and a few hours by the lake with a novel to write and another to read. That was lovely, let me tell you, even if I did end up with a sunburn.
• All that said, the month wasn't completely dominated by final projects. Towards the beginning of the month was the PWID Awards Banquet, an annual event where PWID majors and the PWID advisory board get together for a fancy dinner to talk, recognize graduating seniors, hand out awards for classwork and projects completed, and announce the org officers for the coming year. This year's banquet was much more chill than last year's— still fancy, yes, but not having assigned seating helped everyone feel more comfortable. I got to chat with the gentleman who did one of my mock interviews back in the fall and with his wife, a former PWID major who now owns her own marketing consulting business, and I quite enjoyed the discussion. We (along with the other two students at the table) compared notes on the college then and now, and they told us a little about what they do professionally.
• TDK events also kept me pretty busy. Shortly after the PWID Banquet, we started a game of Assassins— basically glorified, multi-day tag— with the freshmen versus the sophomores. I am sorry to say that the freshmen beat us within three days . . . but at least I almost got my target. Almost.
• Most of the TDK events, though, were of a more official nature. I was chosen as the organization's secretary for next year (yay!), so both the current and incoming officer boards had multiple meetings and events to sort of transfer command and orient the new officers. Those were a little stressful, since they fell right in the middle of some of my biggest projects, but I feel like I know what I'm doing now, so . . . mission accomplished? I'm excited for next year, though.
• That almost sums it up; just one thing left. I'm still doing swing, see, but at one of the social swing events, the people in charge decided to change things up a little by teaching everyone how to ballroom dance. So now I can waltz! Or, at least, I can do the basic waltz steps, which is more than I could before. They also taught two Latin dances, but . . . eh. They confused me. I'll stick to waltzing and swing, thank you.

May Plans!

• I'm going hoooome! And actually going to stay there this time instead of moving and galivanting all over the country! (Or, well, all over the northeastern part of the United States, plus Texas. You know what I mean.)
• That said, the fact that I'm at home doesn't mean I'm going to do nothing. For one thing, I finally have an actual internship— thank God! Remember the couple who I said I talked to at the PWID Banquet? Particularly the woman with her own marketing consulting business? She needed a summer intern and asked my professors which PWID students they'd recommend, they passed along my name, and, well— long story short, I'm going to be doing design work and a bit of writing for her this summer, and I'm super excited. Not only does this fit my interests much better than a lot of the internships I found and applied to (most of which were technical writing— which I'm fine with, but isn't my first choice), but I get to work from home! So, yeah. That's going to be awesome.
• I also have a few different writing projects that I want to work on. Kendra extended the deadline for the Indie e-Con writing contest, so I hope to write up another short story or two for that, assuming I can sort out any of my ideas into a full plot. I need to edit more of Fight Song; I'd love to finish it if I can, but that might be a bit of a stretch. I'll keep working on Dust of Silver, of course. And, last but not least, I'm returning to Blood in the Snow to make a few changes suggested by the Rooglewood judges before I start doing . . . other things . . . with the manuscript.
• To accomplish all that: my official goal is half an hour of writing per day, five days a week. That's much smaller than I really need, but my hope is that once I start writing, I'll keep going. My unofficial goal is to spend an hour or two every day on writing projects, but I don't want to commit officially to anything like that until after I figure out what's realistic when combined with my internship.
• And, of course, home always means an increase supply of books to read! Hopefully I can catch up on what I've missed from the last several months before the time comes to tackle all my summer reads, but we'll see what I end up doing. I also want to catch up on the Marvel universe as much as I can so that maybe I can see Infinity War before people start posting spoilers . . . maybe. We'll see if that actually happens, since watching any recently-released movie involves, y'know, actually going to the movie theater. It's a problem.
• Finally, because sitting all day isn't exactly the best plan, I'm giving the #Walk30Days challenge another shot. This is an event every May hosted by Nadine Brandes, and the goal is basically to go walking 30 days in May. I tried this last year, then gave up when the weather turned rainy, but I hope that Virginia will cooperate better than New York did. We'll see what happens.

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

The End of Beautiful People

Hosted by Cait Grace

So, I admit, I didn't do a great job of keeping up with Beautiful People while it was running . . . but I do want to join in for this last hurrah of the tag. I'm sad that it's going away, but at the same time, I can kind of get why. Coming up with new questions every month must get pretty tiring. This final edition takes favorite questions from previous iterations of the tag and combines them into one, so it kind of flip-flops between general writing questions and book/character specific questions. For the latter category, I'll be answering for my current main WIP, Dust of Silver (formerly Danger in the Tower).

1. Favourite genre to write in?
Fantasy! You've got dragons, magic, epic battles, adventures, quests, griffins, fae folk, and more, just from the genre, and plenty of variety once you get into the subgenres (High, Low, steampunk, retelling, mythic, urban/contemporary, historical, so on). I get all the joys of creating characters and throwing them into stressful situations, plus the pleasure of worldbuilding and writing epic battle scenes (ok, that's not always a pleasure, but you know what I mean), and I don't have to stress too much about "Wait, is this actually how it works in the Real World?" because in many cases, it's my world, my rules.


2. What book (a real actual published book!) do you think your character would benefit from reading?
Ohhhhh boy. That's a tough one. I think all of them could benefit from reading the Bible, obviously. Other books . . . I'm half-tempted to give Aster Entwined, because it would help her realize what's going on in her life, but that might also break the plot, so . . . yeah. Poppy gets the Dragons in Our Midst series, which she'd read because dragons but which would help her because she's the most independent of the sisters and I think that the Dragons in Our Midst books do a pretty good job of emphasizing that you can't do anything on your own. (Not that independence is a bad thing, but it can be taken too far.) Ivy I'm not sure about, so I'm going to give her Goldstone Wood because everyone needs to read that.

Also, bonus side-and-future-main-character books: Pansy gets Gillian Bronte Adams' Songkeeper Chronicles and the Jackaby series, since both deal with a character who can see or hear things that others can't. Hayden, like Ivy, gets the Tales of Goldstone Wood, but he also gets C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy— the former because he can learn quite a few lessons from it; the latter because he'd appreciate the blend of theology and storytelling. And Jason gets the Invisible Library series, less because he needs to learn from it than because he needs a break and it's a good series. That said, he'd probably also get the Dragons in Our Midst books because Poppy would throw them at him for being annoying.


3. Favourite piece of dialogue you’ve written?
Well, my overall favorite in this novel so far is still Poppy's rose-petal insult, but I already posted that one. So, my favorite that I've written since then . . . Hmm. I guess I'll go with this one because all the others only make sense in context:

Ivy glanced back, grinning. "Not Lily? Is she not a responsible adult tonight?"

"Not responsible for your lot." Lily laughed and slid what must've been the twentieth pin into Aster's hairdo. "Aster has given me leave to thoroughly enjoy yourself tonight."

"Just make sure that while you're thoroughly enjoying yourself and meeting new people, you keep your eyes and ears open and maybe ask some useful questions. We need you as a discoverer of secrets, not a charmer of strangers."

4. What did your character want to be when they grew up, and what did they actually become?
Well, I can't do the second part for most characters because either they aren't grown up yet or the answer is a spoiler. However, I will answer the first part for my major characters.

• Aster, the oldest sister, shifted through a few different dreams, most of them very traditional little girl dreams— princess, dancer, mother, dancer again— but by the time she was eleven or twelve, she mostly just wanted a life that wasn't consumed by younger sisters and confined to the tower. 
• Poppy also went through a phase when she wanted to be a dancer, but then she decided that staying in cities all the time sounded boring and she wanted to be an explorer instead and map the mountains where the dragons dwelt. Barring that, traveling entertainer sounded pretty good too.
• Ivy mostly went along with whatever Poppy wanted for most of her childhood. Eventually, though, she decided that she wasn't so interested in adventure and that she'd rather just live on a farm and grow things. That said, she also ages weirdly, so she'd be happy to just grow up period.

5. Favourite character name(s)?
I am inordinately fond of the name of my main-main character, Ivy Jade. Where I got it from is a little bit stupid, but I enjoy the fact that the connotations of the name (at least in my mind, outside of the storyworld) run so counter to who the character actually is. Of course, the in-world connotations are quite different . . . I also like the name of one of my princes, Hayden. It fits him.


6. What makes your character feel loved, and who was the last person to make them feel that way?
Ivy feels loved when people listen to her and show that they value and respect what she says and thinks. The last person to make her feel that way was probably Poppy before the main plot of the book began. Poppy most loved when people spend time with her, especially if they're doing something that those people wouldn't necessarily do otherwise, and when people seek her out for things, either fun things or I-need-help-and-you're-the-first-person-I-thought-of things. Ivy was definitely the last person to make her feel loved in the first way; in the second, Clover and Dasiy, the two youngest sisters. And Aster feels loved when people do things to make her life easier, and the last person to do that was Wisteria, the second-oldest of the sisters, who wrangled the youngest four sisters into bed and kept Aster from having to listen to their complaints.


7. Favourite character you’ve ever written?
Ever? Oooh. That's a tough one. I really enjoy writing Katelyn Stevens from Between Two Worlds because I can get in her head really easily, plus she makes a ton of fandom references. But I also like writing the trio of Jared, Jason, and Jarek; they have very similar voices (heavy on the snarky and teasing comments), they all love to get a rise out of other characters, and Jared and Jason have character arcs I really enjoy.


8. If your character were permanently leaving town, what would they easily throw out? What would they refuse to part with? (Why?)
Ivy and Poppy probably wouldn't take much of anything except the basic necessities and maybe a picture of all the sisters together, or some other small token to remember their sisters by. They aren't interested in mementos of the tower, just of their family. Aster would take the basic necessities, plus a few cuttings from her favorite lilac bush outside and mementos of each of her sisters. Pansy, on the other hand, would take as much of the tower library as she can, plus her entire collection of diaries and notebooks.


9. Favourite tropes to write!
Ooooh. I love big, messed-up families, big families in general, sibling teams, sibling rivalries, dramatic family reveals, characters' family members showing up to haunt them . . . basically, family tropes in general. I also love rogue-and-regal love stories (I have two so far, though one is less obvious than the other), lovable rogues, and battle couples. Aaaand all my favorite tropes are relationship ones . . . oh well.


10. Which story has your heart and won’t let go?
Um. All of them? That's the whole point of why I'm rewriting Dust of Silver and hoping to rewrite the Berstru Tales and Monster in the Castle, and why I want to write more in the Between Two Worlds and Way of the Pen universes as soon as I come up with plots.


11. Favourite relationship between characters you’ve written?
In Dust of Silver: I love all the sister relationships, but my favorite is the one between Poppy and Ivy. They're super close, and they tease each other but in a nice way, and if you mess with one you're messing with both (and you really don't want to mess with either, especially Poppy, because she's scary when she's mad). And there's a little bit of a disconnect at some points, but Poppy will trust Ivy a lot more than she'll trust others, even some of her sisters.

A few other favorites from my projects in general:

• All the Alyron sister relationships (so! much! drama! Also sweetness when they actually manage to get along).
• Poppy and Jason (loads of snark because they're both stubborn but have to work together quite often; would actually get along if they decided they didn't hate each other).
• Jason and Hayden (because polar opposites who, again, have to work together; Jason is the only one who can get Hayden to make even slightly snarky comments).
• Hayden and the Princess du Karel (less original than I thought, but still fun to write and I like where it's going).
• Jared and Bianca (one of the rogue-and-royal pairings I mentioned earlier, with bonus snark and chess).
• Katelyn and Aedon (the cutest couple I've written in my life) and Katelyn and Jarek (snarky magic best buddies).
• The Baili-Chouko-Gan friendship triangle (in which Baili is idealistic, Gan is mysterious, and Chouko is just grumpy at everyone).
• Rinna and the Taleweaver (because characters interacting with authors).

I might or might not have a lot of favorites. I regret nothing.


12. Toni Morrison once said, “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” What are the books that you want to see more of, and what “holes” do you think need filling in the literary world?
I've done a few posts on this topic already, but a quick rundown:

• More awesome fantasy families.
• More female heroes who can be fierce and awesome but still like traditionally feminine things without shame.
• More female heroes who do awesome stuff without being warriors.
• More time travel and time-based superheroes.
• Fewer books where miscommunication causes 90% of the plot.
• More unusual fantasy creatures.
• More historical fantasy.
• More fantasy-mystery.
• More clean urban fantasy.
• Odyssey retelling in space.

Will I actually write any or all of these? I'm already working on some of them. The rest, we'll see.


13. Favourite Pinterest board/aesthetic for a book?
I'm bad at aesthetic, but my Berstru Tales Pinterest board is one of my favorites, with Between Two Worlds a close second. Y'all get both of them. (I'd post my Fairy Tale Retellings board too, but it's mostly stuff about Jason Silver, so . . . yeah.)

<a data-pin-do="embedBoard" data-pin-board-width="400" data-pin-scale-height="240" data-pin-scale-width="80" href="https://www.pinterest.com/sarahtaleweaver/storyboard-berstru-tales/"></a>
<script async defer src="//assets.pinterest.com/js/pinit.js"></script>

<a data-pin-do="embedBoard" data-pin-board-width="400" data-pin-scale-height="240" data-pin-scale-width="80" href="https://www.pinterest.com/sarahtaleweaver/storyboard-between-two-worlds-%252B-kaedon/"></a>

14. Favourite time periods & settings to work with?
Since I'm a fantasy author, I'm just going to talk about settings. I think my favorite world I've created is a three-way tie between Udarean (The Way of the Pen; the inhabitants know they're characters in a series of novels), Berstru (Berstru Tales, the first world I created, and the most developed of my worlds), and the world of Once Upon a Dream (because I get to mess around with a dream world in which anything can happen).


15. When people are done reading your book, what feeling do you want them to come away with?
Happiness, satisfaction, desire to visit the world and meet the characters in person, and eagerness to read the next book.


And there you have it: the last Beautiful People. Thanks for reading, y'all!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)

Spring Cleaning Writer Challenge!

Created by Deborah O'Carroll

Hey'a, all! So, around the end of last month, Deborah O'Carroll created a cool new writing tag: the Spring Cleaning Challenge! This is a pretty short tag, but it also looks really fun. Plus, while I've been keeping you all up-to-date (well, up-to-month) with my current writing adventures, I'd like to share some of my broader writing plans with y'all, and this seems like a great way to do it!

But, first, the Rules:

1. Link back to the person who tagged you
2. Share the picture
3. Answer the questions (naturally…) or even pick and choose which ones you answer
3.5. Tag 3 other writers and inform them that you tagged them (via comment/message/email or hey, even carrier-pigeon or smoke signal; I’m not picky)

And now the questions!

1. Dust-bunnies and Plot-bunnies: Reorganize Your Writing Goals (Or Make New Ones)
I actually set a couple writing goals at the start of the year, so let's revisit those:

• Finish editing and posting Fight Song. This one isn't finished yet, but I've made good progress! If I recall correctly, I have fewer than ten chapters left before I'm done, and I plan to get back to work either when I hit my Camp NaNo goal or in May, whichever works better. So, once that happens, I should be able to finish relatively quickly.
  
• Write a short fiction piece a month. I did great on this in January! I wrote, like, two whole short stories! But then February happened and I tried but got nowhere. So that's unfortunate. And in March I didn't even try . . . the deadline for Indie e-Con is coming up, though, so I should probably make one last attempt before it's too late. I'll try to pick this up again during the summer, but I don't know how well it'll go.
• Finish rewriting Destinies and Decisions. Hahaha. I haven't even worked on this one and I am definitely dropping it. Other projects are higher priority right now.
• Finish editing Between Two Worlds. Again, haven't worked on this at all, and I don't think I'll finish edits this year. I would like to get more work done on edits, though, so that's my modified goal.
• Participate in all three NaNoWriMo events. So far, so good! Camp NaNoWriMo is coming along nicely, even though I had a solid week in which I was too mentally exhausted to really get more than a page, maybe two, done per day. I'm definitely participating in July Camp too. November . . . well, we'll see what happens.
  
• Set and meet a new writing goal every month. The setting of goals is going splendidly. The meeting of goals . . . Well, I've given it my best shot, so I'm going to call this a win.

 So, that's one goal dropped, another modified, two that are almost definitely going to be achieved to some degree, and two that I'm going to give another shot before I give up on. Not bad.       
 
2. Which Stage Are You At? Expound!

a. Remodeling layouts (planning the story)
b. Painting the walls in colorful hues (writing)
c. Polishing the windows and scrubbing the floors and putting flowers in vases (editing)
d. Blueprints (not to the cleaning or remodeling yet… just drawing up plans for the very beginning inklings of a story)
e. Some combination of those things (cleaning out a closet)

Like Deborah, I'm going to answer this by running through my significant projects— I can't say WIPs, because some of them aren't properly in progress but I'm making plans for them to be in progress later, so, yeah.

• Fight Song: Polishing the windows, scrubbing the floors, putting flowers in vases . . . and also creating blueprints for what else I might do in this storyworld, because I have too much potential in this storyverse to let it go easily.
• Berstru Tales: Cleaning out many closets. Literally all the other categories— planning, editing, beginning-inklings, even a little writing— are happening. I really want to continue writing these, because I love the characters and their relationships, I love the world, and I love the plotlines I'm contemplating for the future. However, I've expanded Berstru quite a lot since I wrote the first book, and I have so many thoughts on how the earlier books could be better, or things I wish I'd done differently . . . I may end up rewriting the series from the beginning before I try to edit Destinies and Decisions again. I am definitely also going to rethink my naming scheme, because currently it does not say high-fantasy, at least in my opinion.
• Between Two Worlds: Taking a break from polishing, scrubbing, flowers in vases, etc. I'm still very happy with this book and I most definitely want to publish it somehow, someday.
• Dust of Silver & Monster in the Castle: Cleaning out closets again. We've got blueprints and remodeling layouts for the future of the series, but we've also got painting and polishing and scrubbing on Dust of Silver and plans for more of the same on Monster, which is also getting renamed because yeah. I do not like my naming abilities. 
• Blood in the Snow, Mechanical Heart, & Once Upon a Dream: Currently are collecting dust, but all three are hopefully going to get some polishing and scrubbing and flowers and such fairly soon. And by "fairly soon" I mean sometime in the next year. I have plans, and they might be stupid plans, and I still need to work on all the details, but . . . yeah. Watch this space come June or July-ish and you might hear something. At least these ones won't need renamed.

 3. Treasure From the Back of the Closet (Share one to three snippets you love!)
I can do that! Snippets are from Dust of Silver, my Camp NaNoWriMo WIP.

Poppy wrinkled her nose and scowled at Lily. "That's because you make yourself useless, you wilting rose petal."

~~~~

"We shouldn't go." Pansy's tremulous voice came from the back of the crowd. She stared at nothing, eyes wide, trembling. With one hand, she clutched Ivy's arm; with the other, she tugged at a tight black curl. "We shouldn't. We should go back to teh tower. Stop up the entrance. There's voices here. They're crying. Voices and ghosts in the trees." She curled closer to Ivy. "I want to go home."

~~~

The man waved a hand and laughed. "Merely a trifle; it's simply a matter of rearranging the basic elements of material structure in your gowns, combined with a few illusions— but you ladies hardly care about the details. The transformation will last until you leave my realm. My power does not extend beyond the portal. Now, will you join me in the pavilon?" 

3.5. Bonus: Do Some Actual Spring Cleaning of Your Writer Self! (And share a picture!)
I don't really have a dedicated writing space anymore, so . . . yeah. No cleaning or pictures. Sorry.

I hope you enjoyed reading my answers to that tag! If you're still curious about Dust of Silver, keeep an eye out for my Beautiful People post (coming as soon as I can get it written) and potentially another writer-y tag. I'm doing alllll the tags, y'all.

Oh, and before I forget: tagging people!
-Emmarayn Redding
-Jem Jones
-Katie Grace
And, if anyone else wants to give this tag a try, feel free to steal it! I won't care!
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)

March 2018 Doings!

Well, what do you know? March's Doings! post is up right on time, despite the fact that this has been another pretty busy month! The fact that I'm currently on break for Easter probably helps; I actually wrote this post in one sitting instead of writing bits and pieces here and there over the course of multiple days. Anyway. What have I been up to that's kept me so busy? Let's find out!

Writing!

• As a recap, my goal for the month was fifteen minutes of writing-related work per day, six days a week, or two chapters of Fight Song and a plan for April completed. I didn't quite get the first goal, mostly because class assignments kept trying to murder me (though there were also a few days in there when I got caught up in something else— like writing blog posts or playing board games or reading books— and failed to write as a result). 
• However, I still managed to edit not two but four chapters (well, more like three and a bit; I'm pretty sure I was in the middle of a chapter when the month started). I think that aiming for fifteen minutes a day instead of thirty was a good choice for the same reason that the 100-4-100 challenge was effective while it lasted— except, for me, fifteen minutes works even better than a hundred words. It's a small enough goal that I can squeeze it between other things, but once I'm working, I often keep going. But I don't have to keep going if I don't want to. It's nice.
• Besides working on Fight Song, I did a bit more worldbuilding on my multiverse (well, more like I recorded worldbuilding I'd already done in my head, but y'know) and tried again to work on my short story for the Indie e-Con contest. Said short story isn't working very well and it frustrates me. Oh well.
• As for plans for April . . . well, I know I'm doing Camp NaNoWriMo, and I probably know which project I'm working on. And it's a rewriting/editing project, so I don't really need more than that, right? (I definitely need more than that. Hopefully, by tomorrow morning I'll have more. But we'll talk about that later.)

Reading!

• So, I felt like I read a lot this month, but apparently, I only managed four books? One of those was The Three Musketeers, though, which is both a classic and fairly long, so that's probably part of it.
• Part of why I feel like I had such a good reading month, though, is probably that I really enjoyed most of the books I read. Admittedly, Ink, Iron, and Glass wasn't quite as amazing as I hoped it would be (I had issues with the worldbuilding, and the author fell into cliches occasionally), but I still really enjoyed it. And The City Beyond the Glass was a Twelve Dancing Princesses retelling that I really enjoyed, even if it can't beat Entwined (which I'm not likely to shut up about any more than I am about Anne Elisabeth Stengl or Brandon Sanderson or dragons). As for The Three Musketeers, it had excellent writing, an exciting plot, and a fairy modern feel, but suffered from a cast primarily composed of complete jerks. (There are, I believe, exactly three exceptions, maybe four. No more.)
• And then there's THE LOST PLOT! Also known as the latest Invisible Library novel! Also known as the book that made me realize I desperately need more fantasy set in 1920s America. (Anyone have any recommendations? Maybe?) Obviously, it was awesome— it's an Invisible Library novel; there's no way it couldn't be awesome. It involved the dragons more, which I liked (even if that meant fewer Fae), and all the twistyness and mystery of the other books. Not 100% certain how I feel about the ending— some elements I really liked; some made me sad; and some I'm trying to withhold judgment on so I can see how they work out in other books. Also, Irene is awesome and I would rather like to be her in many respects. Just sayin'.

Watching!

• I finished the Key of the Starry Heavens arc over break, as I hoped, and I'm slightly torn about it. On one hand, it was extremely frustrating and some of the plot twists didn't quite make sense, and . . . yeah. It was frustrating. On the other hand, it had a fabulous emotional payoff in a couple places. For example, when characters finally realized "Wait, we have the same goals, let's actually cooperate to achieve them!" And also one fight in which one of the heroes, instead of beating up the villain he was fighting, is like "No, let's save her by showing her that what she's doing isn't worth the damage she's inflicting on herself." (The fact that the character in question is kind of one of the more annoying villains in the show made his decision even more impressive, in my opinion.) Yeah. Those were good bits. I don't know that they made up for the overall aggravation the arc caused me, but still.
• Now the roommate and I are about halfway through Grand Magic Games arc and I'm really enjoying it. It's relatively low stakes compared to a lot of the other arcs (at least so far; I have a feeling that the stakes are going to rise significantly pretty soon), with more focus on character relationships and development— and, of course, plenty of opportunities to showcase different characters' awesome powers and their strengths both magical and personality-based. There are a lot of "YES THIS IS WHY I LOVE YOU" moments and a lot of "Oh storms that was crazy AWESOME" moments and yeah. I can understand why the roommate loves this arc so much.
• Also: at some point, I apparently became emotionally attached to Laxus and I don't know when or how and it's mildly frustrating because I spent so much time yelling at him for being a dragon-kissed jerk. His character has developed pretty nicely, though. And his big moment in the Grand Magic Games arc? Awesome.

Life!

• The month started with spring break, which was an odd mix of STRESS and chill. It started with a three-day power outage at my house (thankfully, we have wonderful friends who let us stay over so we could have things like heat and running water), followed by my getting my wisdom teeth out— which, I'd like to note, went about three million times better than anyone implied it would. I'm pretty sure that some of the people I talked to were like "Oh, yeah, I basically couldn't move or think or do anything for three or four days afterward," and even the people who didn't have horror stories implied that I'd be down for the count for a day at least due to either loopiness or trying to sleep off the loopy. But, as things worked out, I was mildly nonfunctional after the surgery for, oh I don't know, maybe a couple hours? And that wasn't even caused by loopiness; I was just hungry and grumpy and in pain so I didn't want to do anything except sit in my chair and read webcomics. But, y'know, that evening I finished drafting the paper I'd started before the procedure that morning, and the next day I was back to doing homework and editing and reading as normal. The only real issue was that I got frustrated pretty quickly by how little I could eat without pain, but otherwise, I was able to spend most of break chilling, writing, reading good books (and webcomics), and doing some homework.
• Then I got back to college and everything was crazy again because I had projects for two different classes that I hadn't been able to work on over break (or, not much, anyway) because they required resources I didn't have at home and yeah. I don't think that's slowed down at all this month— at least not until this weekend, as I'm currently on Easter break and took yesterday for some well-earned rest. I made a really cool infographic about self-publishing, though! And a storyboard about self-publishing (which is where the picture up there is from)! And I wrote a paper about my MBTI type and how it affects the way I work!
• Also, caramel M'n'Ms are very yummy. Just throwing that out there, if anyone was curious.
• I also celebrated Pi Day, of course . . . even though my college dining hall totally failed to help me. You'd think that in a school where engineering is one of the biggest majors on campus, people would make a bigger deal out of Pi Day and that a dining hall as big on holiday specials and bonus bites and responding to student needs and desires would bring in pie to celebrate . . . but nope! Not a pie in sight! I had to go on a special quest to the convenience store to get myself a mini apple pie so I could observe the holiday. (I almost bought myself a full-size chocolate turtle pie, but I wasn't sure who else would want to eat it with me, plus I didn't want to spend that much money.)
• I'm still looking for summer internships, and I've applied to several, but no luck so far. I did get a phone interview for one position, but the organization wanted someone with more social media and marketing experience— and, honestly, I don't blame them. I mean, yes, I'm a quick learner, and I know how to reapply knowledge I already have to new situations, but I understand why they'd be wary of bringing on someone who won't know what she's doing until she actually does it. I haven't heard back yet from any of the other positions I applied for, so right now I kind of just have to wait and see what happens.

April Doings!

• Of course I'm doing Camp NaNoWriMo— I may be in college, taking design and writing classes in which almost every project is highly time-consuming, but there's no way I'd miss my favorite month of mild insanity! Originally I was going to aim for a time-based goal of 15 hours of writing or editing, but apparently, you can't have a goal of fewer than 30 hours, so that's out. Instead, I'm aiming for 10K words, since that was pretty manageable last April. (Plus, I haven't had a word-based goal all year, so I might as well change it up a bit, right?)
• What am I working on, you ask? Well, assuming everything goes to plan, I'll be revisiting my epic fairy tale retelling series— y'know, the one with that one book that I spent two years working on. However, I'm not writing a new book; instead, I'm rewriting Danger in the Tower, which I'm tentatively renaming Dust of Silver. Dust of Silver is a retelling of Rapunzel mixed with the Twelve Dancing Princesses, and I'm writing it for Kendra E. Ardnek's Arista Challenge. Or, more accurately, I'm using the Arista Challenge as motivation to start something I've been meaning to do for a couple years now. Because I discovered so much about the world of these books while I was working on Monster in the Castle and my multiverse worldbuilding thing, I really need to rewrite both Dust of Silver and Monster in the Castle (which will be renamed once I get to it) before I can continue with my other ideas for the series. (I have a genderswapped Cinderella retelling that I'm so excited to write, which I think might be the next book, and I have ideas for another plotline later in the series but I don't know what fairy tale I can connect it to yet.) So, yeah. Ten thousand words won't get me super far, but it'll be a start.
• Besides Camp NaNoWriMo, well, most of my time will be taken up by school-as-usual. I have three more Illustrator projects to get through, an online help documentation thing to write and design, a group project for Design Thinking, another paper, and a few things for editing. That plus classes will probably keep me pretty busy.
• Oh, and as if I didn't have enough to do, a group of people in my major are going on a trip to North Carolina in late April! We're going to visit Samaritan's Purse and see how professional writers function in a nonprofit of that type, and then we'll spend the rest of the weekend enjoying the local area. Since I did work to help pay for the trip last semester, I'm definitely going . . . but I am a little upset that it interferes with all the end-of-year stuff for Honors. Grr . . .
• And hopefully, I can squeeze in some reading and watching-of-Fairy Tail too somehow. We'll see what happens. One thing's for sure: April definitely won't be boring!

How was your month? What plans do you have for April? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)