May 2023 Doings!

Hello, everyone! This has been quite a month, to say the least. What I hoped would be a nice, relaxing month with plenty of writing and time with my sister (and the rest of my family) has ended up being anything but that. Well, the writing has been happening. But as for the rest . . . not so much. Also, on a quick housekeeping note: my blogging will be a bit intermittent in the next couple months (June and July). I have planned posts in both months due to time-sensitive things like book releases and mid-year book celebrations, so it won't be a full hiatus, but I don't know how much I'll post outside those pre-planned, time-based posts and my Doings posts. I don't love taking even a partial hiatus so soon after my last one, but between travel plans and writing deadlines, I think this is the best choice.

Writing!

• First off, don't forget that the Wags, Woofs, and Wonders anthology releases in just one month! Make sure you preorder the ebook or the paperback to get your copy of these eight enchanting tales of magical furry friends, including my own slightly spooky story, "Grim Guardian." (This actually has nothing to do with what writing I've done this month, but I haven't promoted the release as much as I usually would, so . . . bear with me, ok?)
• [Note: I originally said that the Wags, Woofs, and Wonders anthology releases in "one week." This was very incorrect and is the reason I should not write blog posts when I'm stressed and running low on sleep. The actual release date for the anthology is July 6. You should still preorder, though.]
• In other writing-related-but-not-actually-writing news (that you may have already heard), Through a Shattered Glass was selected as a finalist in the novella category of the Realm Awards! I am absolutely thrilled to have made it this far, so you'll forgive me mentioning it a second time on here. The winners won't be announced until the Realm Makers conference in July, so I have another reason to look forward to that weekend . . . you know, as if I wasn't already vibrating with excitement every time I thought about it.
• Happily, this has been a much better writing month than April was, with over 30K words and seven chapters added to my Selkie Story, plus a reworked outline for the rest of the book. My weeks have kind of alternated between not coming close to meeting my writing goals and blowing straight past said goals, so that's been interesting. I am, on the whole, happy with what I've written, and I'm looking forward to writing the rest. Hopefully I can get it done before my deadlines! I've also started working on the cover for the story, which will probably be in a different style than most of the covers I've made so far, and that's going to be an interesting challenge.
• I've also been somewhat productive on the D&D front, though less so. The campaign I run only met once all month, so motivation to finish writing the LOTR module has been low. On the other hand, I started writing the next adventure for the campaign, and I am so excited to get to actually run it. We'll be back in my original homebrew world, delving into some backstory for one of the PCs and tackling a problem that should be a little quicker to solve than most of the last few adventures, and it's going to be awesome. I'm nowhere near done writing, but I'm still exciting.

Reading!

• Yes, I've been stress-reading, why do you ask?
• Actually, that's a bit of an exaggeration — these mostly weren't stress-reads. Some of these are books I've been reading in email subscription form and just finished this month — those include The Wizard of Oz (always a pleasure), The Return of the King (wrapping up the last few chapters so it doesn't take another year or two to finish), and Frankenstein (Victor Frankenstein is a whiny little snot who doesn't deserve the title of mad scientist, and I'm not afraid to say it). Others — mainly Snow Quest Like Home and Thornrose Estate — were beta reads. Both were good, but Thornrose was definitely my favorite of the two (and one of my favorite reads of the month).
• That said, I had a lot of good reads this month. Behind Closed Doors is book 2 in the Worlds Behind series, and it was even better than Book 1 — I'm starting to develop a theory that the second book in almost any spinoff series will be better than the first one because the first one is laden with too many expectations.
• I also read and loved two books that people told me about ages ago, but I procrastinated on reading: Lord of Dreams and Echo North. Both were absolutely amazing, with magic and romance and mystery (and mysterious love interests). Lord of Dreams also had fae and portal fantasy, though my enjoyment was dimmed a little by my initial frustration with the heroine. And Echo North was a retelling of East of the Sun, West of the Moon, so you can probably imagine how much I loved it. I definitely wish I'd read both much sooner!
• The month also included two Beauty and the Beast retellings, The Scarred Mage of Roseward and A Thieving Curse, both of which I enjoyed more than I expected. (A Thieving Curse was better, though, and it stands alone despite being the first in a series.)
• That covers most of my reads this month. The rest is mostly rereads, with the exception of Martha Wells's Exit Strategy, which was cool in the same way the rest of the books in the series were cool. Wells is very good at writing nonhumans in a way that is both alien and recognizable, and the book on the whole was very exciting.

Watching!

• So, I have officially gotten my sister into Leverage, and I've continued getting her into Firefly! I am quite pleased to have someone to watch my shows with — it's more fun to watch things with people, but my tastes and schedule are different enough from those of my parents that it's sometimes to make anything happen. My sister, on the other hand, likes most of the same things I do, so that works out better. We've been enjoying Firefly, of course, and it's fun to see her reactions and predictions to the characters and situations that I'm already familiar with.
• With Leverage, since I didn't want to start over from the beginning, we temporarily jumped ahead to The Rashomon Job, the same episode my friend used to introduce me to the show. It's late enough in the show that you get an idea of the crew's dynamics, but the flashbacks also give you a very good idea about the individual crew members . . . and also, it's just a really fun episode. After that, we went back to where I had left off in Season 2.
• While I did watch a fair amount of other stuff this month (because we were at my grandpa's a lot, and he likes to watch TV shows, mostly older ones, in the evenings), the only other noteworthy thing is that, having watched one full episode and several partial episodes of Monk, I have come to the conclusion that I do not care for that show at all. Which is, you know, a bit sad because normally I can get behind a good mystery show even if I don't love the characters, but that one mostly just annoyed me.

Life!

• This month has been a rollercoaster, and I would like a break, please.
• Well, that's not actually accurate. The first week of the month was the rollercoaster. The rest of the month has just been busy.
• So, yes, May started with much excitement — I was finishing up my second grad school class, my sister was graduating, I was going to get to see some friends in Ohio; it was going to be great. And it certainly started out that way! I submitted my final project for the grad school class on Thursday; it was a little longer than I wanted, but all the extra length was in graphs that I couldn't size down, so I was generally satisfied. Then we arrived in Ohio, my grandfather in tow, on Friday, where we launched into a busy day of helping my sister pack and attending various senior celebrations. I had also made plans to hang out with some local friends Friday evening (skipping one of the senior celebrations that was basically just a chapel service). Sadly, one of the friends came down with a bug last minute and couldn't make it, but I had a pleasant time with the other friend.
• Then it was Saturday, the day of graduation, and the rollercoaster really started . . .
  • To be clear, the actual graduation ceremony went very well. The president made an excellent speech. Other people also made speeches that I don't really remember. I had a good internal laugh about the fact that formal academic garb seems to have not changed much in the last four hundred years. My sister walked across the stage and got her diploma. That was all fine. And walking around after the ceremony to take pictures of my sister and her friends in their robes also went fine.
  • And then — then, while my grandpa and I were on the way back to my sister's dorm (my parents and sister having gone on ahead for various reasons), Grandpa tripped over a parking lot bumper — fell — hit his head —
  • Thankfully, if you have to fall and hit your head, Cedarville on graduation day is a pretty good place to do it — its biggest program is nursing, after all, and between the graduates and their parents, there were multiple people with medical training nearby, including an EMT and a nurse. They were able to check him over (conscious, oriented, all limbs functioning) and keep him comfortable while someone else called 911 and I called my parents (because, as mentioned, someone else was already calling emergency services).
  • It probably didn't take that long (don't panic) for the actually on-duty EMTs to arrive, though it seemed like forever (don't panic). My parents followed the ambulance to the hospital (don't panic), while my sister and I returned to her dorm to try to get all her things packed before her move-out time (don't panic), wondering the whole time what was going to happen from here (don't panic).
  • Eventually, it was determined that Grandpa had broken a couple vertebrae, and while the exact severity and treatment of the injury was still uncertain, we definitely weren't going back to Pennsylvania that day. So, we made arrangements to stay with some nearby friends until we knew what was happening. Sunday gave us no more answers, though we spent almost the whole the day at the hospital with Grandpa. (Well, I wasn't there most of the day, because he could only have so many visitors at a time, and someone needed to do laundry, and I was the most logical person to handle that — but I still visited in the evening.) We knew he was doing quite well considering his injury, that he could walk and move around and was healthy enough to complain about the hospital food. We just didn't know when he could leave the hospital, or if he'd be able to travel, or anything.
  • (Sunday night was also when I found out about the Realm Awards finalist list, via H.L. Burke congratulating me and another person in her Discord server on making the list. It was an interesting day.)
  • We expected to be there most of Monday as well, so I made hasty arrangements to work remotely that day so I could move my last day of leave to Tuesday (when my dad and I could drive back to Virginia). Then, abruptly, the doctors declared that yes, he could leave (thank God), yes, he could travel back to Pennsylvania with us (thank God), and yes, he could go home instead of going to a rehab center (thank God). He'd have to wear a neck brace for a while, but that was more or less expected. So, we quickly repacked what we'd unpacked, loaded ourselves back in the car, and drove back to his house. From there, my dad and I returned home on Tuesday so we could be back at work on time, while my mom and sister stayed to help Grandpa.
• Since then, we've driven up to Pittsburgh two out of the three weekends: once on Mother's Day weekend and once on Memorial Day weekend. My mom's stayed up there the whole month, though my sister came back with us after the Mother's Day trip. Both the amount of travel and the not having my mom around have felt really weird, and I look forward to when things go back to normal, even if all the driving means extra writing time without the distraction of the internet. On the upside, Grandpa continues to do well — he was very active before this happened, and I think that's helping him now. Of course, he's also frustrated by not being able to do things now, but better that than any of the alternatives.
• On the one weekend we didn't go to Pennsylvania, my sister and I went to the Virginia Ren Fest with a friend. That was pretty fun — it's not as big as the Ren Fest in Ohio or Maryland, but they had a nice assortment of vendors, and the location (on the grounds of a winery) was pretty. The one downside is that we managed to go the single day on which they didn't have a joust — just our luck, right?
• Aside from all that, I've mostly spent the month writing and trying to keep up with all the things that need to be done. Work, at least, has been mostly quiet, though it's starting to ramp back up as we move into summer stuff. I'm also nearly done with another embroidery project (most of which was done during my trips to Pennsylvania so I could have something to do with my hands that wasn't scrolling through my phone), this one fanart for a band I like. I'm pleased with how it's turned out, despite a near-disaster when I spilled water on part of the water-soluble stabilizer (oops).

June Plans

• I basically need to do ALL THE WRITING to get my Selkie Story done by the deadline, plus I need to do a cover, tagline, blurb, preorder setup . . . all that good stuff. So that's going to be the bulk of my free time.
• Work will also be busy — there's no big projects, but there are several mid-sized ones, many of which require people from outside the church staff to get me specific information. If you have ever worked in a position where you are reliant on receiving information from people who you cannot directly remind about things like deadlines and the reasons for deadlines, you know exactly why this is stressful. If you've never had such an experience, you are fortunate and should pray you continue to be so blessed.
• (For the record, I continue to enjoy my day job. And I recognize that the reasons behind my needing information from these people means that they have a lot of other things on their minds and plates. It's just . . . very frustrating when I'm prevented from doing my job due to circumstances I can't control, knowing that the same people who aren't getting me the information are the ones who may very well be mad when things aren't done right because they didn't get me that info by when I needed it, even with a month's worth of warning.) 
• Also looking forward to doing some travel to places that aren't Pennsylvania — by which I mean that I'm going to drive eight hours (with my sister) to visit a friend and attend a book signing. It's going to be great. It will make writing difficult. But it'll still be great. I'll also be prepping for Realm Makers in July, which will be a bit less intense than last year since I still have most of what I put together for last year. So that'll be good.
• Finally, I will continue working on my crafts. Not sure what I'll do next after I finish my current embroidery piece, but I have a bunch of ideas, so I'm sure I'll figure something out. Or maybe I'll go back to working on some knitting and crocheting so I can have some new wraps ready for fall. We'll see.

How was your May? What are you looking forward to in June? Do you think that second books in spinoff series tend to be better than first books? Have you been traveling much, or do you have any exciting travel plans? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

 

February is Fantasy Month: Fandom VS. Fandom

 

So, today's post (and last week's post) was supposed to be about spoilers. Specifically, it was going to be about how spoilers affect how much someone enjoys a story. I did not finish writing that post. Instead, I started second-guessing myself, and in the end, I came to the conclusion that one analysis-type post in a month is enough and that the spoiler thoughts can wait until I have my thoughts in better order.

Instead, I'm tackling two of the Fantasy Month prompts at once and taking on some of the biggest battles in fandom — or, rather, between fandoms. We've probably all had to answer the Marvel or DC or Star Wars or Star Trek question or something similar at some point. And for this week's post, I'm taking on five such questions (three of which were helpfully supplied by my wonderful friends via text and Instagram), rapid-style. Which fandoms will prevail? Let's find out!

 

Fandom vs. Fandom

1. Marvel vs. DC? In most cases, I am an MCU girl through and through. I don't have time for unending angst and grittiness in books, much less movies, and Marvel gets that. Plus, they have Thor, Captain America, and Doctor Strange, who happen to be my three favorite superheroes. The exception? If you compare the two fandom-favorite "families" — which is to say, Irondad/Spiderson and the Batfam, the Batfam wins every single time by virtue of having a reasonable amount of canon backing and being delightfully chaotic and dramatic. (Granted, I've never actually picked up a Batman comic book or watched the animated series, so it's technically a secondhand fandom, but I've read enough of the actual comics reposted to various internet sites that I practically feel like it should count as a proper one of my fandoms at this point.)
2. Star Wars vs. Star Trek? Firefly. The answer is Firefly. Is this a cop-out? Maybe. But Firefly is my story, and I'm sticking to it. And it basically has the elements I like best from each of the other stories (the unpolished-ness and adventure and action and underdog/rebel narrative of Star Wars; the variety and exploration and some of the philosophicalness of Star Trek) wrapped up together with heists and found family — and, look, Han Solo is awesome, and I like Jean-Luc Picard, but Captain Mal Reynolds is where it's at.
3. The Lord of the Rings vs. Narnia? First off, I didn't think this was a competing fandom set, but it was suggested to me twice, so I'm going with it. Technically, I should probably say LOTR — when people ask me for my top three favorite series, LOTR is always in my answer, and Narnia is almost never. But I've also lived much more in Narnia than I have in Middle Earth, in that I've known it longer and read and listened to Narnia many more times. I suppose I'd have to say that LOTR is my favorite in terms of story and world — but Narnia is still, in many ways, home.
4. Disney/Pixar vs. Dreamworks? I wasn't going to do this one because I couldn't think of any Dreamworks movies I'd actually watched. And then I decided to double-check that and realized that wait a moment, Dreamworks did How to Train Your Dragon??? And that put enough weight on Dreamworks' side of the scale that the question was worth answering. Disney/Pixar still wins by virtue of Tangled, Beauty and the Beast (the original one, not the live-action one), and Big Hero Six. Also by virtue of not being responsible for a certain stupid movie about snails. But, if I actually watched all the animated movies I've been meaning to see for, oh, going on ten years now*, Dreamworks would have a very good chance.
5. Harry Potter vs. Percy Jackson? I'm pretty sure these aren't competing as much as they did similar things for consecutive generations, but I do know that both fandoms are still very active, so! I prefer Percy Jackson (specifically, Olympians and Heroes of Olympus; I didn't read anything after HoO ended) . . . mostly because Harry Potter uses a particular trope that just rubs me all the wrong ways, while Percy Jackson got an initial boost from my enduring love of mythology. Plus, I just like the PJO/HoO characters better than the Harry Potter characters. 

What's your position on any or each of these debates? Are there any big fandom vs. fandom questions that I missed? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

*This is list is also known as "All the movies that my friends/the internet were obsessed with back in 2013 or so.

October 2020 Doings!

Oh, look. It's November now. Everyone still alive? Reasonably sane? Fabulous. We all know that October basically lasted 0.05 seconds, but we're going to recap it anyway, because that's what we do.

Writing!

• October was kind of a mixed month on the writing front. To start on a happy note, I finished Blood in the Earth (huzzah!)! It's going to take a lot of editing, and the last page of my notebook is literally a list of all the things I want to fix when I rewrite the story. Including but not limited to: fixing the timeline, reconfiguring at least one subplot, establishing the existence of certain things that prove essential to the climax, and, oh yeah, reworking characterization in the first half of the book to be consistent with the end because my relationship with most of the characters in this book can be summarized in the following meme:

• But the point is: it's done, and the climax turned out really cool and genuinely kinda cinematic (like, I want there to be a movie or an anime of this book so I can watch the climax onscreen), and the ending is a good balance of bittersweet and truly happy, and all those unexpected character twists spawned possibilities for two or three short stories or spin-off novellas, so we're all good.
• Anyway. Having finished BitE, I jumped headfirst back into working on my D&D campaign so I could get it written and ready to the point where I probably won't have to work on it much at all in November, other than the usual prep for actually running sessions. Well, I do have one side-quest I might need to write, but, worst-case scenario, I'll improv. It'll be fine. (Fiiiiine.)
• Then, once I was satisfied with where my D&D campaign was, I switched gears and started prepping for the sequel to The Midnight Show! For those who missed my Know the Novel post last Friday, the TMS Sequel is a retelling of Snow White and Rose Red and maaaaaaaybe one other secret fairy tale. Bastian is back with a new case, and now his sisters are in the picture too . . . except that one of them is missing.
• So, yeah. I started drafting the novel pre-November, but it's also my NaNoWriMo novel, which is fun. (NaNoWriMo is going. I'm not making par for 50K most days, due to some other responsibilities that I'll talk about later in the post, but I'm making par for "Finish the book by the end of the month so you can edit in December," and that's what matters.)

 Reading!

• After a light and rough reading month in September, we've hit the rebound!
• I finished rereading Warden and the Wolf King and Fellowship of the Ring, which were both excellent as expected. I've missed Middle Earth more than I realized. I'm looking forward to The Two Towers — though I'm going to have to reevaluate my current reads a bit to figure out how to fit it in. I started reading Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell without realizing what kind of book it was, and I don't think I want to try to manage it and LOTR at the same time. I've become more open to reading two books at the same time (in a specific combination, where one is long and more of a classic feel that takes more focus and one is shorter and more modern and doesn't require a great deal of energy to enjoy), but yeah.
• I continued reading both the Delicious in Dungeon and Seven Deadly Sins manga series. Delicious in Dungeon got put on hold for a bit because I wanted some spookier or eerier reads for Halloween, but I'm still enjoying it, and I just picked book six up on Wednesday. So that's fun. Seven Deadly Sins, I'm having mixed feelings over. Most of the mixed feelings are about Ban — at first, I thought he was cool and interesting, and then it was like "No. He's a storming jerk." And then it was like "Shoot. He's still kind of a jerk, but also maybe not? And he is sort of interesting after all?" And it basically ended with "I'm attached to this character, but I'm really salty about it." I have this problem semi-frequently when it comes to manga and anime, for the record. Anyway. I'm four books in, and I'm not sure whether or not I'm going to continue the series. We'll see.
• And then we shift into my Halloween reads! Some of which ended up being less Halloween-ish than I expected. My reread of The Screaming Staircase was delightful, of course, though a little bit of the spookiness was lost in the reread. And The Hazel Wood was haunting and excellent, if a bit slow to get me really interested. I did not see the twists coming. It's an excellent take on portal fantasy, let me just say.
• Aunt Maria was not what I expected, but it was also excellent. DWJ references the book a lot in the essays in Reflections, so this has been on my TBR for a while. I'm glad I finally picked it up. My other DWJ read, Wild Robert, was smaller and weirder than I expected — a fun short story, true, and funny as well, but not my favorite DWJ. I was hoping to fit one more DWJ in here, Fire and Hemlock, but that didn't happen, sadly.
• To finish up this summary, we have two murder mysteries that couldn't be more different. I finally dipped my toes in the Harry Dresden series with Storm Front, and I have mixed feelings — basically, it's a fascinating world, an excellent story, and some genuinely interesting characters, but it's also a bit more than expected in terms of how dark it is and how blatantly it discusses certain topics. Like, I knew it would be darker than most of my reads. I knew it involved those topics, which is why I didn't read it ages ago. I just didn't expect how much. And now I'm torn between wanting to know more of the story (especially since I've heard the books do keep getting better) and . . . yeah.
• Anyway. The other murder mystery was pretty much the exact opposite of the Dresdenverse: A Morbid Taste for Bones, the first of the Chronicles of Brother Cadfael. I have to say, why did I not pick up this book sooner? It's historical fiction, true, but the good kind. And it kind of has the feel of . . . I don't know, like someone distilled the vibes out of Robin Hood and Ranger's Apprentice, poured it into a 12th-century monastery, and then added a heaping helping of murder mystery. Brother Cadfael is great, and the rest of the characters are interesting, and I am absolutely reading more of this series.
• Finally, a quick update on my reading goals.
  • I've met my overall goal for number of books read: 100 out of 99, as of Wednesday morning. So that's great. Not that it's going to stop me reading more, but y'know.
  • With the addition of A Morbid Taste for Bones, I've hit ten non-speculative fiction books, which means I have two to go. I did request several autobiographies from the library recently, though, and I'm planning to reread What If? soon, so that should be doable. With luck, I'll pass that goal too.
  • And I'd already hit my goal of twelve books written before I was born, but I've gotten all the way up to 16 at this point — still counting the whole Redwall series as one book. At some point, I should go through and see how many of those 16 are DWJ books, but we'll save that for my end-of-year recap.

Watching!

• So, I've officially seen both Men in Black and The Matrix now, so that's fun.
• I actually really liked Men in Black. Were there elements I wasn't a fan of? Sure. But it's kind of the sci-fi equivalent of urban fantasy, and it has a good balance of humor and serious moments. Sure, there were some cringe bits and some gross moments, but it was still a lot of fun. And I really appreciate that even the occasional secondhand embarrassment came out of J being genuinely excited or curious or wanting to help people (or occasionally the fact that he's too busy getting stuff done and thinking for himself to care about what everyone else in the room things, which I can also get behind).
• The Matrix was interesting and weird and . . . I mean, I can see why it's such a cultural phenomenon and why it's considered such a major sci-fi movie. It is a genuinely good movie. And, I mean, yes, it is in many respects a fairly standard Chosen One narrative, and a wish-fulfillment-y one at that, and pretty much everyone except Tank and the Oracle feels like they're going out of their way to be as dramatic as possible 100% of the time. And I could've done without some of the body horror. But there were some good twists on the tropes as well, and overdramatic or not, the fight scenes get full points for style.
• Other than that, it's pretty much the same as usual. Still watching Firefly with the fam (two more episodes in, and I'd forgotten how much I enjoy the episode Bushwacked). Still slowly making my way through Critical Role and kind of amused by the fact that Travis himself seems so genuinely freaked out/concerned by all his backstory-related stuff that's happening. It's like . . . honestly, I relate. But also, it's funny.
• (But I'm still only to . . . 37? 38? Something like that? And that's with watching since May-ish. So, yeah. Slow going.)

Life!

• So, the most exciting thing that happened this month is probably that my family finally got proper internet. For context: for the past three years, ever since my family moved back to Virginia, we'd been working off a mobile hotspot because we didn't have any other internet options available. And it worked, mostly — true, it was tiresome having to schedule our online activities around whether we had high-speed or low-speed data, and true, it was a bit annoying to have to go somewhere else (or else disconnect all but one device) when we needed to do a video call or download updates on a device or anything else like that. And, of course, it was kind of problematic in March and April when the libraries and other places we'd usually go to use the WiFi closed. But, y'know. It worked, and it was better than nothing at all.
• But now we have actual internet, thank God. And it is so nice to be able to just . . . do stuff. To not have to worry about whether we're on fast or slow data, or whether I can get to the library to download stuff I need to download, or whether or not my D&D group can actually meet via Zoom or if we have to do it via voice on Discord. I can apply for remote-work jobs without wondering if I'll be able to make meetings and complete projects if I get it. I don't even have to worry about whether or not I'm slowing down someone else's internet activities with mine. It's wonderful.
• Anyway. The other exciting thing that happened this month was that I almost had a job. Almost. There was an actual offer — well, not exactly. There were some emails, and an (astonishingly short) interview, and then a statement: You can start training on [date] at [time]. It felt off. So I emailed back to find out things like How much are you paying me, and What about benefits, and Why exactly do you think I need three months of training when I could've done most of what you want me to do before I went to college? And through his response to those questions and some conversations with a very helpful family friend with plenty of business sense, we figured out, in short, that this company was trying to pay (or, more accurately, underpay) me as a freelancer while having me work as if I were a full-time employee. Which, my friends, I was having none of. 
• So, at the suggestion of the very helpful family friend, I emailed back to point out the discrepancies and give the company a chance to try to correct themselves. The response to which was, in short Hello, I think you'd be a better fit somewhere else, good luck, goodbye. So that was that, and I have no regrets.
• And then I went through interviews at two other jobs and didn't get those either, which is a bit disappointing. Both of them were much closer to what I actually want to do, and with companies I would've actually liked to work for. But it is what it is, and, as I already said, now I can apply for remote-work jobs, and even freelance for a while if I so choose. (Which I am doing a little bit of right now; a friend of a friend's family needed some logos and brand work done, and that friend's family pointed him to me. So that's my other big project at the moment.) And sooner or later, something will work out. God knows what's up.
• Anyway. On a happier note, I finally finished the cloak I've been working on for over a year, and I got to wear it to an actual event. My church did a drive-through Trunk or Treat, and I signed up to man a trunk — which basically meant dressing up, decorating, and then sitting there and waving to people as they drove through. It wasn't the most exciting time, plus it rained, but hey! My cloak turned out well! I think I'm still going to make some more adjustments; namely, I'm going to add a second fastener (possibly two more, one of them hidden), and I'm going to add more reinforcement to keep it from stretching out. But it's comfortable to wear and doesn't threaten to choke me, so that's good. (I don't have any good pictures at the moment, sorry.)
• I also made two pies (one pecan, one cheddar-pear), pretzel bites, and the first stage of improvements to the new sourdough bread recipe. As it turns out, weighing ingredients is exactly as overrated as I thought it was, and there's also no reason whatsoever to literally stick your hand in the bowl to mix it when there's a machine a yard away that can do the same thing but better. On the other hand, tipping the loaf out of the Dutch oven halfway through but not putting it on a tray or something when it goes back in the actual oven does not solve the problem of "the bottom crust is super hard" and, in fact, makes it much worse, in that it burns the bottom crust. So that's a thing we're not going to do next time.
• On the D&D front, one of my groups didn't meet at all in October, though we did meet this past Tuesday, which was a fun session — I finally got to use Toll the Dead, and I managed to stay out of melee range of the aberration that nearly killed our druid, and we met an NPC who was pretty interesting, and we finished a quest line, all in one day. It was great. In the other campaign I don't run, we've met a little more often and made a bit more progress, but the most exciting thing is that our group has an actual name now. We're officially the Light Bringers, which I'd say is a pretty snazzy name.
• And in Defenders of Serys (aka the campaign I do run), we spent more time than I expected on one piece of the story, but it's fine. We did officially make it out to see at last, we've had the first two thirds of our first pirate battle . . . and I remembered why I usually don't run big combats. But it's fine. I have very patient (and also terrifyingly effective at times) players.

November Plans

• It's NaNoWriMo. What do you think I'm doing?
• Ok, technically I'm not exactly doing the full 50K. I'd like to get a full 50K, but if I do, it'll be something along the lines of 35K first draft and 15K rewrites. But, as I said already, I'm working on the sequel to The Midnight Show, and it's going to be great.
• That said, even thought I'm not going for the full 50K, I am going to take a month's hiatus from regular blog posting. There'll be one or two posts for promo things, like the Perry Kirkpatrick Black Friday book sale, but that's all.
• Outside of writing, it's back to another round of job apps. Plus the freelance logo project, which is pretty interesting. We'll see what happens on that end.
• November is also Thanksgiving, which is going to be kind of weird. It'll be the first time in a long while that we've had it at home and not with our Bible study. I really am disappointed that we won't get to have the full gathering or anything like it, but it is what it is.
• Also my birthday's in November, so, y'know, that's a thing.
• In whatever spare time I have left, I need to start thinking about Christmas presents, especially if I'm going to make anything. Which I might. You never know. And I get to start anticipating listening to Christmas music, which is quite exciting.

How was your October? Any exciting plans for November? Are you doing NaNoWriMo? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

September 2020 Doings!

 Well, here we are. Solidly into fall, and three-quarters of the way through 2020. As always, there's some Doings to report, so let's go.

Writing!

• I AM BASICALLY ALMOST DONE WITH BLOOD IN THE SOIL/EARTH!
• (It only took me two years and two months to get to that point . . .)
• But yeah. BitS/E and my two D&D campaigns have been my main focuses this month, writing-wise, and I've been really pushing to get to the end of Blood in the Soil/Earth. And I am ALMOST THERE. By which I mean I have two, maybe two and a half scenes left, and I'll likely finish for real sometime in the next few days.
• Also, I wrote 2.3K words on BitS/E on Wednesday because I'd gotten to the really exciting part of the climax in which various characters come into their own and I didn't want to stop until all the thoughts in my head were on paper. And then I wrote another 1.3K words on one of my D&D campaigns. I don't think I've written that many words in one day in months. (Not since I wrote the end of The Midnight Show back on June 8, to be exact.)
• D&D campaigns are also going well, for those curious. I have all three paths outlined for the campaign I'm actively running, and everyone seems to be having fun running around and exploring a new city and preparing to hunt pirates. I also have a pretty good idea, I think, of which of the three paths my players are going to choose. (If nothing else, I have a very good idea of which path they're probably not going to choose. Though, y'know, they very well could surprise me.)
• As far as the campaign I'm just writing goes, progress has slowed down a little, but it's fun too. It's a very different story and encounter structure than that of the Defenders of Serys, simultaneously more and less linear. I'm also having to figure out how to combine puzzles (of a sort, at least) with combat, which is an interesting challenge. (I'm also homebrewing a bunch of stuff, mainly monsters and magic items, and that's fun too.)
• And, of course, we had the Silmaril Awards this month! I got to host the Most Magnificent Dragon category, and I'm happy to say that it went off more or less without a hitch. If you didn't get to read this year's awards, you should definitely go check them out, see who won, and enjoy all the fabulous ceremonies. You can find the complete list of ceremonies, in order, here on the website.

Reading!

• This was a much lighter reading month than last month, despite my high hopes of doing lots of pre-Silmaril Awards rereading. (I think that's because I tried to force it instead of going with what I was really in the mood for. So that was a mistake.)
• I only read one and two halves actual books this month. The first half was finishing Crimson Bound, which I actually started last month. I stand by my initial assessment of the book: it had potential, but it really didn't measure up to what I wanted it to be. Instead of maintaining the intrigue and myth, it got bogged down in romance, angst, and drama.
• The other one and a half were my reread of the second two Wingfeather Saga books: The Monster in the Hollows and The Warden and the Wolf King. Both were, of course, good, though Monster took me much longer than it should have. (Again: I don't think I was in the mood for it most of the time I was reading it.) I did gain a new appreciation for Sara Cobbler's subplot, though, so that's lovely. Technically I'm still reading Warden, but I'm reasonably close to done at this point.
• The rest of this month's reads? All graphic novels and manga. I have to admit, it was really fun to explore this medium more (and appreciate all the lovely artwork).
• The three actual graphic novels were all based off D&D podcasts: two off The Adventure Zone, and one off the first Critical Role campaign. I definitely liked the Critical Role one (Vox Machina: Origins Volume 1) better, but that may be because I'm already familiar with (and attached to) the players and DM behind the characters and story, so I had a better idea what to expect in terms of style. (I also might've had overly high expectations for TAZ, since I'm used to Critical Role and my personal experiences with D&D, and those seem to have a very different tone than TAZ.)
• I also started reading two manga series: The Seven Deadly Sins (because I have a friend who likes the anime) and Delicious in Dungeon (because it sounded fun). I'm not terribly crazy about the former, but I'm really enjoying Delicious in Dungeon, or at least the first three volumes of it. It really is a cool perspective on dungeon-crawling-style adventures and RPG worlds, plus it's very focused on food and friendship. So, y'know, several of my favorite things in one story.
• Finally, I have restarted my Lord of the Rings reread! It is going . . . slowly. I'm once again trying to journal the reread, and I think I might need to not do that — I sometimes don't read it even when I have time for a chapter because I don't want to have to write stuff about it afterward. But at the same time, I started the journaling thing and now I feel like I should finish it. Gah.
• As a quick update on my reading goals:
  • I'm currently at 87 out of 99 books overall, which means I'm ahead of schedule. And once I finish Warden, I have a lot of quicker reads coming up, so I'm confident I can finish on time.
  • I'm still at nine non-speculative fiction books out of my goal of twelve, so I need to get busy with that. Part of the problem may be that I haven't been in the headspace to read Lewis or Chesterton's nonfiction works like I intended to at one point. Still, that's only about a book a month to hit my goal, which should be more than manageable.
  • As for my final reading goal, I have hit my goal of twelve books written before I was born, thanks to The Hobbit and Beauty. Very few of the books I ended up counting towards this goal were ones I planned to read at the start of the year, but y'know? I shouldn't be surprised. I'm very much a mood reader, after all.

Watching!

• So, I finally convinced my family to give Firefly a try! And they didn't hate it! So that's good!
• (Not that I thought they would hate it, since I wouldn't have suggested it if I did. But there's always that little bit of concern, y'know?)
• Anyway. It was really fun to get to watch some of the show again. We just did the first double-episode, but people seemed open to watching more, and I'm hopeful we'll do that soon.
• On the downside, I forgot how many awkward scenes there are with Inara, even in just the first episode. Gah. I would ask if there's a point at which watching those kinds of scenes with your parents in the room becomes non-awkward, but I find them awkward even when the family isn't there. So. Yeah. (Plus, I'm caught in the "Well, if I bring it up, then it's more awkward, but if I don't somehow show that I am Not Actually Enjoying This, they'll think I'm ok with it, which I'm not, what do I do, panic" cycle. So that's a thing.)
• We also watched Clue, which was fun! None of us had seen it before, but I was pretty sure I remembered that my roommate liked it, and it was on Prime as part of a promotion, so we decided to give it a try. And I do think it was a good choice; I enjoyed the humor, and I'm almost always down for a good murder mystery.
• Besides that, I'm still slowly working my way through Critical Role. I am quite liking Caduceus, much more so than I expected. And Caleb remains my favorite character. It's also fun watching this and knowing comparatively little about D&D tactics, so while people in the comments of the videos are getting mad about how this character should've done that instead of what they actually did, I'm just watching and being like "Yeah, that seems like a thing this character would do" (or sometimes "Yeah, that's what I would do as a player if I had a cool new ability I wanted to try out").

Life!

• As you can see from the picture: I got a new bookshelf! It's huge, and it's really meant more for an office or a library or something, but I absolutely do not care in the slightest. It is immense and beautiful and may allow me to not need another shelf until whenever I eventually move out. And I know I am not maximizing the space on it as well as I probably could, but it's fine. I can rearrange again in November or December if I really want to.
• On a less cheerful note: something that I technically knew but which hadn't really registered for the last four years is that cooler weather in an older house with an actual yard means Every Weekend Is Yardwork. Or deck work. Or otherwise outdoor work. We haven't even started cutting up fallen trees or raking leaves yet, and it's already a thing. Not that I'm complaining, especially since I've gotten off easy in terms of the amount of work I, personally, have had to do. (There are many benefits to Saturday afternoon D&D sessions, as it turns out.) It's just . . . still kind of a lot. And I am not an outdoors person or a lifting-heavy-things person in the slightest. (I'm also not a fan of anything that interferes with my meal schedule — yes, I'm basically a taller-than-average hobbit, how'd you guess?)
• Aside from that, we have, of course, the continuing saga of the job search. I've had a few interviews, though most of them went nowhere. I did have one yesterday that seemed very promising, though? So maybe the saga is almost over? If not, well, there's something hopefully happening next month that may let me cast my net a little wider (and expand my skill portfolio even further).
• I'm also back to working on my cloak, hoping to have it done in time for Halloween stuff. All I have left is the hood and some trim/edging/stabilization stuff, so that doesn't seem like an unreasonable goal.
• Aaaand I tried a new sourdough recipe, and I have very mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I severely dislike actually making it. It requires mixing very sticky dough by hand (literally; you're supposed to stick your hands in it to mix it rather than use a stand mixer or even a wooden spoon), and has to be tended every half hour for several hours out of the day, and all the measurements are in metric by weight, which — look, fine, maybe it's more accurate or whatever, but, (1) my kitchen scale is old, so all my weight measurements are almost certainly off, (2) I can't even measure some of the smaller quantities, (3) it's a lot of hassle, and (4) I do not care. I just want to make and eat bread. On that note and on the other hand, the bread is delicious and way lighter and fluffier than the bread I usually make. So that's a struggle. I'm hoping to try to combine the recipes sometime to get a version that gives maximum yumminess for minimal effort, but I haven't had time due to the Every Weekend is Yardwork thing. (I may manage today, though, if all goes to my plan.)

October Plans

• I AM GOING TO FINISH BLOOD IN THE SOIL/EARTH. I am also going to officially decide on a name. Hopefully.
• Once that's done, I'll take a short noveling break and then I may or may not start writing my next book. I'd like to. I have a Midnight Snow sequel in mind, and I think it'll be fun if I can get the details worked out. (I do need to plan stuff well before I start writing, though, because I want — and need — this to be another short project like TMS.)
• I also get to start thinking about Halloween stuff! I signed up for my church's drive-through Trunk or Treat, so now I need to figure out how to decorate the back of my car in a fantasy-ish manner. Or possibly steampunk-ish, but I'm leaning towards fantasy because that gives me a wider variety of costume options to work with and will allow me to adapt more to whatever the weather happens to be.
• As far as reading goes, I'm going to continue my LOTR reread and my ventures into manga and graphic novels, and I'd like to do some of the rereading that I didn't end up doing in September. Plus, there's the Return of the Thief release, which I am SO PSYCHED FOR.

How was your September? Any exciting plans for October? How do you feel about manga and graphic novels? How would you go about doing a fantasy-themed trunk for Trunk or Treat? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

August 2017 Doings!

Woah. That was a loooooong month. Honestly, it felt more like two months— yet my summer was still too short. At least it was pretty productive . . .

Writing!

• Well, sort of productive. My grand plans to finish Blood in the Snow and then edit more of Fight Song kind of didn't work out. That's partially because I had more scenes to get through than I expected, but it's mostly because I allowed myself to become distracted by various things. Some of them (like organizing my room and being social with family and friends), I did actually need to do. Others, like reading and various internet things . . . not so much.
• I did get some work done, particularly while traveling. (For the record: on the road is one of my favorite places to write, mostly because I don't get distracted as easily.) However, I didn't accomplish as much as I planned, since on one trip, I forgot my extra notebook, and on another, I didn't actually spend as much time on the road as I expected. (To be more specific: I thought I'd be traveling for five to eight hours, but it ended up being around three. Pretty big difference, though.)
• And then I sort of left my characters in the middle of the climax for a week when I got to college. Oops.
• But now I'm nearly done, thanks to a trip to the coffeeshop with my roommate last weekend! If all goes to plan, I should only have two or thee more scenes before I'm done. Of course, then I still have to edit . . . oh stars. Hopefully I can get this done for the deadline . . .

Reading!

• Ok, I thought I read way more than that this month. Maybe it just felt like more . . .
• Most of what I read was fairy-tale retellings. I read all three Sleeping Beauty retellings from the Three Sleeping Beauties blog tour, and all of them were awesome. Unsurprisingly, Poison Kiss was my absolute favorite, partially because of all the fairy tales wound together and partially because of Puss. Puss is the best. If you haven't read it yet, do yourself a favor and pick it up. It's only $2 on Amazon- if you have Kindle Unlimited, it's free. You can read it in under an hour. What are you waiting for?
• Of the other two retellings in the tour, Rosette Thornbriar was my second favorite. I enjoyed the setting and the style and the characters, even though I was a little uncertain at first. Twisted Dreams was good as well, though not as amazing as I'd hoped.
• The last of the retellings I read was also a Sleeping Beauty retelling of sorts: Sew, It's a Quest. Since Kendra re-released it, I thought I'd re-read it, even though I didn't think I liked it that much, and wow. It leapt from my least favorite of Kendra's books to my top five favorites.
• Besides fairy tale retellings, I read the Dragon's Guide series, which was fun. The first one is definitely the best, but I enjoyed all of them. They're told partially from the perspective of a centuries-old, slightly grumpy old dragon lady and partially from the perspective of a young girl of . . . about ten, I think? maybe a little older? Anyway. They're delightful. Definitely would recommend, especially the first one.
• Also, I now know what people mean about braving the children's section, because while our new library in VA is wonderful, it does have waaaay too short shelves in the children's section and it's hard not to feel like people are judging you. I rather miss our old VA library, which had all the kids' chapter books on tall shelves. Not only does that make it easier for young adults who like Diana Wynne Jones and similar to find what they want without feeling awkward, but it also makes the kids feel more grown-up. At least I think so.
• The last book I read this month was, as you can probably see, the first Harry Potter. Yes, this is my first time reading it. First I wasn't allowed, then I wasn't interested . . . but then I came to college, and my roommate's a fan, and I ran into more and more internet people who liked it, and then I got Pinterest and you can't help but run into the HP fandom on there, and some of the stuff made me curious. And then one of us- I can't remember if it was my roommate or me- came up with the idea of reading the series at the same time this semester. So, we did. And I think I like it, but definitely not in the same way that the people who read it when they were younger do. For one thing, I can't quite approve of some of the stuff Harry and his friends get up to. For another, I think I've been spoiled by all the stuff I've seen from the fandom- not because I know what did happen, but because I know what didn't and what could've and honestly I might like some of the headcanons and AUs better than the real thing. We'll see if my opinion holds once we get further in the series.
• Oh- oh! And before I set off to college, guess where I went? McKay's! If you weren't here for last month's doings, McKay's is a used bookstore about fifteen minutes from my house and I desperately wanted to go, because used books. And so now I own two hardcover Wheel of Time books, Eats, Shoots, and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation (because I've heard it's good), and- and- AND copies of The Hobbit and The Silimarillion that match my copies of The Lord of the Rings! Honestly, I'm more excited about that than I am about the new-to-me books. And, admittedly, I really don't need The Sillimarillion because I have a gorgeous hardcover copy with beautiful illustrations in it that I got for my birthday several years ago- but it was $2.50, and the new copy is more portable, and it matches, so I think it's a worthwhile purchase. So, yes. I am much pleased.

Watching!

• Another reason to be happy: guys, I finally watched Serenity! It took me a year, but I've finally finished all the Firefly material!
• And now I want to know whyyyyyy there isn't more. I mean, I know why, but still- whyyyyyy?
• The general feel of the movie was definitely different from the TV shows, especially at the beginning, but I still enjoyed it. Most of the Firefly-related spoilers I'd seen before I got into the fandom came from the movie, so once I realized that, it was . . . interesting, putting the pieces together and trying to figure out how what I knew was actually going to happen.
• Also, I thought I knew who died. I was wrong on one, but wasn't actually as torn up about it as I expected. The other one I was right about and it hurt more than I expected and was just generally Not OK. Also, it kind of came out of nowhere, and I might've shrieked a little. So, yeah.
• And then River decided to be awesome and that distracted me for a while because wow. I am not generally impressed by violence and action sequences- ok, that's a lie. I am not impressed by violence, but I am very impressed by a well-done action sequence, and that one definitely qualifies. River is officially scary, in addition to strange and creepifying.
• Besides finally watching Serenity, my roommate and I started our show of the semester, which is . . .

• This is my roommate's favorite show in the genre and my first foray into anime, and I'm not 100% sure how I feel about it. I think I like it? I definitely enjoy some things- the plotlines held my interest at first, and then I met Erza and currently she's about a third of the reason why I'm still watching. Also, the worldbuilding and especially all the different types of magic are super fun.
• That said, a lot of the characters (other than Erza, for the most part) annoy me for one reason or another, and some elements are just kind of . . . weird. The style is hard to get used to as well. The best way I can think to describe it is as a comic book translated directly to the screen? But even that's not entirely accurate, with some of the figurative imagery and exaggerated expressions. It's just odd. Not bad, necessarily, but definitely odd.
• Also, why do literally none of the main characters dress sensibly? I mean Erza sort of does when she's in her normal outfit (except that her skirt is far shorter than it needs to be), but she's the only one. And I know I haven't met all the main characters yet, but still. It's rather annoying.
• Overall, the best comparison I can think of is that this show the TV equivalent to popcorn or chips: fun, easy to take in a lot of at once, but without a whole lot of substance. Maybe that'll change as the series goes on. I don't know. I do plan to keep watching until I have a good reason to stop, though (if the roommate agrees), I might end up taking breaks every so often to watch or re-watch movies or other shows. We'll see.

Life!

• We started out the month on the road again, visiting a family friend in Lexington, Virginia. Compared to most of our other recent trips, this one was pretty chill. We did stop at several country stores and Amish stores along the way there and back, though, which was fun. That also allowed me to replenish my supply of chai tea, though I unfortunately couldn't find any decaf.
• On that note, if you know where to acquire decaf chai tea powder without spending a fortune on it, please let me know in comments. None of the stores I checked carry it anymore, and I can't find it on Amazon for a decent price. If you can help, I'll be forever grateful and probably in your debt.
• After that, we had only a day at home- just long enough to unpack the rest of my room- before we set off again, this time for Pennsylvania to pick up my sister from White Sulpher Springs support staff and to visit my grandpa. Once again, it was a fairly relaxed trip, and I got to see several of my friends from last year when we picked up Rachel.
• Then we headed home once again- and again had only one day there before we headed off on yet another trip, this time to Texas to visit my grammy. Of course, Texas is considerably further away than Pennsylvania or southern Virginia . . . Which meant that early in the morning of Thursday, August 10, I found myself in an airport for the first time in almost ten years!
  
  
• Now, just because I haven't been on a plane in years doesn't mean I've never flown before. So I did my best to remain chill throughout the two flights that took us to Texas. But if someone could have looked in on my thoughts before and during either takeoff, they would've heard something along the lines of: Are we going yet? Now? Come on, come on . . . Now? Ahhhhhh! Yes! We're going up! We're going up! Yes! Yesyesyes! So, yeah. Not sure how chill I looked, but mentally I was altogether too excited.
• For the record: on the return trip, I had a window seat and thus gave up slightly on chill. Or, in other words, I took a bunch of pictures out the window as we went up. And at one point I looked down and saw our shadow in the clouds amidst a halo of rainbows, but it was gone all too fast and did not return no matter how I looked.
• As for our time actually in Texas: the first two days were fairly uneventful, save for the food. (Rudy's Barbeque! Cheddar's (which I'd never eaten at before but now love)! Mexican!)
  
  
• Then, on Saturday, we went to the Moody Gardens in Galveston, which was super fun. The main attraction there is three glass pyramids, each housing a different type of exhibit. The first and most exciting is an aquarium- for the record, I love aquariums. The good ones, at least- they're filled with strangeness and beauty side by side and sometimes blended into one. Also, there are frequently penguins or seals (this one had both), which means complete and utter adorableness.
• After the aquarium, we stopped for lunch and a 3D movie about Henry Bates, who discovered Batesian Mimics. Lunch was delicious and far surpassed my expectations; the movie . . . not so much. The imagery was gorgeous, and they clearly tried their best with the storytelling, but there was too much I disagreed with for me to really enjoy it.
• After that, we headed to the next pyramid: the Rainforest Pyramid, which is exactly what it sounds like. I got more pictures there than in the aquarium, though I was less excited with it as a whole. Granted, that's because it basically combines two exhibits at the National Zoo, which I've visited plenty of times already. I still enjoyed it, though, and it had bats (!!!) and orchids and a shy ocelot, so I'm not complaining.
• The final pyramid was labeled the Discovery Museum, which was really just a series of displays about Leonardo da Vinci and his scientific and artistic work. So, not terribly exciting, though it was good story research. We finished the day with a walk around Galveston and dinner at the Fisherman's Wharf, which was even better than lunch.
• Then, on Sunday, I got to meet the lovely Victoria Marinov! We got together at a local cafe specializing in crepes (which are, by the way, amazing and something I want to learn how to make now) and chatted for a while about life and school and books and travel. So that was super awesome. It's always interesting to meet online friends offline because, on one hand, we already know each other, but on the other, we've never actually talked face-to-face, so it's hard to figure out what to say. But despite the fact that we're both introverts, we managed.
• That gets us up to Monday, when we flew back to Virginia . . . just in time for me to start packing for college! Yay! Not! Word of advice: it doesn't matter if you've done this before. If you try to pack without a list, especially if you're in a rush, you'll forget a bunch of stuff that you need. For example, your purse. And your umbrella. And all the hair supplies you own except for your brush and comb and the ponytail holder on your braid when you left. So that was a bit annoying.
• The first couple days on campus were actually pretty relaxing, which was nice- I needed some chill time after such a busy summer. Classes didn't start until Wednesday, so all I actually had to do was go to chapel for the Fall Bible Conference and get stuff in order for classes. I may or may not have spent a little more time doing nothing than I really should've those few days . . . but oh well.
• As for classes- well, despite the fact that I had a bit of a mini-panic on Tuesday when I read through all the syllabi and the other fact that I unexpectedly had to buy books for two of my classes, they're going about as well as I thought they would. My classes for my major involve a lot of discussion and interaction, plus one of them is with my advisor (who's pretty awesome). Theology with my favorite professor is just as awesome as I expected- though it does involve group work, which I'm not particularly thrilled about- with one exception, group projects often seem to end either with me doing all the work or with everyone else ignoring most of my suggestions. It's very annoying. And while I've only had one day of the C.S. Lewis seminar, that seems like it'll be pretty cool too.
• The only class that I'm not terribly thrilled with at the moment is English Grammar. Not that it's hard exactly, and there's not as much workload as I expected, but, well, I know this stuff already. I've done it for 12 years. And while I like words and writing, grammar, especially diagramming, is kind of tedious. And the classes are on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I have to spend a half-hour longer on them than I would on other classes, so . . . yeah. It's really long, and the tests apparently take two hours or better, and the teacher is far too enthusiastic about the whole business. The only redeeming factors are that: (A) the one big project for the class is a poster, which should be pretty fun, and (B) the worksheets where you have to write sentences including certain elements or following a certain pattern are kind of fun because I can write about my characters.
• Also, I might be writing or photographing for the school newspaper? I'm a little uncertain, because journalism and I haven't quite gotten on well in the past, but if I'm in the Arts and Entertainment section, I can potentially review plays and movies and maybe even recent books, which would be cool? And I'm fine at photography; I just have to make time for it. And it pays a fair bit more than I thought, so there's that. And it would probably look good on my resume- at the very least, it would show that I was actually involved in something official at college besides the Honors Org.

September Plans!

• Obviously, I have classes, which'll take up most of my time. So far, none of my classes have a super heavy workload, but that may change soon. It's kind of hard to say for sure; I have all my assignments written down, but I don't know for sure how much actual work a lot of them will be.
• But it's not like there won't be plenty to keep me busy, however much my workload increases or doesn't. The Honors Org runs a weekly trivia bowl starting tomorrow, which I'm excited for, and other org and hall events will start this weekend as well. And while I'm only in one org this year and probably won't do a D-Group (since my church should have a Bible study again), I do want to try some exercise classes, namely a self-defense/martial arts-type class, assuming the gym offers it again.
• And, of course, I need to hurry and finish Blood in the Snow so I can start editing it and also edit a few more chapters of Fight Song. I definitely need to make a set goal of some kind so that I actually have something to work towards and build into my routine rather than just saying "Oh, I need to do this sometime."
• On the bookish front: reading Harry Potter will continue. My roommate just finished rereading book one tonight, so hopefully we can start book two before too long. In the meantime, I have an ever-present TBR and the CMC in my college library is still wonderful.
• Also, for those who aren't aware: September 7th is National Book Buying Day. You may do with this information what you wish, but I plan to celebrate in the obvious fashion. (That's the main reason I haven't yet bought Exiles- that and I haven't had much time in which to do so.)
• On a less mundane note: there's apparently a Renaissance Festival less than an hour away from my college. Are my roommate and I making plans to go? Absolutely. I mean, I've only wanted to go to a Renaissance Festival or Faire since I was, oh, I don't know, ten. It's going to be magnificent. I'm not going to cosplay, because (A) I don't have a costume, and (B) I've never been to one and don't know for sure what it'll be like, and so would like to have pockets and comfortable shoes when I find out. Especially the pockets. Pockets are nice.
• That . . . pretty much covers it, I think. I'm not sure I have time for much more.

So, how was your August? What plans do you have for September? Have you ever been to a Renaissance Festival, and if so, what did you think? Any advice?
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)

October Doings!

Hello, everyone! It feels like it's been a long time since I wrote a non-tour blog post . . . probably because it has been. Whoops. In my defense, October's been a pretty busy month, as you're going to see in this post.

Writing!

• Guys, I actually wrote something this month! Not for school, I mean!
• Seriously, though. That's a pretty significant thing. Not that it's a significant number of words- only about a thousand- but that's better than I did last month.
• (Admittedly, half those words only came about because some friends reminded me that I needed to hurry up and finish my part of a story we're coauthoring. And the other half happened because I went outside in the evening to do schoolwork, but then I realized that, nope, tonight is not a night for planning an essay; tonight is a writing night. Also, I had no idea how to organize the essay and made the executive decision to go to the writing center for help. So, yeah. I wrote. It was lovely. Maybe it'll happen again next month?)
• I also wrote two papers and an annotated outline for actual classwork. I'm quite proud of the first paper- it's the justice paper I mentioned last month. Not only did I reference The Princess Bride, but I basically used it to frame my essay in certain respects. So, yeah, that was awesome. I'm slightly less satisfied with the second paper, but I still have time to edit it, and I don't think it turned out too bad. (It better not have- I've already spent twice as long on it as I meant to!
• Oh, and I'm sticking this in this section because it doesn't quite fit anywhere else: this past Friday, I discovered Ambient Mixer. Basically, this creates "background noise" loops meant to evoke a certain atmosphere. But that's not the best part. The best part is all the fantasy/sci-fi themed atmospheres. For example, there's a whole section based on The Lord of the Rings (I love the Rivendell Library mix), another section based on superhero movies (which I haven't explored much, but looks pretty cool), and even a mix based on Howl's Moving Castle. How awesome is that? (Note: this doesn't mean that I'm giving up on music- some of these have music included in them, and those that don't, I tend to use in conjunction with music, usually something classical or just instrumental.)

Reading!

• Um. So my reading went waaaaaay down this month, if you can't tell. It's not as bad as it was back in July. But it's still pretty bad. 
• I continued my reread of the Queen's Thief series, as you can probably see. I just finished A Conspiracy of Kings, which I enjoyed more the second time around, even if Sophos is slightly an idiot at times. I also enjoyed The Queen of Attolia more this time, since I knew what was coming and could see the clues when they showed up. And, of course, The King of Attolia is absolutely fabulous; it's still my favorite book in the series. And there's going to be a new Queen's Thief book coming out and it has a title and a cover and a synopsis and it's going to be awesome and I'm so excited!
• Plus I read Lady Dragon, Tela Du, which is the latest release from Kendra E. Ardnek. Y'all should read it, because it's awesome. If you didn't notice, I also participated in the release tour, which was super fun. I got to interview Petra, and she's one of my favorite Rizkaland characters. 
• My second-to-last book for the month: Amusing Ourselves to Death, which I read for my Comp class (as I already mentioned). It's nonfiction and was written in 1985, but it's still pretty interesting, all about the effect of news media and other "serious" TV on the way we think, act, and carry out things like politics and education. I highly recommend reading it. 
• And my final book, which I also read for school and just finished yesterday: Augustine's Confessions. It was long. And rather dense in places. And more than once climbed into theological discussions that made me go "Wait, what? There are words, and there are sentences, but I think I'm missing some pieces here?" Augustine was, obviously, a very smart guy, and I am very glad that my Honors professor went over two of the hardest sections last month or else I would've been totally lost and very much stressed. So, yeah.

Watching! 

• My roommate and I finished Firefly over fall break. And now there's no more Mal and Kaylee and River and Simon and Serenity and everyone else and I'm sad. Hopefully we'll get our hands on the movie sometime . . . except I've heard that characters die in it. So. I don't know.
• On a happier note: as you can probably guess from the image above, we started watching Merlin! So far, I'm enjoying it, but I'm looking forward to whenever Merlin stops being such an idiot. Also, I'm having a very hard time not shipping him and Guinevere, even though I know they're both meant for other people.
• My roomie and I also watched Spirited Away, which is a Studio Ghibli film. It was . . . interesting. Very weird in some ways, very good in others, and sort of fairy-tale-ish but not exactly. I did enjoy it, so that's good.

 Life!

• I made a Mistcloak!!!!!!!! And got to actually wear it out to a legit costume party!!!!!
• (And obviously that's the most important thing that happened this month. Obviously.)
• Going back to the beginning, though- I left off in my last Doings post with Parents Weekend, which was awesome. The week after that was pretty uneventful, if I recall correctly. 
• And then Fall Break arrived! And I spent an entire day doing almost nothing productive. And then the day after that was . . .
• Craft day! My roommate decided to do art and made three paintings for our room. I think they turned out pretty well. And I fulfilled a life-goal and made a Mistcloak! Which took the better part of a day and a half, though it would've taken less time if I'd realized sooner that I could cut strips and watch Firefly at the same time.
• Pictures and a tutorial will be coming, by the way. I just need to get a weekend that isn't totally  consumed by schoolwork in which to edit the pictures. 
• Oh, and over fall break my roommate and I got a diffuser for our room. So occasionally our room smells like essential oils, which is nice, especially when it's peppermint. And playing with the steam/mist stream amuses me, particularly when I'm tired.
• And then I got back from fall break and immediately panicked because I had three million things due in the next three or four weeks and I had done (almost) nothing useful towards that end over break. Plus I had misread the reading assignment for one of my classes, and so I only read a fraction of what I should've.
• It got better, though. Both of my midterms went well, though I'm still waiting for the grade on one of them. And I'm done with all but two of the big assignments, so that's good.
• And I got to dress up twice in the space of a week!!!!!!! (Three times, if you count wearing a capelet and vaguely fantasy-ish outfit on Halloween.) My major has a Halloween party/costume contest, so I wore my Mistcloak to that. No one recognized what I was, but they all seemed fairly impressed by the cape, so it was ok. And then my dorm holds another Halloween event, which was two days later, and which provided a much-needed study break at the end of a stressful day. So I dressed up in my Lorien cloak and an elven-ish outfit and wandered the halls of my dorm and got candy and a cupcake. It was quite enjoyable.
• I'm also just about done with the cowl I've been crocheting for the last few months, which I'm rather happy about. 
• Still looking for a church. I've made some progress, in that I've eliminated churches I was thinking about and found new ones to try. But, yeah. It's a long, slow process.

November Plans!

• Most of you have probably figured this out by now, but I'm not doing NaNoWriMo, not even as a rebel. I have enough on my plate as it is. 
• However, to keep y'all company, I am thinking that I'll try to write something creative every day- a hundred words at least, maybe more when I can. (I'll allow one grace day a week, like during the 100-4-100 challenge.) I know I can manage that.
• The press of major papers and assignments has also slowed down. I have a group project for Honors, an exam in New Testament Lit, and a research paper for Comp, and that's pretty much all for the month in terms of big schoolwork stuff.
• On the topic of the research paper: it's rather pleasant when very smart scholars who spend all their time studying stuff write long papers that tell you you're right about something you feel passionately about. 
• Also: Thanksgiving break is coming!!!!!!! And that means I get to go home! And see my family! It's going to be awesome.
• The reading will continue as usual, of course. I'm currently working on one of my roommate's favorite series, The Cat's Eye Chronicles. I'm about a third of the way through the first book and currently don't know how I feel about most of the characters, save one. But I am enjoying it, so yeah.
• And I'll keep looking for a church. I have two that I need to revisit and two others I want to visit for the first time, so we'll see how that works out. Hopefully this will be the month I find the right place . . . I want to find the right place by the beginning of next semester if I can, just so I can be settled.

 How was your October? What are your November plans? Are you doing NaNoWriMo? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)

September Doings! (What even.)

. . . A bit late, as I warned it would be. But didn't I just do one of these? For the end of August? Wasn't that just a few weeks ago? Why am I already doing September's Doings post? Where did the time go? I think something or someone's stealing it, really. It should not be October already. However, since it is, I suppose I'd better go ahead and chronicle my Doings.

Writing!

• Um. I . . . almost fulfilled a writer stereotype and wrote in a coffeeshop at one point? But I had to read Acts and catch up on what previously happened before I could actually start writing, so . . . that didn't happen.
• And I wrote a paper on whether or not objective knowledge exists and is knowable. That was interesting.
• But, yeah, I didn't get more than a few hundred, maybe a thousand, words written on both my projects combined. And editing? Ha, no.

Reading!

• So I thought I read more than this this month . . . it felt like way more. Maybe that's just because I spent so long on some of the books.
• As you can probably see from the picture, I've mostly continued on my children's lit kick, because obviously that's what you do when you go to college. Obviously.
• The highlight of my purely-pleasure-reading this month was rereading George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin and The Princess and Curdie, both of which were just as good as I remembered them. I also read The Golden Key and Other Stories, which was a mixed bag- The Light Princess and The Day Boy and the Night Girl were good; the other two stories I wasn't as impressed with. All the same- if you haven't read anything by George MacDonald, you need to fix that. Now. Really.
• Placing just after the George MacDonald books is The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley. I read The Hero and the Crown, the prequel to this book, last summer and wasn't terribly impressed. The Blue Sword turned out to be much better; the setting is very unique, a mix of Middle Eastern and expansionist Britain (the expansionist Britain coming in as an outpost of said expansionist-Britain-like country), and I enjoyed the story once I got through the rather slow start.
• I also finished The Odyssey, which I read for Western Lit. I was quite sad to say goodbye to Odysseus and company after having spent four weeks with them- but oh well. Again, if you haven't read this, definitely do. (I recommend the Robert Fitzgerald translation; it's easy to read but preserves the beauty of the poetry.) Another excellent book I read for school is The Lost Letters of Pergamum, a fictional correspondence between Luke (the gospel author) and a Roman nobleman. If you enjoy historical fiction or want a fairly accurate-but-enjoyable look at the early Christian church, I'd definitely recommend it.
• And another few miscellaneous books: The Mysterious Benedict Society and Savvy both I read on the recommendation of my roommate. I enjoyed both, though I wasn't wowed by either. And the second and third book in the Fairyland series were enjoyable in their characteristic dark-and-weird way. I think there's a fourth book, but I haven't been able to find it yet. Oh well.
• Not pictured: The Hobbit and The Thief, both of which I reread at the end of the month. I think this is going to be the autumn of Greek-ish things, between rereading the Queen's Thief series and all the Greek/Rome-related reading I had to do for classes.
• Also not pictured: Plato's Republic. Which I did not enjoy. At all. BUT I FINISH IT THIS WEEK THANK GOD. And the other books I have to read for that particular class all look pretty interesting. So thank God for that as well.

Watching! 

•  My roommate and I managed four more episodes of Firefly this month. We would've watched more, except we were both rather too busy. I'm enjoying it more and more, particularly now that I understand what's going on. Mal and Kaylee are probably tied for my favorite character. And the last episode we watched showed some of Simon and River's backstory, which was cool. 
• Yeah. That's pretty much all the watching we did together. But we did decide that after we finish Firefly, we want to start the BBC Merlin, and the BBC Robin Hood sometime after that. We'll see how long it takes us to get around to those . . . Particularly since my roomie pointed out to me that Merlin is five seasons long, twenty episodes to a season. So, yeah. That could take us a while.

 Life!

• So. Yeah. College. My life basically revolves around going to class and doing homework. (And trying to get to bed at a reasonable time. That's important, whatever certain people say.) 
• As previously mentioned, I wrote my first-ever college paper (not counting the ones I did for dual-enrollment classes). I think I did ok, but given the topic and the professor, I have no idea.
• The professor, for the record, is one of my favorites- he teaches philosophy and he's very smart and kind of intimidating but also rather funny (in a sarcastic way) and good at explaining things so we can understand.
• I also had my first exam in New Testament Lit (which actually happened in October- just last Monday- but it's noteworthy and it happened before this post went up, so it counts). I spent several days leading up to it panicking over whether or not I'd get my notes/study guide typed up in time for me to actually study. Thankfully, I did, and the test went very well indeed. 
• Roughly two weekends ago, my Honors mentor and I met at a local coffeeshop, and then my roomie and I went to the local thrift store. Both things were fun, and my roomie and I are thinking that coffeeshop/bakery and thrift store trips are going to become a regular thing- not every Saturday, but at least once or twice a month, weather-permitting.
• Around the middle of the month, my dad was in the area on business and stopped in to see me, which was really nice. And then my whole family came up (over? down? I have no idea how to express the direction I am from home, mostly because I just know that I'm somewhere vaguely west) for Parents' Weekend, which was even better. We had a couple meals out/off-campus, one of which was with some friends from VA, went to see some other family in the area, and generally just hung out. (And did practical stuff as well- for example, my dad helped me set up a budget now that I have an idea what kind of expenses I'm dealing with, and we installed bedrisers and an amazingly awesome bookcase/hutch in my dorm.)
• That being said, Parents' Weekend was also Homecoming, which meant there were about three million people on campus and everything was slightly crazy. But it was all good.
• And I've been exercising regularly. It's a requirement for one of my classes, but it's still highly satisfying. Also highly necessary, because the dining hall has ice cream and a few other pretty yummy desserts and it is very hard to say no to ice cream. Particularly when there's flavors like Oregon Blackberry Cheesecake and Banana Cream Pie and Deep Sea Treasure (which is caramel-on-caramel-on-caramel).
• A final random thing: a few of my hall-mates and I took the New York Times' Dialect Quiz, and apparently I talk like I'm from Florida. What even. Everyone else got fairly accurate results, so I don't know what's wrong with me.

October Plans!

• Did I mention that my life revolves around classes and homework? Because, yeah, it does.
• In that respect, things coming up this month: a paper on "what is justice" in which I plan to reference The Princess Bride in the introduction, a midterm in Honors (which I need to start prepping for soon), an annotated outline of Ephesians (which I am not at all looking forward to doing), and, of course, the usual readings and such for all the classes.
• Also I'm doing strength training with the weight machines in the gym in addition to doing cardio stuff. I actually started that today, and got through nine different machines, feeling pretty good about how I was doing . . . and then I tried the chin-up machine and basically died. Oh well. Nine out of ten isn't bad.
• You know what else is happening this month? Fall break! I'm going to stay with my roommate, and it's going to be pretty fun. We're going to watch a lot of Firefly and have a craft day and I'm not sure what else but yeah. (And we'll also need to work on schoolwork, but that's beside the point.)
• Also this month: Halloween. Which usually I wouldn't do much of anything for . . . but my dorm does a Halloween event, and so does my major, which means I get to dress up TWICE. I may or may not have been planning out ideas since September. Yeah. I'm excited.
• Plus, Lady Dragon, Tela Du is releasing this month, which is super exciting. I got to beta-read LDTD, and let me tell you, it's amazing. There'll be an actual review going up during the blog tour, but for now . . . yeah. It's a major step up from WPFP, and I love the characters (for the most part) and the story and there's just so much YES.
• NaNoWriMo is also coming up, as you all probably know. I won't be doing a whole 50K novel . . . but I do hope to go rebel and take on a somewhat smaller editing goal, just to participate and get working again. We'll see; I still need to figure it out. (On that topic: anyone want to win a NaNoWriMo survival kit?)
• . . . Speaking of which, I should probably finish Fight Song. I swear I'm going to eventually. Maybe I can manage that over fall break as well?
• And, of course, there will be much more reading done. I'm going to finish my reread of the Queen's Thief series, reread The Lord of the Rings (slowly), and hopefully pick up some new reads as well. Hopefully. We'll see how that actually works out; maybe I'll cut back on reading and work on writing in that time instead. Whether or not I do that depends if I can write on an exercise bike, though . . . We'll see what happens.
• And I'm still searching for a church. It's slow going, especially since I have to find rides to any churches I want to visit. I've found two that I kind of like, but neither feels right, I don't think . . . maybe October will be the month I find the right one?
• So, yeah. This month will be pretty busy. Let's hope I survive.

 How was your September? How's your October going? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)