AUs I Wish Were Real: Movie & TV Edition

Hey'a, everyone! So, like many people, I really enjoy the concept of AUs. I think that a well-executed or well-conceived AU demonstrates how well people know particular characters (which is why I like to come up with AUs of my own stories as a character development exercise), and sometimes you can use AUs from a particular fandom as a jumping-off point for a completely new story. Plus, sometimes it's just fun to imagine how a story would be different if a particular thing changed. Today, I thought I'd talk about some of my favorite AU concepts, both ones I've come up with on my own and ones I've seen elsewhere.

AUs I Wish Were Real

1. A Merlin AU in which Merlin, Arthur, Morgana, and Gwen all have magic and are just running around trying increasingly desperate methods to hide it from one another, Uither, and everyone else. Eventually, Gwen finds out about everyone else because she's actually not completely oblivious (unlike the Pendragons), but she may or may not actually tell anyone. Gaius knows, probably, but everyone makes him swear not to tell anyone else. And at least one of the knights figure it out, but watching these four idiots run around trying to figure out how to solve Camelot's problem of the week without letting anyone figure out how they're doing these increasingly impossible things is amazing entertainment, so whoever knows just quietly helps hide it from Uither and has a good laugh over it.
   
   
2. An Avatar: The Last Airbender AU in which the elements are controlled via dance instead of martial arts-esque moves and so every time there's a fight, it's basically a dance battle with bonus element-throwing. This AU comes about entirely because 90% of Zuko's fighting moves look like breakdancing as it is, so they barely have to change anything there. And, let's face it, watching Zuko and Aang have a dance battle every couple episodes for two seasons would be hilarious.
3. A Marvel AU in which people actually communicate during Civil War, realize "Ok, many of us are overreacting" and proceed to work through their differences and not break up the team. Bonus points if this gives Tony enough energy to actually think about how he handles his sort-of-mentorship with Peter and gets his act enough together to be a proper mentor, thereby making all the IronDad headcanons more reasonable. (Seriously, though: I love IronDad headcanons and short fics on Tumblr, but there's so little grounding for them in the actual show that they feel more like AUs themselves.) Double bonus points if this leads to any variation on this post; triple bonus points if it leads to a variation on this one.
4. Another Merlin AU: Merlin, instead of being a peasant from some town I don't remember, is Arthur's half-brother. He still acts as some kind of attendant to Arthur, because he's more or less illegitimate and it's inconvenient to have a half-brother lounging around with no actual job, but it's less "servant" and more "advisor and future steward" or something similar. He still has magic, which he uses to get himself and Arthur in and out of trouble, but in this case Arthur figures it out early on and is thus much less hostile to magic in general. (Arthur still struggles with reconciling his father's attitude and his own knowlede, but yeah.) And, of course, the various villains try to pin stuff on Merlin, implicating that he's trying to clear his way to the throne, but Arthur, at least, knows better. 
   
   
5. I feel really bad for wanting this, but: an Avatar: The Last Airbender AU in which Aang doesn't survive the hundred years and, through a series of undefined events, Zuko ends up being the Avatar. I am a big fan of "the person you were looking for was you all along" plotlines, at least when done well. And Avatar!Zuko would be a goldmine for both really interesting internal conflict and comedy not based in secondhand embarrassment. I did actually find one fic that follows this premise, but it had Zuko figure it out too close to the start of the fic, and also the writing quality wasn't great, so I ended up not reading more than a chapter. Tragic. (That said, I may end up taking this AU concept and reworking it into an original story, so, yeah. We'll see what happens.)

Do you enjoy reading and imagining AU concepts? What are some of your favorites? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)

Mid-Year Book Freakout 2017

Original picture via

Hey'a, everyone! We're halfway through the year, which means it's time for the first half of the "Best of 2017" roundup. As you might remember, last year, I did the Mid-Year Book Freak-Out Tag instead of the standard Top 10 list. Although I haven't been tagged again this year, I decided to do it again anyway, because answering a list of questions is a lot easier and more fun than trying to sort out my top ten books from however many I've read up to this point.

That number, by the way, is 62, which is pretty close to what I'd read last year around this time. Again, the number is probably off by a little because of webcomics and anything I reread in January. I think I need to raise my Completely Arbitrary Challenge to 111 instead of 99 . . . oh well. Anyone interested can see my full challenge at Goodreads.

1. Best book you've read so far in 2016:

. . . Wait, why did I think this was a better idea than a list? I still have to pick. Help. 

Oh. Wait. There's a very obvious answer here.

I am still convinced that Genevieve Cogman's The Invisible Library and its sequels were written specifically for me; they pack so many of my very favorite book-things into each deliciously devourable volume. There's dragons and intrigue and steampunkery and mystery and a magical library and amusingly-dramatic-but-also-creepy villains and brilliant endings and fabulous characters and did I mention the magical library? The only thing that could make me happier than rereading this book (which I plan to do in the next week or so) would be living in it.

A couple other books which I loved:

Hexwood was strange and confusing and delightful and brilliant, as befits a Diana Wynne Jones novel. It's sort of sci-fi and sort of King Arthur retelling and sort of fantasy and sort of a bunch of other things and 100% awesome.

The Firethorn Crown by Lea Doue is a retelling of one of my favorite fairy tales, "The 12 Dancing Princesses." It's not as good as Entwined (what is?), but it has dragons and sisterly sisters and a creepy villain who I don't know what to do with. Oh, and I've said this before, but I want to be Neylan, because anyone who's fabulous enough to have dragons sitting in their hair is obviously someone worth aspiring towards.

And Plenilune was magnificent, though rather dark in places. The prose is beautiful, the story is full of simmering suspense, and Dammerung is just amazing. I don't think you can review Plenilune without mentioning him, because he's possibly the best part of the book. I did sometimes have trouble keeping names straight, but . . . such is life.

2. Best sequel you've read so far in 2016:

Oh, that's an easy one! Hands down, the answer is Samara's Peril by Jaye L. Knight.

The Ilyon Chronicles definitely get better with each new release. I absolutely loved Samara's Peril: the focus on family, the plot, the epic battle at the end, the adorableness of Jayrin, and Jace's character development (and other stuff relating to Jace that made me immensely happy), and the theme of atonement and there's just a lot of awesome, ok?

Also, speaking of books that have a lot of awesome, the sequels to The Invisible Library, The Masked City and The Burning Page are both just as amazing as the first book. Just saying.

3. New release you haven't read yet but want to: 

I don't know why I haven't read Thick as Thieves yet, but I think I'm going to blame the library, 'cause I'm 99% sure I requested it but it didn't come in for some reason, and so I had to request it again and now I'm hoping very, very hard that it arrives in the next couple weeks. I need more Eugenides, people. 

Also, almost everything on my Spring 2017 Reads list would qualify except for Dragonwatch. I would be done with the whole set by now, but I sort of got distracted by the Invisible Library books . . . I regret nothing.

4. Most anticipated release for the second half of the year:

Oathbringer Oathbringer Oathbringer give me my Oathbringer please! It's supposed to release in November, and I can't wait! I haven't had new Sanderson in a whole year. I'm hoping very hard that it doesn't get pushed back, but I haven't heard anything really about it since the cover released so I'm a little worried? But I need more Sanderson, and White Sand volume 2, which also releases this fall, isn't going to cut it.

I'm also super excited for Lightporter, the newest IDIA book from C.B. Cook.

That said, I already read the book (perks of being a beta reader/friend of the author!) so I mostly just want it to come out so I can properly fangirl over it. For now, let me just say that it's better than the first book and I had a theory but the theory was wrong but it was still awesome.

5. Biggest disappointment:
Can we count rereads? If so, I was kind of disappointed that I didn't enjoy Showdown more. I mean, it never was my favorite Dekker book, but I'm pretty sure I read it twice, so I must've enjoyed it to some degree. But this time it just seemed . . . lacking. Also I realized I disliked most of the characters, so that didn't help.


If we're going with new-to-me books, I guess Coralina. Again, I didn't expect to enjoy it that much in the first place, since Coralina and I never got along in the first book either. But I hoped I would like it more than I did.

6. Biggest surprise:
I'm going to go with another Nine Princesses novella: Heidel by Anita Valle.

Heidel is definitely my favorite of the Nine Princesses now. She loves cooking, she has a temper and no interest in dressing up or romance or whatnot, she's practical and competitive and she's just fun, ok? I think we'd be buddies. And the story is fun- not perfect, but fun, and I enjoyed the plot.

Another surprise was The Creeping Shadow by Jonathan Stroud.

After The Hollow Boy, I nearly gave up on the series because of Lucy's angst, but now I'm glad I didn't. We've got character growth and answers and questions and revelations and just a lot of fun. If the rest of the series is more like this than The Hollow Boy, I'll look forward to the books a lot more!

Finally, while I expected to enjoy Nimona, I didn't expect how much I'd love it:

It's an urban fantasy graphic novel with a pair of villain protagonists- one considerably more honorable than the other- and it's kind of sad in some respects but it's also a lot of fun. It's got science and magic and shapeshifting and sharks and yeah.  
 

7. Favorite new-to-you author:
I think y'all can guess this, but: Genevieve Cogman, author of the Invisible Library series. Which, as previously mentioned, is amazing and awesome and Made For Me. Y'all need to go request the books from your library now, ok? Just trust me; you won't regret it.

8. Newest fictional crush/ship:
Leilani and Brick from Beggar Magic are adorable, ok? Brick is deaf and uses sign language, and Leilani is into languages and gets him to teach her sign language (slowly) so she can talk to him and he's so loyal and protective and I love them to pieces.

As for fictional crushes- for once I have one that I can entertain without feeling vaguely guilty, because Marcus Altair from the Ilyon Chronicles is currently unattached and he's definitely my type and if he were real, I would date him in a heartbeat.

9. Newest favorite characters:
(See? There's an s on the end. I totally didn't add that just now. Why in the world would I do that? Just because I don't want to choose . . .)

• Irene from the Invisible Library series is basically what every bookworm aspires to be (capable, confident, trained as a spy, able to gallivant about different magical and sci-fi worlds and access a magical library containing at least one copy of every significant book ever), but she's still human and relatable.
• Also Silver from the same series, even though he's an antagonist, because he's dramatic and creepy and witty and has a strange enemy-mine relationship with Irene and is just generally fun to read.
• Dammerung from Plenilune is just awesome and intense and surprisingly funny? But also Fey and terrifying and yeah.
• Mordion from Hexwood because, well, he's Mordion. He's possibly the best part of the book. He needs a blanket and a large mug of hot chocolate. I can't really explain him; you just have to read the book so you can meet him.

10. A book that made you cry:
***ERROR****BOOK NOT FOUND***ERROR***QUESTION INCOMPATIBLE WITH SUBJECT'S PERSONAL HABITS***ERROR***

11. A book that made you happy:

Beggar Magic by H.L. Burke was absolutely delightful. It has steampunk and mystery and an adorable ship (see the aforementioned Brick and Leilani) and a lovely friendship between Leilani and Zebedy and a very interesting magic system. I'd quite like a sequel, but I have a suspicion I'm not going to get one.

12. Favorite book to film adaptation you've seen this year:
Um. Do comic books count?

If so, Doctor Strange, which featured time-based superpowers and an egoistic, skeptical hero who basically does an entire about-face by the end of the movie, without losing what makes him interesting, and reality warping and generally a lot of awesome.


If comic books don't count, we're going with Merlin again, 'cause it's awesome and I need a modern-day reboot please.

13. Favorite post you've done so far this year:
As per the usual, I can't pick just one, but a few favorites:

• My Mistcloak Tutorial, because it's a project I wanted to do for a super long time.
• February Beautiful People: Couples Edition because I got to write Jared and Bianca interacting again.
• March's Character Encounter, in which I met my characters and a bunch of author-friends at Indie E-Con.
• Also, I started posting Fight Song, and if you aren't reading it, you should be. Or, at the very least, I'd appreciate it if you read it. Prologue is here, if you missed that.

14. Most beautiful book you've bought/received so far this year:
I actually haven't bought or received many books yet this year. I guess in terms of cover, I'm going to go with Storm Siren, which my roommate gave me for Christmas (but I didn't actually get until January):

15. What books do you need to read by the end of the year?
There's plenty of those . . . but a few of the top ones:

Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan  

(and however many other Wheel of Time books I can manage)

The Ship Beyond Time by Heidi Heilig

Thick as Thieves by Megan Whalen Turner

Shadow Run by Adrianne Strickland and Michal Miller

Exiles by Jaye L. Knight

Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson

I'm not going to tag anyone, but feel free to steal the tag anyway if you feel like it. Or, if you don't want to make your own post, I'd still love to hear your answers in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade) 

May 2017 Doings!

Hey'a, everyone! It's the end of another month- but not a crazy one, thankfully. Actually, this was the most relaxing month I've had in a while . . . but just because it was relaxing doesn't mean there's nothing to report here!

Writing!

• On the whole, this was a pretty good writing month, possibly because I spent a lot of time in the car (it's an excellent place to write because there's no internet to distract me and I'm too scared of wasting my battery to play Solitaire or Candy Crush) and possibly because I had no schoolwork, nice weather, and a few days with good motivation.
• In terms of actual writing, I completed two and a half flashfics (I'll post the two eventually, after I've edited them a bit) and a new scene in Destinies and Decisions. Editing was slightly less productive, but most of the work I did was on Destinies and Decisions, which I've been neglecting for a while now. (That was partially because of Camp NaNoWriMo and partially because I was procrastinating on rewriting another subplot.)
• In addition worked on random bits of worldbuilding (dragon Riders don't get concussions! but they do have problems with cancer), part of which I actually wrote down and part of which is still in my head. I've decided to finally create a file on Evernote for all my worldbuilding info instead of just keeping it in a standard notebook, so that (A)there's less chance of losing it and (B)I can access it at any time. I still have to copy all the stuff I've done before into the file, but . . . oh well. It's a start.
• Also, in case you missed it, I started posting Fight Song! So far, the prologue, and first two chapters are up. You don't have to read them, obviously, but if you haven't yet and you're interested . . .

Reading!

• As I already said, May was a pretty good writing month . . . but it was an even better reading month, with a lovely blend of rereads and new books, many of which people have been recommending to me for a while.
• In that latter category fits Plenilune, which came out . . . I want to say around the time the first Ilyon Chronicles was released? So it's been a few years, and it was before I really bought new books that I hadn't read yet. I'm honestly glad I didn't read it then; I don't think I would've appreciated it as much as I did reading it now. It is an amazing book, though dark enough in places that I'd recommend it more for mature readers.
• Also in that category goes The Firethorn Crown, which was a pretty cool 12 Dancing Princesses retelling that Deborah O'Carroll heartily recommended to me. I enjoyed it; there's dragons (including tiny butterfly dragons!), a reasonably creepy villain, and sisters being awesome and having each other's backs. It's not my favorite 12 Dancing Princesses retelling, but it's still good (and free on Kindle, if you're interested)! I didn't enjoy the sequel, The Midsummer Captives, quite as much, maybe because I didn't connect as much with the characters and maybe because I didn't realize until after the fact that it was a retelling of A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was still a good book, though, and had more dragons in it.
• The final book in the category of heartily-recommended-to-me-reads is The Lies of Locke Lamora- and, yes, when I say "recommended" here, I mostly mean "Cait Grace yelled about it on her blog so much that I got curious." I was rather less impressed by this one than by Plenilune or the Firethorn Crown books. Don't get me wrong, the story is great, the characters likeable (mostly), and the heists and intrigue as exciting as you might want. It honestly felt the same way I think a Mistborn prequel novel about Kelsier's old crew would feel. However, there was a lot of very strong language and not-entirely-appropriate references- so much that I almost put the book down only a tenth of the way in, and enough that I can't wholeheartily recommend the book myself.
• On the retelling side, we have the first three James Herriot biographies. I'm not sure these totally qualify as rereads, since I didn't read them myself; rather, my dad read them to me when I was younger. The whole matter started because I found the first book, All Creatures Great and Small, for 25 cents at a curriculum sale and decided to get it. I expected to be a few days getting through it (it's a relatively thick book, and I assume biographies are slow), but then I read it in roughly 24 hours and found myself in desperate need of the next one, All Things Bright and Beautiful. Thankfully, we owned that one already, and I got through it almost as quickly. The last two we had to get at the library, and I'm currently working on book three, All Things Wise and Wonderful, though not as quickly because I've been doing other things besides reading.
• A few other books that don't fit into the heartily-recommended-to-me or rereads categories: Wires and Nerve Volume 1 is the new Lunar Chronicles graphic novel; I enjoyed it, but felt like it should've been longer. Graphic novels are tricky that way. Long May She Reign was fantasy-mystery with a scientist protagonist: something different, definitely enjoyable, and surprisingly clean, though not as amazing as I hoped. And Carve the Mark is Veronica Roth's new book: sci-fi, on the darker side, not really what I expected but not bad.

Watching!

• So many things!
  
• Obviously, I finished watching Merlin and I was actually fairly satisfied with the ending? I mean, yes, I'm sad and now I want more than ever to write my modern-day continuation fanfic since BBC seems unwilling to give us a modern-day reboot. But I wasn't as upset as I expected to be.
  
  
• Then I came home and tackled all the movies I need to catch up on. I started with the Back to the Future trilogy, specifically the second and third movie. I almost think the second might be my favorite, which is weird since usually the second is the worst in any trilogy. And, yeah, I absolutely hated the first thirty minutes of the the movie. But I actually enjoyed the rest of it quite a bit. The third one was fun as well, since it was sort of a western but also not and I didn't have to deal with everyone dying in the end, which is what usually seems to happen in westerns.
  
  
• And then I moved on to what I was really looking forward to: the rest of the Marvel movies! All I had left was Guardians and the second two Captain America movies, plus I wanted to rewatch the first Captain America, just to refresh my memory. Guardians was fabulous- not my very favorite Marvel movie, but it's probably up there. Hopefully I'll be able to watch the second one more or less as soon as it comes out on DVD (or arrives on Netflix, if I can convince my roommate to watch it with me, since I don't think it'll be out until September).
• Then came the Captain America movies. Rewatching the first one was actually super refreshing for two reasons. For one thing, I knew everything that happened already, which prevented the panic moments ("He has to survive! There's another movie! Right?". For another, it's one of the few Marvel movies where I never feel the need to yell at the characters for being idiots/unreasonable/etc.
• Of course, The Winter Soldier and Civil War were considerably less relaxing . . . though TWS wasn't nearly as emotionally draining as I expected it to be. The fact that I knew most of the major twists already helped a lot. Civil War was another story- but I already posted my thoughts on it, so I won't repeat myself here.

Musings!

• You don't have to understand something to love it; you don't have to know everything about something to like it; you don't have to be good at something to enjoy it. So often in the fandom world (and outside it too), you feel like you don't really love something if you don't know all the trivia, if you can't quote half the movie or all the best lines from the book, if you haven't read or watched it a dozen times. Or in terms of activities, people assume that if you enjoy doing something, you must be good at it in the sense of having a natural affinity for it, because why else would you keep doing it? But it's not like that. The fact that I do not know every little piece of LOTR trivia and haven't read The Silimarillion since I was eleven does not make me less of a LOTR fan than my friend whose favorite fictional character in the world is never mentioned in the main trilogy. The fact that I don't understand a lot of science and philosophy doesn't mean that I can't be fascinated by it, that I can't enjoy learning about it, that I can't appreciate all that those things give us. I can call myself a photographer even though I still don't get ISO and probably use Photoshop techniques that would make an experienced photographer recoil in horror. I can be a writer even though I don't always know what I'm doing and I couldn't explain the snowflake method to you if you offered me a million dollars. But that's ok. Storms, I don't always understand that which I love most- God, family, friends- but that doesn't mean I love them any less. And I think that's beautiful.

Life!

• Well, there's plenty to put in here, even if it has been a fairly relaxing month. Where to start, then? I suppose at the beginning- which was also an ending. Specifically, the end of my first year of college! Finals went well; I honestly think that I stressed more about packing than I did about any of my finals. Thankfully, I ended up having no finals Thursday, the day before I was supposed to leave, so I could just pack EVERYTHING and not have to go anywhere except to eat. I still ended up stressing most of the day, trying to fit everything into roughly as many boxes and suitcases as I had with me (and kind of failing because I'd accumulated way more stuff than I had at the beginning of the year, plus I'm not an efficient packer to begin with).
• We stopped at my grandpa's house for a day on the way home, which was nice. While we were there, my dad and I went on a photo expedition to Carrie Furnace, which used to be part of an old steel works and is now abandoned.
  
  
  

  Eventually I'm going to write a whole blog post about the experience and show off the pictures I took. I would've done it sooner, but all the movie-watching that I mentioned earlier kind of distracted me.
• Then we got home, I unpacked- which was easier than packing, since I knew already where most stuff was going to go- and also went through my clothes and books to decide what to keep and what to get rid of. Going through my personal bookshelves was the hardest part. I have a lot of books that I rarely, if ever, read, but I held onto because I liked them when I was younger, or because they're classics, or because I just feel like I should keep them even though I've outgrown them. But I managed, and so there's a little more space on my shelves . . . at least for now. I'm still going to try to convince my parents that I need another bookshelf later, even if I have to buy it myself.
• That brings us to roughly the 9th of May, and you know what I've mostly done since then? Absolutely nothing. Or, sort of. I did all the reading and writing and editing and movie-watching and such that I already mentioned, so that's something, but it's a different kind of something than what I'd been doing for the last nine months, and it's lovely. There's no deadlines. No places I have to be. No reason I can't spend the morning working on a story or sit outside with a book all afternoon. Of course, there's also nothing to keep me from wasting too much time on Pinterest, but oh well . . .
  
  
• The exception to the doing-of-nothing: last weekend, my family joined our Bible Study group from back in Virginia on a retreat at White Sulphur Springs. And, ok, there was a fair bit of doing-nothing there too. Technically I was supposed to help with meal prep, but there's a lot of other people who know a lot more about what they're doing in the kitchen than I do, so basically all I did was set stuff out on tables- and I wasn't even needed for that much, really. So I mostly ended up reading books in whatever comfortable spots I could find and chatting and playing games with friends and catching up on their lives.
• Oh, and for anyone who remembers that I was supposed to do the #Walk30DaysChallenge and is wondering how that's going, well, it kind of didn't work out as well as I hoped. Finals week kept me busy enough that I didn't have much time to go walking. Then I got home and it was cold and wet and I started thinking "Y'know, maybe I'll just wait and try this again in June." And then I realized that maybe that wasn't a great idea and put some effort into getting regular physical exercise the rest of the month. Thankfully, the weather warmed up a bit, which allowed me to go walking a fair number of days. Plus, I managed to come up with an alternate aerobics routine for when it's too rainy to walk, so that's something.

June Plans!

• First off: in case you can't guess from the fact that I'm posting this early or the fact that this happens basically every year: I'm going on hiatus for the next two weeks or so, during which I will have little, if any, internet access. You probably also know why I'm going on hiatus. I really don't know why I pretend you don't at this point, but I'm going to keep doing it anyway. I'd say not to go crazy while I'm gone, but I suspect that some of you won't even notice I'm not here.
• The exception to the hiatus: I will be participating on a pretty exciting cover reveal on June 1 through the magic of prescheduled posts. I'm not going to say what cover is being revealed; you'll just have to stop by and see. (I'm giving the screen a Significant Eyebrow Wiggle here. You can't see it, so you'll just have to imagine it.)
• During and after the hiatus, I hope to do quite a lot of reading and editing/writing. Usually I'm pretty productive during the hiatus; I generally average a book every two days, and I can often block out an hour or two solid for writing purposes. Hopefully that trend continues. And even after the hiatus, I shouldn't be super busy, so maybe I can keep up the pace?
• One thing I'm super excited for: the announcement of the fairytale for the next Five Something Somethings contest! This contest, run by Anne Elisabeth Stengl and Rooglewood Press, offers the challenge to retell a fairytale in a 20K word novella. It was canceled last year, much to my disappointment, and this is going to be the last year it's going to happen. The fairytale theme and the title of the book will be released on June 1, which means that it'll be time for me to start brainstorming so I can write my novella for July's Camp NaNoWriMo.
• Outside of reading and writing, I hope to keep up with the whole regular-exercise thing. We'll see how it goes; I have rather limited options for where I can walk right now, and I'm getting bored of my main route (which also happens to be the best route for walking in the area).
• There's also some stuff going on in mid-June that will keep me rather busy and might cause another brief hiatus from blogging (though not from the internet as a whole). However, I'm not sure what I can say about it right now, so . . .. yeah. Details will come when they can come.

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

April 2017 Doings!

What. How is April over already? That seems really fast, guys. Where did the time go? It was a super busy month, though, so I guess that explains it. Hopefully I'll be less busy sometime in the future . . . That said, as a friend of mine pointed out, at least the busyness means I'm actually doing things.

Writing!

• I won Camp NaNoWriMo! I hit my goal of 10K words edited on Friday (the 28th), ending the day with 10,054 words.
• The month started out a bit slow. I did get 650-odd words on the first . . . but then I spent the rest of that day, plus all of the next two, writing an immense paper on New Zealand. Which, I will admit, was quite interesting, but it was also quite exhausting.
• Thankfully, after I finished that, I didn't really have many other major projects, save my final speech, so I was able to keep a steady pace for the rest of the month. It helped that, the week before Easter break, my Psych professor had to go out of town, so I had an extra hour to write Monday and Wednesday, plus my awesome hour on Tuesday and Thursday.
• Easter break was also more productive than I expected. I worried that I wouldn't really get anything done, since I'd be spending time with friends and I did need to draft my speech at that point. However, I discovered that I could edit on my phone in the car by using Google Drive, and so I ended up getting an average of 600-odd words every day and it made me immensely happy.
• Despite this, I didn't go quite as far over my goal as I hoped to, mostly because I had to slow down some once I got back to college, and also once I ran into some more difficult scenes. I'm still ok with how I did, though.
• Hopefully I'll start posting chapters sometime very soon. Within-the-next-week-or-two soon. We'll see if that works out or not.

Reading!

• Perhaps because I spent so much time writing (and, as you'll see, watching, and going to events), April was a pretty slow reading month. I finished up the Echoes from the Edge series and meant to buy the new versions right after, but that . . . didn't happen. At this point, I think I'm just going to wait until after finals and get the books then.
• After that, I wanted . . . well, I wanted something light, and I wanted Diana Wynne Jones, and what I thought I wanted was Charmed Life. Except all the library had in the Chrestomanci series was The Pinhoe Egg, so I settled for that . . . and then discovered that it was really what I'd wanted all along.
• I still wanted more Chrestomanci, but unfortunately that wasn't an option, so I went on a general Diana Wynne Jones kick and reread Howl's Moving Castle over Easter break and House of Many Ways when I got back. I'm still on the kick now, as I'm finally reading Hexwood, partially because I have the book anyway and partially because Deborah O'Carroll did a fabulous review of it that made me curious.
• Oh, and I reread Dealing With Dragons, mostly on a whim. Well, I got it out on a whim. Then I reread it because I had it out and I felt obligated. It's a problem. Not really, actually, not in this case. But sometimes.
• And I just now realized that the only new thing I read all month was Hexwood. What is this madness?

 Watching!

• I actually watched a ton of stuff this month. Most of it, naturally, was over Easter break.
  
  
• Most of the month, naturally, was taken up by watching Merlin, mostly because Alana and I had to get through three seasons in a little over a month in order to finish before we both go home for the semester. At the moment, we're a little over halfway through Season 5, so we should be able to get to the end in time.
• Because we've moved so fast through the seasons, I can't really post all my thoughts on them. But, in general:
  • Gwen and Arthur are quite adorable. Also, Gwen is a surprisingly ruthless queen. I approve. Except not right now because that's not the right people to be ruthless at; Gwen what are you doing? But at the beginning of the season, I approved.
  • Why does no one run background checks on servants? Or visiting nobles? Or anyone? I know it's medieval era, but they should be able to do something more than whatever they're currently doing, and I'm pretty sure that would prevent at least 50% of their problems right there.
  • So, my roomie's favorite characters are Gwain and Percival, and I very much understand why. They're quite awesome, especially Gwain. Gwain is fun. If he's not in my top five, he's at least close to there. That said, my favorites of the knights are Lancelot and Elyan. I'm not sure if they're my favorite characters overall, because I love Gwen and I quite like Merlin and usually Arthur. But those are my favorite of the knights for sure.
  • But Lancelot. Whyyyyyyy. It's not ok.
  • Seriously not ok.
  • And then there was that one episode and I thought it was going to be ok for an hour or so? But then Morgana did that and it was even less ok. Whyyyyy.
  • And then Elyan too. Whyyyyyy. Morgana needs to stop messing with my favorite characters.
  • Also, I understand that characters need to make bad life choices sometimes in order for them to be relatable and all, but certain recent life choices by certain characters, particularly in a certain episode which I watched this past week are just stupid. Why.
• All that said: Merlin wasn't the only thing I watched this month! And none of the other things I watched were half as feels-heavy!
  
  
• I am one step closer to catching up on the Marvel universe! Over Easter break, I saw Doctor Strange. As I expected, there was a bit of spiritual weirdness. That aside, I really enjoyed the movie. The character development was really good, and there were some great scenes, both in the funny sense and the serious sense . . . but honestly, one of my favorite bits was the superpowers. The whole reality-warping bit is something I've tried to do with one of my villains and it didn't work so well because I didn't have a good idea of what it would look like, but now that I've seen someone else do it, I'm kind of excited to revisit that story and make it better. Also, time-related powers! Yes! Thank you!
  
  
• Also over Easter break, I finally watched Despicable Me. Yes, I know, it's been out for ages. Yes, I know, I've seen Despicable Me 2 at least a half-dozen times. I wasn't sure how much I'd enjoy it- I like the second one, but worried that the first one would make me cringe more than laugh- but I quite liked it!
• Finally, I got to watch two episodes of Hogan's Heroes, which is basically my favorite old-time TV show. And while I was waiting for that to come on, I ended up watching an episode of MacGyver for the first time, so now I have a slightly less vague idea about what it is. It was pretty good overall, but I still prefer Hogan's Heroes. That said, MacGyver is on Prime, so I may give it another try later on if I have time.
• (You know, between trying to knock some books off my TBR list and catching up on Marvel and finishing the Back to the Future trilogy and watching Indiana Jones because my family watched that without me too . . . Of course I'm not bitter at all. And all the other stuff I want to do this summer.)

Musings!

• Different people have different perspectives of God, right? Some people tend to focus more on certain aspects of His character and others focus more on other aspects. And I think a part of how people see God relates really strongly to the things they're passionate about. For example, I'm a writer and a bookworm, so I tend to see God in the context of the Great Author of history. My Western Lit prof last year was excited about gardening and cooking (in addition to the obvious, books), and she often compared God to a gardener, and once she commented on how the Bible has the world's oldest recipe for beef stock. And a scientist, like the Enlightenment rationalists, might see God more in terms of the Cosmic Designer. And that can be bad in some respects because it's really easy to get fixated on just those aspects of God that fit with your passions. But it can also be good, and it's a major reason why we need to have community with other Christians who have diverse interests, because different people will have different insights, and will understand some concepts better than others, and by sharing those insights, each person in the community can learn a little more about who God is and spiritual life in general.
• It's scary how little is required to turn an OK day into an awful one. One bad class and I can end up frustrated and stressed the rest of the day. One announcement from the prof or realization that something is coming up sooner than I thought and I can easily end up in a panic. One event- sometimes, that's all it takes to determine what color the rest of my day will take. It seems stupid in some respects, that I get so worked up about relatively little things at times. And in other respects, it's terrifying, because I can't be the only one who does this, and how many people's days have I unintentionally ruined through a thoughtless statement or action?
• Even an introvert is not meant to be always alone. We get lonely sometimes. I don't want to constantly be around people, but there are times when I really want people. One of those times is at meals. Food is best if it's enjoyed with someone else. I don't mind eating alone when necessary, but I am convinced that eating alone is one of the loneliest things in life, particularly if you thought you would eat with someone else. Eating alone when you knew you'd be eating alone is one thing. It can almost be enjoyable, and if you end up running into a friend who'll join you, it's a pleasant surprise. But eating alone when you thought you'd have a friend with you is just sad.

Life!

• As you can see, I decided this month to run off and go visit an old German village. It was amazing! So beautiful! So many photography opportunities! My two years of high school German totally came in handy!
• Just kidding. I did actually leave campus this month, which is a bit of a rarity, but I definitely did not go to Germany.
• The picture which is not in a German village is actually my roommate's home library. Yes, it is magnificent. Another girl from our hall and I went home with her for Easter break, and on Monday we went to visit the library because my roommate kept telling me about how amazing it is. She wasn't exaggerating at all; it's like a castle.
• Also over Easter break, we went to the outlet mall, which was surprisingly fun. I needed new dress shoes, so we were looking for that, but it was nice to just sort of wander and look around. Usually when my family goes to any mall, we have fairly specific stores we need to go to and there isn't really any wandering.
• In addition, I got to have dinner at the Cheesecake Factory with my aunt and her family! Catching up with them was nice, and the cousins were cute. Plus, I hadn't actually been to the Cheesecake Factory before, so that was exciting. Also, I now understand this meme:
  
  
• And then we celebrated actual Easter with my roommate's grandparents, who are quite wonderful people, and there was much delicious homemade food both there and at the roommate's actual house. I don't think I realized quite how blessed I was at home to have Mommy's homemade cooking every day until I had to eat dining hall food every day for so long. I mean, Chuck's is good. As dining halls good, we have one of the best in the country. But by this point . . . well, it's getting old.
• Of course, Easter break was only one small weekend!
• Backing up: the weekend before Easter break, my roommate, another friend, and I went to see our college's spring play, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare [Abridged] [Revised]. It was . . . interesting. I don't think I caught all the references because I only really know a half-dozen of Shakespeare's plays. I still enjoyed it, though.
• That same weekend, my roommate and I went down into town and spent the morning at a coffeeshop, like we did last month. We visited a different coffeeshop this time, though. I think I like the first one better for overall writer-y atmosphere, but this one served more breakfasty foods. That said, we've discovered that the best place to get breakfast in cedarville is the Corner Bakery, which has delicious quiches and equally delicious scones. And if you happen to want dessert, not breakfast, their maple-walnut bars and lemon bars are also pretty amazing.
• Anyway. Sort-of-continuing the topic of food: remember how I mentioned last month that I had fancy-ish end-of-year things coming up? One of those things was the PWID Awards Banquet, which took place the day after I got back from Easter break. It was nice. Good food (I haven't had chicken breast in ages, and the chocolate cake was spot-on), and less intimidating than I expected, even if I did end up seated with a complete stranger, without another student for backup . . . And then the banquet ran late, so I had to run across campus in fancy shoes to get to a finals study group meeting.
• Rather more exciting thing that also happened that day: TDK Assassins began! For those who are currently freaking out because SARAH, I THOUGHT YOU WENT TO A CHRISTIAN SCHOOL (or who are just curious): assassins is sort of an elaborate game of tag. Everyone who signs up receives two things: a plastic spoon and the name of one of the other participant. This other participant is your target; your goal is to tap or lightly stab them with the plastic spoon. Once you do this, they're "dead" and you receive the name of their target as your next target. I managed to get first "kill" (a fact that I tried to keep quiet in order to not be considered a threat, though somehow it leaked out), and I also survived until day three, of which I'm rather proud. I would've gotten my second target too, except she slept through both chapel and her first class . . . I think it's going to become an annual thing (the game, not this particular person oversleeping), so I'm quite excited for next year. Hopefully I'll do even better then.
• Also I attended three concerts this week! Which meant I spent a few days feeling quite fancy and cultured and all that sort of thing.
  
  • The first was a farewell concert by one of the music profs, the former head of the music department actually. It was also the world premier of a set of pieces by another music prof. Those two factors meant that literally everyone was there: the university president and other officials, all the professor's former and current students, the head of the honors program (who also happens to teach the philosophy part of Honors and is my favorite professor ever) . . . I got there fifteen minutes earlier and still ended up sitting in the very back. Because it was such a Big Deal, this concert also included a fancy reception with cake and little tarts and macarons. You know something's fancy when there are macarons there. The tarts and macarons were delicious; I can't speak for the cake. Also, I managed to meet the philosophy prof's wife, so that was fun.
  • The second concert was the symphonic band concert. I realized in hindsight that I have several friends in said band, so I could've said I was there because they were playing or something. Actually, I only went because I happened to have time after the Communications Department end-of-year celebration (more good food- barbeque, macaroni and cheese, fruit, and desserts, including peanut butter cookies with Reese's Cups in the middle) and the posters said the band was playing something called the "Steampunk Suite." It wasn't quite as amazing as I hoped, but I still enjoyed it.
  • Finally, I went to the jazz band concert, partially because I have a friend in jazz band, and partially because I discovered last semester that I actually enjoy some jazz. (For context: I spent most of my life thinking that I heartily disliked jazz; then the jazz band provided music for chapel one day and I realized, "Oh my pumpernickel, this is so fun!") By the end of the concert, I'd realized that I don't understand jazz any better than I understand any other type of music, but I did enjoy it very much. I also had "Jericho" stuck in my head for a few hours afterwards, but there are worse songs to have stuck in your head . . .
• To finish out the month: tonight is the end-of-year celebration for the Honors Org. We're having a formal soiree, and I'm not quite sure what that means? But the invitation says "food, fellowship, and jollification," and the people running it have mentioned games, so it should be all good. Feel free to ask me in comments how it went, if you're curious.

May Plans!

• I'm going home! There's less than a week left until summer break! Huzzah!
• Except before that, I have to survive finals. I have three, and only one is cumulative, so it should've terrible. Prayers would be nice anyway, if you don't mind, especially since I got the date of one of the finals mixed up and so didn't start studying as soon as I perhaps should've.
• But after that- home! freedom! family! homemade food!
• Yes, I think about food a lot. How very observant of you to notice. I'm pretty sure that's a common trait of college students, though.
• I am a little sad about the semester ending, since it means I have to say goodbye to my roommate and my friend and everyone, and some of them either are not or might not be coming back. I don't think I realized until I came here how much I'd missed having people my own age around while I was in New York. But I'm still looking forward to seeing my family and having more time for creative stuff and all that.
• I need to keep editing Fight Song, obviously, particularly if I'm going to start posting soon. Plus I'd like to get back to work on Destinies and Decisions at some point in the near future. And I think I might have some photos I need to edit from last summer? I could be wrong about that, though.
• Also I have, like, two or three seasons' worth of book releases to catch up on, so that's going to be fun.
• And I want to do some movie-watching, namely the rest of the Back to the Time trilogy and more Marvel. And hopefully Indiana Jones as well. I don't think I'll get in all of that during May, though; it'll have to be spread over the summer.
• Also, there will be photography. Some of the people from our photo club in Virginia are running a photography tour of an abandoned factory/steel mill, or at least what's left of it, and we're going and I'm very excited.
• I'm also hoping to join in on Nadine Brandes' #Walk30Days Challenge. With luck, that'll be enough to keep me moving once I get home, because I definitely need to exercise . . . I kind of slacked off over the winter, because it was cold outside and I didn't want to leave the dorm more than necessary. Also, I was busy. Obviously. But, yeah, we'll see if that actually happens or if my motivation peters out halfway through the month because books/editing/movies/whatever seem more interesting.
• Other than that . . . there may be some travel, but I don't know exactly what the plans for that look like yet. We'll see. The month overall should be pretty chill- it has to be; I won't have classes or homework to deal with!

How's your April been? Have any big plans for May? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade) 

March 2017 Doings!

Hey'a, everyone! How's everyone doing? For me, March on the whole was pretty busy. However, it was also pretty awesome for a variety of reasons, not least of which was that I got to go home! But more on that later; let's start with the writing, as usual.

Writing!

• Overall, I had a pretty decent writing and editing month: roughly 4.4K words edited and 1.6K words written. I'd hoped for more, what with spring break, but I'm still pretty satisfied.
• Also, I'd forgotten how much work writing a fight scene can be . . . also how much research it can take, because I'm pretty sure I spent half the time googling some variation on "What happens if you're stabbed in X location?" or "Will a sword pierce chain maille?" (For those curious: the answer to the latter question is no. Chain maille is actually pretty effective, as long as it's well-made. Also, for cosplaying purposes, you can make chain maille out of soda can tabs. Just throwing that out there.)
• All that was for editing. Writing-wise, most of the 1.6K was in an attempted short story inspired by psych class and Pinterest, which kind of fizzled out after the first scene- oh well. Next month will be better, hopefully.
• One exciting thing: I fulfilled a writer stereotype by writing at a coffeeshop for the first time ever! My roommate and I have been thinking of spending a morning in town- hanging out for an hour or so at one of the little coffeeshops, stopping at the thrift store (in search of costume pieces for me and random stuff for her), and getting treats at the bakery- for a while, and we finally managed to do it last weekend. I was productive, which made me happy, and the coffeeshop we chose had an old-time feel to it that was super inspiring. We're definitely going to do this more often.

Reading!

• Wait, I only read five books last month? I could've sworn-
• Oh, WAIT. One of them was a Wheel of Time book. That explains everything.
• Backing up: I quite enjoyed East, which I finished a few days into the month. I feel like the ending could've been better; though all the plot threads tied up nicely, it felt . . . I don't know. Mildly distant. Otherwise, I very much enjoyed it. And it made me want to work on Monster in the Castle again, but that certainly wasn't happening . . .
• Then I returned to The Fires of Heaven, which lasted me all of spring break. Overall, my thoughts on it were roughly the same as my thoughts on almost every other Wheel of Time book: a bit of a slow beginning (made worse by the fact that I didn't remember who half the names belonged to), a middle that alternated between interesting and aggravating (depending how stubborn the characters were being), several false climaxes, and a real climax and ending featuring much impressive magic-slinging and plot twisting. (One of the plot twists- regarding the death of a Certain Character who I expected to live to the end of the series- did leave me rather in shock for a while, and I'm still hovering on the edge of "We didn't see a body!" denial.) Oh, and also as usual, Mat was awesome and probably one of the best parts of the book. Can we have a whole book of just Mat and Lan and Nynaeve with occasional scenes of Rand being dramatic and the Aes Sedai scheming rather than the other way 'round?
• Then I got back to the college and reading time went out the window for a while except for research. The next two books on my list- Toxic Charity and Compassion, Justice, and the Christian Life were both for a speech on the impoverished in America. They were fairly interesting. Not amazing, but interesting and eye-opening.
• And, finishing out the month, we have a reread of the Echoes from the Edge! I finished Beyond the Reflection's Edge on Monday, and currently I'm working on Eternity's Edge, which I think was my least favorite in the trilogy. I'm not entirely sure why. Overall, I'm enjoying the books, though not as much as I did the first time I read them. It's very clear that these were written early in Mr. Davis's career, given how heavy-handed certain themes come off. Once I finish the series, I'm going to buy the rewritten version and see how the two compare.

Watching!

• Over spring break, I finally watched the first Back to the Future after discovering that my mom and sister had watched them without me in February-ish. Obviously I can't let my sister watch such an iconic movie and not experience it myself, so we got the whole trilogy out from the library and a few days into break, my sister and I settled in to enjoy the first one. I enjoyed it, though it was different than I expected- it's one of the movies that I've heard a ton about, and I knew most of the major plot twists before I watched it, but I didn't know how those twists were going to happen. I had hoped to watch the other two on break as well, but I didn't have time.
• However, my family also watched (or, in my case, re-watched) the first two Night at the Museum movies. I'd forgotten how funny they are- and the second one is especially fun, since I'm pretty familiar with D.C. and the Smithsonian museums. Also, Kahmunrah is a pretty fabulous villain. Just saying.
• In other news: still working on Merlin. My roommate and I finally finished Season Two, and we're one episode into Season Three. Hopefully we'll get to watch more this weekend, because the last episode ended in a cliffhanger. I'm still upset over "The Last Dragonlord," though. Why can't Merlin be happy for once? Why does he have to keep losing people? It's not fair.
• (Also, thing I'm mildly confused about- what's the proper way to signify an episode name? Does it go in quotation marks like a short story? Or should it go in italics? Anyone know?)

Musings!

• I am continually bewildered by the differences between who I am, how I see myself, and how others see me. One friend who knows me only online expresses surprise that I'm far more quiet in appearance than I am in online personality. Another friend, an offline one this time, says "You don't seem like the type to romanticize," and I think "Oh, if you could just see inside my head, you'd never say that, not in a million years!" It's just strange how even people with whom you know you're genuine can have such different views of you, and it makes me wonder how the way I see people differs from how they see themselves.
• How much difference would changing history really make? One thinks that it would make all the difference. Yet for many of us, unless you prevented some development, not some event, everyday life would still probably look about the same.

Life!

• Spring break! I got to go home! I hadn't been home since January, y'all. Getting to go back for a week was absolutely awesome.
• Besides the movie-watching that I already mentioned, I worked ahead a bit in schoolwork, did some editing and writing, a bit of crafting, went to youth group, and generally had a lovely time. (Except for the afternoon I spent trying to do taxes- well, doing them wasn't that hard, but submitting them went rather less well. But otherwise it was good.)
• Then I had to come back and immediately started low-key panicking because oh my goodness our advocacy speech is in two weeks roommate we need to get WORKING! That's more or less what I said too; my roomie will confirm. We did get in done in time, though, gave it a week ago, and did really well!
• The week of the speech, basically all my free time was spent following Kendra E. Ardnek's Indie e-Con. For those of you who weren't aware of its existence: Indie e-Con was a virtual gathering of indie authors featuring posts on writing, marketing, editing, and other aspects of writing and publishing; games; Q&A posts; critique opportunities; and more. It was fun, though kind of overwhelming. If you're disappointed you missed it, you can still go back and read the posts. Plus, there's going to be another e-Con next year, and you can join the mailing list to get more information!
• More or less as soon as I finished researching the speech (though not before we gave the speech), I launched into my next major class project: research for a Cultural Anthropology paper (which I'm writing about the culture of New Zealand). At this point, I'm basically done with that, after spending part of almost every afternoon in the library for two weeks. I just have to wait for the interview responses to come in (yay for having friends in the country!) and then actually write the thing. 
• As I mentioned earlier, my roommate and I went in town last Saturday, which was super fun. It was also a nice break after a pretty stressful week, since I got to do basically nothing school-related all morning.
• Oh, and I'm officially registered for classes, so huzzah for that. I'm going to be taking mostly major classes next semester, which I'm pretty excited for- so far, I've only had one major class, and that one's online only, so it hardly counts.

April Plans!

• I'm doing Camp NaNoWriMo! No, I'm not crazy; as soon as I get the anthropology paper written, I'll be done with just about everything major except finals. And I'm only going for about 10K, and I'm editing, so it should be all good. Right?
• Also, if anyone wants to join my cabin, let me know. I've still got room, thanks to NaNo increasing the cabin size. (We've got about ten people at the moment, mostly female, all Christian speculative fiction writers at the moment. If that matters.) I'd love to have you; the more the merrier!
• Most of April should be pretty chill, or as chill as a Camp NaNo month can be, anyway. Looking at my calendar, the first half of April has next to nothing on it. I'm hoping to get as much done on writing and such as I can during that time, since things will get busier after Easter break.
• For those curious: I'm not going home for Easter. NY is waaaaay too far away to make the drive just for a weekend.
• After Easter, I suspect that finals prep will start up. Also, there'll be end of year celebrations . . . which make me a bit nervous, honestly. I mean, I enjoy a social event now and then? And I know that one will be really small and the other will be larger, but still cool. But both of them are formal things? And I'm not really used to formal? And I'm mildly freaking out even though I'm excited? So yeah, that's happening.
• The roommate and I need to watch Merlin. Specifically, we need to be done with at least the season by the end of the month. We'll probably have time over Easter break, though . . . fingers crossed that it works out!
• I feel like there's something else happening in April, but I have no idea what it is. Hopefully I remember sometime soon. Oh well.

How's your March been? Do you have any exciting plans for April? Or even unexciting ones? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)