July 2024 Doings!

Hello, everyone! July  has been a busy and exciting month — but, you know, in a very good (if also very tiring) way. The big news of the month has already been going around the internet, but it bears repeating one more time, and there's plenty more to say, so let's get going!

Writing!

• If you missed the big news: Song of the Selkies won not just the fantasy novel category of the Realm Awards but also the Book of the Year award! I did not expect this at all (not in a "I don't think I deserve it" way, more in a "This seems like such a huge dream that I forgot it was possible" way), but needless to say, I'm thrilled and delighted. I'm also glad I could actually be at the awards ceremony to receive the award in person — it was an incredible night (but more on that later).
• Outside of that (very exciting) news, I don't have a lot to report. I didn't do much writing this month until this past week when I started edits on Onora's story, but that's not a bad thing. It was nice to take some time off from big projects to enjoy Realm Makers and see family and friends. I did dabble a little on assorted small projects, just for fun, and I worked on D&D writing, but that's about it.
• I did put together the cover for Onora's story, though! It was a bit of a headache to find decent images and put them together, but I finally got something I'm satisfied with (thanks in part to help from a friend who was able to diagnose where my problems were when I was stuck). Keep an eye out in the next month or so for the cover reveal!

Reading!

• This was a little bit of a lighter reading month — though that tends to be a side-effect of travel.
• The highlight of the month was definitely City of Serpents, the latest Secrets of Ormdale novel! I posted my thoughts on this book earlier this month, but to sum up, I loved spending more time with established characters and meeting new ones, and the story was excellent as ever.
• I spent a lot of the month reading three different anthologies: Unexpected Encounters of the Draconic Kind, Wags, Woofs, and Wonders, and DOSA Files Volume 1. I like anthologies for busy months, as it's easier to find a good stopping point and still feel satisfied, and all three of these contained some excellent stories. I mean, yes, I'm a little biased on two of them, but still . . .
• My other new-to-me reads were The Adventure Zone: The Eleventh Hour, The Lost World, and Down with the Prince. Surprisingly, The Lost World was my favorite of these — it's an adventure story by Arthur Conan Doyle about an expedition to a remote region where dinosaurs haven't died out, and while I can see why it's not as well-known as Sherlock Holmes, it was still exciting and a generally fun read. The Eleventh Hour was also good, with a nice balance of humor and really hard-hitting feels. Down With the Prince . . . I may have set my hopes a little too high with this one; the blurb and general vibes seemed really promising, but I didn't jive with certain aspects of the story, and I also think the prose could've benefited from another editing pass.
• Finally, I'm continuing to enjoy Dracula via Dracula Daily and various Sherlock Holmes stories via Letters from Watson. I haven't consistently done a good job keeping up with all my books-by-email subscriptions, but I still say it's an excellent way to read the classics.

 Watching & Playing!

• I have finally seen The Mummy (1999)! I kept hearing so many good things about this movie — first from my college roommate, then from various corners of the internet — but as has been established, I am really bad about actually watching movies, regardless of how much I want to see them. I also really wanted to see it with my former roommate if I could, since I knew how much she loved it. So, when I visited her on my way to Realm Makers and we were looking for something to watch, I suggested this, and she and her family enthusiastically agreed.
• Having now watched it, I see why so many people love it so much! I don't think it's my new favorite movie, but I would definitely watch it again. Evie, Rick, and Jonathan are all excellent protagonists — Rick especially. He has a very sensible approach to things, y'know? And you have to love the snark. As far as the story goes, I enjoyed that as well. There were a few bits when I had to shut my eyes or look away from the screen (mostly some of the bug scenes), but overall, it was a good time.
• My family also watched The Music Man for Independence Day (well, a few days after Independence Day, but it still counts). I don't have much to say about it other than I still love this movie.
• As far as podcasts and gaming . . . nothing much to report. I'm still mostly listening to Dracula Daily and Lateral, with the occasional episode of E.A. Hendryx's Productivity and Prose podcast thrown in for variety's sake. And I continue to thoroughly enjoy Honkai Star Rail! July's gaming time was mostly spent on story-relevant sidequests, but I finally started the Penacony storyline (the third or fourth chapter of the main story, depending on how you classify the beginning of the game) this past week. I have heard many, many things about this quest and setting, and I am simultaneously nervous and excited. I have enjoyed what I've played so far, though, even if I'm kind of side-eyeing everyone.

 Life!

• The big event of July, of course, was Realm Makers — and because my sister and several of my friends live halfway between me and the conference, I decided to visit them for a few days, turning my conference journey into a just-over-a-week-long trip.
• I spent the first couple days of the trip at my college roommate's house, visiting with her and playing lots of Sentinels of the Multiverse. We haven't really played Sentinels since my sister moved out, so this was a very good time. This is also when I watched The Mummy, as I mentioned earlier.
• From there, I drove down to my sister's house and stayed there for a few more very busy days. I visited her church, joined in her weekly dinner with her friends, and got to put faces to many names that I'd heard frequently. We also visited some family and had a game-and-cheese night with a couple of my D&D friends, which was a delight. We did find some time to just chill together, though, and I really appreciated that.
• Then, on Wednesday, I repacked my stuff and set off for St. Louis! For whatever reason, that drive felt so much longer than the drive out to my roommate's and sister's area had, even though it was about the same length or a little shorter. (I'm going to guess that it's because it was a really boring drive. I like driving in Ohio, but once you get further west, it kinda turned into a whole lot of nothing.) I made it to the hotel, however, and met up with Wyn Owens, with whom I was once again rooming for the conference. Despite both of us being tired from travel, we had a grand time chatting with each other and with assorted others we bumped into.
• The conference properly started Thursday evening with a keynote from Allen Arnold, which was really good. The highlight of the day, however, was getting to help playtest an SVR-themed tabletop roleplaying game that H.L. Burke is developing — she ran a one-shot (set at a writers' conference, naturally), and we had a whole crew of heroes assembled to save the authors from the villain, the dreaded Red Pen (who does not believe in the Oxford comma). The game was chaotic, to say the least, but it was a lot of fun, and we did successfully save the day!
• Friday night was the Awards Banquet, which was amazing . . . and not just for the obvious reasons. I went in costume, of course, though I didn't go as a specific character. I was the Lady Dragon Keeper, which basically means I had a medieval-y dress and some of the dragons my sister has made me, including a new one that attaches to the shoulder of my dress with magnets. The costume wasn't elaborate, but it served its main purposes, which was to show off the dragons and let me tell others how cool my sister is.
• I did not participate in the costume contest, but Wyn did, wearing a Princess Zelda cosplay that featured a very impressive dragon puppet . . . that actually moved. Because her arm was inside it. She had a separate fake arm and everything; it was very convincing. I mean, I saw her put the costume on, and I still had to do double-takes all evening! She was one of the five finalists called up on stage for the Best Costume cheer-off, and after the first round of cheers, the MCs could only narrow it down to a top three, of which she was one. What was meant as a tiebreaker round after that only confirmed the tie, so the MCs then announced that there would be a third try, but this time, everyone could only cheer for one costume. This time, there was enough difference that the MCs could determine a winner: Wyn and her Zelda costume!
• After that excitement, we moved straight into the book awards. I was a lot less nervous this year than last year, but I still was feeling a little anxious as we approached the Fantasy Novel category (which was the fourth-to-last category to be announced). I spend a lot of time around these awards trying to talk down my chances, so when they announced the second-place winner and it wasn't Song of the Selkies, I told myself that I was probably just a finalist but that even that was amazing . . . and then Scott Minor, reading the first line of the winning book, said "As betrothal ceremonies go," Wyn screamed quietly, and I had a delighted realization that I was not just a finalist.
• Walking back (somewhat in a daze) from the stage, I briefly realized "I guess this means I'm technically eligible for the Book of the Year award; that's wild." Of course, I knew there were a lot of other amazing books also winning awards, so my chances still seemed pretty slim — and they seemed slimmer still when Scott reminded those gathered that some second-place winners would might be Book of the Year finalists simply because of how many points they'd earned.
• Then, two books into the finalist list, he announced "Song of the Selkies, by Sarah Pennington, Independently Published," and I had another "Oh. Oh MY," moment. Still, even a finalist position was more than I'd expected — and when he announced Suspended in the Stars by E.A. Hendryx as another finalist a moment later, I felt like I had a pretty good idea who was going to win. If I got second place, that would be incredible.
• He announced the second-place winner — not me. I thought "Well, Book of the Year finalist and Best Fantasy Novel is still amazing, and I am very excited for Emilie. Her book sounds awesome; I'm sure she's earned this."
• And then Scott read the first few words of the Book of the Year's first line: "As betrothal ceremonies go . . ."
• Wyn screamed (quietly, again).
• I attempted to process the fact that something I didn't even think was a possibility had just happened.
• Somehow I made it back on the stage. It was probably very obvious to everyone that I was very flustered and more than a little in shock, but hopefully it was also very obvious that I was delighted and surprised.
• It was a very good night.
• All that said, the awards were not actually the best part of the conference — the best part was spending time with friends, chatting about life, books, and whatever else came up, and getting to actually hug all the people I want to be able to hug the other 360 days of the year that aren't Realm Makers or RM-adjacent. To that end, I actually ended up skipping a few of the sessions so I would have more time to spend talking to people (and so I wouldn't have to rush through lunch one of the days).
• The sessions I did attend were very good, though. Allen Arnold's "Slaying the Seven-Headed Story Beast" was less craft-focused than what I normally do, but it was very insightful and helpful. I was a little worried after the first session, which hit on an insecurity I was struggling a lot with at the beginning of the year, but the last session kind of gave me . . . I'm not sure if it was a push in a particular direction, a sign that a couple things I've been thinking about doing (or not doing) were ok, or both, but whatever it was, it was good.
• Less good: the journey back from the conference, which involved two eight-hour driving days in a row. That was very long and very tiring, especially since I didn't sleep much Saturday night, I got a later-than-ideal start on Sunday, and it rained all day Monday (when I was going through the mountains). Next year, I'm going to break up the drive a little better and give myself more of a break between travel days. Still, I made it home in one piece, and for that, I'm grateful.
• This post is already long, so I'll make the recap of the rest of the month quick. Work has generally been quiet, especially since people have been out of the office most of the month. My family celebrated Independence Day with our Bible study, as usual, enjoying smoked pulled pork barbecue and the televised DC fireworks. The following week, I made cornmeal cookies from B. Dylan Hollis's video, but they did not turn out as intended — they spread a lot. I do not think I will repeat that particular recipe. On the crafting front, I finished the embroidery on both my Cosmere pin hoop and a Schlock Mercenary pin hoop; now I just need to assemble them into their final forms. I'm generally pleased with how both have turned out. Now I'm back to crocheting creatures.
• And that wraps it up! It's been a busy month, but a very good one.

August Plans

• We're back to working on Onora's story! I will be spending all month editing. Joy. (This is my least favorite part of the writing process.) Thankfully, my beta readers have all given me really good feedback, and I am very appreciative . . . but that does not make me any more excited about having to figure out how to implement it. Ah well. I will survive, and both the story and I will be the better for it. I think we should also be getting a cover reveal sometime this month, so keep an eye out for that!
• Work is getting busier again as we move towards fall and the accompanying flurry of events. We're doing something different (to me) for the fall kickoff event, and I am a little bit nervous about that, but I'm trying to be optimistic. If it goes well and has the desired result (more people volunteering instead of the same half-dozen people doing everything), it'll provide a big improvement for all the ministry staff and current volunteers, so . . . hopefully it goes well. It's not until September, but a lot of the prep is happening now.
• I should be back to blogging this month, if all goes well. I also need to get busy on the next D&D adventure, since we'll need at least the first part of it in a couple weeks.
• I will not be starting a new grad school class this month, as I've decided to only do one class this semester. While that will delay my finishing date a little, it'll also allow me to focus more of my energy on my next book release instead of splitting my attention and stressing myself out. For the record, this decision is part of how I'm implementing what I learned in Allen Arnold's Story Beast talks — he had a lot to say about the lure of busy-ness and the dangers of trying to do too many good things, and that resonated a lot. My intention is wait on the class so I can get Onora's story finished and finished well, and then scale back to a lighter writing schedule in October so I can give the class the attention it deserves. (I do still need to figure out what class that's going to be and register for it, though.)

How was your July? Any plans for August? Were you at Realm Makers (and if so, what was your favorite part)? How well do you handle long drives? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

 

July 2023 Doings!

Hello everyone! Questionably fun fact: I completely forgot that I was supposed to write a Doings! post this week until about 6:20 yesterday morning. In my defense, it's been a weird month and a weird week, and I am tired. July was a good month, but it was far from a restful one. And if you want to know what I mean, well, that's what this post is for, so let's get on with the Doings!

Writing!

• Well, this has definitely been an exciting month on the writing front! We started out with the release of the Fellowship of Fantasy Wags, Woofs, and Wonders anthology on July 6. I didn't end up doing as much as I wanted with that release, but thankfully the other authors were much more with it. It's currently available in both ebook and paperback formats, so if you'd like to enjoy some feel-good short stories featuring magical doggos and guaranteed happy endings, go ahead and pick that up.
• The week after the anthology release was, of course, the Realm Makers writing conference. I had a great time at the conference, and I'll talk more about that in the Life! section, but there is one element of the conference that I want to mention here . . . which is, of course, the fact that Through a Shattered Glass won the novella category of the Realm Awards! I've said this a few times now, but I was thrilled and honored just to be on the finalist list, and actually winning is amazing. (I am also very proud of myself for managing to not embarrass myself when I went up to receive the award, as I sometimes get nervous around large crowds, and I definitely did not prepare as much as I intended.)
• The last bit of exciting news: shortly after returning from Realm Makers, I announced my next book release: Song of the Selkies, a roleswap Little Mermaid retelling that will release September 19 as part of the Stolen Songs Arista Challenge group. If you want to learn more, click here and check out my cover reveal post! I also finished drafting this novel in July, the day after the cover reveal — yes, I'm cutting it closer than I normally do, but we'll be fine. Even the first draft of this book turned out really well and has gotten great feedback from betas so far, so I'm excited to get to release it into the world.
• Even aside from all the exciting stuff, July has been a really good writing month for me. I ended up writing almost 43K words this month, spread out across three different projects. Finishing Song of the Selkies took most of those words — just over 32K — and involved a lot of 1K+ days. And my last two days of work on it both had a wordcount of around 5K, which is a lot for me! Additionally, I wrote another 4.6K words on the fourth Bastian Dennel, PI book, which isn't a ton but is respectable for the fact that I was only actively working on it for about a week. Finally, I wrote about 6K words in my D&D Feygate adventure, which has been so much fun to put together. The Middle Earth adventure was nice in that I had the storyline laid out, and I just had to translate it into D&D, but I've missed getting to do my own thing. I'm currently having a grand time coming up with potential scenarios, NPCs, and so forth, and I very much look forward to actually running them. We've already played two sessions of the adventure, and people seem to like it so far, so I'd call that a good sign.

Reading!

• July was also an excellent reading month, as you can probably see. Most of what I read continued my Ranger's Apprentice reread, which has been a lot of fun. As I said last month, rediscovering this series has been a lot of fun, and the books hold up impressively well. At this point, I'm done with the reread portion of it, and I'm in between the two Early Years books, which are new-to-me reads. Well, technically, Goodreads claims I read The Tournament at Gorlan back in 2015, but I have no memory of doing so, and that was before I did Doings! posts, so . . . who knows? I certainly don't.
• We only have four new reads for the month. A Storm Grows is a book of poetry by Janeen Ippolito, which I primary read for purposes of a reading challenge. Power Through was my Realm Makers read — I like to read something by a Realmie author while I'm at the conference, and so far, that author has been H.L. Burke both years. Power Through is the third book in Burke's young adult superhero series, and I quite enjoyed it. Of course, it had Wildfyre in it, as well as peak dad!Fade, Voidling, and Jake and Marco both doing some growing, so the odds were very much in its favor. Finally, we have volumes 11 and 12 of Fullmetal Alchemist, both of which I really liked. I don't know why I enjoyed them more than I have previous installments? But they were both very good, especially Volume 12. (Speaking of things I can't explain: I somehow, in the space of approximately three books, got attached to Lanfan, who is very much a secondary character at this point, and I do not know how or why, other than I seriously respect both her courage and dedication.)
• So, yes. The other few books I read are all rereads, and I have nothing much to say about any of them other than that Gothel and the Maiden Prince, like most of W.R. Gingell's work, stands up very well the second time around, as does the Ticket to Write anthology.

Watching!

• Not a lot to report here, since lots of writing, plus travel, means I don't have much time to watch things in the evenings. That said, I did watch How to Steal a Million and North by Northwest towards the start of the month. I very much enjoyed How to Steal a Million — I love a good heist story, and the setup for this one was so fun. Plus, the lead actors played off each other very well.
• North by Northwest, I was a bit less of a fan of — conceptually, it was cool, with the whole "ordinary man gets mistaken for a spy and then has to go on the run" thing, and the action and adventure was great, but the romance elements weren't really my thing. Ah well.

Life!

Left to right: Wyn Estelle Owens as Breen from Mechanical Heart, me as a steampunk cowgirl (feat. my Realm Award!), and Kendra E. Ardnek as the Gardener from her Austen Fairy Tale (which is very good and you should read it).

• July was, as already stated, a busy month, but it was still a very good month for many reasons. And reason number one, above and beyond anything else that happened, was that it was the first (and only) month this summer in which all my immediate family members were in the same place for the majority of the time. My mom came back from my grandpa's the first weekend of July, and it was so nice to have her home again.
• We didn't end up doing anything much for Independence Day, even though we were all home. Usually, our Bible Study would get together, but so many people were out of town that it just didn't happen. That said, I'm not really complaining . . .
• But now we come to the highlight of the month, which was, of course, REALM MAKERS! Though this was my second year attending, it still had a lot of firsts for me: first time flying solo, first time at the St. Louis location (which I'd heard so many good things about from friends), first formal book signing thing . . .
  • After the craziness of last year (amid which I almost missed the start of the conference), I opted to fly out on Wednesday before the conference. That was definitely the right choice, even though plane schedules meant I ended up arriving super early that day — 9am St. Louis Time. Thankfully, navigating the airport on both sides was much easier than I expected, especially since my dad ended up leaving on the same day and at roughly the same time for a business trip, so I wasn't trying to do everything myself on the way out. And the early arrival time gave me some good writing hours and plenty of time to catch up with friends (namely, Kendra E. Ardnek and Wyn Owens) before the conference proper.
  • It also gave me time to run the Realm Makers-themed one-page RPG one-shot I'd prepared, which was super fun. What happens when three wizards' creature companions — an octopus (who would like you to know that he's a totally normal human man, not an octopus, why would you think he's an octopus), a hyperactive weasel, and a prim and self-absorbed cat — have to defeat the mad inventor and his machines that have put their wizards to sleep? Much chaos, that's what — including, but not limited to, the weasel overdosing on coffee, the octopus using the weasel as a projectile weapon, and the cat deciding that she was, in fact, a god. They did successfully wake their wizards, though, so that's good.
  • Thursday, I helped out with the registration desk in the morning (which was nice because I got to meet some people and also felt like I could recognize people later), and then the conference officially opened in the afternoon. The keynote address with Steven Laube was excellent, focusing mostly on the idea and value of wonder. Also excellent was going to dinner with Wyn and Katie Hanna and chatting about our various books and ideas and tropes and whatnot. (Katie Hanna, by the way, is writing a Western fantasy series that sounds fabulous). Additionally, Thursday was when I finished writing the climax of Song of the Selkies, which was most exciting. 
  • Friday and Saturday were both very busy days, with lots of great sessions. For my continuing sessions, I attended Charlie Holmberg's "Speculative Worldbuilding" series, which was interesting. Some of it I felt like I already knew, but it was cool to see her process and hear her advice and thoughts. She tends to do map-first worldbuilding, which is not my usual approach, but I do see how effective it can be. I also attended a two-part elective by Donald Maass on writing series characters, which gave me some principles I think will be super helpful as I continue to write my Bastian Dennel books. My one complaint about that elective was that the two parts were scheduled right after lunch on Friday and Saturday, so I kept having to rush out of lunch to make it to the talks on time.
  • Friday was also the Awards Banquet, which was exciting for a multitude of reasons. There's the obvious one, of course — the fact that I was one of the people who received an award. I also had fun dressing up; I decided to go as a steampunk cowgirl at the last minute, and I had a grand time talking in an accent that would have done Quincy Morris proud. (As a bonus, I discovered that I actually look rather good in a cowboy hat, if I do say so myself!) Also, Wyn decided to dress up as my character Breen from Mechanical Heart, and I think I might have gotten just as excited about that as I did about the award. I'm not even joking. Additionally, we got to sit with a couple who we'd met at the 2022 Realm Makers, and it was nice to catch up with them. (I should probably go find and friend them on Facebook, but I . . . have not managed to do that yet.) And we ended the night with several rounds of Bring Your Own Book, which is always a delight.
  • The conference ended on Saturday with the book fair. The book fair includes an opportunity to get your books signed by Realm Makers faculty and Realm Awards winners, so that was kind of my first official author signing event! I will admit that I kind of missed being able to wander around the vendor hall like I did last year . . . but it was also nice to get to sit in a comparatively quiet area and meet people and actually have conversations without struggling to hear. And, let's be real, I spent way less money than I would have if I had nothing to do but walk around the vendors.
• So, yes. All in all, Realm Makers 2023 was just as great as it was in 2022 — better, in some ways. The hotel was more comfortable, for one thing, and I didn't feel quite so perpetually overwhelmed. I will say that, contrary to what one might expect, the best and most exciting part wasn't the awards ceremony or the book fair or getting to meet authors I look up to or anything like that. Rather, it was the opportunity to see people like Kendra, Wyn, and Katie in person and the fact that I got to spend four days in the company of people who love the same things I love. That's the biggest reason I went back in 2023, and it's the biggest reason I hope to return again next year (Lord and finances willing).
• The last big event of July was both sad and happy, as my little sister officially moved to another state for her first job out of college at the end of the month. I'm happy for her; I know she's going to be doing something that she enjoys and can get excited about the way I can get excited about my work. Plus, she'll be close to many of her friends, and she has a great church community up there. At the same time, though, having to say goodbye in the knowledge that she won't be back next summer was sad, and I miss having her around and being able to talk to her about stuff. I mean, we've done several video calls since she left, but it's not the same. (Plus, my mom went back to Pennsylvania for a few weeks at the same time, so . . . yeah.)
• I think that about covers it. Work is work, crafting and baking have barely happened . . . My D&D group did get in a few sessions, which were intense. We're trying to take down one of our nemeses, and he's the literal worst, and two of the party members have lost NPCs who they were super close to. One of the party members actually retired over it, so that was doubly sad. The player is still in the group and made a new character, but still . . . sadness. Oh, and the DM said that we're probably only a couple levels away from the end of the campaign, which is . . . terrifying. Exciting! But terrifying! The group will continue with new adventures, though, so we can look forward to that.

August Plans

• My number one plan for August is to do LOTS of edits on Song of the Selkies, plus formatting, tour prep, and all that good stuff. The fact that the book turned out way longer than I planned means I'm on a tight schedule now. I'm committed to making sure everything is done on time, but I do not expect it to be easy. 
• And it will only be made more difficult by the fact that my next semester of grad school starts at the end of the month. I thought about delaying and having overlapping classes again like I did last year, or even about only doing one class this semester, but I know that if I delay grad school stuff every time I have a busy writing season, it'll take me ten years to finish this degree, and the goal is not to do that, thank you.
• In between edits and class work, I'll continue working on Bastian Dennel, PI #4 and my D&D Feygate adventure. I'd like to finish the Feygate adventure this month, and I think that's a pretty reasonable goal, especially since I'm well over half done already.
• I have no idea what will happen on the blogs. I have some regularly-scheduled posts that will need to go up, and I would prefer not to take too long of a hiatus (especially as I know I may take another semi-hiatus sometime in the fall), so hopefully we'll be back to the regularly-scheduled weekly stuff? Assumed I don't get slapped in the face by the need to do three million things?
• Work will probably be busy, but I don't expect it to be notably busier than usual. I do have both the newsletter and Stewardship campaign materials this month, but those are usually pretty enjoyable projects, so I'm not super worried. I'm a little more worried about our directory project, but it'll probably be fine.
• I also want to do some more bread-baking with my fresh herbs while I have fresh herbs to bake with, but we'll see how that works out.
• I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but whatever. My basic goal for August is to survive, edit all the words, and not miss any deadlines. That should be doable, right?

How was your July? What are you looking forward to in August? Did you go to Realm Makers, or have you gone in the past? If so, what was YOUR most exciting part? Have you been doing more new-reading or rereading lately? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

 

July 2022 Doings!

 

This was SUCH a good month, y'all. It was also a very busy month, which meant I spent a fair bit of it stressed, but still, SO GOOD. Am I partially saying that because I just got back from Realm Makers and I'm still really happy about how it went? Sure. But there were plenty of other reasons to be pleased with my July as well. That said, we're going to do things a little out of order and start with the Life section, since that's where all the exciting news is.

Life!

• REALM MAKERS!
• But first . . .
• This month was kind of interesting in that I had something going on pretty much every weekend (and also that I didn't have a single full workweek all month). Oddly enough, Independence Day weekend was the quietest weekend of the month. I spent most of it working on various crafting projects in preparation for Realm Makers, though I did get a break Friday evening to watch our town's fireworks. They were being set off from the park right behind our house, so we just walked down the road until we found a spot where the treeline was a little lower and watched from there without having to deal with crowds.
• The next weekend, my grandpa came down to visit for the weekend, which was fun, and we had the first of a series of livestream-related tech issues at work, which was objectively not. (Side note, if anyone has any idea what could cause a livestreaming system to automatically start streaming with no outside input and with no stream having been scheduled, I would dearly love to know.) Still, it was a good weekend on the whole.
• Then we got down to one-week-out-from-Realm Makers, and everything kicked into high gear as I finished all my final prep, in between D&D sessions (featuring one party's inability to roll anywhere in the double-digits on persuasion) and my sister's roommate coming over for board games and ginger beer, and another set of livestreaming problem spread over the course of the week. I did not get as much sleep that week as I probably should've, but I did get everything finished, and I even managed to do some writing.
• And then.
• And then.
• REALM MAKERS!
• So, yeah. Realm Makers was such a great experience, even if there was a hiccup or two in there. I roomed with the lovely Wyn Estelle Owens, which was a pleasure, and also made part of the trip up and back with her, and I got to meet Kendra E. Ardnek and several other Arista Challenge authors and other writers who I know online in person. (Side note: Kendra in real life is pretty much exactly what you'd expect from her online persona, just slightly shorter.) Wyn and Kendra also introduced me to some of their friends, and through friends of friends I discovered that there's a group of Realmies who live near me and occasionally meet up, so that's awesome. And, of course, I was able to meet some of the authors whose work I've read and loved and who, in some respects, were part of the reason I started writing and writing the type of stories I do in the first place — people like Wayne Thomas Batson, Jill Williamson, and Gillian Bronte Adams, all three of whom were absolutely lovely and kind and just . . . I don't know how else to say it except that, talking to them, you can tell why they write what they do and specifically why they write the types of characters they do. It was all very wonderful and encouraging, and I figured out pretty fast why the first keynote speaker (Tosca Lee!) emphasized a lot the relationships you build at events like this and elsewhere. As it turns out, the real treasure really is the friends you make along the way.
• (Also, the very first night we were there, while we were eating dinner, I was watching the line at the counter and freaking out because! there's Gillian Bronte Adams! there's Jill Williamson! there's Nadine Brandes! ahhhhhhhhhh! the cool authors are here! And then I ended up in front of Gillian while waiting in line for the Awards Banquet, though by that point I'd met her a couple of times already with varying levels of excitement versus coherent intelligence on my part.)
• It wasn't just meeting people that made Realm Makers so cool, though. I very much enjoyed the actual sessions, and I feel like I learned a lot — or, at least, I learned what I needed to in order to make the stories I'm currently writing and the ones that I'm going to write better. I picked Donald Maass's The Emotional Craft of Fiction series for my Continuing Sessions track (three 2-hour sessions spread over two days), and I think that was a very good choice; his advice, combined with some of what Tosca Lee said in her talk on keeping readers reading past midnight will, I think, help me get out of the little bit of a slump I'd run into with my current draft. I also got to sit in on both of Carla Hoch's classes, which were super fun . . . though I did get a little frustrated with some of her comments related to particular historical clothing items and whether or not you could move or fight in them. She reminds me of Marisha Ray, in a good way.
• I did manage to cosplay two of the three days of the conference. We got checked in too late for me to throw on the cosplay I had planned for the first evening, which was probably just as well — it involved collapsing daggers, and I learned after arrival that the no-weapons ban was actually nothing-that-looks-like-weapons, so . . . yeah. But I spent Friday dressed as Petra from the Rizkaland Legends, and then for the Awards Banquet, I changed into my take on Ailsa from The Dark King's Curse. I was very pleased with how both of those cosplays came off, though I'm not sure anyone but their authors recognized them. Then, on Saturday, I did a very low-key cosplay of Pet from The City Between, which did get recognized by one person and commented on by a few others. I think next time I go, I'll skip the daytime cosplay and just do something for the Awards Banquet and maybe the Book Festival, but it was fun to do this year.
• Speaking of the Awards Banquet, that was very cool. It was rather loud, which made conversation hard, but I enjoyed seeing everyone in their various costumes and cosplays. And, of course, it was exciting to see the Realm Awards get presented. I was delighted when Gillian won Book of the Year, and I was also super excited that H.L. Burke won an award (especially since I'd just started reading the series that the winning book was in). And then after the Banquet, Wyn, Kendra, and I headed off to the Hospitality Suite, where I got to eat more food (though not much more — the Banquet food was fancy, but it was also quite filling), meet a couple of Texan Realmies and a UK Realmie, and discover the game of Guillotine, in which you play as executioners in the French Revolution trying to get the most high-profile executions. That was fun.
• And then, of course, Sunday came, and everyone had to head back home. That drive was a bit more tiring than the one up, for some reason — maybe because I was already tired? In any case, I was glad of my decision to take Monday off so I'd have some recovery time.
• But now things are quiet again, and I'm settling into preparations for newsletter and Stewardship and more signage stuff at work and trying to get all the lingering tech issues sorted out, and I can get my focus back on writing my stories. Speaking of . . .

Writing!

• I don't remember where I left off on Bastian Dennel, PI #4, but at the moment, I'm finishing up Chapter 8 and about to start Chapter 9. Progress is slow, but steady, and given that I've been balancing SO MUCH this month, I'm happy with that.
• I do think I'm going to have to do something more to make Bastian's life difficult, though. I thought what I had planned would be enough, but . . . honestly, he's taking it too easily. I'm not entirely sure what that's going to look like but I'll figure it out. Hopefully it won't require that I go back and rewrite all I've done, though I suppose if I'm going to scrap things, it'd be better that I do it sooner than later . . . We'll figure it out.
• On the Through a Shattered Glass side, I've received most of the feedback I was expecting, and I've gone through it and gotten an idea what I need to adjust. In general, everyone seems to like it, so that's good.
• All Realm Makers swag came out pretty well, though I didn't give away half as much as I wanted to. I'm trying to decide what I want to do with the remainder — I could send it out by mail, or I could just save it for another event. I'm not sure.

Reading!

• This was a somewhat eclectic reading month: one part mood-read, one part reading for summer reading programs, and one part reading based on particular occasions.
• The highlight of the month was the release of Castle & Key, the latest (and possibly last) of W.R. Gingell's Two Monarchies series. This one was very much in the vein of Masque, blending Gothic fiction like Jane Eyre with the tale of Bluebeard, and while I didn't love it quite as much as Masque, it was still excellent. Susan is thoroughly practical, pleasantly determined, and unrelentingly inquisitive, and I love her.
• Other bright spots: Fool Moon, the second Dresden Chronicles mystery, was a decided improvement over Storm Front, and it had less Content, though there were still a couple pages I had to skip over. My reread of Castaways of the Flying Dutchman and The Angel's Command was also fun, though I think my opinion of which I prefer has flipped — Angel used to be my favorite of the trilogy, but I think it might be Castaways now. And I finally started reading H.L. Burke's Supervillain Rehabilitation Project series because I wanted to read a Realmie book at Realm Makers, and I'm thoroughly enjoying that. It's the superhero blend of action and slice-of-life we've always wanted.
• I also read another volume of Fullmetal Alchemist, in which I got a few answers but also many more questions. (I also met a friend's second-favorite character, though, so that's cool.)
• Things I Learned from Knitting is another Stephanie Pearl-McPhee memoir. I definitely preferred Free-Range Knitter, but this one was good too.
• The disappointment of the month was The Blue Salt Road, which I picked up on a whim because of selkies and lyrical writing on the first page, but ended up frustrated with because the ending leans more bitter than sweet. It's not a bad book, and others may like it better than I, but yeah.

Watching!

• So, if I had a nickle for every time my family has spent Independence Day watching a movie about Russian or Russian-adjacent Jews that involves a pogrom and a metaphorically and/or narratively resonant fiddle, I'd have two nickles. Which isn't a lot, but it's kind of weird that it happened twice.
• This year's movie was Fiddler on the Roof, which was very good, but won't be making my favorites list. I'm glad I watched it once, but I don't expect I'll watch it again in the near future.
• I didn't have a lot of time to watch stuff on my own, but I did watch a bit more of Critical Role Campaign 2 (I'm two-thirds of the way through Episode 78, still enjoying it) and the Familiar Problem one-shot (because I was hoping to run my own Familiar Problem session at Realm Makers; alas, I didn't finish my prep for that in time). I also got in another couple episodes of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, and I can see why people rave about the show. (I also got to have a nice long conversation with Wyn about FMA, both anime and manga, on the way up to Realm Makers, so that was fun.)
• (Oh, and my family watched Singing in the Rain and Hello Dolly while my grandpa was here, but my thoughts haven't changed on either movie, so this note is mostly for reference by future-me.)

August Plans

• I don't have a lot of plans for August, but I hope it's a quiet month. I know that we're thinking that we'll visit some family at one point during August, but otherwise, I don't know of anything big happening.
• I know that I need to make some serious progress on both Bastian Dennel #4 and TaSG edits, so I expect that those projects will take up most of my free time. I'd also like to get back on track with exercise — that was one of the many things I kind of let slip over the last few months.
• And I want to make sure I get in at least one more game of Sentinels with my sister before she heads back to college in the second half of the month.
• But yeah. I'm also hoping and praying for no more tech issues at work — I've had my fill in July!

How was your July? Any exciting plans for August? Were you at Realm Makers (and if so, what was your favorite part)? What do you think I should do with my leftover book swag? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!