March 2021 Doings!

 

Good morning, everyone! (Or afternoon, or evening, or night, or moment beyond the petty grasps of time, whenever you happen to be reading this.) Wordpress has permanently gotten rid of the Classic Editor, and I am mightily annoyed. Yes, there's the classic block in the block editor that functions the same way, but . . . it's a pure white workspace, y'all, and I am not digging it, even if it does look "clean" and "modern" and "minimally distracting." Give me back my sidebars, storm you! Anyway. All rants aside, March is gone, spring is upon us, and it's time to check in with a new round of Doings!

Writing!

• Work on the TMS Sequel continues . . . slower than I'd like it to. I ended up having to rewrite Chapters 4, 5, and 7 more times than I thought I would, and though I'm very happy with the end result, it was a bit rough getting there. I've also been rearranging a lot of scenes, which means creating a timeline so I know what's happening when and who's getting how many POV scenes. (The result is that chapters/scenes from one plotline currently heavily outweigh those from the other plotline . . . which is unfortunate. But I'm also not sure I can do a lot about it because there's a lot more happening in the one than in the other. Hopefully they'll even out over time or I can think of something to add to the one.)
• Anyway. I'm currently sitting at Chapter 15, and I've been averaging two chapters rewritten per week. I'd like to pick up that pace a little next month, but we'll see what happens. I'm trying to make some adjustments to make a certain element of the base fairytale fit better with the story, and it's . . . difficult.
• On the D&D front, I've finished writing the one subplot, and now I just have finale stuff to put together! I think I'm getting back into the swing of this kind of writing, which makes me quite happy. My current big challenge is "How do I arrange events so the friendly NPCs who my players joined up with don't take over combat?" That's proving . . . interesting. And it's going to be even more important come the actual finale. But we'll figure it out.
• (That said, I put the finishing adjustments on the details for part of the final boss encounter yesterday, and if it goes even vaguely like I hope it will, it's going to be so cool. I'm super excited.)

Reading!

• March was a much lighter reading month than February. Part of that is that I didn't have as many snow days; part was that I had forgotten just why The Well of Ascension is my least favorite Mistborn book. It's still a really good book, but . . . it's hard to get through at times. (I also really dislike Zane.) Thus why I paused reading it a bunch of times to read other books.
• On the upside, I did discover a new favorite series this month: Miss Sharp's Monsters by Suzannah Rowntree! I raved about the first book in the series, The Werewolf of Whitechapel, last Friday, so I won't repeat myself. But to summarize, it's mysteries and murders in an alternate late-Victorian England with a delicious storytelling style and a magnificent heroine, and I can't recommend it enough. Go read it. Seriously.
• The other new release I read this month was the Wingfeather Tales anthology, which was a reread but still quite good. Again, I covered my thoughts on the book in a Friday 5s post, so I won't go into depth here. It's a good anthology, though I don't love every story in it.
• Also in short story territory, I finally read H.L. Burke's fun short story "Ghosted," which was a nice twist on the haunted house trope. I can't say a lot without running up against spoilers, but I will say that I very much enjoyed the story.
• Currently, I'm working through the Unicorn Anthology assembled by Peter S. Beagle (which is ok, but I may DNF because it's coming due at the library soon and I'm not sure I care enough about the rest of the stories to get it back out) and a Warbreaker reread, which is quite enjoyable. I've been meaning to reread this and Elantris for a bit, so I'm glad to finally get around to it. (Yes, I am going to finish my Mistborn reread, but I needed a break.)

Watching!

• About midway through the month, my dad says (paraphrased), "Hey, so there's this Star Trek episode, 'Spectre of the Gun' that apparently partially inspired/influenced the people who made The Matrix. It's on Amazon Prime. We should watch it." And because I was tired and figured I wasn't going to be productive that night anyway, I said sure, I'd watch it too.
• So we start watching it, and my first thought is . . . didn't we see a multicolored flashing object giving off weird warnings in another episode? Is this a thing that happens? Or am I just imagining things?
• (I was not imagining things. The episode I was thinking of was "The Corbomite Manuever," and it has some interesting similarities to "Spectre," but also pretty much an opposite resolution? Sort of? I digress.)
• Anyway. We watch the episode. And, yeah, you can see how it influenced The Matrix, but I was too distracted to really focus on that because — look. Spock, at least, should've figured out the situation within the first five minutes. Storms, they all should've figured it out within the first five minutes (except maybe Chekhov, who seems to be a bit easily distracted — Chekhov fans, if I'm misjudging your fave, sorry; I'm pulling from limited data). And, yeah, if they had, it wouldn't have been the same story, but there could've been a story and more done with the particular idea that the episode was exploring.
• The moral of this story is . . . I don't know. If you're going to have your characters make assumptions, at least make those assumptions reasonable? Or possibly "When dealing with powerful telepathic beings, doubt everything in front of you."
• (Now that I'm thinking about it, the concept actually would be a pretty cool concept for a D&D party to face. And it's pretty interesting in general. I just feel like the Star Trek writers could've done a better job with it.)
• Moving on from my uncharitable analysis of classic Star Trek, we also watched High Noon, which . . . was not what I expected, really. It's a Western, but it's really more of a character drama wearing western clothes and a gunbelt. It was very well done, just not what I usually think of when I think western.
• And, of course, I'm still watching Critical Role. I've made it up to Episode 57, and I've finally met Essek. I feel like I already have a pretty good idea why he's such a fan favorite. I've also learned that probably the most stressful thing that can happen in the entire show is Jester and Nott being the party's face for dealing with authority figures. I had to pause or go down to one earbud and lowered volume so many times because I was dying of "No, no, no, why are you like that you are going to get yourselves killed." Like, it made perfect sense in context for them to be in that position. And it certainly makes for a good story. But it still stresses me out more than any combat has up to this point. (Even so, the last two episodes were SO GOOD.)
• Also, this isn't exactly watching, but it's sort of tangential — Amazon Music (which is one of the two apps I mostly listen to music on) has apparently come to the conclusion that I'm into musicals? And so it's been sprinkling miscellaneous Broadway and off-Broadway musical soundtracks into my mix? But they aren't big-name everyone-knows-this musicals like Les Mis or Phantom or Wicked. (Well, there've been a few Les Mis songs. But not many.) They're . . . I don't know if they're niche, but it's stuff like Six and Come from Away and the Percy Jackson musical? And something about Shakespeare that I can't actually remember the name of? And I have no idea how this happened, but I've actually discovered some good stuff from it, so I rather hope it keeps happening.
• (Well, except for the Dear Evan Hansen songs that keep popping up, which I actually dislike — I've tried to listen to the musical twice and couldn't get past the first song either time. I'd like it if those stopped appearing. But the rest of the random musicals are good.)

Life!

• For those curious, my paladin did not have a breakdown or get pushed over the tipping point by family drama. (She did have a little bit of a breakdown for other reasons. But that's because she still hasn't fully processed the fact that they can just call/talk to some pretty powerful beings. Including a literal deity. You'd think she'd be used to that one by now, or at least more comfortable with it since she's, y'know, a paladin, but nope.) Anyway. The family drama was actually considerably less dramatic than I expected — both in and out of character, I was fully prepared to have to disown someone. And I didn't. So that was nice. And I got some nice roleplay moments with my character's family members (including one I've been hoping my DM would bring in for ages). And all in all, much fun was had, even if we only met twice again.
• I did end up trying to make the chocolate-raspberry biscotti like I said I was going to, and it went much better than the butterscotch biscotti I did in January did. It held together very nicely and was just generally so much easier than the first batch I made. I actually preferred the flavor of the butterscotch, though, so . . . yeah.
• Probably the most exciting (or at least out of the ordinary) thing that happened was a weekend trip to see my grandpa on Palm Sunday weekend — our usual weekend commitments got canceled for a variety of reasons, so it seemed like a good time to go visit. We didn't do much while we were up there, but it was nice to get to spend time with him after so long.
• At the office, most of the month has been relatively chill. I'm quite well settled in (still no decorations, but I have a kettle and a routine), and I'm still enjoying the work. I've been learning a lot about livestreaming as the church is working on getting that going — since I do a lot of the media, it's close enough to my job description (and my interests in general) that a lot of the setup and "figure out how this works" responsibilities landed on my plate. (That also meant I got to revisit my documentation design skills — I haven't done that in a while! It made a nice change of pace, though.)
• And then Holy Week hit and everything got much busier for everyone. I had my first run of putting together a Sunday bulletin (the church hasn't been handing them out because of COVID, but they wanted to do one for Easter), and there were slides and social media graphics and promotional materials to put together, plus normal stuff . . . Even with all that, though, I might've been the least stressed person in the office. Most days, anyway. And I think everyone's happy with how everything turned out.
• (I also learned that I want to learn Visual Basic for Applications sometime. Maybe next month, if I have time and can find a free course on YouTube or something with an instructor I like.)

April Plans

• So, yeah, April is typically Camp NaNoWriMo. And I wasn't sure if I'd do Camp or not this year, what with the whole "having a job" thing. To be honest, I kind of forgot that it was happening (well, more accurately, I forgot that April was happening) until this last Monday. Whoops. But the theme for this year is NaNoFinMo — National Novel Finishing Month. And I do need to finish editing the Midnight Show sequel. So guess who made her Camp goal two days before the event started? Yep. That's right. This girl. It'll be good, though. (Or it'll kill me. We'll see!)
• Other than Camp NaNoWriMo, things will probably be quiet. We don't have much planned for Easter . . . or for most of the month, really. Things may start ramping up at work, now that warmer weather and looser restrictions mean more church events to promote. But I imagine it'll all be pretty manageable. I will start working on the first newsletter I've done without someone watching over my shoulder/training me, though, so that's exciting.
• The one other semi-exciting thing: a lot of book releases that I'm involved with in terms of either being on the blog/social media tour or having ARCs or having been a beta or all of the above. I think I may have something going on somewhere every week, actually, or every week except the last week . . . (Also, I GOT AN ARC OF ANARCHIST ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS! Otherwise known as Miss Sharp #2. And also an ARC of A Thieving Curse! I am SO EXCITED.)
• In terms of D&D, writing will probably go a little on hold unless I decide that I can count both it and TMS towards Camp NaNoWriMo. But I think I have enough material to keep things moving, especially if sessions remain short as they have been, which I expect they will. And in terms of the campaign I play in but don't run, well . . . we have an underdark adventure and then a face-off with a dragon aberration (or at least its followers) ahead, so that's going to be interesting. (I'm actually really excited for the underdark bit. And kinda worried about the aberration bit and the chance that we'll have another player death. Or semi-death. From the same player as the last one. I mean, I finally have Revivify, so we might be OK? But also . . . concern.)

How was your March? Any exciting plans for April? TBA? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

February is Fantasy Month: Fandom VS. Fandom

 

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

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

 

Fandom vs. Fandom

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

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

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

June 2019 Doings!

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

Writing!

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

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

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

Reading!

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

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

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

Watching!

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

Life!

Not my picture.

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

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

July Plans!

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

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