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)  

Winter 2016-2017 Reads

Hello, everyone! It's the last day of my semester . . . and also the day of my last and hardest exam in any class. (If you're reading this before noon: prayers would be very appreciated, thanks.) But we're not here to talk about that- we're here to talk about the new season of books that is coming upon us! True, winter won't come 'round for another five days- but on campus, there's snow enough for January. So, let's get to it!

Winter 2016-2017 Reads

1. Fallen Star by Anne Elisabeth Stengl (December 16).
A new release from Anne Elisabeth Stengl is always exciting, whether it's a full novel or, as in the case of Fallen Star, a novella/short story. And apparently this story focuses on Beana- though she'll likely be going by another name here, which should be fun. I'm curious whether this will be before or after Veiled Rose and Moonblood. I'm hoping before, so we'll get to learn about her past . . . but after will be interesting as well. Certain sources have also suggested that it's going to be free on Amazon today, though as of the writing of this post, I'm not 100% certain of that.

2. Carve the Mark by Veronica Roth (January 17).
Ok, so I'm not sure what my thoughts are on Veronica Roth at this point. I wasn't a fan of Allegiant, but I liked the rest of the Divergent series (well, mostly the first book, but the second wasn't terrible), and I enjoy her writing style. And the concept sounds like it has potential, so I'll give this a try if I can. 

3. Heartstone by Elle Katharine White (January 17). 
I heard about this one from Cait Grace's 2017 Reads List, and I'm not sure what to think. On one hand- Pride and Prejudice and dragons are both awesome on their own, so putting them together should be magnificently spectacular, right? On the other hand, with great potential for awesome comes equally great potential for failure, and I can think of several ways this could fall flat. We'll just have to wait and see what happens . . . 

4. King's Blood by Jill Williamson (January 31).
I finally read King's Folly last spring, and enjoyed it enough that I'm looking forward to King's Blood. If Blood follows the same tendencies as Folly, this won't be a book for under-sixteen-year-olds, but it should still be pretty epic, and will hopefully feature just as much or more of the mystery and political intrigue of the first.

5. Wires and Nerve by Marissa Meyer (January 31).
Wires and Nerve marks the second time that an author whose books I love has released a new story in graphic novel, rather than standard novel, format- good thing I'm already interested in the style, or else I might be worried. I think Wires and Nerve should be fun, even if Iko isn't my favorite of the TLC crew. (Anyone else really want more stories about Thorne and Cress and their adventures? Anyone? Just me? Ok.) I'm definitely looking forward to reading it, graphic novel or no. 

6. Long May She Reign by Rhiannon Thomas (February 21). 
Ok, can we all take a minute to appreciate the astounding amount of awesomeness that this book promises? To start off, we have a scientist protagonist (yay!). Second, it's fantasy- always awesome, and when you mix science and fantasy you quite often end up with steampunk. Third, political intrigue. Have I mentioned how much I love political intrigue? It's so exciting! Fourth and finally- it's a murder mystery, and if there's one thing that I love more than fantasy-with-political-intrigue, it's a good, solid fantasy-mystery. And if Long May She Reign can deliver all that, well- it's going to be one amazing book.

 

7. Saturdays at Sea by Jessica Day George (February 21). 
Confession time: I still haven't read Fridays With the Wizard, and my memory's a bit foggy on the contents of the first three books, which means I'll either need to reread those before I read Fridays and Saturdays, or else I'll have to get my sister to remind me of the important bits, depending how much time I have. But Saturdays sounds like it'll be fun, and it's not often that you get a high-seas fantasy adventure. And, of course, there's griffons. Griffons make everything better.

What books are you looking forward to this winter? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)

Random Fridays: Books I Wanted to Throw Against a Wall

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Hullo, everyone! I'm sure everyone's read at least one of those books, the sort that make even the gentlest soul want to hurl them against the nearest wall. Maybe the main character annoys you, a plot twist nearly drove you mad, or your favorite character died, or maybe your motivation is something else completely different. It might not be a bad book- it might even be one of your favorites- but the desire is still there. This week's Random Friday is about the books that do it for me.

1. Eragon and Eldest by Christopher Paolini.

 I mostly blame Eragon (the character) for this. He annoyed me for a very long time. I don't remember specific reasons (I haven't read the books in a while), but I do recall thinking that he made a lot of idiotic decisions . . . particularly concerning Arya in book two. I mean, yes, I shipped them, but I still thought that Eragon could've gone about things a little better. Thankfully, he shaped up a bit in time for Brisingr.

2. The Star Wars novelizations

Episodes II and Episode III were the worst . . . Anakin is in my top five favorite Star Wars characters because he has some pretty good lines (particularly in Episode III) and because you can't help feeling sorry for him in some ways, but I also want to smack him across the face and talk some sense into him. The original trilogy was somewhat better, but Luke still bugged me. And then there's Episode V, in which everyone bugs me. And there's Yoda, who I kind of don't like. Call me weird, but I don't.

3. The Elite by Kiera Cass

 If your romantic relationship is forbidden on pain of death, end said romantic relationship. Do not continue it in secret, especially not when you're staying in the royal castle, and especially especially not when you're a much better match for the other guy in the love triangle. It will end in trouble and heartbreak and all sorts of messiness.

Now for some books which contained entirely too much angst (but are otherwise pretty awesome):

4. Insurgent by Veronica Roth

5. The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson

Vin. Elend. Seriously. You fell in love with each other because of who you are. Stop freaking out about it.

6. To Darkness Fled (and the first half of From Darkness Won) by Jill Williamson.

Achen, stop complaining about being king and having to get married to someone who's not Gren or Tara. Done? Thank you. Vrell, stop being in denial. You and Achen are made for each other and you know it. Your stubbornness is not amusing.

7. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

 Everyone knows how I feel about Mockingjay by now, probably. I won't repeat it. (If you actually don't know and you want to, ask me and I'll tell you in the comments.) 

Not all these books are bad- in fact, I really like most of them. But that doesn't stop me from getting aggravated- usually because of characters and their bad decisions. Or their angst. (Maybe this post should've been about characters I'd like to talk some sense into instead.) 

What about you? What books give you an urge to introduce them to the nearest wall? Please tell me in the comments!

Tschau!

-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)

Want to join in the Random Fridays fun? Feel free to make a post of your own on the week's topic! Please just be sure to use the Random Fridays banner, link back to Awkwordly Emma, and post the link to your post on the Awkwordly Emma blog so other participants can check out your post. For a list of future Random Friday topics, click here. 

My Thoughts on the Divergent Trilogy

Remember how in my Slippery Time post, I mentioned that I needed to read Allegiant but I was too scared to? The day after I wrote that post, I decided that it was time to stop being scared of what I thought was going to happen in it. It was time to start reading it.

Surprise: I couldn't put it down and finished it that same night.

Since I posted so enthusiastically about the first book, I decided that I should follow up with my thoughts on the whole trilogy. I will make sure to keep it as spoiler-free as possible for those of you who haven't read it yet.

Divergent (1st book): I said before that this is my new favorite dystopian book, and I'll say that again now. I love Tris and Four, and the faction system is really interesting. The story is intense and exciting, but it's not nonstop action. There are deep parts that really make you think. Also, while they aren't perfect, many of the characters do display traits worth imitating. The ending is bittersweet, yes, but it's not depressing. Divergent is also fairly clean. As one might expect, there is fighting and some intense scenes, it isn't particularly descriptive. And while romance does play a part, it doesn't go beyond (a good bit of) kissing.

Insurgent (2nd book): I didn't like Insurgent as much as I liked Divergent. It's still a good book. It's even more exciting than Divergent, especially towards the end. The last chapter or two, in particular, caught me completely off-guard (in a good way). And like the previous book, there are some aspects of it that make you think. However, several of the main characters' make choices that made me respect them a little less. Also, while the amount of violence remains the same, there is one romantic scene that made me feel a bit uncomfortable.

Allegiant (3rd book): Wow. Allegiant was not at all what I expected, but that's a good thing. I can't really say much because of the whole spoiler thing, but the explanations for some of the questions I'd had were finally answered and those answers were much more interesting than anything I expected. One other thing I liked (though a lot of others seem dislike) is getting Four's view as well as Tris's. While it did throw me off occasionally when the POV switched and I didn't notice, I think that the story wouldn't have been as good if we'd just had Tris's POV.

Allegiant is also, in my opinion, the most thought-provoking book in the trilogy. Again, I can't give away spoilers, but one of the main conflicts in the book seemed to be the questions of 'How far are you willing to go for what you think is right?' and 'How far is too far?' The answers to those questions, particularly the first one, can be frightening.

I was happy to find that the characters seem to have learned from their mistakes in Insurgent and, as in Divergent, make choices that are (mostly) worth imitating. Though they're not perfect, they're characters you can feel good about liking, especially when you consider how they willingly risk their lives to protect each other and stand for what they believe is right.

Allegiant is not perfect. As in Insurgent, there's one romantic scene that I could've done without, and Tris and Four seem to spend a lot of time kissing. There's one or two instances of bad words. However, the book does remain mostly clean.

Overall, I'd definitely recommend the Divergent trilogy to older teens. Despite some flaws, the books are well-written, exciting, and certainly worth reading.

If you've already read the trilogy, or are currently reading it, I'd like to hear what your thoughts. Feel free to comment, but please mark any spoilers so people who haven't read it yet don't read something they don't want to know yet. Thanks!

Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)  
Note: This was supposed to be published back on Wednesday or so. I have no clue what went wrong. Oh well.