Forging the Fellowship Tag!

Hey'a, everyone! So, it has, in fact, been actual ages since I did a tag. I think. Let me check.

Ok, so apparently "actual ages" means "slightly less than six months." Or, if you include my other blog, right around two months. In all fairness, though, one of those months was March, which we all know was secretly a full year stuffed inside a month-sized suitcase. Anyway. Jem Jones tagged me in the Forging the Fellowship blog tag (created by Julia at Lit Aflame), in which you forge your own Fellowship out of book characters. Sounds fun, yeah? I think so, and thus I'm doing it now before I forget about it.

On a side note — over at Light and Shadows, I'm joining the blog tour for H.S.J. Williams's Moonscript, which just released yesterday. I'm sharing my full thoughts in this week's Friday 5s post, but the long story short is that it's an excellent book and you all should go buy it. Also, check back here on Wednesday for another post about the book. We'll see what it's going to be; I haven't decided yet. Anyway. ON WITH THE TAG!

1. [The Ring Bearer]: If you could choose, which of the four races would you be: Elf, Dwarf, Human, or Hobbit?
Ok, first of all, who the pumpernickel made me the Ring Bearer? I am a terrible choice for this for so many reasons. (Not least of which: I'd probably lose the thing. And then someone would be like "Sarah, where's the One Ring?" And I'd be like "Well, I had it when I was trying to find that one notebook . . . um . . . maybe it's in the box with the other notebooks? Or the other box with the notebooks? Or my desk drawer? Or buried in the piles of stuff on my desk? I don't know."

Anyway. If you asked me this five years ago, I would've said elf without hesitation. And it's still a strong consideration. But, let's be real, I'm much more hobbit-like. 

2. [Gandalf the Grey]: A wise/powerful elder/mentor character:
Fun fact: apparently I have somehow never written a "favorite mentors" list, at least not that I can find. I'm not sure how that happened in a full six years of weekly list posts, but yeah. So this question just got that much harder.

That said, I'm going with a bit of an unconventional choice: a character who's actually primarily known as a protagonist, but who grows into a mentor to other characters after a while. Who is this? Sapphira Adi from Bryan Davis's Oracles of Fire and Children of the Bard series, specifically from just before the CotB era, when she's had quite a bit of leadership experience on top of her several thousand years of life experience. While not my favorite mentor or my favorite character in general, Sapphira Adi, as an Oracle of Fire, does have the wisdom to lead a group, the spiritual discipline and power to deal with all the nastiness and terrifying enemies associated with the One Ring quest, and the patience to handle everyone else being overdramatic and ridiculous.

3. [Aragorn]: A character with good survival skills:
This one's an easy choice! We're calling in Errance from Moonscript! As a half-Celestial, half-earth elf, he's very at home in the wilderness, and as the story proves, he's a very capable defender of both himself and others. Granted, the fact that he'd have minions of Darkness after him particularly might make the quest a little difficult . . . but, let's be real, we're going to have enemies aplenty anyway. What's a few more?

4. [Boromir]: A character who makes mistakes, but has a good heart: 
It's more like "one fairly major mistake" than mistakes plural (and therefore a bit of a stretch, but I want him on the team), but we're picking Artham Wingfeather of The Wingfeather Saga for this category. Specifically, Book 3 (or late Book 2) Artham. Or possibly post-series Artham. Anyway. Artham is probably my favorite character from the Wingfeather Saga, and yes, he did have a pretty major moment of weakness, but, y'know? That doesn't change the fact that he's loyal and courageous and loving when it matters most.

5. [Gimli]: A stubborn character:
Stars, who wouldn't fit this category? I'm pretty sure that if there's one defining trait all my favorite characters share, it's that they're all pretty stubborn. (Keep in mind that determined and stubborn are synonyms, yeah?) So, who will it be? After much thought, I'm going with Robin from the Bookania Quests. She's definitely very stubborn, but in a reasonably levelheaded way. (Or, at the very least, she's not angsty. She's very straightforward, honestly.) She's capable, she's clever, she's a masterful swordswoman, and she lets exactly nothing stop her from accomplishing her goals.

6. [Legolas]: A character who is talented: 
Ok, is there actually any question here? If I'm assembling my own quest team, it absolutely has to include Bard Eanrin of the Tales of Goldstone Wood. Eanrin is a cat-faerie of many talents, including, but not limited to, singing, poetry, creating distractions, being a cat, annoying the forces of evil (and sometimes also the forces of good, but y'know), and denying his feelings/lying to himself for years on end. As a bonus, this means we have two of my favorite fictional poets (Artham and Eanrin) in the same party, which I think sounds great.

7. [Peregrin Took]: A character who at first seems useless, but ends up surprising you:
So, I had a pretty major debate for this spot: Steris from the second era of Mistborn? Or Matrim Cauthon from the Wheel of Time series? Both of them fit very well. I mean, "initially seems useless but surprises you in the end" sums up Steris's arc very well, and it's part of the reason why I love her so much. As a bonus, all the things that make you underestimate her are the things that prove essential in the end. (Plus, if she joins the party, then Waximillian Ladrian has to come along and I get a bonus gunslinger/Misting.)

And then Mat plays a very Pippin-ish role at the start of his series — the prankster, the one who touches things he's not supposed to, so forth — but even by Book 5 (which is the last one I've read; I need to get back to the series; don't judge me), he's coming to his own as astonishingly resourceful, skilled, and intelligent — all backed up by some serious luck.

In the end, though, I would probably pick Mat for one simple reason: he's familiar with the type of world we're dealing with. Steris (and Wax) are from a world that's a bit more Old West/Victorian-esque. Mat, on the other hand, is from a medieval-esque world that's much closer to Middle Earth in terms of cultures and technology and all that. So, he'll be able to adapt much more easily to this new location. (On a side note, we're getting Mat of anytime after about the halfway point of Book 3, but ideally Book 5.)

8. [Meriadoc Brandybuck]: A character who is small/not very strong, but has great courage:
Let's go back to an old friend and get Kale Allerion from the DragonKeeper Chronicles on this quest. Granted, by the end of the series, Kale is quite capable as a wizard, dragon keeper, and warrior, but we're calling specifically on Book 3 Kale, who's competent but still has a fair bit of learning to do. As a bonus, Kale brings with her a watch of clever, colorful minor dragons, all of whom also fit this category. Huzzah!

9. [Samwise Gamgee]: A character who is extremely loyal and doesn’t give up:
Adolin. Adolin. Storming Adolin Kholin. Absolutely, no question. He has many, many excellent qualities (he was second choice for a talented character, after Eanrin), but one of his best qualities is his loyalty — to his family, to his friends, to his duty. He makes a habit of standing by people in desperate situations. Of never giving up. And if you know him and you don't agree, I'm sorry, have we read the same book? When his father is going mad, when the world is being turned upside down (and then upside down again, and again, and again), when his friends are falling apart — he's there. Even when he's hurting as deeply as anyone else, he's standing up and keeping everyone else going and looking for hope. And so who else could I pick for this spot?

How would this group do on an actual quest? It's hard to say, and a lot of it depends on how broody Errance decides to be and how well Artham and Eanrin get along. I feel like those three would take up most of the attention while the rest of us quietly got stuff done. (That is, until we got attacked, at which point everyone is very helpful except me and half the group ends up showing off because, quite frankly, when you have a terrifyingly competent elf prince, a Throne Warden, the best swordswoman in the world, and an extremly skilled Shardbearer and duelist in the group, they're probably eventually going to get to the point of trying to show each other up. And then you have Sapphira Adi and Kale throwing around fire and wizardry, respectively, and Mat being like "Light burn these people, so extra" while being intensely extra himself. And I'm just like ". . . Imma hide and not die now, ok, thanks. Lemme know when it's safe to come out.")
 

And now we come to the part of the show where I tag people. Um. We're going to tag Deborah O'Carroll (when she comes back from hiatus) and beyond that, if you want to do this, consider yourself tagged. I can't keep track of who's actually still blogging and who's on hiatus and who still does tags and who doesn't. So. Yeah.

If you decide to do this tag, you need to:

• Include the tag banner in your post
• Link back to the creator of the tag ( LITAFLAME.BLOG )
• Thank and link back to the person who tagged you
• Forge your Fellowship out of BOOK CHARACTERS by answering the given questions!
• Tag three bloggers to pass the ring to. 

And here's a clean copy of the questions:
1. [The Ring Bearer]: If you could choose, which of the four races would you be: Elf, Dwarf, Human, or Hobbit?
2. [Gandalf the Grey]: A wise/powerful elder/mentor character:
3. [Aragorn]: A character with good survival skills:
4. [Boromir]: A character who makes mistakes, but has a good heart:
5. [Gimli]: A stubborn character:
6. [Legolas]: A character who is talented:
7. [Peregrin Took]: A character who at first seems useless, but ends up surprising you:
8. [Meriadoc Brandybuck]: A character who is small/not very strong, but has great courage:
9. [Samwise Gamgee]: A character who is extremely loyal and doesn’t give up:

Even if you don't feel like doing the tag, what do you think of my choices? And who do you think you'd pick? Please tell me in comments!
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade) 

March 2017 Doings!

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

Writing!

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

Reading!

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

Watching!

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

Musings!

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

Life!

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

April Plans!

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

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

February Doings: Surprisingly Not-Blah!

So remember how I said last month that February is the most boring month of the year? Well, that may still be true . . . but this last month has actually been pretty interesting, at least for me! It's also been an odd mix of busy and really chill, so that helps. Anyway, let's get on with what made it so interesting.

Writing!

• So whatever made February interesting, it definitely wasn't writing, because I only wrote 554 words this month, and all of them were for one of the GTW writing prompts. It was still fun, and I really didn't expect to get any actual writing done this month anyway, but yeah. Also, while I'm actually rather pleased with what I came up with for the prompt (which was to have one of your characters meet his or her future self), I'm probably not posting it here. 
• I did a bit better on editing, getting in about 1,661 words. Admittedly, most of that was re-editing new scenes that I wrote last month, but oh well. Better than nothing. Also, the number is lovely and symmetrical, which makes me happy.
• I did figure out the problem I mentioned last month, I think, thanks to a lecture on the music of the Romantic period. (Fun fact: Franz Liszt was a total drama king who associated himself with the Faust legend- as in, he played up the idea that he sold his soul to the devil in exchange for insane musical skill- and on top of that, he was an egotistic playboy to rival Tony Stark. I will leave you to wonder how, if at all, this possibly relates to a medieval-esque fantasy story.) The solution to the problem will involve a fairly extensive rewrite of that subplot . . . but it should make for more conflict in that subplot, while taking out the character altogether would mean less, aside from random encounters, and would require just as much work, if not more.
• Also, editing on Fight Song is currently not in progress, but I hope to make it in progress soon, and I'll start posting the story as soon as I have a few chapters done- that way I have a bit of a buffer, but not so much that I can't adapt to any feedback I get.

Reading!

• So I totally thought that I read a lot this past month . . . but actually I read next to nothing and just took a long time to do it. 
• I finally satisfied my Discworld kick, but not before I'd finished The Truth (a good story, but one that put me very much in the mood for Moist von Lipwig), a reread of Making Money (to satisfy the desire for Moist von Lipwig), and Hogfather (which I'd intended to read around Christmas, but which I couldn't get from Overdrive until this month). By that time, much as I love Discworld, I was ready for something new.
• "Something new," as it turned out, was The Fires of Heaven, the fifth Wheel of Time novel. Yes, this is the same series as that one book that took me a month to finish. I don't think The Fires of Heaven will take quite that long . . . but it's hard to say, because I've currently paused reading it. Why? Well . . .
• I got a blind date! With a book. Not a person. A love life is a thing that happens to other people right now, thank you, unless you count getting crushes on fictional characters. And in any case, I'm generally opposed to blind dates with people on principle, but with books? Sounds like fun! So, after perusing the tables full of "masked" books, I picked up one that advertised itself as "fantasy" and "Greek mythology" and found myself reading . . . Daughter of Smoke and Bone. Which is not something I ever planned on reading, but that's rather the point of a blind date with a book. Overall, it wasn't bad, but it's not one I would recommend either. 
• That said, I got to pick up another blind date book (at this point I'm probably either addicted or just aggressively procrastinating on The Fires of Heaven), and this one is more promising: East by Edith Pattou, a retelling of "East of the Sun, West of the Moon." At the time of writing this post, I'm not quite done with it, but I'm really enjoying it. (By the time you read this, however, I'll probably be done with it, so feel free to ask what I thought.) Unfortunately, it's making me want to work on editing Monster in the Castle, but other things are higher priority and I don't even have the notebooks . . . ugh. Writer problems.
• Oh, and towards the beginning of the month, I read Blood Ties, which was pretty fun. It wasn't quite what I'd expected (for one thing, I thought it would be funnier), but I enjoyed it on the whole. It's urban fantasy, which I'm always hungry for more of- and it includes a berserker who happens to knit as a hobby, so that's awesome.

  Watching!

• Same old same old: still watching Merlin. Still on Season Two. Still facepalming over certain characters' bad life choices.
• Seriously, though, I really want to write an AU fanfic in which Merlin tells Morgana that he has magic too and then she doesn't end up turning villain and they team up to take on the actual villains who inevitably threaten Camelot every other week (or so it seems, which would be great except for the fact that neither of them is much good at telling each other anything about what they're going to be doing- but somehow, they don't kill each other and the villain gets found, so it works. And everyone things that Merlin is developing a thing for Morgana and vice-versa, even though he's really not (well, maybe before a certain point, but not after), but they let people think that because it's a good cover for what's actually going on. And yeah. Everything would be awesome. Except Uther would still exist, but oh well.
• Back to the actual show, not my fantasy of the fantasy- I would be almost done with the season by now, actually, but my roommate went home for one weekend, and we were both pretty busy the weekend before. So that made two weekends where we didn't watch anything, which is sad. We are hoping to get one more episode in before spring break, though, particularly since the next episode introduces one of my roommate's favorite characters.

Life!

 

• This month, for me, basically centered around three big events: The Music Man, my speech, and the Ark Encounter. I already posted about The Music Man, so I won't go into that more- but it was pretty great.
• My speech also went well, thankfully. As I think I mentioned last month, it was on character archetypes, specifically character archetypes in popular media, which meant I got to talk about LOTR and Marvel and Star Wars and a few animated films in the process of explaining the different archetypes. And I didn't freak out or forget what I was supposed to say, so that was good.
• Oh, and after I did my speech, I ended up going to the Career Fair, which was . . . overwhelming. I'm glad I wasn't actually looking for a job, because I think I would've died. I did manage to talk to a whole two companies, though, so that's something. And then I went back to my room and called my mom and ate a sea-salt caramel truffle. And had a brownie sundae for dessert after dinner. (Chocolate: the ultimate reward/nerve-calmer!)
• Anyway. Third major event: the Ark Encounter! I've wanted to visit both the Ark Encounter and the Creation Museum basically since I found out they existed. I still haven't managed the museum, but one of the orgs I'm in put together a trip to the Ark . . . which only three people total ended up wanting to go on, because they scheduled it right after the planning session for our major essay of the semester. But I put off schoolwork for the day to go, and I really enjoyed it! They did a great job showing what life on the ark might've been like, what animals were on the ark (differentiating between species and kinds), evidence for creation and the flood and such . . . Basically, the whole thing was awesome. Expensive, yes, but awesome. If you're in the area, I highly recommend stopping by.
• Other events: I got to see my aunt and her family the weekend before the Ark Encounter, which was a lot of fun. She also took me out to lunch, which made it better- don't get me wrong; my college has pretty good food for a cafeteria, but Sunday lunch, they don't even try. It's terrible. But that Sunday I got to eat good food (specifically, a falafel pita) with family (rather than eating alone), so yeah. That was great.
• Also, one of the guys from the other section of the honors class put together a trivia bowl thing that meets every Friday. Essentially, people show up, they somehow split into teams, and they answer trivia questions. It's super fun; I've been three times so far, and . . . well, I don't do super great, but I have answered some questions. Fewer than I've gotten credit for, since bonus questions don't count towards your personal score. But I've really enjoyed it and I'm going to keep doing it the rest of the semester.

March Plans!

• Spring break! Spring break! Spring break! I get to see my family again! And be at home! And not go to class! And hopefully work on editing a bunch of stuff! And it's going to be awesome! And it's almost here!
• If you can't tell, I might be a tiny bit excited about break. You probably couldn't tell. 
• Other than that . . .  business as usual, pretty much. Classes, papers, speeches, tests . . .  I think I have to do an advocacy presentation sometime in March for speech, but that might be happening early April. And I have a big paper for Cultural Anthropology that I need to start research for. I'm probably going to do that over break(!!!), if all goes well.  
• And my roommate and I need to pick up the pace on Merlin . . . I want to be done with season two and a good bit into season three by the end of the month so that we'll have half a shot of finishing it before the end of the school year.
• As I said earlier, I'm going to work on editing stuff, hopefully. I want to get another several chapters of Destinies and Decisions done, plus I want to start on Fight Song and get through a few chapters of that. We'll see which one takes priority over break(!!!).
• And I'm probably going to have to figure out next fall's classes . . . I already have a pretty good idea of what I'm doing, so it's just a matter of figuring out how to make everything line up. Shouldn't be too hard.
• Oh, and Gillian Bronte Adams is running a birthday blog tour for Songkeeper, which'll last all this month and into April and it's going to be pretty cool and I'll definitely be following that. (There's a giveaway involved. And a mug. And I'm hoping for sneak peeks of the last book. We'll see what happens.) 

 How's your February been? Boring? Or surprisingly exciting like mine? Please tell me in the comments!

Thanks for reading!

-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade) 

July Doings!

Well, it's the end of another busy month, which means it's time for another Doings post. July really has just flown by, it seems-

What's that you say? July's not over yet? We still have over a week to go?

Well, I do actually know that. However, I won't be able to put up Doings at the usual time, for reasons which I'll explain later. For now, on with the post!

Writing!

•  As I mentioned last month, I'm once again participating in Camp NaNoWriMo. My project this month was Fight Song, a superhero novella. Synopsis for those interested:

Three years ago, she saw murder done.
Three years ago, everyone said she was crazy.
They still say it now. But she knows what she saw. She knows what she heard. And she will find the killer no one knows is a killer and bring him to justice, even if no one in the world believes her.
Because she's just one girl. But she has the power of her songs at her back- songs that can shape the world if used the right way- and she's not going to let anything stop her from completing her mission. 

• My goal was only 10K words, which is my lowest NaNo goal yet. I wasn't sure how much I'd be able to get through, and I'm glad I didn't try for more. Although I did hit 10K less than halfway through the month, I don't think I could've made it to 15K, let 20K, by this time. As it is, I won with about 12K words, and I should be able to finish the rest of the novel sometime in the next week or two.
• For those desiring snippets, the first two paragraphs of the novel:

The digital clock behind the receptionist's desk had just turned to twelve, and I was starting to wonder if I could get away with sleeping on duty when I heard it: the song of death.
The discordant notes jolted me into alertness, chasing all thoughts of sleep from my mind. I'd heard that song once before- when my family sat 'round my gramma's bed while she traveled through the pearly gates. It sounded worse now. Then it had bordered on being real music; this time it was . . . not. Not music, not simply noise, but something so harsh and wrong that listening was physically painful.

• And another piece of dialog that made me rather happy:

"All business, Songbird?" Jonathan turns his computer towards me. "Our villain committed the classic blunder-"
I can't resist. "He got involved in a land war in Asia?"
Jonathan rolls his eyes, though in an amused way. "No."
"Oh, so he went up against a Sicilian when death was on the line?"
"Good grief, Songbird, do you want the information or not?"

• Outside of Camp, I haven't done much other writing or editing, though I am hoping to re-edit at least one chapter of Destinies and Decisions before the month is out, and there's one or two stories (or story pieces) that I want to write for blogs if I can find time. We'll see how that works out.

 Reading!

• I have read approximately 50% of The Shadow Rising and that's all. In my defense, I've been busy, and when I've gotten free time, other things have taken priority. In general, my feelings about this book so far are about the same as my feelings about the first three books. I'm not a Rand fan, though he has improved. I like Perrin, though he's currently making a questionable choice or two and his refusal to admit that he's ta'veren is rather amusing. Faile needs to get off her high horse and stop driving Perrin crazy. Egwene is challenging Celeana Sardothien for the position of "Most Aggravating Female Character (Who Still Actually Does Something) Ever." Mat and Thom are both awesome and two of my favorite characters. Elayne is alternately annoying me with her Rand-crazyness and making me happy as she gets a chance to shine a bit away from Egwene's shadow. and Nynaeve continues to be fabulous and my other favorite character.
• I'm still hoping to finish The Shadow Rising by the end of July. I don't know if it'll happen or not, though.
• Oh, and I listened to The Penderwicks at Point Mouette with my family. I always enjoy the Penderwicks books, so that was fun. And it's sort of reading, right?

Life! 

•  Most of the month was occupied by my internship, which just ended today. I am very glad to not have to get up at 5:15 or 5:45 anymore unless I want to, let me tell you. I did enjoy the work, though, and I accomplished a lot in the relatively short time I was there. And today I had to give a briefing on what I'd done and learned during my internship, and I actually did pretty well, so that made me happy.
• We celebrated Independence Day weekend with a trip down to Lexington to visit a family friend who we haven't seen since we moved. I enjoyed the trip, and got a lot of writing done on it- 9+ hours in the car is pretty useful in that respect (even if a lot of that time was taken up by listening to the aforementioned audiobook).
• I crocheted my sister a dragon! The picture is above, for those interested. I'm really happy with how it turned out, especially as it's only my second crochet project. The hardest part of making him was actually sewing all the pieces together; making the parts was all single crochet and decreasing, which is pretty easy. I used the Hannah's Red Dragon pattern, though I used the wings from Tarragon the Gentle Dragon (which is a knit pattern that my sister has done more than a dozen times) because when I grabbed the dragon pattern, the author hadn't added wings. I want to make myself a similar dragon now, but I have to figure out what yarn to use, as I don't have enough red left.
• Last weekend, my church had a summer carnival/festival/mini-VBS thing. I ended up running the can-knock-down game. It was exhausting, but not as bad as I expected, and some of the kids were pretty cute. I think my game ended up being one of the most popular ones, partially because it was easy and partially because I tended to be generous with the tickets. 
• We also had a fair amount of family visiting this month. My grandpa came up the weekend of the 9th, which was fun. And then last weekend my aunt, uncle, and cousins visited, which was also nice since we haven't seen them in a while.
• We finally visited Fort Stanwix! Fort Stanwix is a recreation of a Revolutionary War fort- the only fort which never fell to the British during that war, and the site where the first red, white, and blue American flag was flown. I've wanted to go there ever since we moved here, since it looked pretty cool and like a great place to take pictures. As it turns out, it's even better than I expected. Like Williamsburg, it's a sort of "living history" site- but because it's a recreation rather than an original, you can actually go into the rooms, sit on the chairs, touch and pick up the stuff, and so on- which both made it more fun and better for photography. A few rooms were blocked off, yes, but I think that they may be on a rotation: some are open one day, some are open another, and some are open all the time. I also did my first escape room at Fort Stanwix, which was really fun. It wasn't quite what I was expecting- it was less like the escape room games I've played on the computer and more like a Nancy Drew or puzzle game- but I still enjoyed it.
• I bought a Kindle! I haven't actually used it because (A) I don't have a case for it yet, and (B) I've barely read anything all month. But it's still nice to have one that's all my own as opposed to technically being my mom's. (Not that she used it much at all- it was mostly my sister and I who read things on it.)

 August (and the last ten days of July) Plans!

•  As you may or may not have guessed and/or remember from my June Doings post, I'm taking another internet hiatus, starting on Friday, July 22. It should last for two weeks and a bit, so I'll be back in mid-August.
• However, I may be spotty during the rest of August; it's hard to say. I should be back to my regular posting schedule (or will have formulated a new schedule) by September, barring calamity. Just warning you.
• I really want to read more in August and the end of July than I have the rest of the month. No internet should help with that, though, as should not having an internship to keep me busy.
• I also want to finish writing Fight Song and then maybe work on some short fiction. And also fanfiction, if I can get my ideas sorted out. And once my hiatus ends, I'm going to get back to work editing Destinies and Decisions and whatever else I decide needs edited. 
• And there's something else happening in August, the nature of which some of you (or most of you) may be able to guess. And I think I should be slightly terrified about it, but I haven't had much time to be, so I'm just vaguely nervous and absentmindedly conscious that I really ought to have done more to prepare by now. So that's probably good- the not-being-terrified bit, I mean. Not the needing-to-prepare bit.

How's your July been? What plans do you have for August and the rest of the month? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)