Why Honor: A Quest In Is Worth Yelling About

I spent a lot of time yelling about books on the internet. It's sort of a fact of life at this point. However, I don't yell about every book I come across — obviously, or else I'd never shut up. In fact, out of all the books I read, there's actually a very small percentage that I think are worth the time and energy it takes to shout their merits from the virtual merits. Kendra E. Ardnek's newest book, Honor: A Quest In — releasing in four days! — is one of those.

Why Honor: A Quest In Is Worth Yelling About

1. It starts after "I do." Technically this is also true of My Kingdom for a Quest, if I recall correctly, but Honor has much more of a focus on Robin and Eric . . . even though Eric spends a lot of the book off-screen. Anyway, even if Robin and Eric aren't in the same place much, the fact that their story continues after they're married is pretty unusual. However, as someone who's getting a little tired of reading the same old love stories, I really enjoyed the fact that Honor focused on a part of life that most YA books kind of ignore.
2. Marianne is adorable. Oh, yes. Robin and Eric have a child, a little girl, and she's just the cutest. What's better is that she's actually a proper character instead of a generic child like a lot of authors would write. (I attribute this to the fact that Kendra comes from a large enough family that she actually knows what children that age are like . . . or something.)
3. It's delightfully heartrending without being angsty. By this point, I'm kind of over unnecessary angst, so it's a good thing that Honor doesn't have any. The characters experience their fair share of pain and deal with an abundance of problems, but they deal with their problems in a reasonable, mature way. They get upset, but they don't dwell in that sorrow and frustration. And compared to the last book I read, that's a beautiful relief.
4. It involves one of my favorite Bookania battles yet. That fight happens pretty early on in the series and involves a very angry Robin proving why she's so awesome. You'll know it when you see it. I love all of it.
5. It gives me hope for adventure. Here is the list of people who don't seem to get invited on adventures nowdays: anyone married. Anyone over the age of high school. Anyone with a reasonably stable home life. But Robin and the rest of the Bookania cast fit two of those categories, and they manage to keep having adventures — so maybe there's hope for me as well.

Are you excited for Honor: A Quest In? Please tell me in the comments! And if you haven't ordered Honor yet, go do so now (unless you plan to buy the paperback).
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)

Honor: A Bookania Tag

Hey'a, everyone! First off, if you missed my late-night Facebook excitement last Tuesday: I saw Andrew Peterson in concert! It was amazing and beautiful and he played a lot of my favorite songs and I'm so glad I got to be there. Next up: another source of excitement for me this month: Honor: A Quest In! This is Kendra E. Ardnek's next book, which releases in about a week and a half! I got to alpha-read it, and I'm looking forward so much to when it comes out and y'all get to enjoy it too. In the meantime, though, Kendra made this awesome tag themed on the book, so I'm filling that out this week!

1. Have you read any of the Bookania Quests yet? If so, what is your favorite thing about them? If not, why are you excited to read them?
I've read all the Bookania Quests that have been released so far. I'd say my favorite thing about them is the sheer number of fairy tales (including some pretty obscure ones) that are woven into the stories.

2. What is your favorite fairy tale that no one else seems to know about?

"Six Soldiers of Fortune" and similar stories are some of my favorites, but most people have never heard of them. That's probably for good reason; they're kind of weird, and there's not really a hero — but they're fun to read, and they involve some pretty crazy and awesome powers.

3. Sword or Bow?
In general, swords. Bows do have the advantage of distance, but I like the style of swords better.

4. What is your favorite Fairy Tale mash-up universe?
Either Bookania or Christopher Healy's Hero's Guide series universe. I can't decide which; they're both awesome for different reasons.

5. What is your favorite fictional sword?
Oooh. That's a tough question. I'm going to say that it's a three-way tie between Sting from The Lord of the Rings (the first really significant fictional sword I encountered), the version of Excalibur from Dragons in Our Midst (because it's an awesome legendary sword that can also disintegrate people), and Riptide from Percy Jackson (because a sword that can turn into a pen is automatically awesome).

6. Name a Rebellious Princess that you felt to be particularly well-developed and compelling.
Er. I typically don't like rebellious princess characters; it's far too easy for authors to make their rebelliousness their only real trait, or else I get frustrated with them because they aren't rebellious because they're sensible; they're just as silly and petty and ridiculous as the pink puffball princesses. Don't give me a merely rebellious princess; they're so common that good, obedient princesses are the rarity these days. Give me a clever princess, one who recognizes the potential in her position and uses every assumption to her own advantage.

Anyway. All that said: Poppy from the Midnight Ball series isn't exactly rebellious, but she does know her own mind, and she does what she likes regardless of how proper it is. And Siri from Warbreaker is a bit closer to being actually rebellious, but she turns out to be pretty clever as well.

7. What is your favorite representation of Robin Hood?
Personally, I like the original Robin Hood best, but that could just be that I haven't read many Robin Hood retellings. If anyone has any particularly good recommendations, let me know.

8. Who is your favorite fictional mother?
Oooh. That's a good question. I'm going to go with Nia Wingfeather from the Wingfeather Saga, who's brilliantly brave and loving and wonderful in many, many ways. She's been through quite a lot, but she never gives up.

9. If you could learn any language in the world instantaneously, which would you choose?
Like, learn it and be able to speak and write it with perfect fluency? Chinese, Japanese, or Arabic. Any of those three could have potential practical applications (particularly the former two), but would require a lot of effort to learn the normal way because they're so different from English. Then I can continue to learn the more English-like languages like most people learn languages.

10. Who is someone in your life that you couldn't bear to lose?
My sister, my parents, my roommate . . . probably my sister most of all.

Thanks for putting this tag together, Kendra! And thanks to all of you for reading! Tell me: what language would you pick if you could learn any of them instantaneously? And do you have any really good Robin Hood retellings that you'd like to recommend? Let me know in comments!
Have an excellent day!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)

The Only Blind Dates I'll Ever Go On

Hey'a, everyone! It's almost Valentine's Day, and you know what that means — it's Blind Date with a Book time! As a quick note for those who aren't aware: Blind Date with a Book is basically an event where the library staff wraps up a ton of books in pretty paper and puts some kind of clue or hint on the paper. Last year it was the genre and the first line of the book; the year before it was the genre and a few key descriptive words. You pick whichever book sounds most appealing based on the information given, take it home, and read it. Usually, there's a little card with the book that you can fill out to be entered in a drawing as well. It's basically my favorite library event of the year. Anyway, now that that's sorted out, let's get on with explaining why this is so awesome.

Why Blind Date with a Book is the Best!

1. It's a good way to get out of a reading rut. Generally, at least for me, reading ruts are caused by one of two things. Either I've figured out all the books I want to read way in advance and now what I planned doesn't seem appealing anymore, or else all my reading options are so familiar to me that none of them sound appealing. Blind Date with a Book effectively nullifies both of these, because whatever I end up reading is unplanned and mysterious and exciting. It's wonderful.
2. It puts reading at a temporarily higher priority. You know how I said there's that bit with the card that you have to fill out to get entered in the giveaway? Well, obviously you have to have that card back by a certain date . . . and you also have to finish the book by that date so you can rate it on the card. Also, if you're a Book Blind Date addict like me, you end up reading your first date fast so you can go back and get another . . . and another . . . and possibly another after that. (The fact that, by February, I'm generally mentally exhausted and so I want to read something that I don't have to think too hard about helps quite a bit, but y'know.)
3. You sometimes discover good books you never would've read otherwise. For example, last year I ended up reading Court of Fives and The Adoration of Jenna Fox. I'm not going to say that either of these is an amazing book, because they aren't . . . but they're still good, if flawed by cliche characters. Court of Fives, in particular, is African/Roman-inspired fantasy and so I'm happy that I read the book just for that, even if I did lose patience with people more than once.
4. You sometimes end up being pushed to read books that you've forgotten about! Like, two years ago I ended up reading East, which is a retelling of "East of the Sun, West of the Moon" that people had told me to read multiple times and I never got around to. And last year I read Watership Down, which was, by the way, pretty amazing. It was also pretty dark for a book about rabbits, but you know. I'd been meaning to read it for ages, and getting it as a Blind Date Book was just the push I needed.
5. You're taking a risk! Without actually taking a risk! So, yeah. For an ISTP, I'm an astoundingly non-risk-prone person. (For context: ISTPs tend to be stereotyped as impulsive daredevils, among other things.) It's not that I don't have a sense of adventure; it's just that, in any conflict between Tookishness and Baggins-ness, the Baggins side has the better arguments, namely "You have assignments due; you don't have time for [X, Y, and Z potential consequences]." However, Blind Date with a Book allows me to satisfy both the Tookish desire for adventure (because the book is mysterious and WILL I LIKE IT? WHO KNOWS. I HAVE TO READ IT NO MATTER WHAT IT IS!) and the Baggins-esque desire for stability (because what's more stable than a good book and a cup of tea, I'd like to know?) and so it's basically perfect. And yes, it is possible to overdo it, but . . . I haven't yet? We'll see what this year brings.

What about you? Have you ever participated in a Blind Date with a Book event? Would you want to? Please tell me in the comments! (Also, if you came here hoping that I was HOSTING a Blind Date with a Book event . . . sorry. Though, on a serious note: is that something you'd be interested in? Because I have an idea and I'm debating whether or not to try to pull it off. Again, let me know in comments.)
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)  

January 2019 Doings!

I'm not going to lie, y'all: it's a small miracle that this is up on time. This week — this whole month — has been a cycle of super chill days abruptly dissolving into obscenely frantic and packed ones. (Part of this is my fault; if I don't have a deadline for a project, or if the deadline is far away and the task is small, I'm very easily distracted. However, it's also partially due to the fact that professors and other people keep saying "Oh, here's this project; it's due in two class periods; have fun!" . . . and they do this on weekends when I'm already busy with other stuff.) Anyway. Let's get on with the Doings!

Writing!

• I . . . did not actually meet my writing goal for the month of January, in the sense that I didn't write 300 words per day, five days a week. I did write a ton for the first week or so because I had to finish up my short stories for my Actual Writing Job. Thankfully, I got those sent in on time, the client liked them, and I should be getting money pretty soon.
• The rest of the month, though? I was so burned out that I didn't touch anything creative until halfway through the month after my first Mechanical Heart beta got back to me. At that point, I started doing a little bit of on-and-off work on the end of Mechanical Heart; basically, I figured out that I really needed to rearrange some scenes at the end for the story to work properly. So, I've been doing that and trying to get it sorted out before I look at the rest of my beta feedback.
• Thankfully, almost all of my betas have gotten back to me! And I'm almost done with the last piece I'm rearranging! So as soon as I finish that, I can really jump into beta-inspired edits.
• Oh! And the Year of Snow White Facebook party was just the other night! That was super fun! I ran an online game of Bring Your Own Book, which went pretty well . . . aside from the fact that my computer crashed halfway through the night and wouldn't restart for twenty minutes. That was frustrating. But the rest of the evening was great!

Reading!

• This was actually a really fabulous reading month in terms of how many books I actually read. In terms of the quality of those books . . . it's a little iffier, but it got better as the month went on.
• We'll start with the highlights of the month — obviously, the two Invisible Library novels I read and reread. The Lost Plot was just as good on the reread as it was the first time around — in fact, it might've been made better by anticipation of exactly what I was getting into. As for The Mortal Word, AAAHHHHHHH IT WAS SO AWESOME!!!! All my favorite characters were in one place! And there were murders! And fae! And dragons! Basically, it was all the reasons I love the series stuffed into one book.
• The third major highlight of the month was the latest Fellowship of Fantasy anthology, Paws, Claws, and Magic Tales, a set of cat-themed short stories. As always, some of the stories were better than others, but all of them were delightful in some fashion. My absolute favorite was H.L. Burke's "Whisker-Width" . . . though I may be a little biased there due to the fact that I want the plot of that story to happen to me!
• Moving on to the next level of books, the ones that were great but not quite my favorites of the month: The Last Motley, while not a perfect book, was a fun adventure with plenty of twists and turns. I can see why so many of my friends rate it so highly! Fairest Son was a lovely Snow White retelling from a friend of mine; it could've been a little longer, but overall it was delightful. I also enjoyed K. M. Shea's Beauty and the Beast — of course, I'm always down for a good retelling of my favorite fairy tale, so no surprise there! All That We See or Seem was good as well, once I figured out that it was more romance than adventure, and West was an exciting but emotionally-frustrating sequel to East.
• In the middle ground, we have three books: H. L. Burke's Coiled, Lea Doue's Mirrors and Pearls, and Hannah Moskowitz's Salt. All of these were good books, just not great. Coiled was a lovely retelling of Cupid and Psyche featuring two cursed princes and two cursed princesses. Mirrors and Pearls was a fun Snow White retelling, albeit one that could've been fleshed out a little more. Salt had fun sibling relationships and monster-slaying, but was a little frustrating at times.
• And, finally, we have three books that disappointed me: one by no fault of its own, one by overly high expectations, and one because I absolutely should not have picked it up in the first place. First up: Sarah Addison Fox's Disowned. Now, don't get the wrong idea. Disowned is not a bad book by any means. People who aren't me have rated it very highly, and in hindsight, I understand why. Here's the thing, though: what I knew of the rest of the series led me to expect something with adventure and intrigue and constant danger. Disowned does not have those things. The first half of the book primarily concerns the growing relationships between Celeste and the family that takes her in, with a healthy dose of angst on Celeste's part. It's not bad in and of itself, and I will read the second book in the series to see if it's more like what I expected. (Plus, with indie books, the second book in a series is almost always better than the first one.) I just kind of feel like I was the victim of false advertising or something. Or maybe I just needed to read more reviews. I don't know.
• Moving on! Next up, the book for which I might have had overly high expectations: Brandon Sanderson's Legion anthology. Again, this wasn't a bad book in and of itself. The first two short story/novellas in the anthology are actually quite good. They have everything you'd expect from Sandersons' work: colorful characters, exciting plots, cool magic (in this case, more like cool technology, but you know what I mean), and fascinating twists. The third story also has these things, but it ended in a very frustrating and unsatisfying fashion.
• As for Trail of Lightning: It has content that's somewhat more adult than I really wanted to experience. It's very dark. The main character angsts too much and trusts too little. There's more blood and gore than I expected or was comfortable with. The magic system was super weird and confusing. The only things it had going for it were that it was based on Navajo myths and that it was basically a Western fantasy dystopia. So, basically: plenty of potential, but not enough of that potential came through.

• Oh, and I acquired a lot of books this month! Rosalie sent me a copy of her latest Ticket to Write book, and I won a copy of Because  . . . Anonymous from Diana L. Sharples. Then I bought a lot of ebooks . . . including a preorder of Honor: A Quest In, which you should all go preorder now. Trust me; I beta-read it and it's awesome.
• That said, I didn't read any old books this month. I fully intended to; it just . . . didn't happen. Oh well.

Watching!

• Good news: I am no longer completely behind on the best movies of the MCU! By which I mean that I finally watched Black Panther, almost a year after it came out. Should I have watched it sooner? Yes. Was it awesome? Yes. Is it my new favorite Marvel movie? No. But it is my second favorite! The characters were great (even though I would've been really confused about 75% of the names if I hadn't seen so much about it on the internet first)! The plot was exciting! The themes were excellent! Basically, I have nothing bad to say about it (except the name thing), but Thor: Ragnarok is still my favorite. It also has all those things, plus it has one of my favorite final battle scenes in any movie. So, yeah.
• That said, Shuri is a fabulous science princess and I love her and she's amazing. And I loved that we had scenes with her and T'Challa being sibling-ly. We need more awesome sibling teams of all kinds.

• I also watched the rest of Season 1 of Doctor Who, and I'd like to say thank you to everyone who told me to stick with it; I quite enjoyed the rest of the season! I ended up skipping episode 8 ("Father's Day") because I'm not crazy about the trope it seems to be founded on. I also ended up watching the last five episodes out of order — people who aren't my roommate and I didn't want to watch the Empty Child episodes at night, so we watched episodes 11, 12, and 13, and then my roommate and I backtracked to watch episodes 9 and 10 . . . which weren't actually that scary, but were pretty cool. Of course, I also knew spoilers, so that probably contributed. Also, Jack Harkness makes almost everything better. He's a mess, yes. But he's a fun mess who fits multiple of my favorite character tropes.
• Now we're in Season Two with Tennant, two episodes in, and I'm back to not knowing how I feel about anything. Tennant is a Doctor I've heard a lot about, and I know he's there for a while . . . but he showed up just as I'd finally gotten used to Eccleston's Doctor. I don't know.

• That said, speaking of things that I like better in the second half of the season: the Alfheim Online part of Sword Art Online is fabulous. Much less angst, a really cool world, and a more connected plot all helped keep me more engaged. I mean, the whole subplot with Leafa/Suguha's crush was annoying, but still. My roommate and I finished it two nights ago and I was pretty satisfied with the climax.
• And now we can finally return to Fairy Tail and hopefully get through all the completed arcs of that by the end of the semester. After that, we might watch the second season of Sword Art Online, but that's still a long way away.

Life!

I knitted these for the people who got signed copies of Blood in the Snow. I'm super happy with how they turned out.

• I'm going to be honest: I don't remember a lot of what happened this month. I need to start writing these posts over the course of the month instead of doing the whole thing at the very end.
• The first week of January was pretty chill, other than the fact that I had so much writing to do. At least, I'm pretty sure it was.
• College started back up the second week of January. My schedule is interesting; I'm in class from dawn to dusk (literally) Monday and Friday, I have normal class hours Wednesday, and I have nothing on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I'm sure that contributes to my feeling of either being completely chill or completely stressed; hopefully, I can find a better balance as the semester goes on. I am really enjoying several of my classes, though. Web Design is cool because I realized I know more about it than I thought; my blogs and forums gave me a little bit of a jumpstart with the basics of HTML, so now it's just a matter of expanding that knowledge and keeping all the tags and terms in place. Plus, I can work ahead, which is super nice.
• Both of my Honors seminars are going well, especially Artificial Intelligence. I'm pretty sure that I get more story ideas every week; at this rate, I'll have at least half a dozen science fantasy concepts ready to be expanded into full stories! Oddly, my actual PWID classes are my least favorite in my schedule — which isn't to say that I hate them, but one is a lot of theory and group work (stressful for obvious reasons) and the other is basically on one of my least favorite parts of the writing and design process. So, yeah. They aren't my favorite classes I've ever had.
• I also learned that I do not like leadership conferences, mostly because they tend to tell me stuff I already know. Or, at least, that's what happened at the one I attended this month — it's hosted by the university, and all org officers are required to attend. It was a very frustrating, stressful, exhausting experience.
• D&D is still going strong, thankfully. We lost a few people, but we also gained some new members, one of whom is a good friend of mine from my hall. I also think that I'm getting better at playing as my character instead of playing as me or just doing what seems like the most strategic option. (Admittedly, my character's personality is fairly similar to mine, but there are some differences.) So, yeah. That's a generally good time.
• Also, this week was so cold that the college literally shut down on Wednesday. I enjoyed the day off, but I would like spring, please. I know that's not going to happen, but . . . I can dream, right? (And if you live in Minnesota or Chicago or somewhere that's even more horribly cold, yes, I know, you had it worse. Just let me be miserable in peace, please; I'm not used to this.)

February Plans!

• I really, really hate February, ok? It's the shortest month, but it always feels like the longest. I'm pretty sure that has something to do with the fact that it's the coldest month and hot things move faster than cold things and all that. There's a very scientific reason, that's all I'm saying.
• I also expect that my workload will start amping up pretty soon. (In some respects it already has, but you know.) Odds are high that I'll be spending a considerable amount of time either in group project meetings or arguing with Adobe Captivate. (It's not the easiest Adobe program I've ever worked with, ok? And all the other programs are fairly intuitive; once you know one, you can figure out all of them. But Captivate acts more like Word or Powerpoint, and it's just . . . ugh. I'm sure I'll get the hang of it, but it's taking me a whole lot longer than it usually would.)
• And when I'm not working on something for a class? I'll be editing Mechanical Heart, trying to get it polished and submitted to the Golden Braids group release before Kendra gets another steampunk Rapunzel retelling that she likes better. That's my goal for the month: do something with Mechanical Heart every day until it's finished. It doesn't matter if I edit one paragraph or five chapters, just as long as I make progress. I would make a time-based goal, but that feels like a risky proposition right now since my schedule is so wacky and will probably get weirder as the month goes on.
• As far as reading goes, I don't have any particular plans, but I now need to read two old books instead of just one. I still hope to read The Four Loves so I can ask intelligent questions about it in one of my honors seminars. As for the other . . . I haven't decided yet. Any suggestions?

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

Writer Stereotypes (Part 2)!

Hey'a, everyone! Last week, I shared some of the writer stereotypes that fit me pretty well. This week, I'm focusing on the opposite: writer stereotypes that, when it comes to me, couldn't be further from the truth. So, let's get started!

 Writer Stereotypes (Part 2)

1. Writers are insomniacs and night owls who stay up to the wee hours of the morning to write. My hallmates can confirm that this is not the case. While I have occasionally, in a fit of inspiration, stayed up to an unholy hour because the words just kept coming, I typically try to turn in no later than 10:30, maybe 11. After 11 PM, I am definitely not in a state where I can write coherently, nor am I inclined to try. I would much rather get up early (or early-ish) and write before the sun comes up, accompanied by a lovely mug of chai.
2. Writers cannot survive without coffee. I'm pretty sure that this is directly caused by the last stereotype? In any case, I strongly dislike coffee, even the smell of it, and the best efforts of my coffee-loving friends haven't changed that. Tea, on the other hand? Like I said last week, I love it. But I can survive just fine without it, especially during the summer.
3. Writers delight in the pain they can cause to their characters (and readers). There seems to be a trend among certain writers to treat their characters' pain as either a competition or a joke. People brag about how horrible their characters' lives are, they laugh about how much they torture their favorites. And, yes, causing your characters (and, by extension, your readers) pain to some degree is required to tell a good story. But I don't agree with pain for the sake of pain. I believe there's no such thing as purposeless pain in life, and so I don't put it in my stories.
4. Writers use their writing to get revenge on people whom they dislike. I used to threaten to do this on occasion, but it's not a threat I'm likely to carry out. When I'm writing, the last thing I want to think about is the people who frustrate me; part of why I write is to get a break from those people. So why would I want to put them in my novel, even as dragon food?
5. Writers hate editing but will correct your grammar anyway. I do dislike editing, though I dislike it less when it's my own book. However, the odds that I'll actually correct you grammar are pretty small. Most of the time, I don't care. Or, if I do care, I'll just judge you silently from my side of the internet. No pressure.

What about you? Are there any writer stereotypes that don't fit you in the least? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)   

Writer Stereotypes (Part 1)

Hello, friends! So, stereotypes. Everyone's affected by them. Everyone tries to pretend that the stereotypes for whatever they happen to identify themselves as — writer, bookworm, athlete, science person, crafter, girl, guy, anything — doesn't actually apply to them. But, y'know, while not every stereotype applies to everyone in a particular category, some of them will always apply to some of the people. That's as true for writers, and for me as a writer, as it is for everyone else. This week, I'm revealing some of the writer stereotypes that apply to me. Then, next week, I'll reverse the topic and talk about the stereotypes that I don't embody (and, in most cases, probably never will).

 Writer Stereotypes (Part 1)

1. Writers are reclusive introverts. Well, "reclusive" is a stretch, as my roommate (or anyone in my hall) will tell you. But despite the fact that I somehow acquired a social life after coming to college, I'm still very much an introvert who needs a certain amount of peace and quiet in order to function. And even when it comes to writing, I may love the Inklings writing org events, but I don't really get much done at them.
2. Writers love working at coffee shops. Not all the time, and not if they're crowded and busy, but going to a coffee shop to write often provides a nice change of scenery and a bit of extra motivation to write. Of course, the fact that I get something sweet and yummy to drink whenever I go to one certainly helps too.
3. Writers are spend more time in daydreams than they do in the actual world. This isn't as true as it used to be. Middle- and early high-school me definitely lived her life with her head in another world — typically one involving magic, dragons, adventures, portals, and guys who talked about something other than sports, video games, and school. (Trust me: for middle-school me, that last one seemed as far-fetched as a dragon in my backyard.) But even now, it doesn't take much for my brain to wander off into the world of one of my books, either playing out a scene I'm going to write or figuring out how whatever song I'm listening to might describe one or more of my characters. That said, I like to think I'm a little more aware of my surroundings than I used to be.
4. Writers can write anything. Pros of being a PWID major and a creative writer: I probably can write whatever you think I can write, whether it's fiction or nonfiction, business or pleasure. (Or, if I can't write it now, I'll be able to write it within a few years.) That said, I can't write everything equally well. I'm much better at fantasy than contemporary or historical fiction. I'm better at marketing materials than official reports — at least, I'm pretty sure I am. I'm better at fantasy than marketing materials. You get the idea.
5. Writers love tea. I do not know where I would be without tea. Probably in a very sad, miserable world. I'm not an addict, but I will say that my morning tea sets up my best days and makes my bad days a bit more bearable. (And it got me through Professional Editing and Instructional Design 1, and it's going to get me through Instructional Design 2, all early morning classes that cause me more frustration than they should.) And when I need to settle down for the long haul with my writing, or when I need motivation to work on a troublesome scene, a cup of tea is just the thing to get me going.

What writer stereotypes do you fulfill? Please tell me in the comments! And don't forget to check back next week to find out what writer stereotypes I definitely don't fit.
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)    

2019: It's Goal Time

Well, here we are. 2019. We're four days in and I already feel like we've been here for ages. But I guess that's not really a surprise, given how long last year felt. Hopefully, 2019 will be better than 2018 was — though, all things considered, 2018 was a pretty great year. And I did a reasonably good job meeting most of my goals . . . though not all of them.

2018 Reviewed!

Writing

• As you may remember, last year, my main writing goal was to set myself a writing challenge of some kind every month so I would keep up a more consistent writing schedule. I'm happy to say that I largely succeeded with this, though there were a few months (especially towards the end of the month) when I basically just defaulted to a goal of 100 words per day, six days a week.
• And that goal paid off! I wrote and edited a total of 183,132 words this year, up by about 54K words from last year! So, basically, I got an extra NaNoWriMo's worth of words in this year, which is pretty fabulous since I never actually did a full 50K NaNoWriMo (even though I participated in all three events).
• I did not work on all the projects that I hoped to. I managed another few chapters of Destinies and Decisions, but in general, I'm setting aside the rewrite until later. (It's entirely possible that I'll rewrite the first three books, then restart the rewrite of book four, but we'll see.) As for Between Two Worlds, I didn't even touch it.
• But I did finish Fight Song! And I wrote almost two dozen short fiction pieces of varying lengths! I didn't spread out the short stories as much as I intended to, but I'm not complaining.
• I also published my first book, Blood in the Snow, so, I mean, that's exciting. It also definitely wasn't in the plan for the year, but, hey. Plans change, and I think that was a change for the better. Though the release didn't go as smoothly as I hoped, everyone's been super supportive. (To everyone who's said nice things about my book: thank you! You get all the hugs.)

Reading

• In 2018, according to my Goodreads Year in Books, I read a total of 109 books and 33,848 pages, with an average rating of 4.1 stars. That's pretty good, considering that I actually dropped my Goodreads reading challenge in 2018 from my usual 99 books to 77 books.
• However, my C.S. Lewis reading challenge thing? Epic fail. I didn't even make it out of January before my new books overwhelmed my old books. Oh well. At least I enjoyed what I read.

Life

• I got a marketing and design internship! I actually still have it; it's just very, very part time! I have concluded that if you let me work from home on marketing stuff for the next ten years, I will probably be very, very happy.
• I became secretary for the Honors org and so far am enjoying the position. I do need to send an email out soon for that, though.
• I actually kept up with doing German on Duolingo the whole year! So now, at least in theory, I know more German than I did when I started. I don't think I could hold a solid conversation in German, but I could probably find my way around a German city and make myself understood in short exchanges.
• I did not keep doing martial arts (mostly because the instructor left), but I did learn how to swing dance! Kinda. And then I stopped going this semester because classes didn't fit in my schedule and social swing is super boring when no one asks you to dance.
• I reworked both my blogs and created a shiny new author site!
• I finally found a D&D group! Without advertising for other players! (That said, I did respond to someone else advertising for players.) I am very happy with my group and my lovely paladin, and I can't wait to get back to it next semester.

So, that was my year — a good year, overall, if a busy one. As for 2019, then . . . well, that's another adventure. As usual, I'm setting some goals, though (again, as usual), they're more a general idea of what I want to accomplish this year than hard-and-fast I will do this in 2019 or die trying. I like to keep things flexible, after all.

2019 Goals!

Writing

• Once again, I want to set myself a writing challenge every month. I mean, it worked out well last year, so why not keep it up?
  • That said, I'm going light in January because I pushed myself so hard the last two months. My goal is 300 words of writing, editing, or worldbuilding per day, 5 days a week. (That said, as long as I get some edits done on Mechanical Heart and make a little progress on Dust of Silver, I'll be happy.)
• What projects am I hoping to work on this year? Great question!
  • Editing Mechanical Heart even more and submitting it to the Golden Braids collection. For those unaware, Golden Braids is the next Arista Challenge group release that Kendra's running. My hope is that I can publish Mechanical Heart with that instead of doing it all on my own. Of course, Kendra has to accept the story first for me to do that . . .
  • Writing more of Dust of Silver. I'll probably do this in conjunction with the Tattered Slippers Arista Challenge, though I entertain no illusions of having it written, edited, and ready to submit for that release. However, it is quite pleasant to work on retelling the same fairy tale with a lot of other writers, and Dust of Silver is primarily a Twelve Dancing Princesses retelling.
  • Writing a new novella? Maybe? Speaking of the Tattered Slippers Arista Challenge, I need to figure out whether or not I'm going to write anything to submit to it. I caught a glimpse of a plot bunny the other evening, but only time will tell if it's worth chasing down or not. Right now, I'm just giving it time to grow while I work on other things.
  • Editing Once Upon a Dream? Maybe? I know that I want to publish Once Upon a Dream, a Sleeping Beauty retelling featuring magic, chemistry, and romance, at some point. It's already in pretty good shape, but it needs to be expanded in certain areas. I'd like to start doing that sooner rather than later.
  • Figuring out a rough publishing plan. At some point in the near future, I need to look at what I've written so far and what I plan to write in the future and determine how it all fits together — not in a hard-and-fast sense, but in a some-idea-of-where-I'm-probably-going sense. What do I want to release now, and what do I want to save for when I've established myself a little more? What am I self-publishing and what am I submitting to traditional publishers? If I submit something to a traditional or small press publisher, do they have any kind of dibs on future books? Are there any restrictions on crossovers between, say, traditionally and self-published books? I need to find the answers, and I need to do it sooner rather than later.

Reading

• I'm setting my Goodreads reading challenge at 77 books again, even though I read so much last year. That seems safer than going for 99.
• I'm also going to make another attempt at reading more old books, but I'm not aiming for anything so intense this time. My new goal is to read one book per month that was published before 1975. Or, at least, written before 1975, because all the new Tolkien books are a thing. (I don't know if they're a thing I'll actually get around to reading, but y'know, I'm leaving the possibility open.)

Life

• Continue to survive and do well in college. I mean, I'm pretty sure I'll do this whether or not I make it an official goal or not, but y'know. I might as well say it.
• Get another internship and/or continue the internship I have. I'm a tiny bit hesitant to try for a full-time desk-job internship like I had back in New York for this summer because of some other stuff I want to do. However, I do want to get more work experience and, ideally, continue to earn money. But I also love the internship I'm currently at, so I'm hoping I can keep working at it either part- or full-time, depending what else I'm doing.
• Attend the RealmMakers writing conference. I was a little uncertain about whether or not to put this up here, but I've been telling so many people that I hope to go that I might as well say it on the blog. Is it the wisest financial decision? Not sure, especially since I just did some calculations and realized that it's going to cost a bit more than I anticipated. (I hoped that my Actual Writing Job paycheck would cover all the expenses with a bit left over. It won't. But it should cover most of the cost.) However, I think that the opportunities for networking with publishers and other authors and learning from more experienced authors will be worth the money. (And, if nothing else, I want to meet some of my writer friends in person.)
• Keep practicing German and start learning another language. Since German is going to so well with Duolingo, I'm thinking of trying another language, one I don't have prior experience with. I'm still debating which one; suggestions are welcome. I've also been informally learning bits and pieces of ASL from some friends on my hall, and I intend to keep working on that. Depending on how time works out, I may try to learn it more formally through LifePrint or another site as well.

How was your 2018? What are your goals for 2019? Any suggestions for what language I should learn or what old books I should read? Also, if you've been reading my blog (or my old writing thread on the Underground) for a while, are there any of my stories that you're especially hoping I publish in the near future? Please tell me in the comments!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)    

New Year, New World [A New Year's Short]

Happy New Year, everyone! I wasn't sure if I'd do a New Year's short story, but then I got this idea and it was so much fun that I just had to run with it. Hopefully y'all enjoy it too. If you're curious, my usual reflections-and-goals post will be going up on Friday. I just don't want to post TOO much in these two days.

New Year, New World

Tamison took a deep breath and smoothed the lapels of his wizardly robe. Fifteen minutes and counting until he’d leave for his first mission for the Council of Wizards. He'd been waiting months for an assignment, but his patience had paid off. This mission would prove his resolve, his ingenuity, and his subtlety without all the danger that some of the other young wizards had faced on their first assignments. There would be no tentacle-things from the Lost Realm, no mad werecats from the Forest of Midnight, and absolutely no bears of any kind. It would be perfect.

Tamison sorted through his satchel, making sure he had everything, then checked the clock again. Nine minutes left. He whistled to catch the attention of the pocket dragon perched on a nearby chair. “Myrd, why don't you slip through the portal and scout a bit? Make sure the coast is clear?”

Myrd rolled his eyes. A string of thoughts flowed from his head to Tamison's, mostly about how ridiculous Tam was. But he took flight anyway and disappeared through the portal with a flip of his silver-scaled tail.

Now alone, Tamison took a deep breath and reviewed the details of his mission. Seventeen years ago, an about-to-die wizard couple had portaled their one-year-old daughter to the Magicless Realm, Earth, intending to retrieve her if either of them survived. Neither had, and it had taken this long for other wizards to trace the girl's location to somewhere in the western part of somewhere called North Carolina. Tamison's job was to find the girl and bring her back. Undoubtedly, it would be a long and difficult search, requiring Tam to evade the notice of enemy forces and perfect his locating spells to the level of a master magician, but it would be worthwhile in the end — especially if he could manage to win the girl's heart along with the approval of his elders. Yes, she would surely be charmed by the suave and mysterious stranger simmering with hidden power . . .

Myrd flew back through the portal and reported the other side all clear. Tamison straightened, slung his satchel over his shoulder, and checked the clock. One more minute, then he could arrive at exactly midnight on the first day of the Magicless Realm's New Year.

Now! Tamison stepped into the portal. For a moment, dark nothingness surrounded him. Then he walked out the other side into cold air that smelled of dirty smoke and disappointment. In the sky high above, a firework went off with a bang and a flash of green. Ah, yes, this was a suitably dramatic entrance.

“You know,” came a contemplative voice from below him, “they say that if you drink a root beer at midnight on New Year's Eve behind the high school, adventure will find you.”

Tamison shot a furious thought at Myrd: I thought you said the coast was clear! He looked down to find a girl sitting there, her back to the brick wall, wrapped in a puffy green coat. A mass of black curls half hid her face, and she held a clear bottle of some kind of dark liquid. “And who says this, exactly?”

“People. Well, me, mostly. Just now, and about ten minutes ago when a dragon poofed out of thin air and started flying around.” She looked up and grinned at him, her teeth gleaming white in the darkness. “So, where do you come from, adventure?”

You let her see you? Tamison glared at Myrd, then stopped. This girl shouldn't have been able to see the dragon at all. Maybe he could convince her it was her imagination, nothing more. “I'm just passing through.”

“Sure.” She grinned again like she didn't believe him. “Just stepped out of thin air like that, you can't be sticking around long. But what's on the other side of thin air?”

“I did not just step out of thin air. You simply didn't notice me approach.” He gave her an annoyed look. “What are you doing here anyway?”

“Someone I trust told me that if I came here at this time, I’d save someone a lot of time and energy.” She rolled her eyes and took a long drink from her bottle. “Also, I think I would’ve noticed you coming — you and your dragon and your fancy flickery robe, even if the robe kinda looks like a sports coat sometimes. How’d’you do that?”

Blast. Something must be wrong with his illusion spells. But this was fixable. “No, it's a . . .” What had she called it? “A sports coat. And there's no dragon. You're drunk.”
She snorted. “You don't get drunk on root beer. Don't be stupid. Anyway, I’m too young for alcohol and too smart for drugs.”

What kind of beer didn't get people drunk? Tamison made a mental note to investigate. “You're tired and imagining things, then.”

“Nah. I got plenty of sleep last night. I could stay up for hours now.” She gave him another lazy smile as more fireworks went off above them. “So? What's on the other side of your thin air — if it's air? It looks kinda weird, like if you turned a rainbow into fishing line and wove it into a sheet.”

So not only could she see Myrd and his robes, she could see the gateway too. Great. Just great. Tamison hastily adjusted his plans. He could do with an ally here, a guide to help him find the girl. Naturally, as she worked with him, her initial hostility would give way to respect, then love, but she would be left sorrowful when he returned to his own world with the wizards’ daughter . . .

“Your dragon's talking to me,” she abruptly announced, interrupting his thoughts. “He says you're on a quest to find someone. Maybe I know her.”

“Yes.” Tamison shot Myrd another look. The least the dragon could do was let him tell his own story. “Seventeen years ago, two great wizards sent their daughter here to hide her from their foes. Now I seek to find her and invite her to return to her homeland to receive training in the fabulous powers which she undoubtedly possesses.”

“Uh-huh.” She drew the last word out as far as it could go without breaking. “And how are you gonna know this girl when you find her?”

“Well . . .” Tamison considered this. “I will have several tests to see if she could be the one. The first sign, of course, would be that she can see through my illusions . . .”

The girl might’ve raised an eyebrow; her tone suggested she had. “Like I can, you mean?”

“Well, yes.” Tamison faltered. It couldn't be this easy, could it? “And then I would investigate more into her family heritage and history and see what she knew about her parents . . .”

“Birth parents? ‘Bout nothing.” She shrugged and took another drink. “I've been in the foster system since I was a baby; just aged out last July. I tried to find info on my birth family, but no one even has any records.”

“Oh.” This was a test. It had to be a test. Either that or a trap. “Well, the person I'm looking for has a birthmark roughly the shape of a heart on her left shoulder.”

“Like this?” After a minute’s struggle with her coat, she pulled down the shoulder of her sweater to show him. He bent, creating a ball of light in one hand to help him see.

The mark did indeed look like a heart, though an elongated one. Tam straightened up. More fireworks went off, and music came from somewhere off beyond the brick wall, then faded away. “I suppose the last test would be to see if she has any wizardly powers . . .”

The words had no sooner left his mouth than he felt his feet lift off the ground. The girl laughed as he rose a foot above the earth and floated there. “Wizard enough for you?” She smirked. “I started floating books off my shelves by accident when I was twelve. I've been waiting ever since for someone to show up and say, ‘Yer a wizard, Carrie, ’ but I guess it worked out the other way around. So, I get to go off to wizardland now?”

Blast it. Blast it. Could it really be this easy? Was this a trap? A setup? A test? He had to find a way to stall and recalibrate. “If you wish to return to the Living Realm, your homeland, you may, but you are not required to if you would rather remain.”

“Learn to be a wizard and live around dragons instead of spending my life working a lousy job to pay off student loans? That’s an easy choice. New year, new world sounds good to me.” She stood. “So we just walk through the rainbow-weave thin air and we're there?”

“Yes, but . . .” Tam scrambled for an excuse. “Do you need to gather any possessions or say goodbye to anyone?”

She shook her head. “I had a feeling I wouldn't be around much this new year, and my feelings like that usually aren’t wrong. I said my goodbyes and brought everything I care about with me.” She hefted a black backpack off the ground and onto her shoulder. “Well, are we going?”

“Um . . .” Tamison still hesitated until a noise like branches rattling behind them caught his attention. “What was that?”

Carrie shrugged. “An animal of some kind, probably.”

Tam allowed himself to relax. “Ah. Nothing to fear, then.”

She gave him another one of those smiles. “Nah. Not unless you’re afraid of bears.”

Tamison hastily reevaluated the situation. Bears, even non-magical ones, were notoriously resistant to anything wizardly, and in his current discombobulated state, he didn't want to mess with one. “Let's just get back through the portal, then.” He stepped aside and gestured. “Ladies first.”

“Thanks.” She paused. “By the way, you’re not my type, so maybe stop getting your hopes up.” Then she stepped through the gateway and disappeared.

Tam sighed. Apparently, he needed to guard his thoughts better — either that or find a dragon who didn't spill all his secrets. At least it was an easy mission. That's something. Then, with that in mind and Myrd on his shoulder, he followed Carrie through the portal.

November + December 2018 Doings!

So, yeah, I missed the November Doings! post. I blame finals or something. And now I get to sum up two months in one post at the busiest time of year. Why do I do this to myself? Oh well.

Writing!

• Mechanical Heart basically consumed my life for the last two months, as far as writing goes. In my second rewrite, I planned to rearrange a few scenes, give Josiah's sister a slightly bigger roll, and expand a few scenes and elements so things would flow more slowly. The story would expand by maybe five chapters maximum, and I'd be done in about a month.
• Obviously, though, that didn't happen! Instead, I doubled the length of the story, added a bunch of new scenes and possibly a new subplot (I can't remember for sure how much of any subplot was in the original), and spent waaaay too much time making it all happen.
• For what it's worth, I do think the story is much better for the changes. I just I wish I'd been able to finish a little faster, especially because I still need to write several of my Actual Writing Job short stories. (Thankfully, I already have those plotted, so all I have to do is actually write them.)
• Oh, and I wrote three different holiday specials: "A Symphony of Thanks" and "The Promise Star," both of which I've posted on my blog already, and a New Year's special that will go up tonight at midnight. I enjoyed writing all of them; it's nice to work on something so short and contained after spending so much time on longer pieces. I think the New Year's special was my favorite, but that's mostly because I find the concept pretty amusing.

Reading!

• November and December were actually relatively good reading months, despite (or perhaps because of) how busy I was. I actually ended up doing a lot of rereading, which is kind of a rarity. Around mid-November, I reread the Raven Cycle — don't ask me why, but I certainly don't regret my decision. There was a lot more of certain content than I remembered — or maybe I just ignored it before. I don't know. I still enjoyed the series a lot, though. Then, once I got back home on Christmas break, I reread all of Donita K. Paul's DragonKeeper and Chiril books. I used to love the series, but I hadn't read them in years, and I wanted to know how well they'd hold up. Thankfully, I actually enjoyed most of them more now than I remembered, especially the last two DragonKeeper Chronicles.
• On the downside, I want a minor dragon more than ever now. But I'm used to that.
• I did read quite a few new books, though! The best of these were Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom, which I talked about in my End-of-Year Book Freakout last Friday. Close behind was the Five Poisoned Apples collection. It's an excellent set of short stories, each better than the last. I think "Red as Blood" was my favorite, with "Fairest One" and "Snowbird and the Red Shoes" close seconds. And, to be honest, I can see now why Blood in the Snow didn't make it into the collection — it focuses on a slightly different aspect of the tale than most of these stories do, and it shares some significant elements with another story that absolutely deserves to be in there. That's not to say that Blood in the Snow is worse or better than any of the stories, just that it wouldn't have fit as well with them.
• My third-favorite read of these past two months was Skyward, Brandon Sanderson's new YA release. I will admit that I wasn't as thrilled with it as I hoped to be. Sanderson came through on what he promised: a strong and stubborn heroine, a fascinating sentient spaceship, epic space battles, and a pretty cool space academy. Plus, he gave us some pretty great female friendships — always a plus. But a few elements of the story fell a little flat, and certain characters and elements seemed a little more expected than you'd typically find in a Sanderson novel.
• We round out the month with Dagger's Sleep and Christmas in Talesend. The latter is a fun collection of Afterverse Christmas stories that I read on Christmas Eve and thoroughly enjoyed. The former is a mixed bag of a Sleeping Beauty retelling by Tricia Mingerink. The storyline and concept were great, and I liked most of the characters . . . but not all of them. Plus, the worldbuilding bugged me a lot. Still a good read, but not a great one.

Watching!

• I actually watched a pretty wide variety of stuff these last two months: some Doctor Who, a few episodes of Miraculous Ladybug, the last of the first arc in Sword Art Online, and a lot of random Studio C, Door Monster, and It's a Southern Thing. I enjoyed most of it, and I'm quite glad that I discovered the Door Monster YouTube channel. They make mostly geeky D&D and video game-based sketches and they're just really fun.
• On a less cheerful note, unless anyone can convince me otherwise, I think I might be giving up on Doctor Who. I managed another few episodes — the one with Dickens and the ghosts, the first Dalek episode, and Satellite 5 — but I keep getting frustrated with the show, the characters, and the storylines. If I'm giving up too soon, please tell me, but otherwise? I have other things I'd rather watch.
• Also: PART SIX OF JOURNEY TO THE WEST HAPPENED! I've basically been waiting for part six for literal months. (Was it worth the wait? Yes. 500%. And you should go watch the whole series; you can find the playlist here.)
• I also learned that, if you're going to start an anime, you should sure there's an English version available (or at least English subtitles). On a completely unrelated note, Re:Creators on Amazon Video doesn't meet either of those qualifications.
• Most of what I've watched recently, of course, has been Christmas movies: some I watch every year (like White Christmas and Grinch) and some that I haven't watched in years: the Barbie Nutcracker and the first two VeggieTales Christmas videos. (What? I had knitting to do, and I needed something short.) Let me say, the VeggieTales ones are seriously underrated and a lot more fun than the last time I remember watching them. I think I may need to add them to my list of movies I watch every Christmas. We'll see.

Life!

• I literally remember next to nothing about November. I think I spent most of the month in a state of perpetual NaNo-and-school-induced stress. Um . . . I drew dice and pencils a lot for 2D Design. That happened.
• I went to the Ayo dance org's fall showcase midway through November. That was fun, though I enjoyed last year's show better. This year's show involved a lot of swing dance, which was cool, but I didn't enjoy the songs nearly as much.
• Also in November was the art and design org's Clay Night, an event in which all the people not in the ceramics class got to head down to the ceramics lab and learn how to do hand-thrown and wheel-made clay creations. I had mixed results with most of my creations, and I struggled more with the wheel than I thought I would . . . but I still want to do it again. (I really wish I had the time and money to try stuff like this out for more than just a night — during this semester, I've had the chance to experiment with a lot of media, but I didn't have enough time with any of them to decide to turn them into a long-term hobby. Not that I have a lot of money for them even if I did want to do them long-term . . .)
• And there were the PWID internship reports, of course. This year, I was giving a report, not just listening, which made the event mildly more interesting but also much more stressful. I don't think I sounded half as professional as I wanted to, and the fact that I initially went to the wrong building didn't help — PWID events are usually in the same room as our classes are, but this year we had so many people that we had to use a room in the BTS. I think it turned out all right, though.
• Then, in December, everything was either CHRISTMAS or FINALS. I honestly think they both caused me about the same amount of stress. I only had one actual final, but I had really big final projects in all my other classes: a fifty-minute group presentation, a website redesign and rewrite (thankfully, I was only really responsible for the rewrite; my partners handled the design), two infographics, a logo, and eight art pieces on the theme of pencilness.
• Once again, I covered Campus Christmas Open Dorms for the college paper — but this time I both took photos and wrote an article. That was an interesting adventure. I was really impressed with my hall's setup as well. We decided to theme our hall after Clue and had a whole interactive mystery set up. I was pulled in to help write the storyline and dialogue, which turned out a bit more stressful than I expected (mostly because the other writer didn't get me the information I needed until a day or two before the actual event . . . gah!). Still, it worked out, and I think it's the best Campus Christmas my hall has had in the time I've been there.
• I also spent a lot of time knitting and crocheting, making Christmas presents for my hallmates. I'm not going to say what they were because some of them read this blog and left before I could give them their gifts . . . but I am happy with how they turned out in the end.
• And my roommate and I made gingerbread! Which turned out super yummy but also sparked a discussion about the uses of molasses that left me astonished. (I maintain that it is delicious on biscuits at breakfast. She's never heard of such a thing and wouldn't try it if you paid her. But it's fine. Part of the problem is that the only molasses she knows is baking molasses, not sorghum molasses, which is lighter, sweeter, and far superior.)
• Of course, I had Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks, which means I got to spend a lot of time at home, enjoying the company of my family. I introduced them to Codenames, we ate much good food, and I very much appreciated not having to go to class. Plus I had time to do a lot of reading, which makes me happy.

• And we went to Mount Vernon, which I haven't been to since I was, like . . . six-ish. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the actual house, which was disappointing, but the tour was still very interesting. I think it'll be helpful for story research as well — even without taking pictures, the memory is a good reference for how locations in one of my book series might look.
• Then we had Christmas itself! My grandpa came down for the holiday, and that meant that my mom made ladylocks (otherwise known as an absolutely delicious type of pastry cookie). He arrived Sunday, and on Monday we went to our church's Christmas Eve service, which was insanely crowded — in fact, we intended to go at 2:00, but even though we arrived on time, we couldn't find seats! We ended up coming back at 3:15 to get seats for the 4:00 service. It was worth the wait, though: very well-presented and moving.
• And now we just have by Bible Study's New Year's Eve party tonight, which is always a good time, if sometimes a little overwhelming.

January Plans!

• I head back to college in about a week and I still don't have my books. I'm more than a little stressed about this. But I'm excited about my classes next semester! I have two honors seminars on interesting topics, Tech Tools 1 (a class on different graphic design programs — all of which I know how to use to some degree already, but that means I can really dig into the projects), Instructional Design 2 (which should hopefully confirm whether or not instructional design is a good career option for me), Web Design (which is apparently online instead of in the classroom; I'm nervous), and User Experience (which I'm also stressed about but is with a professor I like, so it's fine). Also, I have no actual classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which is going to be super weird but also should give me plenty of time to work on projects.
• I'm also excited to get back to D&D. My character just leveled up again at the end of last semester, which means I get to choose her Sacred Oath — basically, it's character development and new special powers. And I'm enjoying the group I'm in, even though it's a little more combat-focused than I expected. (Honestly, that's probably for the best, since I'm still a little awkward about talking in character.) Also, I now only need one more level before I get to start dual-wielding, and that's exciting.
• As far as writing goes, I'll probably talk about my plans a little more when I do my goals post for the year (probably coming on Friday). In the short term, though, my main project is the remainder of my Actual Writing Job short stories, which need to be written, edited, and submitted very soon. After that, I'll get back to longer projects.
• Other than that, I don't have a lot of plans for this month. Classes and orgs will likely proceed as usual. In my spare time, I'll read, write, and hang out with my roommate and hallmates as much as possible. I'd like to get to the gym more often and do more watching of shows with my roommate, but we'll see how those work out.

So, that's my last two months. What about you? What have you been up to? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)   

End-of-Year Book Freakout 2018!

Aaaaand it's back! The End-of-Year Book Freakout! I'm not calling it a tag anymore because I havne't been tagged and I'm not tagging anyone, haha. I think I've had a reasonably good reading year — my average rating was 4.1, which isn't bad. Though, let's be real, it's been a really long year, and I can barely remember what I read in July. Thank God for Goodreads. (In my defense, I read 107 books this year, and about 45 of those were since July.) And technically 2018 isn't quite over, so I'll probably get another book or two in by the first of January . . . but I wanted to get this up now.

1. Best book you've read in the second half of 2018:

Ok, full disclosure: a lot of my favorite books that I've read this half of the year have been rereads. So that's kind of sad. That said, one of those rereads does count:

 The Worth of a King by Kendra E. Ardnek

Just read my review for all my fangirling, but this is tied with LDTD for my favorite of Kendra's books. Delaney and pre-scale Amberite are the best parts, but political intrigue, masked assassins, and the adorable romance that is Delsida all make the book doubly awesome.

A few other pretty awesome reads:

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

Heistyness and sharp-edged friendships and diversity make this super fun. (Plus, the story starts in a Netherlands-esque city, which is really cool.)

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green

Not an easy book to read at all times, but an exciting and thought-provoking one. More contemporary than fantasy, but it's so Hank-ish that I'm ok with that.

2. Best sequel you've read in the second half of 2018:

Obsidio by Amie Kaufman

I fully expected this to rip out my heart and crush it into small pieces — that seems to be the trend with series finales — and, I mean, it did. But it also had some moments of pure triumph and relief and happiness that I loved. The gang's all together, plus we've got the con-artist newbies, and Kady's dad is just fathering everyone and I don't know. It made me happy at the same time as it killed me with plot twists.

And the runners-up:

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

Except for one twist that I'm INTENSELY MAD about and the fact that this one is slightly gayer than the first one, I loved Crooked Kingdom just as much as Six of Crows.

The Plastic Magician by Charlie Holmberg

Getting to see another magic type in action was super fun! And it was nice to have a plot that was centered on something a little less high-stakes than black-magic murderers on the loose.

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

The Mortal Word by Genevieve Cogman

This was one of my Christmas gifts this year, and I can't wait to get back to the worlds of the Invisible Library! Now the question is: do I reread the whole series before I read this one? Or just the last book?

Bitter Winter by Jaye L. Knight

Not going to lie, I kinda forgot that this book was coming out until I got the email about the blog tour. And it's anyone's guess if I'll actually read this soon or if I'll wait until it's been out for six months. Based on the past, the latter is more likely.

4. Most anticipated release for next year: 

Return of the Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

Eugenides is baaaaaack! And it's the end of the series, which is tragic, but it is what it is. I'm just glad we get one more installment, and I'm super excited to see how it goes.

5. Biggest disappointment:

The Last Magician by Lisa Maxwell

I wanted magical heistyness and snarky friendships and time-manipulation magic in an urban historical fantasy setting. And, ok, I got three of those four, but the most important of the four was replaced by angst and suspicion of everyone except the right person and it was just a mess. Why did I read this book.

One runner-up in this category, sadly:

 Dagger's Sleep by Tricia Mingerink

To be fair, this wasn't a bad book as far as characters and plot go — Alexander annoyed me immensely, but otherwise, both those categories were fine. But the worldbuilding drove me crazy in that I couldn't make it make sense in my head.  

  

6. Biggest surprise:

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green

I did not expect this to be as much contemporary as it was. I also didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did, given that it is more contemporary and, between the two Green brothers, I prefer John. But I actually really liked the book, even if I did have to put it down for extended periods once or twice because I could see the train wrecks coming.

Another surprise: the fact that Skyward wasn't another instant favorite as Sanderson books usually are. It was a good book, but a bit . . . I don't know. It lacked the Sanderson spark. Still, it's far better than the Alcatraz books, so I plan to stick with the series. 

7. Favorite new-to-you author:

Kathryn McConaughy isn't actually on my Goodreads shelf because I beta-read Overpowered and haven't had a chance to read the final version yet. (By which I mean that she kindly sent me a finished copy, but I haven't had time to read it, not that I don't have it.) But Overpowered, even in its unfinished state, is awesome, and Kathryn knows her stuff when it comes to the Biblical era. I look forward to reading more of her work! 

8. Newest fictional crush/ship:

Sadly, authors continue to pair off all the crush-worthy male characters. On the upside, I have a few new ships to fangirl over!

• Delsida (Delaney and Obsidia) from The Worth of a King.
• Kaz x Inej from Six of Crows.
• Also Nina x Matthias from Six of Crows.
• And Jeremy and Gwen from The Seven Drawers. Those two are adorable.
• Yeah, mostly just those four.

9. Newest favorite character(s):

• Delaney from The Worth of a King.
• The whole crew from Six of Crows.
• Alvie from The Plastic Magician.
• Gwen from The Seven Drawers.
• Daemyn Rand from Dagger's Sleep.

10. A book that made you cry:

A Thousand Perfect Notes by C.G. Drews

No actual tears, true, but definitely pain. Beck needs to be hugged and kidnapped from both his mother and his author.

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

I should not have read the end of this book in a public place, especially since I was already upset and stressed from other causes. That's all I'm saying.

11. A book that made you happy:

The Electrical Menagerie by Mollie E. Reader

This is a delightfully steampunky mystery, and while it does have its share of angst, it also has quite a bit of heart and humor. The main character duo is fabulous, the plot is exciting, and it's just generally a good read all 'round.

 

12. Favorite book to film adaptation you've seen this half of the year:

 Uhhhhh I rewatched Mary Poppins back in August. Does that count?

13. Favorite post(s) you've done this half of the year:

Oooh! I do have a few fun ones to share here.

• PWID Major FAQS (in which I answer the most common questions I get about my major).
• Hero's Perspective: Delaney (in which I interview my favorite character from Worth).
• Why I'm Now Self-Publishing (a response to an early post of mine, explaining the thought process behind my new plan).
• Blood in the Snow Meet the Characters(featuring character art that I love immensely).
• "Types of Tears" (a poem I wrote after noticing how my roommate and I reacted differently to a very similar event). 
• "A Symphony of Thanks" (Thanksgiving special short story featuring Callie from Fight Song).
• "The Promise Star" (Christmas special short story, featuring a legend from the world of Blood in the Snow).

14. Most beautiful book you've bought/received this half of the year:
Can I count Blood in the Snow? I know it's my book, but I am absolutely in love with the cover, and technically I did buy copies of it.

Other than my own book, my aunt bought me Illuminae for my birthday, and it both has an awesome cover and an awesome interior.

And though I haven't read The Enchanted Sonata yet, I love its cover and interior as well.

15. Any other books you want to babble about for any other reason?
Normally, I use this space to talk about the books I still need to read that I've been meaning to read for ages. But this time, I'm going to talk about all the awesome books I've reread lately.

The DragonKeeper Chronicles by Donita K. Paul

Over Christmas break, I've reread all but one of Donita K. Paul's Amara and Chiril books. I wanted to see how they held up, since I loved them and drew so much inspiration from them when I was younger. Thankfully, most of them have been just as good or better than I remembered.

 

The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvate

Some people's stress-fueled college decisions involve alcohol, excessive sleep, and worse. Mine involve rereading books about rich boys and psychic girls and dead Welsh kings. I regret nothing.

 

Scholar's Plot by Hilari Bell

And speaking of college decisions . . . I don't even remember why I reread this book, but I'm glad I did — it was just as good on the reread as the first time around. Also, I miss Michael and Fisk.

What were your favorite 2018 reads? Any favorite rereads? Or major disappointments? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)