March 2023 Doings!

Hello, everyone! Spring is officially here, huzzah! And March is somehow at an end, which means it's time for a new Doings! post. But before we get into the body of the post, I have a quick housekeeping announcement: I will be taking a hiatus from blogging for the month of April. This isn't for Camp NaNoWriMo (though I will be writing a lot); I just have a lot on my plate, and I know it'll be a busy month. So, I'm taking a little blogging break while I can.

Writing!

• My most exciting writing news of the month: as some of you may remember, back in January, I wrote and submitted a story for the Fellowship of Fantasy's magical dogs anthology. You may also recall that I was concerned about whether or not the editors would go for it . . . but as it turns out, they did go for it, and at the start of March, I got an email saying that my story, "Grim Guardian," had been accepted into the anthology! As you might expect, I am absolutely thrilled to be a part of the collection, and I can't wait to be able to share more about the story with y'all. There's going to be a cover reveal in early May, so keep your eyes out for that.
• In other news, I once again spent my month primarily focused, writing-wise, on my semi-secret selkie Little Mermaid story. Progress on this has been slower than I'd like, due to stress, technology problems, other demands on my time, and the fact that I was trying to muddle through a gap in my outline. There were several weeks this month when I felt like I was barely writing anything. Still, words are going on the page, and I'm pleased with enough of them that I'm not too discouraged.
• On the D&D front, I did finally solve my Pelennor Fields/"What's going on with Gondor & Denethor" problem, thanks in no small part to some help from various friends. I'm happy with where I ended up on that, though we'll have to see how things actually play out. Running the actual battle of Pelennor Fields went well, and we actually got to play it on March 25 (which Lord of the Rings fans will know is a significant day) — it's not quite as cool as actually finishing the LOTR story in that session would've been, but I'll take what I can get.

Reading!

• This month was a mixed bag in many ways, but it was a really good reading month. It also involved a lot of rereads; I'll let you draw your own conclusions as to whether or not those things are connected.
• But first, the things that weren't rereads! Dark Clouds by Suzannah Rowntree was definitely the highlight here. I reviewed the book last week, but in short, it was an absolute delight, especially if you're an enjoyer of Leverage, Grand Duke Vasily (or characters of his particular type), or both. Ten out of ten, will look forward to rereading.
• My other few new-to-me reads were ok, but not nearly as memorable. The Maiden Ship had some fun seafaring adventure to it, but didn't particularly wow me; I'm undecided about whether or not I'll continue the series. I also read another volume of Fullmetal Alchemist, which I think I would have enjoyed more had it not been so long since I read the previous installment. Finally, I started one Pratchett read for March Magics: The Shepherd's Crown, the final Discworld book and one of the only two books in the series I hadn't read. At this point, I'm not quite halfway through and am having decidedly mixed feelings. The first several chapters felt extremely under-polished, though the story picked up around Chapter 6 or 7. On one hand, it's not uncommon for me to be iffy about a Pratchett book in the beginning but quite pleased with it by the end. On the other hand, I've been a little meh about all the Discworld books past Making Money. So . . . we'll see.
• Moving on, we have abundant rereads! My favorite of these was, unsurprisingly, The Goblin Emperor, which I technically read because I wanted to study how the author used some particular elements of language as worldbuilding, and not because I've been itching to reread it since Christmas . . . but I definitely was not disappointed by it the second time around. And I still absolutely love Maia.
• I also enjoyed rereading the Lockwood & Co series. While I haven't watched the show (it's on Netflix, which I'm not interested in paying for), I have seen a lot of fandom posts from people who have seen the show and decided to just revisit the story in the way that was available to me. I have to say, the last two books are much more enjoyable when you read the full series straight in a row and don't have to try to remember what people are talking about.
• As for my remaining rereads, I'm still reading The Lord of the Rings via email newsletter, which has been both enjoyable and helpful for D&D writing. It was also a bit interesting because I had about a week when I was technically reading The Two Towers and The Return of the King at the same time, but at this point, Two Towers is finished, and Return of the King is nearly so. And I also reread Mixed Magics towards the beginning of the month because I needed something short and I hadn't read it in a while. I have to say, I basically did not remember anything about any of the stories in it, but that wasn't a terrible thing.

Watching!

• Not a lot for this category, but I did finally watch Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, so that was fun! Out of the two Indiana Jones movies I've watched (I skipped 2 and don't know if I'll watch 4), this one was definitely my favorite. It has adventure, puzzles, traps, near-death experiences, villains you're pleased to see fail, and a Grail Quest — what else could you ask for? And, as the cherry on top, instead of focusing on romance as the primary side plot, we have a father-and-son relationship to anchor the human side of the story. It's great. And, yes, everyone else already knew this, but the fact that I'm very late to the party doesn't mean I'm not going to enjoy the party.
• And . . . yeah. That's pretty much it. I wanted to watch more Leverage, but every time I thought I was going to have time, something else either took longer than expected or otherwise got in the way. Alas.

 Life!

• For a few months now, I've been referencing a Big Thing I’m Not Talking About Yet and promising that I'll actually tell y'all what it is in the next Doings post, mostly because I wasn't sure if the thing was going to work out. But at this point, I think it is going to work without killing either me or my writing career, which means I'm not going to put y'all off another month and will instead say: I have started grad school, specifically an online master's program in Professional Writing.
• I was supposed to start in January, but I wanted to buy some extra writing time and the university I'm doing the program through has three sub-terms per semester (with the middle one overlapping the other two), so I decided to push things back and start in February instead. And then, as mentioned in my February Doings, I had one good well, one awful week, and one neutral-ish week. Thankfully, the awful week was more or less a fluke — a combination of unclear instructions and outside stressors — and the only really bad week I've had since was the one in which tech issues struck the week of my largest project for my first class — which also happened to be the first week in which I had overlapping classes. But, again, that was a combination of outside stress and uncertainty about how to approach a particular assignment, and to be frank, it wouldn't have been a good week even if I only had writing and work on my plate. So, yes. This is a thing that's happening, and it's going reasonably well.
• Ok, what else happened this month? My sister came home for spring break at the start of the month, and getting to see her and hang out with her was fun. She did have a cold for about half the week, so we didn't get to do as much stuff as I might've hoped, but it was still very nice to have her at home for a little while. Then we finished that week by driving up to Pennsylvania to see my grandpa, which was also nice.
• We also celebrated Pi Day, of course! My mom made spaghetti pie for dinner and apple pie (pictured above) for dessert, and both were absolutely delicious.
• My adventures in embroidery continue, as I finished the first script-based piece (aside from washing away the stabilizer and figuring out how I want to display the piece) and have started on a second. This new one is a bit of fanart for The Dark King's Curse, and I'm generally pleased with how it's turning out. Once it's finished, I'll probably post a picture, unless I decide to wait until I've made a second version. I have, in the process, learned that I don't like doing stem stitch for lettering and that shorter text is better than longer text, so, yeah.
• On the baking front, I made a coconut cake for the birthday of one of the pastors at work. It's the special recipe of my former supervisor who retired, and it was also a favorite of that particular pastor, so I was excited to get to share it and see how I did. Thankfully, everyone liked it. (I wasn't worried, to be clear. I made it last year for Easter, so I know it's good. But it's the context, y'know?)
• On the topic of work, things have definitely been busy there. Most of that is preparation for Holy Week, but we've also been adjusting the way we do some things and introducing some new event types, so that's been interesting. This has also been a month of tech troubles, some of which fell at the same time as my personal technology problems, so that's not been ideal. But, you know, busy is better than bored, and I've had the opportunity to work on some fun projects and pieces, so I'm not complaining.
• Oh, and D&D is going! In the campaign I've been in since I was in college, the group is rediscovering how much we struggle when a particular character (the sorcerer, also our de-facto leader by virtue of being good at coming up with plans) isn't around, as we've split the party to scope out an enemy's headquarters and rescue my character's sister at the same time. I've also been playing in another once-a-month campaign through my library, which has been interesting. I'm playing a Tabaxi conjuration wizard, and she's fun, though I'm still adjusting to the dynamic of the new group.
• Otherwise, I've mostly been appreciating the warmer weather (even if I'm not spending much time outside) and all the flowers blooming in our yard. I've been able to skip a coat in favor of just a fleece jacket quite a few days this month, so I am quite pleased with that. (And I will be more pleased still once I can get down to a cardigan and short sleeves!)

April Plans

• The first week of Easter is Holy Week, which will be very busy. Not as busy as last year, thank goodness, but still not a week in which I anticipate having much downtime, especially since I also have multiple social events (a Mid-Atlantic Realm Writers meeting and a Connect Group meeting) happening in the evening during that week. Plus, it's the last week in which I'll have overlapping grad school classes. After Holy Week, though, I think things should calm down quite a bit. And I am looking forward to Easter and my Bible study's annual celebration.
• My creative writing focus will continue to be on my selkie story first and my D&D campaign second, as those have the most pressing deadlines. I'd like to get back to work on BDPI #4 sometime soon, but . . . priorities.
• I'll also be doing research for my grad school class and writing a paper based on said research. My plan is to investigate a possible aspect of why certain people do and don't like to listen to music or other background noise while writing. This is actually a question that piqued my interest back in 2020, enough so that I ran a survey about it, but I didn't have sufficient motivation to do anything with the results of that survey . . . until now.
• On the reading front, I suspect it'll be mood reads all the way down. Well, that and catching up on beta reading, on which I am horrendously behind. I do apologize to anyone reading this to whom I owe beta comments — though, in my defense, I've been just a little bit busy.
• (Side note: I just discovered that my natural inclination is to spell "apologize" the British way, with an "s" instead of a "z." My best guess is that it's caused by the fact that I've been reading a lot of books by British and Aussie writers these last few months?)
• I think that about covers all the important things. And if I forgot it, well, it probably wasn't that important.

How was your March? What are you looking forward to in April? Would you rather be busy or bored? Also, if you're a Discworld fan, what are your thoughts on the last four books in the series? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

Good morning, everyone! Last week, I spotlighted the spring 2023 releases I'm most excited about, and today I'm back with a review of one of those new releases: Dark Clouds, book 2 in Miss Dark's Apparitions, a spinoff of Suzannah Rowntree's fabulous historical fantasy mystery series, Miss Sharp's Monsters. The Miss Dark series follows Miss Molly Dark, a young lady-turned-con-artist with the ability to see ghostly "imprints." Book One saw Miss Dark roped into a scheme to defraud monstrous royalty of a fortune by impersonating a long-lost princess; now our heroine has found herself a member of a group of thieves and schemers attempting to use their talents to set right some of the wrongs in the world — in this case, by stealing a cursed diamond to return to its rightful owners. The book just released yesterday, March 23, and is available on Kindle and possibly elsewhere. But I managed to score an ARC, so if you're on the fence about picking it up, I have five reasons why you absolutely should.

You Should Definitely Read Dark Clouds If . . .

1. You're a Leverage fan who occasionally thinks the show would be even better if it involved some literal monsters, not just figurative ones. Rowntree bills Dark Clouds as "perfect for fans of Leverage and The Parasol Protectorate," and the first half of that description couldn't be more accurate. Reading this feels very much like watching an episode of the show, from the grand heist to set right a wrong committed by those too powerful to be prosecuted by normal means to the schemes and twists involved in carrying out that heist. Let me tell you, it's an absolute delight. Of course, even if you're not a Leverage fan, if you enjoy a good heist and a plot driven by clever characters fully exercising their cleverness, you'll still love this. Plus, the antagonist of this book — Vandergriff, an American "prosthete" (read: gaslamp-era cyborg) multi-millionaire who tracks down jewel thieves as a hobby — is simply excellent, with just the right blend of rough charm, casual menace, and keen wit to make him a formidable, but intriguing, opponent and a very interesting change of pace from Rowntree's usual antagonists in this world.
   
2. You know that it's the team (and their dynamics) that makes the heist. It's the characters that make or break a book, and that's never more true than when it comes to a heist story. I can think of multiple books where an excellent concept and thrilling scheme fell flat because the characters and the dynamics between them just weren't working. The key, of course, is that the team has to be a team — yes, they have their differences in opinion and agenda as well as skill set, they have clashes of personality and motive. But when the chips are down and the heat is on, they're working together, and they know and understand each other well enough to do that. And yes, maybe you have an edge or two of potential betrayal, just for spice, but in order for the reader to care, in order to get maximum impact when the potential traitor makes their choice, you have to have that strong team dynamic. Rowntree knows this, and she clearly gives plenty of care to developing both the characters and their dynamics, especially now that they really are starting to work as a properly intentional team, rather than the more tentative alliances in Tall and Dark.
3. You want to see more of our favorite Grand Disaster Duke. As already stated, all the characters get some magnificent development in this story, but I particularly want to call out Vasily here. He continues to be a mess, caught between the monster that he's been and the person who he could be, between the self-serving lifestyle he still tries to maintain and a reluctant attachment to the other members of the crew. He's growing, but reluctantly — partially because he's surrounded by people who aren't taken in by his act. And, of course, his interactions with Miss Molly Dark are an absolute delight. He's coming around to caring very much for her, I daresay, even if he sometimes has an unusual way of showing it, and I don't think he entirely wants to admit just how far it goes. Plus, having a rival/nemesis in the form of the aforementioned Vandergriff makes for some very interesting dynamics and interactions.
4. You love sibling and family dynamics. Dark Clouds takes place in London, Molly's home . . . and the home of her sisters, who she loves and would very much like to keep far away from any schemes, heists, and similar. You can probably guess about how well that goes. But it was a delight to see Molly interacting with her sisters, to see how much she cares about them and they care for her. And as for the interactions between the sisters and Molly's new friends, well . . . let's just say that they make for some of my favorite chapters in the book.
5. You enjoy stories about the tension between different cultures. Not solely about, mind you — this is a heist adventure. But it's also set in England during the Victorian Era, when the British Empire was at its height, and the cursed diamond at the story's center is part of the rather ill-gotten spoils of conquest. And retrieving that diamond requires one of the team, Nijam, to come to terms with a heritage that she's spent most of her life despising. Rowntree handles these elements of the plot well, using them to deepen the story without drowning it and providing a read that's enjoyable in the moment and gives you something to chew on later.

Tall and Dark came out just this past weekend — have you read it yet? Are you going to read it? If you're a fellow Miss Sharp fan, how excited are you to return to this world? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone! Spring is nearly here, and that means it's time for another roundup of newly-releasing reads. This season's list is very much dominated by a particular author, but it also has so many books that I'm excited for, so let's take a look at what we have to look forward to. As usual, I'm sharing my full list here, but if you want the short version, you can hop over to Light and Shadows.

Spring 2023 Reads

1. Dark Clouds by Suzannah Rowntree (March 23). This book releases next Thursday, but I devoured my ARC within days of receiving it, and it is SO GOOD, y'all. There's heists and humor and heart (and Leverage vibes), we get to properly meet Molly's sisters, Vasily is back and has a rival this time (in more ways than one) . . . it's pretty much everything you could possibly want in a book of this kind. Keep an eye out for my full review next week — or you can still preorder the ebook now.

2. Secret Project #2 by Brandon Sanderson (April 1). I haven't actually read the first secret project (Tress) because there were delays with the hardback and I'm waiting for that to get to my house. Nonetheless, I am excited for Secret Project #2. From what I read in the sample first chapter, it seemed pretty good. It's not the Secret Project I'm most looking forward to, since it's the only non-Cosmere one, but it should be a fun read and an interesting twist on portal fantasy. It seems Dark Lord of Derkholm-ish, but I'm hoping I'll like Sanderson's execution of the concept better than Jones's. (Dark Lord, for the record, is not my favorite DWJ book, but I do like the concept a lot.)

3. Austen Fairy Tale Box Set 1 by Kendra E. Ardnek (April 21). This isn't actually a new book, but it is a new release, so . . . I'm including it. Kendra is releasing the first three Austen Fairy Tale novels in one volume — which is currently on an ebook preorder special of $3.99, only a little more than a single installment in the series would be. If you've been eying this series, now's a great time to get three books for (basically) the price of one!

4. Behind Closed Doors by W.R. Gingell (May 15). Athelas's spinoff series continues! A Whisker Behind, the first in the series, was excellent, and I'm excited to see more of our favorite lavender-grey fae, as well as his new crop of housemates. YeoWoo is a stellar counterpart to Athelas — able to see past his facade and affectations, and delightfully straightforward even when she's scheming — and I'm also quite curious about Camellia and what she might be hiding behind her sunshine exterior. Hopefully this book will start giving us some hints on that.

5. Tide and Scale Anthology (May 16). The blurb for this anthology promises stories "filled with pirates and mermaids on journeys from the depths of the sea to the far reaches of space," so I have two reasons to be excited. The first, of course, is the possibility of space pirates (!!!), a trope that I can almost always get behind. The second is the fact that I have inside info that one Wyn Estelle Owens has a mermaid story in here, and I absolutely cannot wait to read it.

6. Snow Quest Like Home by Kendra E. Ardnek (May 22). After a few years away, we're returning to Bookania! Snow Quest is the first release in Kendra's Beastly Curses solo multi-release (because releasing five of your own retellings of the same fairytale at once is probably the ultimate Kendra E. Ardnek move). It combines The Snow Queen with Beauty and the Beast and a few other tales, and it shifts the spotlight from Robin and Eric to Samson, Madeleine, and Push Au Kim — though, never fear, our original heroes still have their parts to play. I think Snow Queen and Beauty and the Beast are a highly underrated pairing — the sort of mashup I wish I'd thought of myself — and I'm excited to see what Kendra does with it.

7. Fairer Than Beauty by Kendra E. Ardnek (May 23). The second Beastly Curses release! This is another of Kendra's Twists of Adventure, and it sort of combines Fairer Than a Fairy with Beauty and the Beast . . . except not exactly. I beta read this one, and I can confirm it's a pretty interesting twist on the tale of Beauty and the Beast — plus, it has a variation on the "characters know they're in a story" trope that I quite like. I'd definitely say it's worth picking up!

8. Thornrose Estate by Kendra E. Ardnek (May 26). We're skipping the third and fourth Beastly Curses releases (Superheroes Don't Prowl at Night and The Dragon) because (A) they're not on Amazon or Goodreads yet and (B) I don't know enough about either of them to be properly excited. But I am looking forward to Thornrose Estate, which blends Beauty and the Beast with Northhanger Abbey in a move that I think is quite inspired (even if it makes me worried for some of my favorite characters). But besides the merits of the story concept, I'm very eager to find out what happens next after Snowfield Palace left us in such a state of suspense!

So, yes — Suzannah Rowntree, Brandon Sanderson, W.R. Gingell, Wyn Estelle Owens, and a whole slew of Kendra E. Arndek stories all in one season? I am going to be a very happy reader, assuming all the things I need to do that aren't reading don't kill me via stress and lack of sleep. What book releases are you excited for this spring? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

 

February 2023 Doings!

February is over at last — thank goodness. February is rarely as bad a month as I think it'll be, but it's also never the best month, and I tend to be generally more tired and irritable during this month than most of the rest of the year, even when I actively work to get rest and keep a good attitude. But! February is over, spring begins this month, and I am actively ignoring my sister's predictions that we'll have a cold snap and possibly snow in the next month or two.

Writing!

• This has been a pretty productive writing month! I spent most of my writing time working on my semi-secret selkie story, which has a current wordcount of about 25K and a good bit of story left to go. I mentioned this project in my recent Taleweaver's Desk post, but if you missed that: the semi-secret selkie story is a roles-reversed Little Mermaid story, but, you know, with selkies instead of mermaids because selkies are infinitely cooler and I've loved them ever since I was eight-ish and discovered their existence in one of the Magic Treehouse books. And now I get to write about them! It's delightful.
• My other main writing project was, of course, my D&D campaign. I didn't get as much done on this one as I wanted, since other things ended up taking up a lot of time, but I was able to have this month's sessions prepped on time, plus one more session's worth of material that I thought I'd use but ended up not needing.
• The other reason I didn't do more D&D prep is that the party is about to hit Pelennor Fields . . . which means that we're also at one of the two points where the incident that started this whole LOTR adventure (the party preventing Boromir's death and Merry and Pippin's capture) has a greater impact on how the story goes. So I've been trying to work out what's going on with Gondor, specifically with Denethor and Faramir, since Boromir's still alive. It's been an interesting thing to think through, to be sure.

Reading!

• So, remember how I decided to read the entire City Between series back in January? Yeah. I stand by that as an excellent decision, but it did result in two more questionable corollary decisions . . .
• The first of those decisions was following City Between up with Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. Neverwhere is also a good book, but as a chaser for W.R. Gingell's magnificent series, well . . . it pales a bit. The quality of writing and language is technically a bit better, but the themes of City Between are, I think, superior — and as main characters go, Pet is decidedly preferable to Richard.
• The second questionable decision was not so much a willful choice as a series of non-decisions, which is to say that I left off reading On Earth As It Is in Hell until kind of the last minute. I posted my review of the book a couple weeks ago, so I won't rehash those here, but in general, I thought it was a good conclusion to the series, and I enjoyed the fact that it was very family-centric, though there were a couple things I thought could have been done better.
• Besides On Earth As It Is in Hell, I also checked a few more new releases off my to-be-read list! I started A Whisker Behind, the first City Between spinoff, on the very day it released, and I very much enjoyed it. Athelas is one of my top three favorite characters from the original series, so I was pleased to see him again and to get back to the world of Between and Behind. The vibe of the story with him at the helm is rather different than the vibe of City Between, but not at all in a bad way.
• In addition, I read Moira's Pen, a book of short stories from the world of The Queen's Thief, and Mysteries of Thorn Manor, a sequel novella to Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson. Both were excellent; Moira's Pen had more new stories than I expected, and Thorn Manor was just a lot of fun. I love Nathaniel and Elizabeth's dynamic, and now I kind of want to reread Sorcery. Not that I have time for that . . .
• My final new read of the month was How to Be a Good Creature by Sy Montgomery. This was my sole Blind Date read for the month — by the time I got to my library, the selection of blind date books was a bit abysmal, and every single one of the speculative fiction reads remaining had either "horror" or "LBGTQ+" as a defining characteristic, or else was something that I could easily identify as a book I'd read and didn't care to reread at the moment. So, I fell back on "Memoir, Animals, Nature, Science." The resulting book was an enjoyable read and reasonably light. I don't think it's something I'd revisit over and over again, but I'd probably consider rereading it in the future if I came across it again.
• Finally, we have the rereads. I've been rereading The Fellowship of the Ring via email subscription since last September, and that finished at the end of February. I also reread The Last Battle because I didn't get to it last summer and I was, at the time, extremely stressed and in need of something familiar and comforting. I know, one would not think that the end of a world would be comforting, but as it turns out, a reminder that all will one day be set right is, in fact, extremely helpful when one is stressed. Also, it's Narnia.
• Oh, and I reread Blood in the Snow because I wanted to remind myself of how particular bits went. It was enjoyable, and I was pleased to find that I still enjoyed it. Alas that I cannot get back to actually writing in that world for a while yet . . .

Watching!

• I said at the start of the year that I wanted to start doing a better job of tracking what I was watching, in the same way that I was tracking what I was reading with a Google Form, and I feel like it's been helpful. If nothing else, I have a useful record that I can go back and look at without just having to guess.
• Not that I've had much to track, of course. Just a couple more episodes of Leverage Season 2, specifically "The Tap-Out Job" and "The Order 23 Job," both of which I really enjoyed. "The Tap-Out Job" was very Eliot-centric, and Eliot is high-key my favorite character in the show. And then "The Order 23 Job" was just exciting and twisty and had a brilliant con and so much going on that all came together brilliantly in the end . . . and also an Eliot subplot that made me quite happy. It was great.

 Life!

• For being the shortest month of the year, February is awfully long. You know what I mean?
• Work this month was very busy — you would think that not much would happen in February, since it's usually cold and grey, but there were actually a fair number of projects and events. The month started with the Lenten newsletter — a project that I enjoy, but which takes a good bit of time — and ended with rapidly designing branding for a new workshop series so we could start promoting it on time. And in between were Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent . . . which is a two-service, two-bulletin week that happened to also fall on a short week. And I didn't actually realize this until near the end of the week before, which meant that I didn't work ahead as much as I should have. So, yeah. That was stressful.
• This month was also the start of the Big Thing I’m Not Talking About Yet . . . which I'm sort of talking about now but am still not going to properly name because I've had one good week in it (the week of Valentine's Day), one flat-out awful, actual-tears-and-crisis-of-identity-and-self-worth week (the week of Ash Wednesday), and one week that's been half neutral and half emotional remnants from the bad week. So, I'm going to wait one more month, and in my March Doings I will either give proper details on what's up (because the bad week turned out to be a fluke) or inform y'all that it is a Thing Which Shall No More Be Spoken Of (because the bad week was the standard and what I am going to get out of it is not worth multiple years of dealing with . . . that).
• On a more cheerful note, I finally acquired a treadmill desk! I mentioned towards the start of the year that I wanted to find ways to exercise while doing other things that aren't just watching shows, which mainly means writing/blogging/browsing the internet, and the most effective way to do that seemed to be acquiring a desk attachment for the treadmill. I've used it on and off since getting it, and I'm pretty happy with it. I haven't tried novel-writing while walking yet, but I've written other things with a fair bit of success. I don't think I could edit or do anything polished — not until I'm more practiced, at least — but for drafting, it works quite well.
• I also got a new desk chair, which is very exciting — seriously, it is. I've spent most of my life using either spare dining room chairs or, most recently, my mom's old desk chair, and they all worked, but they tended to be lacking in the area of back support. And then last month, a review program I'm in had a really nice desk chair available for request, so I snatched it up, and it is so comfy. It reclines, y'all. So when I've been sitting long enough that my back is starting to hurt, I can take my hands off the keyboard and lean back, and it's so nice. Of course, it also has proper back support, so that helps.
• What else? We did get snow on the first day of the month, but only briefly, and not enough for many, if any, schools to cancel — which, given our area, shows just how little it was. If that's the only snow we get, I will not complain. (On the other hand, if we do get more snow, I'd like just enough that I get a day off of work, please and thank you very much.)
• Oh! I did more embroidery! February is National Embroidery Month, so I decided to try my hand at embroidering script, since I want to eventually create some pieces using song lyrics and book references. The pattern I used is neither a song lyric nor a book reference, however, because I wanted to make sure my first attempt was with something that an expert had already tested and knew could turn out well. I'm pleased with the end result (pictured at the start of this section); I just have to wash out the stabilizer and figure out what I want to do with it now. I'm hoping to do something that can be hung or displayed, but I'm not sure I left quite enough on the edges to keep in a hoop long-term. I'll figure something out, though.

March Plans

• March is shaping up to be another busy month, that much is certain.
• On the upside, my sister will be home for part of it! Only for a week — for spring break — but I'm excited to see her again.
• I would like to finish the Semi-Secret Selkie Project in March; at the very least, I need to be mostly done with it by the end of the month. It's kind of looking like it might be longer than I originally intended it to be. (Whoops . . .) And, of course, I'll still have D&D writing to do.
• Work will also be busy because Easter is coming, and that always has a host of associated events and activities. It should be less stressful than last year, though, since I won't have fourteen banners and a devotional book to design and either make or order! (That's not a complaint; it was an exciting project, and I liked getting to apply my book design skills. But it was a lot at times.)
• On the reading front, the second Miss Dark book is coming soon, and I'm on the list for an ARC — very excited for that! Otherwise, I'll either continue playing catch up or get distracted by rereading Lockwood & Co because half my internet social circles are talking about the new show and, in so doing, both rousing my curiosity and making me miss the characters. I don't have Netflix (and also don't have time to add ANOTHER show), so rereading the books may be my best option. Oh, and I acquired more Brother Cadfael Chronicles, so I may read some of those. We'll see.
• That should be everything worth mentioning. I have some other plans regarding baking and a few thoughts about what craft project I want to work on, and, of course, the Big Thing continues, but this post is long enough as it is, so I'll leave things where they are.

How was your February? Anything you're looking forward to in March? Are you ready for spring? Have you ever had the experience of enjoying a book less (or more) than usual because of what you read directly before it? Do you think The Last Battle can be a comfort read? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

Hello, all! First off, a housekeeping note: going forward, I'm officially doing my Taleweaver's Desk updates in the last month of each season instead of the second — so, February, May, August, and November. I think this'll work out better in the long term; it'll conflict with fewer events and busy life bits, and I think these are months in which I'm more likely to have news to share.

Also, a reminder in case you've missed the last half-dozen of these (or just forgotten, which is valid): On the Taleweaver's Desk is my quarterly broad-view update on my writing projects. It's meant both to keep y'all up to date on what's going on in my writing and to help me periodically assess my project list. If you want to know more about any project in this post, you can ask me in comments or take a look at my Works in Progress page.

On the Taleweaver's Desk Issue 7:
February 2023

On the Desktop

These are the projects you might find open on my laptop or desk if you took a peek at it during a normal day. They're currently in progress and at the top of the priority chart.

Bastian Dennel, PI #4

What is it? Book 4 in my Bastian Dennel, PI series and my first murder mystery.

Status: Twenty-five chapters drafted and probably within ten chapters of a complete first draft.

This book was not supposed to take over half a year to write. And yet, here we are. Still drafting. I reworked my outline a second time, though this time I just focused on the climax and the chapters immediately leading up to that, and I'm pleased with the results of that in general — it gives Kona a bit more to do, and I think it'll generally up the suspense and tension. Timeline-wise, I was averaging about a chapter or two per week on this project in January. Then I had to redirect my energy to a different project, but oh well. I suspect this one is going to take a lot of rewriting, but I still have hopes of a 2023 release.

Semi-Secret Selkie Story

What is it? The Little Mermaid, but make it selkies, swap the human and mermaid roles, and throw in a princess who genuinely wants to do all the things a princess is supposed to do.

Status: Eight chapters drafted!

I came up with this idea when I realized that I wouldn't even be able to start the other Little Mermaid retelling I was planning before I needed it to be finished. I'd recently read a post from someone who wanted more female fantasy leads who didn't disdain feminine activities and responsibilities, and I liked the idea of a roles-reversed Little Mermaid. Why selkies? That's the wrong question — the correct question is why not selkies? And the answer is: yes selkies. (This one may turn into the first in a series, because I have a bunch of connected ideas . . . but we're taking it one book at a time.)

D&D Campaign: Defenders of Serys

What is it? Defenders of Serys is the homebrew D&D campaign that I run for my D&D group.

Status: Nearly done with the Middle Earth adventure! And looking forward to getting back to some other adventures I've had planned.

I said in my last Taleweaver's Desk post that I doubted we'd end the Middle Earth adventure before the new year, and I was absolutely correct. We're just about to hit Pelennor Fields, which means we're about to a bit that could have some of the biggest changes from canon, so that should be interesting. I have hopes of finishing the writing of the adventure by the end of March. That's reliant on my setting aside enough time to do more session prep each week than just what I need for that week's session, though. But if I can, I'd love to get this done enough in advance that I can get the next adventure (which will be much shorter) laid out before we even start it.

Stacked on the Side

These are the stories that I'm not actively working on (at least not officially), but I'm keeping close at hand because I plan to get back to them soon (or I just work on them sporadically as the urge takes me).

There are no significant changes to any of these projects since my last update, but I'll leave the list here for anyone who hasn't seen it before!

Blood in the Earth

What is it? Blood in the Earth is the sequel to Blood in the Snow and a retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses crossed with the myth of Hades and Persephone.

Status: First draft finished; awaiting rewrites. I probably won't get back to it until late 2023 or 2024 at this point due to all the Bastian Dennel, PI books I have planned. I did reread Blood in the Snow recently, though, and that made me miss this storyworld, so who knows what'll happen?

Once Upon a Dream

What is it? A light steampunk (or gaslamp fantasy?) Sleeping Beauty retelling; the predecessor to The Midnight Show

Status: Edited several times over. Awaiting another round of rewrites/expansion/edits.

Shelved for Now

These are stories that are also on hold, but which I don't have specific plans to work on very soon. They're still within easy reach should I decide to return to them, but they aren't a top priority.

There are no significant changes to any of these projects since my last update, but I'll leave the list here for anyone who hasn't seen it before!

Dust of Silver

What is it? Classic-ish fantasy retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses crossed with Rapunzel, the first book in what has the potential to be a rather long series. Also, a rewrite of a book I wrote years ago that won't let go of me because CHARACTERS.

Status: Several chapters into the rewrite, though those several chapters haven't been touched in a few years.

Between Two Worlds

What is it? A portal fantasy adventure about what happens when you come home from the adventure, only to discover that the adventure isn't quite as done with you as you thought.

Status: Awaiting another round of edits/rewrites while I write other things and daydream about its sequels.

The Way of the Pen

What is it? Self-aware fantasy adventure about a girl and her author.

Status: The first draft is sitting on my shelf, patiently waiting for its turn back in the spotlight, as it has been for some time. Of everything in this section, this is the most likely book to move up to Stacked on the Side or On the Desktop, as I occasionally have wild thoughts of editing it and shopping it 'round to traditional publishers. However, that actually happening this year is improbable, due to selkies and Bastian Dennel taking priority.

Berstru Tales series

What is it? A classic epic fantasy series and the longest-running series I've worked on (either in the number of books written or in how long I've worked on it.

Status: Needs to be rewritten from the ground up, but the bones are good. There's a particular character who's getting a whole new arc, and I'm really excited to write it . . . when I have time.

Awaiting Delivery

These are the stories that are on their way, but haven't quite arrived yet to the point where I can write them: ideas I'm toying with but haven't even started to draft because they're still too nebulous.

Additional Bastian Dennel, PI novels

What is it? Exactly what the heading said.

Status: Books 5 (Jack and the Beanstalk) and 6 (Little Mermaid + a surprise non-fairytale) are still locked in, and I've done some additional ideating and plotting towards Book 6, which I am still quite excited for. I'm figuring out how some new magical beings work in the BDPI world, and that's a lot of fun. Beyond that, I continue to have lots of ideas for new mysteries but not a lot of clarity about the order those mysteries happen in. In any case, I expect to be writing BDPI cases for quite a while yet.

Novellas from the world of Blood in the Snow

What are they? Currently, three ideas for spinoffs, most of which are also fairy tale retellings: one Puss in Boots (no, really), one Orpheus and Eurydice (probably crossed with a similar Japanese myth, Izanagi and Izanami), and one that's not currently a fairy tale retelling but would be about Gan and Azuma before they were animal-keepers at the emperor's palace (inspired the summer I spent watching a lot of Hogan's Heroes).

Status: Won't be written until after I edit Blood in the Earth.

Unnamed Fantasy Murder Mystery

What is it? Exactly what the headline says. A prominent noble is murdered; his adoptive daughter is poised to inherit his lands and position — but some are saying her hand was behind his death.

Status: Still just an idea, but it's an idea with a really good soundtrack. Still not going to be tackled until after Blood in the Earth.

What are your primary projects right now, and how are they going for you? Also, now that my semi-secret selkie story is slightly less of a secret . . . any thoughts? Tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

Hey'a, all! If you've been following Bryan Davis's Oculus Gate series, you may already be aware that the final book, On Earth As It Is in Hell, released this month. This series has been such a wild ride, and I'm sure plenty of people were eagerly waiting to see how it would all wrap up. I'm here to provide my thoughts on the story and its ending — and, if anyone is on the fence about picking it up, to hopefully nudge you one way or the other. Of course, if you've already made up your mind, you can go order it on Amazon or add it to your Goodreads shelves.

Thoughts About On Earth As It Is in Hell

1. This is a story with family at its core. That's the case with most of Davis's books, which I think is a big reason why I enjoy them. It's especially true of this one, where father-daughter relationships (or, more loosely, parent-child ones) really form the heart of the story and drive the narrative. We have Leo and Ben both putting everything on the line to protect and guide Iona, as they have many times before, and we have Iona grappling with her relationship with the man who raised her and some revelations about the kind of person he was. It all comes together into a really excellent theme.
2. This one definitely feels darker than the others in the series. I think it's because, rather than dealing with a single villain or even single group of villains, a lot of this book is confronting the sin and darkness present in the world as a whole, including human trafficking, abortion, and various forms of abuse, both overt and more subtle. As usual, Davis handles the topics well, but he also doesn't shy away from showing these tragedies or their effects, which means this may be a hard book to read at times — though it's certainly worth reading if you can handle it.
3. I really want to go back and reread/finish reading the Reapers trilogy. I never actually finished reading the Reapers trilogy due to it coming out while I was at Cedarville and was therefore falling behind on 90% of new releases (plus the fact that I didn't love the first book as much as some Davis books, and therefore had lower motivation to read the rest of the trilogy instead of reading other new books that I was more excited about). But reading the Oculus Gate series, especially this one and Heaven Came Down, make me want to fix that — not because I'm confused for lack of knowledge, but because the stuff being drawn from that series strikes me as cool and means I'm more interested in going back to it. (The series also makes me want to reread Time Echoes, but that's pretty much normal regardless of what I've been reading lately.)
4. As with Heaven Came Down, this is probably best enjoyed if you reread the rest of the Oculus Gate books before you read this one. Had I been a bit smarter, I would have remembered that and refreshed my memory just so I didn't end up scrambling in some cases to remember the significance of particular things that happen or are referenced. These books are so packed with twists, turns, and everything happening all at once that sometimes things get lost. It's still enjoyable even if you don't have time to go back and revisit the rest of the series, though, so don't let that stop you from picking it up.
5. I do think that the denouement could have used a little more breathing room so that certain things didn't feel quite so convenient. This may be a case of the pot calling the kettle black, and there were definitely some elements of the story's end that I very much appreciated. However, there were also a few developments that felt a bit like Davis was just trying to wrap up plot threads as quickly as possible so he didn't accidentally end up needing to write another book. It's not a huge issue, and it does work, but it is something I think could have been done better.

Have you been keeping up with the Oculus Gate series? Are you excited for the series conclusion? Do you tend to prefer long or short wrap-ups? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

January 2023 Doings!

Hello hello hello! We're one month into 2023, and it's time for the first Doings! post of the year. This has been another busy month, especially on the writing front. It was decidedly not chill except in the sense of being far colder than it had any right to be, despite my best hopes, but that was what I kind of expected. So, let's get on with the post and see what actually happened.

Writing!

• My January writing has been a lot more varied than many months have been of late. Whether or not that's a good thing is . . . debatable.
• Most of the month was spent continuing Bastian Dennel, PI #4. I made some changes to the storyline that I think will produce good results and give one of my POV characters more to do and a stronger climax to her particular character arc. Of course, that meant re-outlining the remaining chapters in the book, especially since I knew I was going to have to pause work on the story for a bit to focus on projects with a closer deadline. I think my new plan is going to work, but the whole book is going to take a good bit of editing.
• My second project was outlining, drafting, and editing a short story submission for the Fellowship of Fantasy Magical Dogs anthology. I'm reasonably pleased with how it turned out, though I'm not quite sure whether or not the anthology editors will go for it. We'll find out.
• My final major project, which was spread out throughout most of the month, was planning, outlining, and starting the first draft of a new, currently unnamed, semi-secret project involving selkies. If you remember what my last few "secret projects" were, you probably have a good guess about what this one is going to end up being . . . but I should be able to tell you for sure in next month's Taleweaver's Desk update. I hoped to have it at least half drafted by the end of the month, but the magical dogs story took longer than I expected.
• And, of course, my D&D campaign is still going. At the moment, though, prep for that is pretty chill, so I'm able to just take an hour or two either on session days or the day before the session to write what I need.

Reading!

• . . . I made a choice this month. More specifically, I made a choice at midnight on New Year's Day (as in, first hour of the new year), which was that I was going to reread Between Jobs, and things progressed from there, and so I have read nothing except City Between and beta-reading projects all month — literally. I started, as I said, in the first hours of January, and I finished the series in the last hours of the month. I have no regrets. Well, one regret, which is that I kinda got behind on ARCs and last year's releases that I was supposed to catch up on, but it's fine.
• And, honestly, I think that City Between is the kind of series that you have to read more than once. You read it the first time to fall in love with the characters and be astounded by every twist and turn of the story. And then you read it a second time because you miss the characters and the world and so that you can gasp and say "Wendee, you didn't" every so often because some line or comment or detail has taken on an entirely new meaning now that you know what you should have been looking for.
• So, yes. 10/10 experience, would 100% recommend. And if you start now, you might still finish before A Whisker Behind comes out in February!

Watching!

• It will surprise absolutely no one that I haven't really had a lot of time to watch stuff this month.
• I did finally finish season one of Leverage, though, and I started season two. I very much enjoyed both episodes and the element of this group just being unable to (A) leave an unfinished job alone, (B) leave each other alone, or (C) go back to their old lives now that Nate's shown them something better. It's a delight, and I'm looking forward to watching the rest of the season . . . sometime.
• I also rewatched a little more Fairy Tail because, you know, they're short episodes (and therefore easier to squeeze in) and I already know what happens, so it's pretty relaxing. I'm currently on the arc that introduces Gajeel, and it's interesting to go back to when he was still an antagonist.

 Life!

• January is a weird month. You're coming off December, which is all holidays and odd schedules and, at least in my case, a good bit of time off. And then you're trying to get back to normal, but you have random Mondays that are actually either Saturdays or Sundays (depending on your perspective) that are nice but also not conducive to reestablishing a standard schedule, and it's grey and cold and you're tired half the time . . . yeah. If you can't tell, this is not my favorite month. Still better than February, though.
• The first week or so of the month was pretty decent, in that my sister was still home and I got to spend time with her a little bit more before she went back to college. That's always nice.
• Work, at least, has been fairly quiet. January usually is, since everyone is recovering from Advent and Christmas, and this year we didn't even have staff changes or an organ donation campaign to throw things off. Actually, I think this January may have been even quieter than it normally would be, as at least one or two staff members were out of the office — traveling or sick or on a mission trip — pretty much at all times. Mostly, I was just cycling through the usual weekly tasks on a slightly shortened schedule until Lenten newsletter time rolled around.
• Outside of work, I spent a good bit of time figuring out stuff with the Thing I'm Not Talking About Yet, which I discovered could start in February instead of January and decided to put off until then so that I would have more writing time. We'll see if that backfires on me or not. I also got to deal with car stuff, so . . . yay? (Nothing as serious as what happened back in summer, just regular maintenance, but it was frustrating due to various reasons.)
• On the upside, I'm officially registered for Realm Makers in July, and I am HYPED. Last year was such a good experience that I decided that the stress and expense of having to fly to this year's conference would be worth it. I'm very excited for several of the speakers — though I'm a bit disappointed that the Donald Maass breakout sessions are currently scheduled for the same time as the two most interesting one-off sessions. Alas. I'll have to be more proactive about watching the session recordings after the conference, I suppose. (Also, am I already brainstorming costume ideas for the Awards Banquet? You BET I am.)
• I also acquired some very shiny new dice via a program where you can request products for review — this is my first set of metal dice, and I'm very pleased with them. They're very weighty and fancy, and they've got this lovely dragon theming and copper-blue color scheme going on.
• Oh, and I finished the hat that I started after Christmas! This is a pattern that I made once before and messed up — the result was still very much a hat and very wearable, but I wanted to to try doing it right. I'm pleased with how it turned out, and it was nice to do such a quick, straightforward project after a lot of lengthy or complicated ones. I think I may switch back to an embroidery project next, but we'll see.

February Plans

• February is, surprise, surprise, looking like mostly spillover from January.
• As I already mentioned, the Thing I'm Not Talking About Yet has been pushed back to start about midway through this month. I haven't decided whether I'm excited or nervous or too tired to be either.
• Writing-wise, I'll probably be focusing mainly on my semi-secret selkie story and my D&D campaign this month. The semi-secret selkie story has a deadline that's coming up pretty quick (a lot quicker than I'd like), so that needs to take priority. And my D&D campaign is in a place where I can probably draft out the rest of this adventure without setting myself up to have wasted a bunch of time and energy on a path people aren't going to pursue. That'll also give me the ability to start working on the next adventures, both of which I've been excited about for quite a while and really want to do stuff with.
• On the work front, February is the start of Lent, so that'll dominate a fair bit of my time and attention. Not quite as much as last year, but still a good bit. I'm also hoping that I'll be able to wrap up some of the projects that keep getting delayed, but at this point, I'm not holding my breath.
• In terms of reading, I expect to be playing catch-up on all the things I meant to read in January but didn't because I was too busy adventuring Between. That'll mean some Sanderson, a little Megan Whalen Turner, and Bryan Davis's new book, along with — hopefully — more Fullmetal Alchemist.
• I want to try to get hold of a desk attachment for the treadmill so I can hopefully start walking while I'm doing stuff on the computer. Ideally, I'd like to be able to write and walk (slowly) at the same time, which may take some practice, but I know other people manage it. And even if I can't do actual novel-writing on the treadmill because it's too much at once, I may be able to do blog and social stuff (which takes less brainpower).
• I think that about covers it! I'm sure I'll remember something later that I should have included in these plans, but oh well. Mostly I just want to keep from falling further into the winter blahs.

How was your January? Any exciting plans for February? What's your best method for fighting back the winter blahs? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

Hey'a! Over the last couple weeks, I've been working on some new projects, even though I'm not quite finished with BDPI #4. That's not something I generally do — I try to only have one project in the drafting stage at a time — but due to deadlines, I've had to make an exception. In any case, I figured this would be a good time talk about my take on a perennial topic in writing: how do you decide what ideas are worth writing? As many writers know, ideas are easy enough to come up with (especially when you don't need them, which is when you find out exactly why writers sometimes refer to ideas as "plot bunnies"), but figuring out which ones to invest time and energy in is another matter entirely. Every author has their own methods for making that choice, but here are the questions and litmus tests I, personally, use.

What Ideas Are Worth Writing?

1. How long have I been actively interested in this idea? Because, as I mentioned, I don't like drafting multiple projects at once or starting one project before another is finished (or at least at a pause point), I have a built-in filter for ideas that won't have enough staying power to make a full story. While the amount of time I wait on a story varies based on some of the other questions and tests on this list, it's almost always at least a few weeks, if not months or even years, between when I come up with a story idea and when I actually write it. So, if I'm still interested in and excited about the idea by whenever I have time to write it, it's probably worth investing some time into. (I will still jot down ideas that I think could be worth pursuing when I come up with them, but if you could get a look at my "Story Ideas" note, you would realize that's far from a guarantee that I'll actually write them.)
2. How much do I know about this idea? This one should be kind of obvious, but sometimes what seems clear to me is sometimes less so to others, so I'll list it anyway. An idea that has a solid main character or two, along with a beginning, end, and maybe a few middle scenes, before I even start outlining is far more likely to be written than a story that just has a general concept. Of course, this goes along with the first question; the longer I've been interested in an idea, the more likely it is that I've put thought into some good plot points and character arcs. And, yes, as some of you may have realized, this does mean that retellings (especially combined retellings) have an edge, since they come preloaded with a set of events, characters, and such to work with . . . but at least 75% of my ideas these days are fairy tale retellings anyway, so it's not that much of an edge.
3. Does this fit with an established storyworld or series? As I told a friend the other day, I don't like to waste a good storyworld or a good set of characters. I love worldbuilding and character creation, but both of those activities take time, and when I can, I'd rather expand an existing world and give already-loved characters more time in the spotlight. Plus, on the business side of things, there's already a bit of a built-in reader base for series stories. So, for example, new Bastian Dennel, PI stories or ideas I can turn into new BDPI stories tend to get precedence over stories in an entirely new world — though there are exceptions if the idea passes other tests, as in the case of Through a Shattered Glass and one of the new projects I've been working on this week. This question doesn't exclusively refer to published storyworlds either. If I can fit a story in the same world as another book that I plan to revise and publish later, that also gives it a boost up the priority list because it means I'll be more likely to be able to get back to that other story later.
4. Can I combine this with another idea I've been thinking about? One of the top ten best feelings in a writer's life is when the shiny new idea provides the missing pieces for an idea you've had for ages but haven't been able to justify working on. It happened with The Midnight Show, when I realized that my new idea of a jazz-age-inspired fantasy world and a private eye/singer main character pair could fit with the old idea of a Twelve Dancing Princesses story where the "princesses" are being pulled in to play roles in a musical. It happened with Through a Shattered Glass, when my need for a Snow Queen retelling came together with my interest in Return to Wonderland version of the Alice books. It's a wonderful discovery, and it frequently bumps ideas quite a ways up the priority list.
5. Does this work with a contest, writing challenge, or group release I want to participate in? This is the question that can either be the deciding factor in choosing between two books that both check all the boxes or can overrule the results most of the other tests. It's the reason why I have three published Bastian Dennel, PI books but still haven't rewritten Blood in the Earth. It's why BDPI #4 is going on pause so I can write something I just came up with in the last couple months. The key is that this question has something the others don't: a fairly firm deadline. And a story with a deadline almost always takes precedence over a story without.

How do you decide which stories you're going to write (or tell in other ways)? What are your deciding factors? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

End-of-Year Book Celebration 2022!

Hello, everyone! I'm aware that I'm posting my 2022 reading recap long after everyone else has done theirs, but you know what? That's ok. I would much rather be a little behind the trend and not have killed myself trying to get everything done on time than be timely and not have slept in three days. Or, at least, if I'm going to not have slept, I'd rather it be because I was enjoying my reread of the City Between series. But we're getting away from the point, which is: End-of-Year Book Celebration! As always, if you want the short-and-sweet top five list, you can head over to Light and Shadows, or you can stick around here for all the different categories.

2022 End of Year Book Celebration

Before we get into the categories, though, let's do some statistics! In total, I read 120 books — Goodreads says 119, but I have decided that the Alice books count as two even if they're in the same volume — and 28,895 pages. So, I've roughly doubled my book count from my Mid-Year Book Celebration, which is pretty appropriate, and I've surpassed my overall reading goal for the year by 21 books. My average book length has been about 242 pages, which is the lowest it's been in a while, but that's not really surprising. I haven't been reading many, if any, epics this year. My average book rating is 4.4 stars, which is about where it normally lands. For more statistics or a full list of everything I've read, you can check out my Goodreads Year in Books or my tracking form results.

As for my specific reading goals:

• I exactly met my goal of 12 books published before 1975. Two of these reads, A Christmas Carol and Dracula, I enjoyed via email subscription service, which was an absolute delight — one that I will continue enjoy, as I'm currently receiving Moby Dick, Carmilla, various Sherlock Holmes stories, assorted works of Edgar Allan Poe, and eventually some other stories as well by installment in this method. My classic reads did skew a bit more towards children's fantasy and rereads than I intended (with the Alice books, George MacDonald's Curdie books, and several of the Chronicles of Narnia making up about half of the reads that fall into this goal), but it's fine.
• Towards my goal of 15 non-speculative fiction books, I've definitely read 11 books, with another few that could count if you squint at them. I thought I was doing better at this, and then I realized that the fact that I didn't have a good superhero genre category and the fact that several of my reads listed as things like "classic" or "poetry" are also speculative fiction threw off my numbers a bit. Oh well. I still managed about ten percent reading-outside-my-usual-genre, so I'm satisfied.
• I entirely failed at catching up with the Tor.com Wheel of Time reading series. Eventually, I will read all the way through the Wheel of Time series. Eventually is not, however, now. The problem is mostly that I need to reread the first several books, but I simply cannot with Rand in the first few books, and the general distrust among all the characters grates. A lot.
• Finally, when it comes to reading more poetry, I did pretty well. I think I probably averaged a few poems every week, though my method shifted through the year. Initially, I was working my way through books of poetry, which I'm still doing to some degree, but I've since supplemented with the aforementioned Edgar Allan Poe email subscription (which switches between poetry and prose works) and other poems shared in my circles on the internet. I am still being more deliberate about reading poetry, though, so I count this goal as met.

That's it for the statistics. Now, let's talk about some specific books that I particularly want to celebrate from the last six-ish months.

1. Best book you've read in the second half of 2022:

I'm cheating a little bit here, but my best new-to-me read this half of the year has definitely been H.L. Burke's Supervillain Rehabilitation Project series and its spinoffs. I haven't quite finished all the books, but they're a brilliant blend of relational and character-based drama with superhero action-adventure — and you know I love that family relationships get just as much weight as romantic ones in most cases.

2. Best sequel you've read in the second half of 2022:

This category features a tie between two fairy tale retellings. W.R. Gingell's Castle and Key is a Gothic-esque take on Bluebeard, with a story-based curse, a healthy dose of mystery, and a heroine who has no intention of being drawn into nonsense. And Kendra E. Ardnek's Emmazel blends Rapunzel with Emma in a delightful tale that gets all the points for actually making me like Emma (the character).

3. Best book you've reread second half of 2022 (or all of 2022):

This is a new category I'm adding because I tend to reread a lot. But my best reread of 2022 was definitely my return to The Tales of Goldstone Wood. I didn't get all the way through the series (just up to Dragonwitch), but I loved revisiting these familiar friends and beautiful stories, especially as I was able to appreciate aspects of the stories that I couldn't the first time around.

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

Can you believe I still haven't read Moira's Pen or The Lost Metal? This is what happens when you get so busy at the end of the year that you forget to check on new releases or request them from the library. I do have them out now, though, so hopefully I'll get to them before my next Book Celebration post.

5. Most anticipated release for next year:

You're probably expecting me to say something like the Sanderson Secret Projects or Margaret Rogerson's Mysteries of Thorn Manor . . . but the actual answer is the World Behind series by W.R. Gingell, which is a City Between spinoff focusing on everyone's favorite questionably-reformed fae steward. All five books release in 2023, beginning with A Whisker Behind in February, and I am so hyped.

5. Biggest disappointment:

This was definitely The Blue Salt Road by Joanne M. Harris. I went into it excited for selkies, but I wasn't expecting a tragedy in the end, and it just wasn't what I hoped it would be.

6. Biggest surprise:

Probably the fact that Emmazel ended up being one of my favorite books this year. I didn't think I'd dislike it, to be clear, but I definitely enjoyed it a lot more than I expected!

7. A book that made you cry:

I very rarely cry over books, but surprisingly, I think the book that came closest was actually Dracula, as it's a bit different to lose a character you've grown attached to over months and months instead of one you just met, at most, a week or two ago.

8. A book that made you happy:

Quite a few, but specifically Between Friends, which is the City Between anthology that released in December. I enjoyed revisiting all the short stories I've read in the past, but I also got quite a bit of delight out of the new short stories, especially "Pins and Needles."

9. Favorite post you've done this half of the year:

My absolute favorite post of the year (either half) was definitely my Silmaril Awards Ceremony, in which I got to write a character I've been cheering on for YEARS finally get her Silmaril. I also had fun with my New Year's Eve short story and my Thoughts from a Reluctant (Possible) Plotter post.

10. Most beautiful book you've bought/received this half of the year:

I had quite the book haul from Realm Makers (the prospect of getting books signed is an excellent motivator to buy things, and book trades are another very convenient way of expanding my library), but probably the prettiest books I acquired this year are the new editions of Spindle and Wolfskin. I ordered them through the audiobook Kickstarter, so I got them early, and the new paperbacks are very pretty and shiny.

Well, that's my celebration! How about you? What were the highs and lows of your last six months, reading-wise? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

Onward and Upward [2022 Recap//2023 Goals]

 

Well, we made it to 2023! After all the chaos and stress of 2020 and all the New Stuff in 2021, it's been nice to have a pretty straightforward, albeit busy, year in 2022. While I did have some awesome new adventures and a few more stressful challenges, there was nothing as big or scary as in some past years, and most of my year was pleasantly predictable (which is something I never thought I'd say, but HERE WE ARE).

Of course, with the start of the new year comes a time to look back at what I've accomplished and how I did on my goals for the past year and to set some new ones for the coming year. So, let's get to it! Before I do that, though, I just want to remind y'all that this year's New Year's Eve short story was posted, y'know, on New Year's Eve. And if you're eagerly watching for my 2022 reading recaps, those will go up next Friday, assuming I get them written in time.

2022 Recap // 2023 Goals

2022 Recap

Year of Onward and Upward

• In case you've forgotten (entirely justified), for the last couple years, I've been combining my usual goal-setting with CGP Grey's "Year of . . ." theme method. My theme for 2022 was "Onward and Upward," which is to say that I wanted to keep doing the things I was doing well and to improve or expand upon those things when I could.
• Overall, I think I've largely succeeded at this theme. I'll get into specifics in particular sections, but I've certainly managed onward, and I think I've also gone upward in some key areas. Not all the areas I intended, but . . . I did my best.
• As far as the themes go, I think I'm going to continue using this method to some degree. Even if I forget the theme by partway through the year, it helps me think about what kind of goals I want to set, and it gets me going in the right direction.

Writing

• My overall goal for the year was to set and actively work towards monthly or multi-monthly writing goals in at least ten of the twelve months of 2022. I can certainly say that I did that, although they were pretty much all "Get this much book done this month" rather than actual wordcount goals. Did I meet all those monthly goals? Ehhhhh . . . not so much. But I met enough of them.
• I did still keep track of wordcounts, though! My combined writing and editing total for the year was 333,144 words, which is about twice as high as it was last year. That's spread over several different projects, including three novels, two short stories, and one D&D campaign.
• It's actually kind of astonishing to compare this year's writing to last year's — I've been so frustrated lately with not being where I want to be with BDPI #4 that I forgot just how much I actually did this year. But the last time I got this much done was 2020 — you know, when I spent most of the year stuck inside, jobless, with nothing to do besides write.
• Regarding specific project goals:
  • I wrote, edited, and published two books. Mask of Scarlet released back in April — I wrote most of this book back in 2021, but finished it in 2022. The third book in a series is always going to be less accessible than the first book or a standalone, but it still was well-received by fans of the series, and at least one person has said it's their favorite BDPI book. Then, Through a Shattered Glass (formerly known as the Super Secret Mystery Project) released in December, just a few weeks ago, with the second-fastest turnaround of any of my books — The Midnight Show was the only book so far that's had less time between start-of-draft and publication. Nonetheless, everything I've seen so far suggests that people are enjoying it quite a lot!
  • I drafted about 60–70% of Bastian Dennel, PI #4, roughly 22 chapters (plus eight or nine that I scrapped). I genuinely hoped it would be done by now, since I started it back in June (JUNE!) and these books usually don't take that long to write. Of course, having to redo the first version of the first eight chapters did set things back a bit.
  • I actually came up with two different ideas for the 2023 Arista Challenge. One of them is actually pretty well planned (via extensive brainstorming conversations with a friend); the other is a bit more nebulous but seems like it would be fun. Neither one is written yet, but . . . that's not a new problem, honestly.
  • My Defenders of Serys D&D campaign is still going strong. The party has been hopping from one world to another and derailing The Lord of the Rings, and it's been an exciting time. We have had a lot more scheduling interruptions than we used to, but on the upside, that makes it easier to keep up with prep.
• Blogging and author socials have stayed fairly consistent. I only took one blogging hiatus all year, and that wasn't even a full hiatus, just a partial one. I didn't really end up prewriting blog posts as much as I intended, but I still managed to get stuff up on time. The fact that I hopped on a bunch of blog tours and street teams definitely helped. I also didn't do as much take-batches-of-pictures-for-IG as I intended, though I definitely did some, and I didn't miss too many weeks.

Reading

• As usual, this'll be covered in my Best of/End-of-Year Book Celebration posts, so I don't want to get into detail here.
• That said, if you want to get an early look at my stats, you can click here.
• The brief summary: I surpassed or did acceptably at my total reading goal and most of my specific book goals, and I failed miserably at one particular specific book goal.
• I also borrowed Kendra E. Ardnek's method of using a Google Form to do detailed tracking of what I read, and that worked pretty well. I'll most likely continue doing that next year, though I'll make some adjustments to the questions on said form.

Life

• My job continues to go well. I'm a few days off from having worked here for two years, which is great. In last year's post, I said that I wasn't sure what an upward might look like for my job goals, but God seemed to have had one in mind, as this year has been full of new types of projects: large-scale banners, signage, and more. I've also learned quite a bit about working with outside companies for things like having signage made, which was interesting. Thankfully, it's all turned out well, and I've enjoyed working with my new supervisor, who took over around February/March.
• I've kept up with my German. Scripture and poetry memorization? Not so much. I ended up upgrading to the paid version of Duolingo, and I think that was a good investment — no ads and being able to do however much or little I want at a time are both very helpful. On the other hand, I kind of dropped off of my Scripture and poetry memorization midway through the year. I think the problem was that I was too focused on only memorizing full chapters or passages, plus I was picking a lot of selections because I felt like I should learn those particular things, not because I wanted to. That probably could've been fixed, but at the time, I didn't want to take the time to rework my entire plan for the rest of the year, so I just . . . dropped it.
• I did not find a consistent exercise method. We did buy a treadmill towards the start of the year, which helped for a while . . . until I ran up against the problem that if I don't have time to watch a show, saying I can walk at the same time does not mean I'm going to suddenly make more time. I also tried learning some line dances off of YouTube videos in preparation for a friend's wedding, but once her wedding was over, my motivation for that went way down.
• I attended Realm Makers for the first time this year! It was kind of stressful at times, but still an amazing experience. I learned so much from the various speakers, and getting to meet my writer friends in person and spend a weekend around my people? So good. I also got to meet up with one of those friends at a local Ren Faire, which was super fun, and earlier in the year, my sister and I attended a Viking Fest (which is rather like a very specific small Ren Faire).
• I had a bit of a scare just after the conference when my car abruptly stopped working properly. Thankfully, I was able to find a good mechanic to take a look at it, and it turned out to just be an issue with a spark plugs. It was still a very stressful few days, though. On the upside, now I know what to do if and when I have car trouble again!
• I upgraded my computer setup! I've been thinking of switching my primary device from a laptop to a desktop with a secondary external monitor for a while, especially since my laptop had essentially been functioning as a desktop for quite a while. This year, I finally took the leap and ordered a desktop computer tower and accessories, and let me tell you, that was a stellar decision. Not only am I not stressed about storage space for the first time since 2019, I can actually use my laptop as a laptop again! It's glorious.
• Last year, I said that I wanted to do some combination of expanding existing skills, revisiting old skills, or trying to learn a new skill in three different areas. I definitely expanded my baking skills in 2022 into baking cakes as well as bread. Not all of the cakes turned out perfectly, but most of them were quite tasty, especially the coconut cake I made at Easter. I also learned embroidery over the summer for a cosplay, which I hope to keep doing in 2023 in between knitting and crochet projects. And finally, I maintained a small potted herb garden this year, which I think counts even though I didn't put a ton of effort into it.

So, there we have my Year of Onward and Upward. Overall, I'd say it was pretty much a success. I'm hopeful for more of the same in 2023, which brings me to my 2023 theme and goals. Even though I may not remember all of what I write down here in a few months, I still find it beneficial to lay it all out. It helps me get things straight in my mind, and it also gives me a little bit of motivation and momentum. I am a great believer in momentum!

2023 Goals

Year of  . . .

• I spent way too much time debating if I could just reuse last year's theme because, to be honest, it fit very well with what I was thinking this year's goals would look like. And then I decided (after getting a second opinion) that it is, in fact, my life, and if I decide to extend my theme for another year because it set me in a direction that I want to maintain, I can do that.
• That said, I don't want to use the same wording, and there is a more accurate way to say what I want to do, so my 2023 theme (in keeping with my 2022 foray into plant-keeping) is water and grow. Watering refers to maintaining what I've achieved so far, and that maintenance allows my skills and me to grow in various ways.

Writing Goals

• My writing has been going pretty well the last few years, and most of my goals in this area are more about maintaining than growing, except in the sense of increasing the number of things I've written and published. While I want to continue to improve in my craft, I don't have concrete areas that I plan to work on, and I know that I'll continue to learn if I keep on with my current course.
• To that point, as in the last couple years, I want to be actively and regularly working towards specific writing goals in at least ten of the twelve months of 2023. I'm phrasing this a little differently than I have in the past because most of my goals for the last year or two haven't been based on wordcount or on days written in a week (except for when I do the 100-4-100 challenge). They're based on "I need to get [book] drafted/edited/formatted by X date." Ideally, I'll be actively working on writing every month, but this past year, I did end up taking a bit of a break from in April, and I want to leave space for rest when I need it.
• So, what are the specific project goals I hope to accomplish this year?
  • I need to finish, edit, and publish BDPI#4. As already mentioned, I'm currently on Chapter 22, and I think I'm probably close to 70% done, so I should be able to have a draft done by the end of February — maybe the end of January, but I have other projects coming up this month as well.
  • I need to write and submit my project for the Stolen Songs Arista Challenge. My original plan for this Arista Challenge is getting delayed because it's in the BDPI series and there's no way I can get all the preceding books finished in time. That said, I've come up with another idea that will hopefully be shorter and faster to write, assuming it works out. It'll be another standalone, though I may try to fit in an established storyworld if I can.
  • I want to write something for the Magical Dogs Fellowship of Fantasy anthology. I have an idea that I was originally going to use for a different writing challenge and hope to repurpose for this instead. It's a little unconventional, so I'm not sure if it'll get in or not, but I also think it'll be fun.
  • I need to decide what I'm doing for the 2024 Arista Challenge (if I'm doing something). Kendra just announced that the next fairy tale after Little Mermaid will be The Goose Girl. While I do have a version of this fairy tale planned for the Bastian Dennel series, again, I'm not sure how well timing will work. There's a chance it will be fine, but no guarantees. I do have an alternative idea that I could do, though — another combination fairy tale — and so I may decide to do that. It'll depend how much time other projects take. Speaking of which . . .
  • I want to draft BDPI #5. This will probably be very short, unless it proves to have much more to it than I expect, so I have high hopes of being able to actually get it done in 2023. Ideally, I'll also manage to edit it so I can publish it in early 2024, but we'll see what happens.
  • I need to keep up with writing my Defenders of Serys D&D campaign. As with last year, this is an essential project simply because D&D nights are an opportunity to hang out with some of my closest friends and I don't want to lose that. I suspect that we'll be in Middle Earth for a large swath of the year, so that'll help keep this from becoming overwhelming when combined with my other projects.
• Finally, as with last year, I want to keep up with my blogging and author socials, posting once a week on blogs and one or two times a week on socials three weeks out of every month. Giving myself leeway to miss a week here and there is pretty helpful for keeping my stress level down and making sure I don't run out of ideas, so I'm going to continue doing that. But I do want to stay as consistent as possible.

Reading Goals

• My reading goal for this year is 101 books. That's only two books more than last year, so I'm confident that I'll have no trouble reaching it — it's just a number I like slightly better, and I didn't want to use the same number as last year.
• I'm sticking with my goal for reading older books, aiming for 12 books published (or written) before 1975, but I'm also adding the restriction that only three of these books can be children's books. A lot of the older books I read tend to be rereads of childrens' classics, which is fine, but also feels a bit like cheating. I'm also going to say right now — I'm currently reading Moby Dick via email subscription. I will not finish it this year. It still counts as a classic book that I have read this year because it is storming long.
• As for genre goals, I'm sticking with last year's goal of reading 15 non-speculative fiction books in 2023. This feels like a good number: high enough to ensure some variety, but not so high as to mess with my ability to enjoy mood reads and keep up with books I need to read for street teams and tours.
• Another goal I added this year, which will overlap with the non-spec-fic goal: a few days ago, I asked people on social media (specifically Facebook and Instagram) to recommend me some books to read in 2023. My goal is to read at least 90% of these recommended books this year. I'm leaving the number at 90% because someone suggested a duology, and if I don't enjoy the first book, I don't want to force myself to read the second as well. For those curious, I've collected all the recommendations into a Goodreads list, which you can check out here.
• I want to keep tracking my reads in detail and improve how I track them. The Google form method worked well last year, but I do want to change some questions — remove some that aren't terribly helpful (like the start/finish dates, which aren't even accurate for all the books), add some that will allow me to check goal progress more easily, and adjust the format of some so the results are easier to read. I also want to track rereads versus new-to-me reads because I feel like that statistic will be interesting. But despite my initial misgivings, tracking my reading beyond just what I can do in Goodreads has been helpful, and I want to keep it up!
• On a related note — this doesn't precisely fit in this category, but I'm not sure where else to put it: I want to more carefully track what I watch as well. I haven't precisely decided what information I'm going to record or how I'm going to record it, but I think it would be useful. I'll probably end up using a Google form like I do for reading, since neither of the websites I thought might work are really ideal, but we'll see.

Life Goals

• Job-wise, I want to maintain what I'm doing well. That should go without saying, but sometimes it's useful to write out even the obvious. I actually have a growing goal for career stuff too . . . but I'm not listing it because sometimes I like keeping things secret until after I'm in the middle of them. I'm weird. Suffice it to say that I'm planning to try something that I've been thinking about and people have been encouraging me to pursue for a while, and we'll see how it goes.
• As with last year, I want to keep practicing German. I'm not adding a second language; one is plenty. But I've been doing very well this past year, and I don't want to slack off in 2023.
• I'm also taking another shot at one of my failed goals from last year: I want to figure out a method for exercising regularly that I'll enjoy enough to stick with. Low as this bar is, I have a lot of trouble clearing it. I know part of my issue is just that the problems that come from not exercising appear a lot more subtly and seem a lot less immediately pressing than the problems that are solved by not excising (those mostly being "I am tired, and exercise takes time that I could be using to write"). And the problems that are somewhat more pressing are ones that will take a longer time to solve and, to be frank, tend to send me into spirals of fatalistic grumpiness, so I try not to dwell on them. I have a couple of ideas of how I could possibly mitigate some of the obstacles that keep me from getting in more movement,
• This is less a goal and more a hope or a dream, but I really want to go back to Realm Makers. It will be a little more difficult this year, since it's back out in St. Louis, which means plane tickets and extra expenses. But last year was such a good experience, and I want to have it again. But if it doesn't work out, I'd still like to figure out a way to go see other friends at some point.
• This is a really short list of life goals, but my unspoken thing is a big one, and I also have a lot going on in the writing area, so I'm going to leave this as-is. It's enough to give me a good start to the year, and that's what matters.

What were your 2022 highlights? What goals, themes, or resolutions do you have for 2023? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!