Hello, all! I debated a bit about whether or not to post this week — I am still on hiatus, technically, and it's also the week before Realm Makers, which means I am quite busy getting ready for that! However, this is release weekend for City of Serpents, the fourth book in the the Secrets of Ormdale series by Christina Baehr, and I enjoyed my ARC so much that I couldn't not talk about it! Granted, if you haven't read the series, you should probably start with book one, Wormwood Abbey (as you will be hopelessly confused otherwise), and if you have read the series, you probably don't need much convincing to read the new installment . . . but if nothing else, maybe I can convince you to read it a little sooner? In any case, I have thoughts!

Thoughts on City of Serpents

1. If you liked the rest of the Ormdale books, you'll like this one. City of Serpents introduces a new setting and some new characters, but it still contains all the things we've come to love and expect from an Ormdale novel. Within its pages, you'll find dragons, strong family relationships and friendships, and dire danger balanced with cozy comfort. You'll find villains who are, in some ways, all too realistic, even if they're with dragons. And, of course, you'll find Edith, our favorite cleric's daughter/novelist-turned-dragon-keeper, who has turned her detective-novelist's mind towards some schemes of her own.
2. I also enjoyed meeting quite a few new characters. My favorite of these is, unfortunately, a spoiler, though I will say that this person was alluded to in Castle of the Winds (and that allusion did not prepare me for how delightful the actual person would be). In terms of characters I can talk about, though, the main newcomers are Edith's cousin, Stephen, and his son, Crispin, both of whom are very fun. Edith's interactions with Crispin are especially lovely and fun, while Stephen simultaneously provides some extra humor (via teasing Edith and his general personality) and a bit of a sobering effect (via his knowledge and role in the narrative). You'll get what I mean once you meet him.
3. I was a little nervous about the start of the story . . . Mostly because Edith was being very determined to Do Things Alone (understandable, given what happened in the last book, but still stressful) and other people were, in my opinion, being a bit hard on her and Not Helping. Thankfully, both of these issues clear up after those first few chapters — and, really, I shouldn't have doubted in the first place. Edith is too sensible for that kind of nonsense, and Christina Baehr is too good an author to send her main character down that path.
4. This is the most historical-feeling of the Ormdale books thus far. Yes, all the books are historical fantasy, but the remote locations of the previous books meant they leaned strongly to the fantasy side of the genre. On the other hand, City of Serpents deals very heavily with very specific movements, social issues, attitudes, and people of its era. It almost feels like what you'd get if you crossed Ormdale with Suzannah Rowntree's Miss Dark books. (Side note, if anyone wants to actually write that fanfiction, please send me a link; I think it would be delightfully fun.)
5. The story is a little bit darker than some of the others in the series. That shouldn't really be a surprise, given what I said in my last point — but it is worth noting. All of the Ormdale books have dealt in some way with the effects of abuse, but it's usually been on a smaller scale. This one, on the other hand, deals with injustices committed on a larger scale, and that plus the villain's modus operandi and the reminder of just when in history this story is set combine to make City of Serpents a touch darker. However, rest assured that even amid the shadows of the London streets, we never lose sight of the light.
   

Are you excited to read City of Serpents? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

Hello, friends! 2024 is halfway gone, and the time has come for my Mid-Year Book Celebration, in which I check in on my reading goals and round up my favorite reads of the first six months of 2024, along with assorted other notable books and other stories that I enjoyed (or didn't enjoy) in that time. If you just want the short-and-sweet best-of rundown, you can hop over to Light and Shadows to get that list — but if you want that list and more, stay right here and read on!

2024 Mid-Year Book Celebration

There is, of course, no book celebration without statistics and a look at how my goals are going. As of July 1, I've read 58 books and 14,610 pages (or so says Goodreads), which is notably lower than what I'd read around this time last year — but I think I've been reading more slowly, so that makes a difference. I'm still on track for my goal of reading 93 books in 2024. Most of what I've read has been in the 200–400 page range, as per usual, and my average rating is 4.3 stars. Apparently, I've liked my reads a tiny bit less on average this year than I did last year.

Happily, though, some of my specific goals are going well!

• I'm actually doing quite well on my goal of 12 books published (or written) before 1975 (at least nine of which were aimed at adults); I've read ten books in this category, and only four of those were originally aimed at children. As in past years, subscribing to novels via Substack newsletter helps a lot. Notable books I've read towards this goal include the two Sherlock Holmes novels, Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped, Ann McCaffrey's Dragonsong, and Rosalind Goforth's How I Know God Answers Prayer. Of the three more books I need to read to complete this goal, I'm already in the process of reading two — Dracula via Dracula Daily and Moby Dick via Whale Weekly, which I'll finish in September. I have a few ideas of what I might read for a third, but we'll see what ends up catching my interest.
• My goal of reading 15 non-speculative fiction books is going . . . not as well, but not terribly. I've read six books so far towards this goal, so I'm rather behind, but I have ideas of what I could read in order to catch up. I just need to find them at the library when I'm in the mood to read them.
• I have somewhat decreased the number of physical books I own but haven't read — which I mostly accomplished by deciding to part with my Wheel of Time books (I'll get them out from the library if I decide to give the series another try), but progress is progress. I have been making an effort to pick up unread books from my shelves, but I've also been trying to do the Kindle reading challenges on and off, and those two things are kind of mutually exclusive.
• I did catch up with H.L. Burke's SVR-verse, which also helped. I've only read one book towards catching up on the Cosmere and Sanderson Secret Project novels, but I still have several months left, so hopefully I can fix that.

For more statistics or the full list of everything I read in 2024, check out my Goodreads Year in Books or my tracking form results. For now, though, let's get on to the specific categories of books I want to highlight!

1. Best book you've read in the first half of 2024:

This is a slightly easier choice than normal — my favorite new-to-me non-sequel of 2024 so far is absolutely The Erlking's Daughters by Claire Trella Hill! It's epic fantasy with a deep, lore-rich world, a beautiful balance of light and dark, an excellent take on fae, a lovely slowburn romance, and, most importantly, a strong focus on family, especially sibling relationships. With all that together, there's no chance I wouldn't love it.

Of course, just because it was an easy choice doesn't mean there aren't some really good runners-up. Tress of the Emerald Sea is a Princess Bride-esque pirate adventure with fabulous characters and a really cool magic system, and it probably would've tied with The Erlking's Daughter if I hadn't gotten annoyed with the story voice in some sections. Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries features a pair of scholar protagonists (with Howl and Sophie vibes), a very other take on the fae, and themes bound up in stories and how we use them to understand the world. Finally, Game On is a stellar example of how to do next-generation stories right, besides the fact that it's a really fun superhero story in and of itself.

2. Best sequel you've read in the first half of 2024:

Another easy choice here — Dark & Dawn is Book 4 in Suzannah Rowntree's Miss Dark's Apparitions series, and it's the best installment yet. I loved delving into Molly's family history and watching the crew's schemes unfold . . . but what I loved more was seeing Molly learn to trust, seeing Vasily figuring out how to be human, and seeing them both have some difficult, wonderful conversations. And, of course, the ending was absolutely magnificent.

That said, we had some thoroughly delightful runners-up for best sequel. Castle of the Winds continues the Secrets of Ormdale with a cozy adventure through secrets, chases, and twists and some absolutely magnificent dragons. No Man Left Behind wraps up the Worlds Behind series with as twisty and thrilling — and satisfying — a conclusion as you'd expect from one of Gingell's urban fantasies. And Mantles of Oak and Iron is an exciting follow-up to The Orb and the Airship that shows more of the broad scope of the story and world and gives us more of a look into our favorite characters pasts and capabilities.

3. Best book you've reread in the first half of 2024:

Fact: rereading The Goblin Emperor is never a bad idea. I don't know if there's such a thing as cozy political intrigue epics, but if there is, this definitely qualifies. It's just delightful to enjoy a story about someone who's been given a great deal of power, who's been pushed into the schemes that dominate any fantasy court, but who chooses to be kind at pretty much every step of the way and who succeeds because of it, y'know?

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

This is a pretty recent release, but technically I've had access to Hearts of Stone and Steel by Jenelle Leanne Schmidt for a bit and not yet gotten around to reading it. (In my defense, I got the ebook from the Kickstarter and then lost the file . . . which isn't a very good defense, but oh well.) I'm excited to see more of Captain Marik, Beren, and the rest and to find out what happens next in this epic series!

5. Most anticipated release for the second half of 2024:

The Splintered Mind Kickstarter wrapped up a couple weeks ago, and backers will likely start receiving their copies in late July and August, and I believe the book will be available for wide purchase sometime after that. I'm so excited to discover a new aspect of the worlds Behind and Between and to meet a new set of characters!

I'm also very much looking forward to the final two Secrets of Ormdale novles, City of Serpents (releasing July 14; technically I just finished my ARC of this, but I'm looking forward to getting to talk about it with other people) and Valley of Dragons (coming in October). I've loved the first three books, and they've regularly made my best-of lists, so I have high hopes for the back half of the series as well.

And, of course, I'm looking forward to Wind and Truth, the fifth Stormlight Archive novel, releasing this December . . . though I really need to catch up on the Cosmere before I can be properly hyped. Hopefully, by the time it arrives, I'll be back in the habit of reading really long books more regularly.

6. Biggest disappointment:

I decided to give the Detective Conan manga series a try because I have a friend who really enjoys them. Unfortunately, I did not love the first book — while the concept is cool, some of the characters annoy me, and there's a fair bit of cartoony violence that bugs me as well (more because of who it's directed at than because of the violence itself). I still may try to forge on with more of the series, just so I can give it a fair chance, but the start, at least, did not wow me.

7. Biggest surprise:

I wasn't really surprised by any books this year, in the sense of liking them more than I expected — there were plenty that surprised me with twists, but of course I can't list those here, as that would be a spoiler. Apparently, most of my reads this year have met my expectations, and if they surpassed them, I was already expecting to really like them.

8. A book that made you cry:

Tears is a stretch, but Power Up and Engaged to a Supervillain both gave me all the feels, so I think that sort of counts?

9. A book that made you happy:

Wishing on a Supervillain and Accidentally a Supervillain were both super fun reads, pun very much intended. I enjoy all of H.L. Burke's SVR-verse books, but these two were especially fun.

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

My favorite post this year was actually a guest post on Jenelle Leanne Schmidt's blog: Stories Behind the Scenes: How to Research for Worldbuilding! In this post, I broke down my approach for how I figure out what to research when I'm building a world and where to do that research.

On my own blog, I had a lot of fun with my Favorite Fantasy Subgenres and Favorite Romance Tropes posts that I did for February is Fantasy Month, in which I both shared the titular favorites and provided book recommendations for each subgenre or trope.

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

I mean, Hearts of Stone and Steel is very cool-looking, so probably that.

That wraps things up for me — but what about for you? What are the best books you've read in the first half of 2024? Also, what's the best book or series you've reread? Tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

June 2024 Doings!

Hello, everyone! June has, thankfully, been pretty peaceful. That's not to say that nothing happened — in fact, one or two quite exciting things occurred! — but mostly it's been very routine. One of the most exciting bits of the month was in the world of writing, though, so let's jump in there.

Writing!

• Let's start with some excellent news: the first draft of Daughters of Atirse #2 is finished! We wrapped up with 34 chapters and just shy of 174K words, which is pretty substantial and a little longer than I expected, but not much longer. It might have been longer still had my characters not decided to go slightly off-script in the climax — I know, normally that makes stories longer, but there's an exception to everything. I also got to have a nice writing day and some treats at a cafe on Juneteenth (which I had off from work), so that helped the process along.
• I finished that last Sunday, June 23. I then took a couple days off from writing as a break before jumping back in to do some light edits (mostly fixing some details that shifted between the first half of the book and the second and rewriting a scene or two), which are going well; I'm about a third of the way through those. Once I finish edits, I'll send it off to beta-readers.
• In other exciting news, the DOSA Files anthology that includes my short story "Save{Point}" just released this past week! Even if you missed the Kickstarter, you can now order it in ebook or paperback form. There's also a blog tour that just wrapped up, but I think you can still enter the giveaways — click here to visit the tour masterpost and find out where to find all the things.
• All my writing energy has been directed towards Daughters of Atirse #2, so I don't have much to report on other projects. I haven't written more D&D, but we did have a couple sessions that were pretty fun, and some of what I read this month inspired some more noodling on the Secret Star Project. And speaking of what I've been reading . . .

Reading!

• I spent most of June rereading the Murderbot series (and first-time reading the latest book, System Collapse). I was happy to find that these books were just as good or better on the reread, and I very much enjoyed the latest installment as well. It's very much an affirmation of the power of stories and storytelling while also being tense and exciting and having all the good things one would hope for from this series. The series is available in Kindle Unlimited, if you're interested in checking it out. (Obligatory content warning: there's a good bit of strong language, some violence (though not graphically described), and a fair number of secondary characters who are some flavor of not-straight (though the fact that the POV character is extremely not interested in any of that helps downplay it enough that it doesn't bother me)).
• Outside of Murderbot, my month was also mostly rereads: I finished rereading Howl's Moving Castle (delightful as ever), revisited the graphic novel of The Adventure Zone: The Crystal Kingdom (in preparation for reading the next installment in that series), and am continuing to enjoy Dracula via Dracula Daily.
• I did have some other new-to-me reads, though. When a Dragon Comes Courting was a fun little fantasy romance novellette; I enjoyed it, though the narration emphasized physical attraction a little more than I would've liked. I've also been reading Beka Gremikova's Unexpected Encounters of a Draconic Kind anthology (not pictured, as I'm still reading it as of the writing of this post), which I've meant to get around to for a while. Like in most anthologies, some stories are better than others, but on the whole, it's a good collection.

 Watching & Playing!

• Not much to report here — the only things I've watched this month were a couple episodes of Hogan's Heroes while at my grandpa's house, and as far as podcasts go, I've mostly been listening to Dracula Daily and Lateral. I did try some of Myths & Legends at the recommendation of several friends, but didn't vibe with it the way I hoped I would (alas). Why do I like Overly Sarcastic Productions videos and not Myths & Legends podcasts when they're very similar? No clue, but that's how it is.
• On the gaming front, I spent most of June playing through the Xianghou questline in Honkai Star Rail (which I started back in May, and which was the reason I got into the game in the first place). That was undeniably awesome — I'd heard a lot about how good it was from my friends, and I knew I'd like it on some level because it involved characters I really wanted to meet (and was predisposed to like), but I was not fully prepared for how epic the climax was. Or the pre-climax. Or several of the character quests. It was probably a good thing that I was home alone on the nights that I played the pre-climax and climax because I legitimately screamed at points; it was just that good. Of course, it helped that these particular plotlines focused a lot on two of my favorite characters . . .
• (I will say that I was very grateful to have friends who've already played this arc and could make sure I didn't skip anything important. There are a few pretty important sidequests that I definitely would've missed had people not let me know "Hey, you need to do this thing now, not later," and the storyline would not have been as fun if I'd messed that up.)
• Also related to Star Rail, I ended up starting a group chat with two of my friends who are also into the game so we could talk about the game and I could send them updates on my playthrough and reactions to stuff that's happening (since the Xianghou arc is also their favorite), and that was a fabulous choice. It turns a single-player game into a social activity, and getting to chat and share my experience with them while I play makes the game so much better.

Life!

• June was, thankfully, pretty quiet on the whole — the "big event" of the month was visiting my grandpa over Father's Day weekend. I haven't seen him since Christmas, so it was nice to go out and visit. This trip was a little different than most, though, as my parents went on a retreat the week before we went to my grandpa's, and they drove straight to his house from the retreat center. That meant two things: first, that I was responsible for bringing dessert for the weekend, and second, that I was driving up by myself (not a problem, but long solo drives are always a big of an Event for me). Both things went well, thankfully. I made German Chocolate earthquake cake (an upside-down cake with a cream cheese layer baked in), which everyone said was good, and I only missed one turn on the drive (near the end, and it was extremely poorly labeled).
• Also related to baking: my Baking Yesteryear recipe for the month was chocolate mayonnaise cake, which turned out really well! It was my first time making a full-size Bundt cake, and I was absolutely thrilled when it didn't stick at all to the pan. The cake itself tasted pretty good too, though I can't recommend the icing method included with the recipe — it had an odd flavor to it that I didn't really enjoy. But, again, the cake was good, and I'd definitely make that again.
• Work has been going well. It's been a quiet month, for which I am grateful. There were a few days when there were only two or three people in the office, but I'm not complaining about that.
• And on the crafting front, I'm still working on my Cosmere pin hoop. It's been kind of slow going, since stitching through felt and fabric together is difficult, plus Bible study was cancelled a couple times, and I normally get a lot of embroidery done there (since I use it to keep my hands occupied during discussions).
• I think that about covers it — like I said, June was a quiet month, and I'm grateful for it.

July Plans

• Once Daughters of Atirse #2 is with beta readers (which should be soon), I plan to give myself a few weeks' break from writing. That's not to say that I won't write anything, especially since I do need to work on my D&D stuff — I'll just mostly be doing it as I feel inspired, and I won't stress if I don't make my day's wordcount (because I mostly won't have a set wordcount to make). I'll definitely prep my next D&D adventure, and I may do some noodling on side projects. I'll also work on some writing adjacent projects, like the cover for Daughters of Atirse #2 and commissioning character art.
• Of course, most of my writing break will be taken up by one very exciting thing: Realm Makers! I'm so excited to be back at the conference for a third year, especially since I'm hoping to visit some family and friends on the way out to St. Louis. I'm looking forward to seeing my author friends and writing buddies (and meeting some of them in person for the first time), hearing what the speakers have to say, and, of course, finding out the Realm Awards winners. I've been hyped for this trip for months, and now it's almost here! (And I'm praying very hard that nothing goes wrong at the last minute.)
• For those attending and curious about buying my books or getting them signed: I'll be consigning some of my titles through the Realm Makers store, and a lot of those will be pre-signed. However, I'm happy to sign (or personalize) books if you catch me during the conference, and I think that I should have a stable signing spot during the Book Fair on Saturday night.
• My blogging semi-hiatus will continue for most of July, though I do plan to post my mid-year book roundups next week, and I may end up doing one review post midway through the month. We'll see.
• As for work, the new associate pastor is starting this month, so hopefully that will go well! Between that and the fact that my trip will mess with bulletin schedules, things may be a little more exciting than they have been . . . but I'm not terribly stressed about it. It'll still be less crazy than some other seasons.
• I think that covers all my big plans. I'll continue with my reading, crafting, and baking goals as I have been doing. The only other semi-significant thing happening is that I need to make some decisions about the fall semester of grad school (namely, which classes I'm taking next, and when I'm taking them), which is . . . a little stressful, but it'll be fine.

How was your June? Any plans for July? Will I be seeing you at Realm Makers? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

 

Hello, all! As promised, I return briefly from my semi-hiatus to spotlight a new season's upcoming reads worth getting excited about. While summer isn't quite as exciting for me as Spring 2024 was, there are still quite a few stories I'm very much looking forward to. (And, I mean, Spring 2024 is going to be really hard to beat.) So, let's get started and see what summer 2024 has in store for us.

 

Summer 2024 Reads

1. Splintered Mind by W.R. Gingell (June 3). W.R. Gingell is giving us another spinoff of her City Between series, and let me tell you, I am so, so hyped. This one is also set in Australia (Melbourne, to be exact), and it apparently involves madmen and tentacle monsters and a heroine who sounds delightfully practical and grounded (exactly what one needs in a world so full of weirdness as Between). As a bonus, you can enjoy this series without having read City Between, so it's a great jumping-in point for newcomers. Gingell is launching this via Kickstarter, and there are a few days left to back the project — but if you miss the deadline, the book will release wide later in the year, so you'll still have a chance to get it.

2. Hearts of Stone and Steel by Jenelle Leanne Schmidst (June 25). I am, of course, very much looking forward to returning to the world of Turrim for Book 3 of the Turrim Archive! Especially considering where Book 2 left off . . . yeah. The adventure and the stakes just keep getting bigger, and I know the story will keep getting better along with it. (Also: there is a ROBOT on that cover, and I want to know what's up with that.)

3. DOSA Files Anthology (June 27). Y'all should already be aware of this one, since it includes one of my stories — but for those who missed it, the DOSA Files is an anthology of short stories set in the world of H.L. Burke's Supervillain Rehabilitation Project series and spinoffs. It includes stories from ten different authors, and I can confirm that the ones I've read are so much fun. The Kickstarter ran most of last month, and the book will be available for wide release in just a few days! The blog tour for this book is going on right now, and it includes interviews, giveaways, and more, so make sure you check it out.

4.  When a Dragon Comes Calling by Claire Trella Hill (June 28). Speaking of spinoffs set in the same world as something I love: When a Dragon Comes Calling is the first in a series of romance-focused fantasy novels set in the same world as The Erlking's Daughter (which you may remember me raving about back in March/April). It's a short little snack of a novella, but sometimes that's exactly what you want. Claire Trella Hill is currently two for two in terms of writing books that I absolutely love, and so I have high hopes for this one as well — it's next on my TBR list after I finish reading Murderbot.

5. City of Serpents by Christina Baehr (July 14). Can y'all believe that there's only two books left in the Secrets of Ormdale series? I can't, but I am so looking forward to the next installment! What will happen when Edith's cozy Gothic life meets the shadows of a mystery-type story and the strangeness of mad science? I don't know, but I'm sure it's going to be delightful and exciting. I'm also looking forward to learning more about Janushek, who's been a very interesting character so far. And, of course, I'm excited to see even more new dragons and to find out how Edith will deal with them!

6. Beauty from Embers by Pamela Hart (July 16). Here we have another Kickstarter, this one launching in mid-July (though you can sign up now to be notified when it opens). While this looks very Asian-fantasy-esque, the blurbs suggest that's it's more of a science fantasy — with some strong allegorical elements as well, both of which sound appealing to me. Beauty from Embers is book two, but I do plan to pick up Beauty from Ashes, the first book in the series, at some point.

7. Iron Rose by Abigail O'Bryan (August 6). This appears to be O'Bryan's debut. It's a Beauty and the Beast retelling, which is always exciting — however many takes I see on this tale, I'm always curious when I come upon a new one. This story seems like it'll lean dark, which isn't always my preference, but it should also lean epic, and I definitely like that. I'll be keeping my eye on this one!

8. A Bond of Ice and Sunshine by Sarah Beran (August 9). This is a sequel to My Fair Mermaid, which released as part of last year's Stolen Songs Arista Challenge group. It focuses on Freddy and Eliza, and as I predicted, it's a Snow Queen story  . . . unexpectedly mixed with King Thrushbeard, a fairy tale I do not see retold often enough. Needless to say, I'm very much looking forward to seeing how Sarah Beran blends these two tales (and to seeing Freddy get the happily-ever-after he was hoping for in the last book; he is an absolute ray of sunshine, and he deserves the happiest of endings).

9. The Mhrann's Mantle by E.G. Moore (August 12). While I haven't read the series this is part of, this story does sound pretty interesting — from what I can tell, it's a science fantasy story (maybe?) with some Asian inspiration and, if I'm not mistaken, it's a spy story. All of those elements sound intriguing, and I hope that they'll combine well. And I will probably be looking into the rest of the series too . . .

10. Come by Water by Claire Trella Hill (August 30). We wrap up the season with another release by Claire Trella Hill! This is another romantic fantasy Tales from Karneesia story, but this one is a retelling of Tam Lin, and I am so looking forward to it! Much like King Thrushbeard, Tam Lin is a story I feel like I don't see retold half as often as I'd like, and I'm very excited to read Claire's take on the tale!

What book releases are you excited for this summer? Am I missing any? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

 

May 2024 Doings!

Hello, everyone! I'm happy to say that May has been a better month than April (and far superior to May 2023), though it did start out with a certain amount of drama. I am very relieved that it's effectively summer now and I can have some time to not stress about grad school. But I'm getting ahead of myself; before I talk about general life stuff, let's see how my writing is going.

Writing!

• First of all, an update on the DOSA Files anthology. The Kickstarter was successfully backed to the second stretch goal, so paperbacks will be shipping sometime mid-June, and the audiobook is officially in the works! If you missed the Kickstarter but still want a copy, no worries — you can preorder the ebook on Amazon, and the paperback will be available for purchase June 27. We'll be doing a blog tour to celebrate the wide release of the anthology, so if you want to help spread the word, please click here and sign up.
• As for Daughters of Atirse #2, I am still not quite finished, despite my best intentions, but I am closing in on the climax and the end of the book! Just a few chapters left! My wordcounts weren't quite where I wanted them to be — I was hitting somewhere around a thousand most days, but not much higher, and there were more than a few days with counts in the 400–600-word range. Still, I made very good progress, and I'm trying to focus on that rather than berating myself for not having been done with this a month ago.
• In more exciting news, as you might have heard earlier in the month, Song of the Selkies is a Realm Awards finalist! I'm very excited to have made it to the top five (especially considering what other books SotS was competing against — there were some big names and amazing stories on the Long List!), and I look forward to finding out who the ultimate winner will be at Realm Makers in July.
• Finally, an update on my spare-time projects — which, to be clear, I work on when I either can't work on Daughters of Atirse or I'm already done with my Atirse writing for the day. I finished the Travel Interlude for my D&D group, but I have not gotten back to working on the next adventure. I'll be honest; the fact that this group hasn't met at all in May kind of tanked my motivation for doing D&D writing.
• I'm also poking at another project that's still in the fun planning/ideating/worldbuilding stage, referenced in my Taleweaver's Desk update as the Secret Star Book. Normally, I wouldn't be doing even this much on a new project when I still have Onora's story and D&D writing to focus on, but I'm allowing myself to work on it here and there as I have time as a reward for surviving my most recent grad school class. I don't know exactly where that's going to go, so I won't say more about it for now, but I am having fun with it, as it's very different from most of my other projects.

Reading!

• April may have been my month of highly-anticipated releases, but May was still a pretty good reading month. The highlights of the month were H.L. Burke's new release, Game On, Brandon Sanderson's Tress of the Emerald Sea, and my (terribly self-indulgent) reread of The Goblin Emperor. I already reviewed Game On, and my love for The Goblin Emperor is well-established (it's a cozy epic fantasy about a forgotten young man, barely out of boyhood, who gets put in the midst of court intrigue and politics and who chooses to not play the games and instead be kind and I love it, I love it, I love it), so I'll focus mostly on Tress. I am so behind on reading it, but I do see why people raved about it so much (far more than they seem to have raved about the other Secret Projects). I enjoyed the characters — Tress herself is a delight, and I really liked most of the supporting cast as well — and had fun spotting the various Cosmere connections. The magic system with the spore-seas and the abilities of the different spores was also fascinating and really cool both visually and conceptually. Oddly, though, the one thing I didn't love was the storytelling voice in some sections; even though I think it's cool that the story is narrated by Hoid, and while I liked most of his asides and flavor commentary, some sections just didn't hit right for me.
• The other highlight of the month, of course, is the return of Dracula Daily, a Substack newsletter allowing readers to read Dracula in real-time as a series of letters, diary entries, telegram entries, and other similar types of installments that land in your inbox on the appropriate day. This is the third time I've read the book this way, and I enjoy it every time.
• I also continue to enjoy my reread of the Chronicles of Prydain, especially since I read my two favorites in the series this month. The Black Cauldron features one of my top three favorite characters in the series (Adaon, the only one of the three who isn't part of the main band), while The Castle of Llyr is more generally a favorite because I like the story.
• Mistress of Wardwood is an anthology of stories related to The Erlking's Daughters, and it was also really fun. My favorite of the collection was "Inheritance," which focuses on Enzella and Micah, but all the books were really good. If you read The Erlking's Daughters and you want the anthology, you can get it by signing up for the author's newsletter! (That will also get you Aeronwy's Stolen Child, which is a reverse changeling story that I think sounds really fun and have pretty high on my TBR list.)
• As for the last two books pictured, The Song of the Rose and The King's Captive were both good stories, though they didn't wow me. To be clear, I can see other people really enjoying them, but neither was quite what I wanted from their respective concepts. I may still read some of the other installments in the two series, though, as there was enough I liked to get me curious.
• I'm wrapping up the month by being thoroughly self-indulgent once again and rereading Howl's Moving Castle (not pictured, because I'm in the middle of it just now), because it's May and I was tired and vaguely grumpy the last time I needed to pick a new book to read, and either of those on their own would normally be a good reason for me to reread this, and so both together managed to overpower all the should-reads. It is, as ever, delightful.

 Watching & Playing!

• In addition to being the start of Dracula Daily, May also features the return of Re: Dracula, a podcast audio drama form of Dracula following the same real-time format as Dracula Daily. This is my second year listening, and this time around, I'm doing a bit better at actually listening to the episodes as they release (though I still tend to get behind on weekends). We're still pretty early in the season, so if you're looking for a new podcast, I highly recommend checking it out!
• I'm also continuing to enjoy playing Honkai Star Rail; as I've said before, it's a pretty good motivation to buckle down and get my writing done earlier in the day or evening instead of getting distracted by YouTube videos. (I may have complained about lower-than-ideal wordcounts, but trust me, the fact that those counts still mostly average around 1K is thanks to Star Rail motivation, not in spite of the game.) I did finally start the third main quest line and met one of the characters I've been most looking forward to meeting (Jing Yuan, to be specific). I actually got into the game after two different friends both raved about him. As both friends tend to have excellent taste in favorite characters, I figured I needed to find out more about him for myself, and so far, my impression is that he is indeed the Actual Best.
• My sister and I also took advantage of Memorial Day weekend time off to play more of Portal 2 Co-Op. We've done everything now except the secret sixth stage and had a grand time of it . . . though it did take us forever to get through the last two levels, one because we kept dying and one because we couldn't get the stupid portal where we needed it. Still, we finished the main game, and it was fun to spend time with her that way!
• I did actually watch a few things this month — well, rewatched, anyway. We watched Romancing the Stone back around Mother's Day while my sister was here, as we haven't seen it in a while and my sister wanted an adventure-type movie. Then I watched Charade (aka probably my favorite non-fantasy movie in existence) with my parents on Memorial Day weekend. Both were fun; I don't have much to say about them that I haven't already said.

 Life!

• Praise God from whom all blessings flow, my editing and publishing grad school class is done. The last couple weeks of the class were more frustrating than I expected or than they needed to be (mostly due to communication issues and disagreements about how to interpret the final project instructions), but I got through them with a good grade, so I am grateful.
• And right after my class ended, my sister came down to visit over Mother's Day weekend! She arrived in time to meet us at Bible study, then stayed until Monday morning. Getting to see her was lovely, and we had a really nice time with her.
• Work was also generally quiet, as we're still in the lull between Easter and summer and people were out of the office a lot for either travel or training. The one exception was that our associate pastor had her last Sunday on May 19, so the week leading up to that date was pretty busy. We're all sad she's gone, but her role is being filled by another member of the programs staff, so I think the transition should at least go pretty smoothly. And we didn't have any tech issues on her last Sunday, despite a near miss with the livestream sound! (This might not seem significant, but our tech has a tendency to malfunction on or around significant Sundays, plus we had a substitute running slides and sound, so I was more than a little nervous and was praying very hard against any issues.)
• Work being chill and grad school being done has given me a little bit of extra free time and energy. Some of that has gone towards resting, and some of it has gone towards weeding and reorganizing my bookshelves. My scheme of having all my nonfiction and classics on one bookshelf and all my fantasy and speculative fiction on the other two was foiled by the fact that my textbooks are too tall for the shelf where I wanted to put them, but at least I won't have random stacks of books in front of other books. I'm not quite finished, but I'm nearly there, and I'm still holding out hope of having a free shelf where I can put owned-but-unread books so they're easier to find and prioritize.
• On the baking front, I made up for missing my Baking Yesteryear recipe in April by making two things this month. First, I made dream bars, which . . . well, people said they tasted good. The recipe didn't say to put parchment in the pan, but I should've done so anyway because I couldn't get my spatula under the crust to get the bars out in one piece, and I also think I chopped my nuts way too finely because my bars looked nothing like the picture. Then I made peanut butter styrofoams, essentially peanut butter meringues. These also didn't look like the picture, but they tasted good! And given that it was my first time making any cookie in that family, I'm counting them as a definite success!
• I've also been doing some fun stuff with crafting. Early in the month, I learned that one of the local librarians is into weaving and has a few small looms for weaving bands/straps. She was willing to bring them to the library so I could see them and try them to decide if I wanted to get into the hobby myself (and also for story research purposes). So, a few weeks after that, I got to try an inkle loom and a card loom! As I said, both are band looms, so they're making narrow straps rather than a full piece of cloth, but the inkle loom is larger, and you raise and lower the threads by hand, while the card loom is smaller and uses stiff cards with holes in them to raise and lower the threads. Neither is the kind of thing I could carry around and do wherever I happened to be, so I don't think this will turn into a major hobby, but I'm still toying with trying to make my own card loom so I can do that as an on-and-off thing . . .
• Aside from that, I crocheted my mom an African violet for Mother's Day, and I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I've since made the pieces for two or three more of them, but haven't gotten around to assembling them yet. Now I'm back to embroidery, working on a pin hoop for my Cosmere pins. (Fun fact: embroidering through a double layer of fabric is really hard on your hands, especially when one of those layers is felt! But I am managing.)

June Plans

• First of all, a housekeeping note: I will be taking June and July as a semi-hiatus from blogging. I'll still do my main yearly/monthly posts like Doings, my summer releases list, and my Mid-Year Book Celebration, and I'll do some kind of post for the DOSA Files release, but I won't be posting regular Friday 5s. This is partially for practical reasons — July is going to be super busy for me — and partially because I want to take a bit of a break. If all goes well, I should return to my regular posting schedule in August, hopefully with a bit of a buffer built up.
• My primary project for the month is finishing up Daughters of Atirse #2 and getting it out to beta readers. I am optimistically hoping to have it drafted by sometime in the vicinity of June 8 or 9, then take a week off to rest before doing fairly light edits and sending it on to beta readers. Sending the story out at an earlier stage actually worked well for Song of the Selkies, and I'm hoping it'll work better still if I get the book out further in advance of when it needs to be release-ready. As far as other projects go, I should make progress on my next D&D adventure, and I hope to continue poking at the Secret Star Project when I have spare time for it.
• At work, we're starting summer programming, but we're also in a transition period between the previous associate pastor leaving and the new one moving into that position, so we're a little less busy than we normally would be around this time. Not that I'm complaining; after this winter and spring, I'm still appreciating any quiet seasons I can get.
• As for the rest of my month outside of what I've already said, my main plans involve seeing family, continuing with my crafting, baking, and reading goals, and finding opportunities to rest and recharge (and also attempting to hide from my allergies, which seem to be worse than normal this year).

How was your May? Any plans for June? Are you reading Dracula Daily or listening to Re: Dracula? Is this a busy season or a quiet one for you? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

 

Hello, all! It's time for another Taleweaver's Desk update, in which I provide a broad view of what projects I'm working on (and not working on). This time, astonishingly, I have no questions of formatting or scheduling, just story updates — in all the categories, for once — so without further ado, here's the post. 

On the Taleweaver's Desk Issue 12: May 2024

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.

Daughters of Atirse #2

What is it? A Goose Girl/Puss in Boots retelling, the second book in the Daughters of Atirse series, and the prequel to Song of the Selkies.

Status: So very close to being done with the first draft.

I remain a bit behind where I'd like to be with the first draft (and by "a bit behind" I mean that I really wanted to have this drafted at the end of last month, but life and other projects got in the way. I am within a few chapters of being done, though — six at most, I think — which is very definite progress. Aside from delays and generally being tired, though, I'm still enjoying this, and I think it's shaping up well. Lots of good character dynamics in this one, at least in my (admittedly biased) opinion. My plan is that once I finish the draft, I'll take a little bit of a break, do light edits, and then send it off to betas for review.

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: Procrastinating on the next adventure, just a little, but I completed a different adventure in the meantime.

I have been theoretically "working" on the next adventure for about an age and a half (read: several months), though for part of that time I was actually writing a different adventure that I forgot I would need. Or, well, I didn't forget; I just failed to realize that the party would want to actually go somewhere on foot instead of calling for a teleport. Now I'm back to warily eyeing the complicated thing and mildly regretting my life choices . . . not enough to fully change my plans, though.

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).

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 (and a useful excuse/motivation for prioritizing those edits).

Berstru Tales series

What is it? The longest-running series I've worked on (either in the number of books written or in how long I've worked on it. Originally was a classic epic fantasy, but now it might be getting a subgenre change . . .

Status: Needs to be rewritten from the ground up, but the bones are good. I've decided that I'm going to try changing it to a different subgenre, and now I'm more excited to work on this again, thus why it's been moved from "Shelved for Now."

Secret Star Book

What is it? A secret. An experiment. The product of my having read/watched/otherwise enjoyed a lot of media in a couple specific genres (outside my usual one) in the last six-ish months.

Status: I am dabbling in this as a sort of guilty pleasure project as I have the time and desire to do so. Technically it could have been in "Awaiting Delivery" back in February, but I hadn't realized at the time just how much I wanted to write it sooner than just "sometime."

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.

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 still love this story, but I don't know when I'll get back to it. Currently, that happening in the next twelve months is looking somewhat dubious.

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. May get bumped further up the priority list depending on certain other factors, but probably not for a while yet.

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 in the next couple years is improbable, due to Atirse and Bastian Dennel taking priority.

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. Book 4 will be Jack and the Beanstalk (yes, I'm serious); other stories planned include The Little Mermaid, The Goose Girl, The Nutcracker, Rumplestiltskin, and Pwyll & Rhiannon.

Status: I think I have a new, reasonably solid series order that I like, makes sense, and allows me to write the books I'm really excited about somewhat sooner. In the process of working out that series order, I also more or less decided that what I had meant as Book 4 and then switched to Book 5 is half in the wrong place — so the half that's in the right place is going to be repurposed for another book, while the rest is being moved further down the series line. I think this will be a general improvement. I'm also looking at writing Book 4 this summer in between working on Daughters of Atirse #2.

Future Daughters of Atirse books

What is it? What the headline said, again. Multiple other stories connected with Song of the Selkies. Specifically, I have plans for some variation on Beauty and the Beast (sequel), Tam Lin (prequel), and Pwyll & Rhiannon (sequel), as well as a prequel and at least one other sequel that don't have specific fairy tales but will be written because I want to tell their main characters' stories.

Status: Lots of plans, and I only write so fast, but I spend enough time brainstorming these with a friend that I should have them pretty well planned out by the time I actually get to start drafting.

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. May end up being set in the same world as Daughters of Atirse, though not in the same series and later in the world's timeline.

What projects (writing or otherwise) are you working on currently, and how are they going for you? Tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

 

Hey'a, all! So, we all know that many bookworms are a bit like dragons, in that we tend to hoard books and dislike even the suggestion that we might get rid of a single volume. Unfortunately, at some point, weeding the collection does become necessary — namely, when one runs out of both shelf space and space to put more shelves, which is my current situation. This means that, over the past few weeks, I've been working on going through my books, figuring out what I'm keeping and what's going to our local used bookstore (and also figuring out how to organize what I'm holding onto). It's still a work in progress, but I've gotten enough of the way through to have some thoughts to share with other bookworms tackling the same sort of project.

On Getting Rid of Books

1. It's ok to get rid of books that everyone else loves (even if they're classics). One of the big choices I've made in the process of weeding my shelves was deciding to get rid of a few series that are wildly popular, but which I'm kind of meh about. Some of these are books that I did like at one point, but which I enjoy less now. Others are books that I thought I should like, even if I hadn't read them yet, because they were popular, influential, and practically classics. The common thread was that they were books I was keeping because I felt like I was socially obliged to own them, not because I really still wanted them. But I'm not a public library, so why should social obligation force me to hang onto books I don't expect to read often (or at all) when I could instead clear more space for the stories I love?
2. There's always the library. Speaking of libraries, this is probably the most helpful thing for me to keep in mind when figuring out whether to keep or pass on a book. After all, in most cases, getting rid of a book doesn't mean losing access to it — not when I have library cards at three or four different libraries. If I decide I want to reread something or give a particular series another try, I can most likely borrow it either in physical or digital form. Maybe I won't be able to pick up a book on a whim, but that's not the end of the world. Granted, this is less true for indie books than it is for traditionally published ones . . . but most of the books that the first point applies to are traditionally-published. Plus, a lot of my indie collection is duplicated in digital thanks to ebook sales and giveaways.
3. Books are meant to be read. This is the other most helpful thing for me to keep in mind. The chief purpose of a book is to be read. If I'm keeping a book because I think I'll reread it, even if I might not do so in the immediate future, that's great. But if I don't think I'll read or reread it, then holding onto it is kind of silly — like someone who lives in an apartment building keeping a lawnmower. It's better to pass the book on to someone else who'll enjoy it and want to reread it again and again, whether I do that directly or via a used bookstore. And if I'm wrong and it turns out I do want to read or reread it after all? Again, that's what the library is for.
4. It's ok to keep books for sentimental reasons even if you're not likely to reread them. While this might seem to contradict the previous point, I think it is a valid exception. I have some books on my shelves that I don't think I'll reread in the near future but which I don't think I'd ever give up if I had a choice. For example, I have a pair of fairy tale retellings that, to be frank, I don't like half as much now as I did when I first encountered them — but I had them signed by the author at one of the first author events I ever attended, so they're special to me and I'm reluctant to part with them. As another example, I still own a fair number of my favorite books from when I was a kid, before I discovered fantasy — books I've outgrown, but to which I still attach fond memories — but I keep them on a separate shelf from the rest of my collection, so they aren't competing with current favorites for space. Even if these books aren't being read, the fact that I have them still brings me pleasure in the form of reminders of good memories, and that's a valid reason to hold onto them.
5. Having a separate shelf for owned-but-unread books would probably be a good idea . . . if I had the space. I feel like this would help both with future efforts at book-weeding and with making sure I actually, y'know, read the books in question. The shelf would serve as a reminder of what books I still needed to read, and it would also give me a single place to look when I'm trying to decide what to read next. I could start there and check to see if any of my unread books fit my mood at the time, then move them to their proper places after I finish. However, doing this would require having at least one shelf clear of other books, and I'm not sure that's going to happen even after I finish weeding. We'll see.

What's your process for getting rid of books (if you have one)? What do you think of keeping all owned-but-unread books in one place? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

Song of the Selkies Is a Realm Awards Finalist!

Hello all! I am absolutely thrilled to announce that, as the post title says, Song of the Selkies is a finalist in the Fantasy Novel category of the Realm Awards!

Order on Amazon || Add on Goodreads || View all finalists

I've spent the last few months since the Long List came out trying not to get my hopes up — after all, while I love Song of the Selkies, and I know others do too, there were SO MANY amazing books in the list. There was no way I'd make the finalists two years in a row, right?

But here we are, and I am absolutely delighted! Congratulations to all the other finalists as well; I'm super happy for you! Make sure you check out the full list — there are some amazing books on there. Also, thank you to the judges for loving my book enough to put it in the top five.

And now I have one more reason to be excited for the conference in July . . . Storms! I can hardly wait!

Have a lovely day!

Hey'a, all! If you're a fan of H.L. Burke's Supervillain Rehabilitation Project universe like I am, you know that this is a pretty exciting month. For one thing, we have the DOSA Files Kickstarter, which has hit its first stretch goal (an audiobook version of the anthology) and is reaching for the next (downloadable coloring pages). For another, Burke is launching another new series in this world: the Supervillain Legacy Project, which focuses on our next generation of superheroes. Book one, Game On, releases in just a few weeks on May 24. I was lucky enough to get an ARC, and let me tell you that this is a really fun read that's simultaneously rewarding for long-time fans and a great entry point for newcomers. If you're anything like me, you're going to love it . . . and, of course, I have five reasons why that's the case.

 

Reasons You'll Love Game On

1. H.L. Burke knows how to do next-generation stories well. Next-generation stories are always a risk — after all, there's so many ways they can go wrong, whether they echo the originals too much, present beloved original-generation characters in an unflattering light (or kill them off entirely), or commit a myriad of other storytelling sins. However, Burke avoids all these missteps with a story that honors the rest of the canon while still being something new. Ruby, Curran, and Oliver may echo past characters, but only in the way that kids normally echo parents or other influential people in their lives. The storyline is very different than the rest of the books — rather than a fight versus a supervillain, we have a superhero tournament (which, let's be real, is exactly the kind of PR stunt we knew DOSA would pull eventually). And we see plenty of past characters, either as mentors or in brief cameos, but they don't steal the spotlight, and where they fall short, it's in ways consistent with their past characterization.
2. The connections to past books are really fun. Game On has ties to pretty much all the past SVR series, and the list of appearances is almost like a "Who's Who" of the DOSA-verse. Ruby and Curran are Fade and Prism's kids, obviously, while Oliver last appeared in Wishing on a Supervillain. The story also features Jake and Laleh as significant secondary characters (Jake is the one adult to get POV chapters, and his dynamic with Laleh is still so good) and a few characters from Second Chance Superhero, along with some other reappearing characters in more minor roles. I loved getting to see Prism and Fade in full-on parent mode (and seeing the success of Prism's dreams!) and getting updates on a lot of past characters and their lives.
3. It's a great way to discover the SVR-verse. This might sound contradictory, given that I just talked about how Game On has so many connections to past books. However, the story itself doesn't require a lot of background knowledge to understand, and what is required is explained in the narrative. Ruby, Curran, and Oliver are very much their own characters with their own stories, and I think you could easily pick this up and fully enjoy it without having read any previous SVR books. And the fact that the story does have so many connections kind of gives new readers an idea of where they might like to read next — someone curious about Prism and Fade would go to the original series next, someone who loves Jake and Laleh's dynamic could pick up the Superhero Rescue Project, and so on.
4. It's a family-focused story. This is true of most SVR-verse books, but it's particularly true here. All three kids have very strong bonds with, love for, and pride in their families — Ruby's whole thing, in fact, is wanting to not just compete in the Games but specifically to compete in them with her family by her side. The story is also very much, as the series name would suggest, about legacies and about the way your family affects you and the way others perceive you.
5. It's a YA book that still has reasonable adults. We all know that adults — parents especially — are often the antagonists in YA books, whether that's intentional or not in-world. That is not the case in Game On. All three main characters have strong, healthy relationships with their parents, even in circumstances where other authors would see bitterness as a character-justified way to add drama. That's not to say that all these relationships are perfect, but they're realistically loving. Even adults who do act as an obstacle to some degree generally (with one or two exceptions) aren't seeking to be cruel; they're just acting realistically.
   

Are you ready to pick up Game On? If so, make sure to preorder it on Amazon and add it on Goodreads. Before you go, though, tell me in the comments: what other really good next-generation stories have you enjoyed?
Thanks for reading!

April 2024 Doings!

Hello, all! May is here, summer is in sight, and let me tell you; both of those things are such a relief. April was another stressful month, unfortunately, though it did also include some really good days and a fun adventure or two. Most of that stress was, unsurprisingly, caused by grad school and having a lot of tasks that all needed to be done at once across multiple areas — including writing, so let's start there and recap what happened.

Writing!

• April was the second RealmieWriMo event in the RealmSphere, the social media site specifically for people connected to the Realm Makers writing conference. It was also the deadline month for H.L. Burke's DOSA Files anthology. As such, I had high hopes for what I wanted to accomplish: drafting a story to submit for the DOSA Files and writing 40,000 words to finish Daughters of Atirse #2. Unfortunately, I may have been a bit . . . overambitious.
• Let's start with the undeniable win: I did write and submit my DOSA Files story, "Save {Point}", drafting half of it in a marathon of writing on April 19, then doing a very rapid first edit and sending it off to beta readers the next day. By Thursday, I had comments back and final edits done, and I submitted the story to Heidi — and if you saw my post earlier this week, you know the rest of the story! "Save {Point}" and nine other stories in the SVR-verse will be coming out in a few months, and Heidi is currently running a Kickstarter to help fund the launch. We've hit our base goal, but we're still hoping to get to the stretch goals, one of which is an audiobook of the anthology. If you haven't already, make sure you check out the Kickstarter and consider backing it!
• As for Daughters of Atirse #2 . . . well, splitting my focus between two stories slowed me down a lot, as did grad school, stress, and the fact that I had stuff happening on the weekends a lot more this month than I did back in January. After a few too many days in which I just didn't have time to write more than a few hundred words, I dropped my goal down to writing 30,000 words and getting as close to the end of the story as I can. And I did achieve that, so . . . yay?
• In all fairness, even if I'd gotten all the way to adding another 40K this month, the book still wouldn't quite be finished, so I have that as kind of a consolation.
• Wrapping up this section with an update on the D&D campaign I run: the Travel Interlude still isn't done, but it's most of the way there. The next adventure hasn't been touched, but that can wait as well. I did, however, manage to improv my way through an extended in-character discussion of an aspect of my campaign world that I haven't reviewed in ages, which is something I definitely couldn't have done five years ago, so I'm kind of proud of myself for that.

Reading!

• If nothing else, I can at least be pleased that this was an excellent reading month!
• You've already heard about several of the highlights of April's reading: Dark & Dawn, Castle of the Winds, and The Erlking's Daughters were all some of my most highly-anticipated reads of the season (possibly of the year), and not one of them disappointed me. No Man Left Behind, the conclusion of W.R. Gingell's Worlds Behind series, was likewise delightful, and I think it wrapped up all the storylines and character arcs very well indeed. Tragically, it's hard to express just why I was so pleased with it without giving significant spoilers.
• Aside from these, I spent most of the month in H.L. Burke's SVR universe. Early in the month, I reread Reunion, the final book in the Supervillain Rehabilitation Project series, in preparation for writing "Save {Point}." Then I jumped ahead to Power Up, the final book in the Supervillain Rescue Project series, and followed that up with Captured by a Supervillain, Engaged to a Supervillain, and Accidentally a Supervillain. All four were excellent, but I think Power Up and Accidentally were probably my favorites from that group. And, conveniently, the ARC for Game On, the first book in Burke's new Supervillain Legacy Project YA series, hit my inbox just as I was finishing up Accidentally, so I've been reading (and very much enjoying) that. Watch for my full review a bit later in the month!
• For anyone curious: my group reread of the DragonKeeper Chronicles is still happening, and I will be rereading DragonLight at some point. However, ARCs took priority, plus I've been waiting for other people to be ready to start. Hopefully I'll get to that in May.

 Watching & Playing!

• Once again, not a lot to report in this section. I still haven't been watching much — no movies, very little YouTube, and only one show episode. I did get to introduce my parents and a friend to Leverage with another rewatch of "The Rashomon Job," so that was fun. That's the third time I've watched that episode, and it's still so good.
• I did figure out an answer to my podcast app problem and ended up switching to Pocketcasts on a friend's recommendation. So far, aside from a slight hiccup in the beginning when I couldn't figure out how to find all my downloads, it's worked out pretty well for me. It has pretty much all the podcasts I wanted to try, and I like the interface (again, other than that tricky bit with the downloads) and the level of customization it offers.
• As for what I've listened to on the app, that's mostly been Lateral, a trivia show hosted by Tom Scott, occasionally interrupted by a new episode of Dear Hank and John or a week or so of Wolf 359. I intended to listen to all of Season 3 of Wolf 359 this month, but . . . well, I'm at an intense, high-stress part of the story, and I just wasn't in the headspace for it. I wanted something lighter, and Lateral fit the bill. And, y'know, it is a really fun show; I have fun trying to figure out the answers alongside the participants. (Occasionally, I beat them to it, and that's very satisfying.)
• On the gaming front, I'm still enjoying Honkai Star Rail, and it's still proving very effective motivation for getting my writing done without getting distracted (in addition to being almost as good a de-stressor as reading is). I've finished the second main quest line, and I really liked the ending in most respects! Now I'm running around trying to clear some side quests before continuing with the third world and quest line. At this point, I'm comfortable enough with the mechanics that I can actually think more about strategy and tactics and figuring out which characters work best with each other or will be most effective for certain missions — though those thoughts are constantly in tension with my desire to build a party that's narratively and thematically relevant and my desire to just use all the characters I like best or think are coolest. It's a problem, but a good one.

 Life!

• As I said before, April was . . . frustrating. Don't get me wrong; there were some really lovely bits! Just most of it was, again, frustrating.
• The vast majority of that frustration came from my grad school class. I mentioned in my March Doings post that the class seemed overly focused on one particular type of writing (journalism — and, to be clear, this was not described as a journalism class) and felt like it was calculated to hit on all my greatest frustrations (and some insecurities that I didn't know I had) while taunting me with how much of the material I already knew. Unfortunately, that has held true for the rest of the semester, and as a cherry on top, the class is structured around one big group project. I will say that my project group was a lot better than some others I've worked with, but even the best group is still a lot more stressful than doing something yourself. I will also say that, had the class been presented as a journalism class, or even described as focusing primarily on journalism, it would have been a lot less frustrating. As it was . . . well, it's the first time in my life that I've literally felt sick from stress (in the past, I've topped out at a twitchy eye and short temper), and I do not recommend the experience.
• Aside from grad school, April was busy in other ways as well. The first weekend was actually pretty chill — my parents went out of town to visit my sister and see the eclipse, but I'm saving up leave for later in the year, so I had the house to myself for a few days. And while I prefer home with everyone in it, it's sometimes a nice change of pace to be able to listen to music without headphones, play D&D over dinner, and have an impromptu lunch-and-shopping adventure after church. (Well, technically, I could do the last one when other people are home . . . but if my family's here, I'd rather eat with them.) The weekend after was also comparatively calm, or I assume it was — I honestly don't really remember it, ha!
• On the 20th, though, Realm Writers Mid-Atlantic (an author group I'm part of) had our yearly in-person meeting, and while I usually enjoy getting to see others face-to-face, that was stressful. That same weekend, I had a major grad school assignment due, I was finishing up my DOSA Files story, and I had two boxes full of books to prep for Heather Halverstadt and RWMA to sell at events, on top of normal weekend stuff. It was . . . a lot. I ended up being late for the meeting and missing lunch, and I don't function well on an empty stomach, so . . . not the best of times, y'know?
• Last weekend, though, was a lot more fun, even if it was also tiring! My friend Wyn Estelle Owens came down to visit, which was delightful, and we went to the National Zoo together, which was even better. My family used to go to the National Zoo a lot — it's probably my favorite part thing in DC — but that kind of fell off sometime when my sister and I were in our teens. I loved getting to go back and revisit it, especially with a friend. I also rode the Metro for the first time in probably at least twelve or thirteen years, so that was an adventure. It was nice, though, as the train ride gave Wyn and I plenty of time to chat without having to worry about missing a turn in DC traffic. I will say that I was exhausted from all the walking by the end of Saturday, but it was definitely worth it.
• Work, at least, was pretty chill. We spent most of the month in the post-Easter calm — between spring break and the fact that we're coming off a busy season, no one plans many events. The one exception was that our associate pastor announced that she was being transferred to a new church this summer. I'm sad that she's leaving, but not too stressed about it, as I know who's going to replacing her.
• Unfortunately, with all the craziness that went on this month, I didn't really do any baking (aside from a grasshopper pie that, as of writing this post, I haven't tried yet), so I'll have to double-up on Baking Yesteryear recipes either this month or next month. I also don't have any particularly exciting news in the crafting department; I've mostly been making pieces for crochet plants because that's easy and practical (in that crochet plants make good gifts and good office decorations).
• D&D has continued to be exciting! We had another ancient dragon fight, which almost went very badly due to an antagonist from the campaign's past (a former player character who got kidnapped and turned to the dark side) showing up unexpectedly with a bunch of shadow-monsters and causing so many problems. Also, we found out that, in the process of killing the dracholich that I mentioned back in my March Doings, we also kind of accidentally fixed an part of the world that's basically Moria with more undead, and I'm still not over it. Like, we found this out at the beginning of the month, and I still periodically pause and remember it and get excited. (For a little extra context, when we first learned about this region at the start of the campaign, I kind of wanted to try to fix it, but got the impression from the DM that it really wasn't the kind of thing that was fixable, so the problem dropped off my radar. And now . . . we've done it. By accident (by which I mean that it happened as an after-effect of the dracholich fight). And I just think that's delightful.)

May Plans

• I have one week left of this grad school class. Thankfully, I think it'll be less stressful than the rest of the class has been. And once it's over, I have the rest of the summer off to focus on other things! Like, for example, writing.
• I recognize that I've said this for the last two months, but I once again think I should be able to finish drafting Daughters of Atirse #2 this month. I'm not going to set a specific wordcount goal for the month, but I'm going to aim for somewhere in the vicinity of 1K or 1.2K per day until the story is done, and I think that should get me where I need to be.
• I also need to finish the Travel Interlude and the next adventure in my D&D campaign, but I can take those pretty slow and still be ok.
• Aside from Game On, I've more or less reached the end of my ARC pile, so I expect May will be mostly mood-reads and DragonLight. Though I do also have multiple sizable piles of library books, so hopefully my moods will include most of those. I also still need to reorganize my bookshelves, which might be a task for this weekend if all goes well.
• As for work, we'll have a couple transitions this month (both with the associate pastor leaving and with some other procedures around the church changing), so we'll see how that goes. That said, I'm not too worried.
• Overall, I'm hoping that May will be a much quieter and less stressful month than April . . . but as long as it's better than last May was, I won't complain.

How was your April? Any plans for May? If you play action-type RPGs, how do you usually build your parties? What are some books, games, or other media you've been enjoying lately? Please tell me in the comments! And don't forget to check out the DOSA Files Kickstarter!
Thanks for reading!