September 2018 Doings!

Hey'a, everyone! To start off, I'm going to make something official that I've been doing unofficially for a while. Going forward, Doings! will be posted the first Friday of every month instead of the first day of every month. I hope that this will help with blog scheduling (since I won't have to worry about what to do when the first is a Thursday, Friday, or Saturday) and that it'll reduce my stress level a little (because I won't have to worry as much about not getting Doings! up on the first day of the month). Thanks so much for understanding and for sticking with me.

So, now that that's out of the way, let's get on with the Doings!

Writing!

• The main thing I have to say about writing this month: thank God for the Inklings. (Not the Lewis-Tolkien-and-co writing group. I mean, thank God for them too, but not in this case.) When I joined the Inklings Writing Org, I wasn't sure how it would go or what it would look like, but so far it's been seriously awesome. And by that, I mean that I get an hour and a half every Wednesday to sit down and work on whatever writing project is in front of me, with other writers around me who are also writing and therefore providing extra motivation solely by their existence in the same space as me. It's fabulous.
• Also thank God for my creative writing hall-friend who helped me whip one of my Actual Writing Job short stories in shape, even if whipping it into shape meant totally rewriting the story from scratch. The new version is definitely better than the original that I was struggling with in my last Doings! post.
• In other news, it's release month for Blood in the Snow and the other Magic Mirrors stories! I'm super excited! I finally figured out ebook formatting, so huzzah for that! We're still looking for people to join in the blog tour, so if you have a blog and you're interested in helping out me and my five fellow awesome authors, feel free to sign up! You can interview an author, shine a spotlight on a character, feature an author guest post, or review a book. It's going to be super awesome and y'all should join in.
• On the topic of the blog tour: I commissioned character art for three of my characters, and I'm SO EXCITED. Like, I might be almost as excited for the art as I am for the actual book release. That might be because I still have work to do before the book release and I don't have to do work on the art, but y'know.
• Also: I have an official author website and an author Facebook page! Feel free to check both out and like, follow, all that! No worries; the website doesn't mean I'm abandoning or moving my blog. Dreams and Dragons is staying right where it is, at least for the moment. But I want to start off with an official site instead of waiting to create one. I also have an official author photo, which means y'all get to see my actual face instead of the back of my head. I think that's exciting, but I'm not completely sure.

Reading!

• . . . Well. That was spectacularly unimpressive.
• I don't even know why I read so few books. I know I could've fit at least one more in there. Oh well.
• I enjoyed everything I read, at least. Specter was a fun return to Savannah Jezowski's Neverway stories, though I didn't like it as much as Briarstone Abbey. A Thousand Perfect Notes, Cait Grace's new book, was one I'd been looking forward to for a while, and it was really good, though also pretty heavy. And The Electrical Menagerie was just as fun and exciting and steampunky as I hoped it would be, with a splendid mystery as the cherry on top!
• Not pictured is my current read: Hank Green's An Absolutely Remarkable Thing. I just started it yesterday, and so far, I'm not sure what to think. It's definitely very different from most of what I read, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

Watching!

• Whooooo. This has been a busy month in terms of what I've watched, unlike what I've read. It's also been a month full of a lot of new things, which is awesome!
• First and most important: I've finally watched some Doctor Who. And by "some" I mean episodes 1, 2, and 4 of season one. Several of the other girls were getting together to watch it because another girl hasn't seen any of it, and I had nothing else to do those nights, so . . . yeah. I can see why everyone loves it so much, though I don't think it's my favorite show I've ever watched. I'm also not sure why I hear so much about people not liking Nine, because so far? I quite enjoy him.
• On the anime front, my roommate and I made it through the Eclipse Spirits arc of Fairy Tail. I . . . did not entirely enjoy the arc. Like, there were some pretty cool scenes? But it ended up being one of those "If you would've actually TALKED instead of just throwing punches, you could've solved this problem much more easily!" situations. So, yeah.
• That said: Cana's card battle with Scorpio? LOVED it. That was probably my favorite part of the whole arc. And I'm reasonably satisfied with the ending, so there's that.

• Now we're taking a break from Fairy Tail and watching the first season of Sword Art Online, which is basically the roommate's all-time favorite anime. We've made it through the first three episodes, and I think I like it? It's definitely a very different tone, art style, and overall feel from Fairy Tail, which isn't a bad thing but does take some mental adjusting. I have to say that the artwork is gorgeous, and the concept and ideas it explores are fascinating. I'm just not sure about the characters, basically, or the lack of humor. I mean, can I at least get a properly snarky character or two? Is that so much to ask?
• I've also watched some stuff sort-of on my own, for once! My current 2D Design project is basically creating a bunch of paint swatches (which I'll then turn into a color wheel and a bunch of color progression stuff), which means hours and hours of sitting, mixing paint, and painting squares of color. It's a pretty mindless task, which means it's an excellent opportunity to watch stuff. I started by getting caught up on Overly Sarcastic Productions (sarcastic recaps and explorations of various myths, legends, and literature; I highly recommend it), but then I moved on to . . .

• Miraculous Ladybug! I've heard so much about this show from my friends and Pinterest that I was starting to get really curious, and since I had time, I decided to give it a try. The first episode nearly turned me off — I liked the powers, and I always love a good superhero story, but I wasn't so sure about the animation style or the characters themselves. But I decided to give the second episode a chance . . . and then the third . . . and the next thing I knew, I'd watched six episodes and probably would've watched a seventh if I wasn't so close to being done for the day. So, yeah, that's a thing.
• I also finally watched Mulan all the way through while working on the same project. Some of my classmates started playing it on the classroom TV during our actual class time (the professor wasn't there since it was just a workshop day), and, storms, why did I not put in the effort to watch the whole movie before? Great story, great characters, great everything really, and way fewer secondhand embarrassment scenes than I expected. I love it. What even.
• . . . Aaaaaand then my classmates decided to put on Shrek when we finished Mulan. So now I've seen the first twenty or so minutes of that, and let me tell you, I'm not terribly impressed. I'll probably end up seeing the rest of it during the next class, assuming that we just get another workshop day, but I don't anticipate liking it terribly much. I don't think it's my type of movie.
• But, y'know? I think Shrek is still outweighed by all the fun stuff I've watched this month, so I'm not complaining at all.

Life!

I did napkin-holder art and I'm very pleased with it.

• College as usual. Classes are keeping me pretty busy. On the upside, I've gone through two 2D Design projects and enjoyed both of them! Plus, I got to make basically a mini escape game for Marketing Communication and it was one of my favorite projects I've ever done. (Except for the bit where a 3D graphic element took literally seven times as long as it should've to come out right. That was annoying.)
• The main downside of this semester is that I have more group work now than I've had in the last two years put together. By that, I mean that three of my five classes involve some sort of semester-long group project (broken up into smaller projects due over the course of the semester). It's . . . challenging. I mean, none of the groups are horrible, and one of them is actually pretty great. But I haven't worked with the people in the other two groups before, so figuring out how to function well together and how to reconcile our different perspectives on some of the projects will take some time.
• On the upside, orgs are going swimmingly. I already raved about the Inklings, but the Studio org is also pretty awesome. It's basically an hour to work on 2D projects while surrounded by other (much more skilled and experienced) art and design people, and yeah. It definitely helped me through those first two projects I mentioned earlier. And, of course, the Honors org is as awesome as ever. As I mentioned last month, I'm the org's secretary this year, and it's basically the perfect position for me? I have a decent say when we're planning events, but I'm not in a really noticeable role like the president or freshmen integrators, and I get to use some of what I learn in my major classes! Yeah, it's pretty great.
• I also have the opportunity to join a D&D group, and I'm seriously thinking about going for it. D&D is something I've wanted to try for a while now, but I always end up a step or two removed from any groups. The only problem is that this particular group meets right after Honors Quizbowl, which means I'd have to stop eating dinner with the Quizbowl gang and that I'd miss at least an hour of D&D the last Friday of every month (when we have Honors org dinner). I'm not terribly stressed about the time commitment; I don't usually get a lot done on Friday evenings, and I just have to make sure I have Friday 5s up and ready on time. And, I mean, that's doable. This post was ready pretty well ahead of time; the only reason it's going up so late is that I wanted to announce my author website. But I'm not a fan of ditching my Honors friends if I can avoid it.
• In other news: so, freshman year, there was this little bakery in the town of Cedarville. They made quiche and scones and pastries and cookies and desserts and all sorts of delicious things, and my roommate and I loved the place immensely. Unfortunately, last year, one of the owners became seriously ill, and the bakery closed. We thought it was gone for good . . . until this month, when we discovered that the bakery is back under new ownership! We're both super excited, as you can imagine. (Also, this means that going into town on the occasional Saturday for breakfast will probably involve stops at every breakfast-related eatery in town — I love the chai tea and smoothies at one coffeeshop, my roommate prefers the coffee at a different shop, and we want breakfast from the bakery. I'm not complaining, but I do find it amusing.)
• Also: Jazz Band continues to be the best. That is all.

October Plans!

• Most of October will probably be occupied by three things: classes, publishing, and editing Mechanical Heart.
• On that note: Blood in the Snow comes out on the 26th! AHHHHHHHHH. So excited!
• I also want to try to read and review at least some of the Magic Mirrors books before then, but we'll see if that happens or not.
• But I have Fall Break before that! I'm planning to go to my roommate's house again, and there has been talk of much Marvel-movie-watching. Specifically, Black Panther–watching. (And also Ant-Man and Ant-Man and the Wasp, but we all know which of those I'm most excited for.)
• I also need to really get busy with figuring out a costume for Halloween. I've had ideas for months, but which of those ideas are doable remains to be seen. Part of the problem is that I want to go as someone or something recognizable for my major's Halloween party because I'm tired of putting together awesome costumes that garner only blank, vaguely impressed looks. (I'm thinking about trying to do something based on a writing pun at this point? But I'm blanking on ideas. It's very frustrating.)
• And, of course, there'll be reading and watching-of-awesome-shows. It'll be a good time, hopefully.

That's it for my month. What about yours? How was your September? Any fun plans for October? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)