Hello, all! So, if you read last week's post, you may remember me absolutely raving about one book in particular: The Werewolf of Whitechapel, the first in Suzannah Rowntree's new historical fantasy mystery series, Miss Sharp's Monsters. If you didn't read last week's post (or if you did read it but you don't remember it because you skimmed through it, added a bunch of books to your TBR list, and then stuffed more important things into its memory-space), here's the quick need-to-know about the book: it's set in a fantastical alternate England, and it follows Liz Sharp, an amnesiac werewolf victim and lady's maid and bodyguard who's trying to solve her best friend's murder. For some of you, that may be all you need to know to know why you should ABSOLUTELY read it as soon as humanely possible. If so, it's on Amazon in Kindle form (just released yesterday!), and a paperback version is on the way. But if you need a little more convincing, well, read on!

Why You NEED to Read The Werewolf of Whitechapel

1. The storytelling style is delicious. The Werewolf of Whitechapel is written in a more modern and fast-paced version of the Victorian memoir, which is to say that it's very conversational and full of personality and little asides and hints. It sort of takes the best parts of Victorian and modern writing and blends them together, and the result is just such a delight to read. And Rowntree does this sort of thing a lot — the other books of hers that I've read also had a more old-fashioned tone and style to match the eras they're set in — but it's especially effective here. Though that's in no small part thanks to the fact that . . .
2. Miss Sharp is magnificent. Devastatingly loyal, recklessly bold, impossibly curious, and unrelentingly dedicated to discovering truth, with a wit as keen as her name, Miss Liz Sharp is everything you could possibly want in a fantasy-mystery heroine. She's no intellectual, unlike some other favorite detectives, but she's clever and not afraid to get her hands dirty when necessary. She's also very capable of taking care of herself, which is fun. In many respects, she reminds me of Isabella Farrah from Masque, but less polished and with significantly less social rank to apply to her problems.
3. The worldbuilding is excellent. Essentially, the thrones of Europe are held by monsters of mythology — vampires, sirens, and, of course, werewolves — all except for the throne of England. And Rowntree did a magnificent job of taking that premise and combining it with well-researched historical reality to create a version of the world that feels believable and even unquestionable. The attitudes of different people and groups, the portrayal of actual historical figures (many of whom play major roles in the story), the details . . . it's all very well done.
4. It's kind of nice that the lead isn't anyone particularly "special." This is a weird thing to like, but bear with me, please. Miss Sharp is clever, but she's not the smartest person in the room. She's well-trained, but not more so than any of the other girls in her situation. She's not gifted with special knowledge or anything of the sort. She's not an ordinary person — I mean, remember the "amnesiac werewolf victim" bit I mentioned earlier? — but she's not the only one of her kind. That's a bit unusual for a detective, fantasy or otherwise — classic detectives tend to be the smartest person in the room; fantasy-mystery detectives are often magically gifted (like Jackaby or Harry Dresden) or at least connected with a magical organization of some kind (like Irene of The Invisible Library). That makes Miss Sharp a bit of a rarity, but in a good way.
5. Overall, the story is, as some might put it, rather a lark to read. There's just the right balance of humor and action and suspense, mixed in with slowly growing friendships and genuinely emotional moments, to make this book perfectly enjoyable. One moment you're laughing at the banter between characters or Miss Sharp's asides to the reader; the next you're clutching the book and frantically turning pages as our hero ventures into a den of monsters in search of answers or discovers a shocking truth. There's never a slow moment, and the story is solid without being weighty.

Are you excited about The Werewolf of Whitechapel yet? If not, you should be — I'd rank it up Jackaby, Masque, and The Invisible Library in terms of how much I love it. I even preordered the sequel pretty much as soon as I saw it was available, and I almost never do that. Anyway, excited or not, please tell me in the comments! (And if you scored an ARC like I did, tell me that too so we can rave over it together!)
Thanks for reading!

 Hey'a, everyone! So, after winter's rather underwhelming release lineup, this spring's list looks amazing — though, honestly, it would look amazing compared to just about any release lineup. While we don't have long-anticipated releases on the level of Return of the Thief, we have some reads on this list that I already know are amazing and a lot of others that I have high hopes for. And when I say "a lot," I really mean a lot. When I made my original list of all the books releasing this spring that I was interested in, there were over 20 books on it. Even after I cut the ones I was less enthusiastic about or that I was uncomfortable with based on early reviews or other newly-released information, I had a solid seventeen titles that I wanted to feature in my release posts. So, this list is going to take a little time to get through . . . but trust me, it's worth it.

Spring 2021 Reads

1. The Bright and the Pale by Jessica Rubinowski (March 2). I want to start by stating that I really like this cover. The colors, the art style, the little bits of northern lights in the sky, the typeface and the little icicles on the word pale . . . it's just very pretty. The story sounds like it has a great deal of potential too; it's Russian-inspired fantasy, and some of the reviews suggest it has that edge of creepiness that can make for a really enjoyable tale.

2. Sing Me Forgotten by Jessica S. Olsen (March 9). So this is a genderbent Phantom of the Opera retelling told from the perspective of the Phantom equivalent, and while I'm not a huge Phantom fan (mostly because I think Christine Daae is largely an idiot), this does sound pretty cool? The idea of memory magic has a lot of potential, and it sounds like the romantic relationships might be handled a bit better. We'll see.

3. Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley (March 16). Obviously I don't usually go in for contemporary. But I love a good mystery, and I'm still trying to read more books outside speculative fiction, so we're going to give this a try. It does sound pretty exciting.

4. The Seventh Raven by David Elliott (March 16). There are not enough Six Ravens/Wild Swans retellings out there — I only know of one other, and that one was . . . disappointing, to say the least. So I have very high hopes for The Seventh Raven! I'm hoping for a good focus on family ties and sibling relationships and all that sort of thing. The book is also written in verse instead of prose, which will be quite different from my usual fare.

5. Wingfeather Tales by Andrew Peterson and friends (March 23). I shared my thoughts on this anthology last week, but to sum up: if you read the Wingfeather Saga when it re-released last year (or in general) and you want more tales from Aerwiar, this book is just the thing to satisfy that appetite. There's something in this anthology for everyone, and the stories range from an Arabian-Nights-esque adventure in "The Prince of Yorsha Doon" to a high-seas look at a favorite Wingfeather character's past in "From the Deeps of the Dragon King" to a heartbreakingly raw and beautiful journey in "The Places Beyond the Maps." (And there's a Florid Sword comic! Which is awesome.)

6. The Werewolf of Whitechapel by Suzannah Rowntree (March 25). THIS BOOK, Y'ALL. There isn't a single book on this list I'm more excited about than The Werewolf of Whitechapel. I signed up for an eARC of it and read it earlier this week, and oh my pumpernickel. It's one of my favorite books I've read this year. It reminds me a lot of W.R. Gingell's Masque — which, you may recall, I utterly adore and read twice in a single year — but set in a fantastical alternate-history England, in which mythological monsters hold the thrones of Europe. And it's SO GOOD. And I need EVERYONE ELSE to buy it and read it AT ONCE so y'all can experience the AWESOMENESS and appreciate Miss Sharp with me.

7. Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo (March 30). On one hand, I was kind of meh about King of Scars — which is tragic, given how much I loved Nikolai in the original Grisha trilogy and Nina in the Six of Crows duology. (In all fairness, Nikolai's character is of the type that often works best when seen from a POV other than his own.) On the other hand . . . maybe the second book will be better since I won't have such high expectations? And I do want to see how things end.

8. Broken (In the Best Possible Way) by Jenny Lawson (April 6). I read Jenny's other two books over the last couple months, and while I didn't love them, they have a certain mad charm to them. So, I'm looking forward to reading Broken (and I hope I enjoy it, because I won a copy off Goodreads and it would therefore be a shame if I end up disliking it). If nothing else, her books are always an interesting shift from my usual speculative fiction fare.

9. The Infinity Courts by Akemi Dawn Bowman (April 6). Here's a little sci-fi to liven up the list! Though apparently this is actually a blend of sci-fi and fantasy, which just makes it even better. And we've got an evil AI, which always makes for an interesting story . . . though it also means I'll end up comparing however they portray AI to what we talked about when I took a class on the philosophy of AI, so there's that.

10. A Thieving Curse by Selina R. Gonzalez (April 7). I am always immensely fond of Beauty and the Beast retellings, and dragons, of course, just make everything better! So, of course, I'm very excited to have discovered this book in time to feature it. There's also a preorder campaign with some pretty nice book swag, for anyone who's inclined to order the book early! (I'm torn between that and saving my money for a Werewolf of Whitechapel paperback, personally.) Also, can we take a moment to appreciate that beautiful cover art?

 11. Love and Memory by Kendra E. Ardnek (April 19). It's been a while since Kendra's brought us back to Rizkaland, but the wait is very nearly over! One of Kendra's greatest strengths as a writer is that she's often willing and eager to ask "What happens next?" where other authors might write "Happily Ever After" (or "Unhappily Ever After," as the case may be) and be done with it. That's one of the things I love about her Bookania Quests, and I'm immensely excited to see her do it again in Love and Memory. Petra, Reuben, Andrew, and Clara may be home from Rizkaland . . . but now they have to figure out how to pick up the pieces of their lives, and, well . . . let's just say it's a struggle.

12. Invading Hell by Bryan Davis (April 16/May 15). This is the second book in the Oculus Gate series, the first of which released last summer. (I posted my thoughts on that book, Heaven Came Down, as a Friday 5s post, if you want to read them.) While I had mixed feelings about the end of book 1, I'm excited to see some of my favorite characters (by which I mostly mean Leo and Iona) again. And, hey, you know when you pick up a Bryan Davis that it's guaranteed to be out of the ordinary.

13. Luck of the Titanic by Stacy Lee (May 4). I feel like this is going to be a tragedy on some level. I get the impression that most Titanic stories are. (I only have two data points to draw from, though, so I could be wrong.) It sounds like it has a lot of potential, though, and it's a sibling story, so I'm looking forward to that.

14. Son of the Storm by Suyi Davies Okungbowa (May 11). Nomance! Non-European fantasy! Conspiracies! Secrets! Lore! And also a main character who's described as a "scholar," which I hope means he'll have some delightful moments of "The thing I learned about . . . the thing I studied . . . it's real and now and right in front of me oh this is so cool." I would also accept some moments of "Danger? What danger? This is an unprecedented research opportunity!" (Side note: I think I may've just realized another reason I really like the Stormlight Archives.)

15. The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman (May 15). Something about this book's blurb is giving me Knight and Rogue-but-way-darker vibes, and I'm here for it. I really hope we get a delightful friendship between the main characters; any kind of positive relationship between the straight-laced, honorable noble warrior and the clever, sneaky, live-by-my-wits-and-my-speed rogue tends to be so much fun to read. Also, apparently there's a kraken. Or multiple kraken. And I'm so here for that too.

16. The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green (May 16). For those unaware, The Anthropocene Reviewed was originally a podcast created by John Green, in which he reviews parts of the world and society on a five-star scale. He covers everything from Canada Geese to Diet Dr. Pepper to pineapple on pizza to plague in a gentle, meditative fashion, discussing the history of the thing and how it impacts and reflects aspects of the world as a whole. I've only listened to a small portion of it (I'm not a big podcast person, unlike . . . basically the rest of the world, it seems like), but I enjoyed what I did listen to. I'm looking forward to seeing what I love translated into my favorite form of media.

17. The Lights of Prague by Nicole Jarvis (May 18). This is a historical urban fantasy with maybe a hint of mystery? It sounds like it might be a mystery, and we all know I hope it's a mystery. Early reviews are coming in mixed, but the blurb sounds good. And it sounds like we may be getting some science and magic mixing, which I almost always enjoy.

What book releases are you excited for this spring? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

 Hello, all! Y'all may remember my exultation over the new editions of the Wingfeather Saga last year. I'm happy to say that the exultation continues as there's another re-release! The Wingfeather Tales was originally written as an anthology of stories and poems written by Andrew Peterson and many of his author friends to entice and reward backers for the Wingfeather short film a few years ago. Now it's being made widely available (with the addition of a bonus Florid Sword & Shadowblade comic!), releasing March 23, and I am very excited that new fans will get to enjoy it! Since this is an anthology, reviewing in Friday 5s format is going to be a little interesting . . . but I'm still going to do my best to provide my thoughts on the collection, its high points and low points, and whether or not you should pre-order it on Amazon or add it to your Goodreads TBR. (Spoiler alert: you should totally do both. Unless you haven't read the rest of the series, in which case you should just add it to your TBR for now and go pick up the other books.)

 

Thoughts on the Wingfeather Tales

1. Before you ask, these stories aren't sequels, and that's a good thing. A couple of the stories, specifically "The Prince of Yorsha Doon," the Florid Sword & Shadowblade comic, and parts of "The Places Beyond the Maps" do take place after the end of The Warden and the Wolf King. However, none of the Wingfeathers show up, so all we're really told is that Maraly and Gammon continue to be awesome and Oscar continues to be Oscar . . . and I'm happy about that. I think most other people are too. Instead, what we mostly get are stories that take place before (or, in one case, concurrently with) the events of The Wingfeather Saga, which gives us a fun look into the past of Aerwiar and certain significant people and locations.
2. The best story? "The Places Beyond the Maps." This is the last and longest story in the anthology — a full novella, actually, that takes up half the book. And it's heartbreaking, but it's also beautifully written. The style is almost like if someone combined Andrew Peterson, Anne Elisabeth Stengl, and Jennifer Freitag (Plenilune, for those who don't know) into one person. It's gorgeous. And, as I said, heartbreaking, as we see a man driven to the very ends of himself, and the author lays this man's soul bare to the reader with stunning effectiveness. But it comes to beauty in the end.
3. Wingfeather crossovers are not my favorite. To be more specific, two of these stories cross over Peterson's books with the books of another author (also known, though not especially well outside of certain circles, for Christian-themed fantasy), and they more or less ended up being my least favorite stories in the anthology. They're still good. And people who've read and loved the crossover series will probably enjoy these stories. For me, though? Not my favorite.
4. We do get a Podo Helmer story! Since Podo is one of my favorite characters in the series, the bar was set pretty high for this tale . . . but it more than surpasses my expectations. It's set back in Podo's dragon-hunting days, and it's pretty great. While I'm not familiar with the author of the story (A.S. Peterson), he has an excellent storytelling voice, perfect for a seafaring story such as this. And the story he chose to tell . . . it's hard to say a lot without spoilers, but I'd say it's worth buying the anthology just for this and "The Places Beyond the Maps."
5. If you saw "Florid Sword and Shadowblade comic" and got really excited, get the book in paper form. I got an eARC of this to review, which I read on my Kindle. Though I enjoyed the comic (I'm always a fan of both Gammon and Maraly), I did have a bit of trouble reading it on the screen. That might be different if you have a Kindle app on a device that lets you zoom in, I'd say it's worth just getting it in paper.

Are you excited for the Wingfeather Tales? Which story or stories are you most excited for (or, if you've read the anthology before, which did you like best)? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

February 2021 Doings!

 Guys. It's been a year. A year ago today, I was on my last spring break, planning a cheese night for my dorm and trying to find a formal dress for the Junior-Senior Formal and stressing about my capstone paper and final graphic design project. A year ago today, I was less than a week from the world turning upside down around me, and I had no idea. It's so weird. Anyway. I will say that this past February was a lot less stressful than February 2020 — even with COVID in the picture, there's a lot less uncertainty floating around. (Also, the nice thing about a nine-to-five job is that it is, in fact, nine to five, as opposed to college classes, which are whenever you get up to whenever you can't think anymore today.)

Writing!

• The first draft of the Midnight Show sequel is finished! It topped out at about 77K words and 35 chapters, which is almost twice as long as The Midnight Show and about 17K longer than I want it to be. Still, it's a satisfactory first draft. It's not quite as clean as TMS's first version was (or Blood in the Snow's), but it's in better shape than some.
• I gave myself a couple days of rest from writing and then I started all over with the first round of rewrites.
• I'm currently sitting at 8 chapters, about one fifth of the book, rewritten or added. I'm messing with the timeline a little, so I've had to add some bits and heavily rework some scenes. And there was one chapter that I have to rewrite a second time so I could properly write the chapters that had to build on it. Other than that, though, it's going well.
• On a side note, I was looking back at my Doings! post for last February, and I found this reference:

I also toyed with another writing project, but ended up dropping it because it conflicted with a different novel (or novella) that I plan to write in the future.

• I had totally forgotten about this — it was an experimental project intended for the Tattered Slippers Arista Challenge that I only worked on for a few days before scrapping. Had it worked out, y'all would've gotten a Mechanical Heart sequel instead of The Midnight Show. The issue was that it used a very similar "twist" as The Midnight Show does to explain the dancing (which was, in this version, not dancing but rather inventing), and the idea that would become TMS was already developed enough that I didn't want to waste it.
• The experimental part of the project, for the record, refers to the writing process I was going to try out: essentially, outlining the story and then iterating that outline and making it more and more detailed until I had a proper prose narrative. I hoped it would be a faster way of getting a functional first draft out. It might've worked too, save for the teensy little problem that I do not enjoy outlines. Especially not ultra-detailed ones.
• The story would've been really fun had I written it, though. It was going to involve Breen and Luis attending a "Creatives Consortium" — basically a convention intended to bring the inventors and alchemists and scientists together with artists and creatives, only for Strange Goings On to occur in the night. And I CLEARLY has fun with the outline, which I just reread while writing this post. A few highlights for those curious:

• So, armed with COFFEE and CRAFTS and lots of stuff to tinker and mess with, they STAY UP.

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• Around midnight, the roommate is like “Hey, I hear something. Music? It’s weird.”
• Breen is like “Cool cool. I am deaf, but I will take your word for it.”
• Roommate: “This music is making me feel super weird. My head hurts. Something Is Up.”
• Breen: “Hey, you ok? You're randomly standing up and wandering off and you’re moving kind of weirdly.”
• Roommate: *does not respond*
• Breen: Ok rude.

---------

• Breen is like “Ok, was I hallucinating on coffee or did that actually happen? SUPER WEIRD.”

---------

• Luis, who is friends with Josiah: Let’s go talk to the person who owns this place.
• Breen, who spent 10-ish years getting screwed over by a noble: Let’s not.
• Roommate, who is oblivious to both things: Nah, Goggles is right. Let’s talk to the person in charge.

• Alas, this novel will never be written. But I wrote The Midnight Show instead, and quite frankly, I think that's for the best. The Mechanical Heart sequel would've been fun. But The Midnight Show is possibly one of my favorite things I've written in my life, so . . . worth it. Mechanical Heart will get a different sequel when the time is right.
• D&D-wise, I am still behind on writing stuff, but we're also running short sessions, so it's ok. And I feel like I'm getting better at improv, so that's reassuring. I will say, though, that a lot of this month has been an unending series of "Gah, that is not this character's accent; I could do it ten minutes ago; what happened?" Voice actor, I am not. But at least the current group of NPCs is easier than some others I've invented.

Reading!

• February (and the start of the year in general) tends to be a time for rereads, and this February was no exception. This February was also a really good reading month . . . mostly because it was dominated by two amazing authors.
• So, I did finish Rhythm of War before it was due at the library, but only barely. Had we not had a snow day on the Monday before I was supposed to return it, I would've been out of luck. Instead, I devoured pretty much the last third of the book in a single day. It was intense. And now I have feels. Most of them are about how awesome Adolin and Navani are and how awful Moash is (storm you, Moash), but also . . . so many reveals. So much epicness. I spent a lot of time internally screaming. And occasionally externally not-quite-screaming. It was great.
• Anyway. After finishing Rhythm, I needed something equally awesome but a little bit lighter as a chaser, plus Return of the Thief was due at the library soon . . . so I proceeded to devour the entire Queen's Thief series in about ten days. The first five books were just as good on the reread as they were the first times round — in fact, I'd argue most of them were better. And Return of the Thief was amazing. Again, I have many feelings. It still hasn't topped The King of Attolia is still my #1 favorite in the series, but Return is a very close second. And there's so much to love about the book, but I think my favorite thing was seeing Gen and Irene . . . I suppose you could say, seeing them at their most united. And there's one scene between them that's so small, but it hit so hard and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it.
• After that, I was going to be responsible and continue working through my library stacks . . . but I reread Mistborn instead. No regrets. It was really weird to reread the book and think "Wow, you can really tell that this is some of Sanderson's early work" while simultaneously still being really impressed by the man's storytelling and writing skill, but that certainly didn't detract from my enjoyment of it. (And now I'm working on rereading The Well of Ascension, also instead of reading from my library stacks. Again, I regret nothing.)
• And, as if there wasn't enough awesome in this month already, I finally read Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. It was dark enough that I'm kinda glad I didn't read it when I first heard of it, but it was also really good. It kind of has this dream-like, or perhaps nightmare-like, balance of strange and un-strange and fairytale and humanity. If I lived in a city, it would have me glancing over my shoulder, just in case. But I don't, so . . . yeah. I'll definitely be coming back to this one sometime.

Watching!

• So, I'm currently on Episode 51 in Critical Role, which means we're done with Fjord and ocean arcs and all that for the time being — but which, more importantly, means I hit the backstory reveal for a certain character. And I knew this character's backstory and family already going into the show. But seeing how it actually played out hit hard and oh my pumpernickel. I am in awe. You know someone's a good storyteller when a reveal you already know about is that effective.
• Outside Critical Role, I watched one of the many Zorro movies — not the original, but the 1975 version that's just called Zorro. So that was some good swashbuckling fun. (I also rewatched parts of The Princess Bride, which my parents decided to watch on a night when I had other things I had to do. I managed to squeeze in time for the important bits, at least.)
• In addition, we watched Roman Holiday, which was . . . I mean, it was fine? I understand why it's a classic and why it's so popular. I think the story and characters were well-crafted, and I appreciate the choices made in the end (even if I feel bad for Irving . . . Joe brought this mess on himself, but Irving was literally dragged into it). It's not my favorite movie I've ever seen, and I wouldn't say I loved it. But it was good.

Life!

• This was a pretty quiet month, on the whole. Most of it was occupied with work, writing, and D&D, which should come as a surprise to no one.
• The "extremely mysterious" technical issues were resolved by the next time I went in to work, which was a day later than expected, as it was the first of several snow days and holidays we had this month. I think that also might've been the only really snowy snow day — the rest tended to be more ice than snow. Since then, things have been progressing peacefully, and I've had some spare time to start making my office my own. (At this point, that mostly means cleaning and organizing and bringing in a kettle so I can make tea without using a coffee maker. But eventually, I'll have some decorations and such.)
• On one of the various snow/ice days, I decided to finally try making biscotti, which turned out well! We usually make cranberry almond biscotti at Christmas, which lasts forever. But I wanted something different, something more exciting. I was going to make chocolate raspberry biscotti . . . but my dad said he'd let me off helping to shovel the driveway if I made the biscotti that day, so I went with my second choice, cinnamon-butterscotch, instead. In hindsight, I probably should've stuck with the chocolate raspberry — the cinnamon-butterscotch had so many mix-ins (even using the amount specified in the recipe) that it was hard to get the dough to actually stick together and harder still to cut it after the first baking without the slices breaking and crumbling. Essentially, I did my first biscotti run on hard mode. But it still tasted good. And I hope to try the chocolate raspberry (or possibly a savory biscotti, probably cornmeal parmesan) later, sometime before the weather warms up too much.
• On the D&D front — the campaign I play in, not the campaign I run — we haven't been able to meet the last two weeks, and it's driving me a little crazy because of where we ended our last session: with a revelation that the homeland of two of our party members (including my paladin) just declared war on another country (which another party member is technically allied with? in that he's a noble and his country is allies with this other country). So that's going to be interesting. Especially since my character's father contacted her shortly before we learned about this to say he needed my character home immediately . . . We thought it had to do with some, ah, legal trouble we'd gotten in not long before. (Aka, someone framed us for murder — which, I mean, we did technically kill the person they said we killed, but only after he lured us into an ambush, set us on fire, and revealed that he was allied with a literal demon who's partially responsible for the world-covering darkness we've been trying to get rid of, so I don't think we're the ones in the wrong here. The problem was that we had a time-sensitive mission to finish, so we couldn't stick around to clear our names at the time.) But then he said what was happening was good news, and, well, let's just say that what happens next might be the thing that sends my tired, frustrated, didn't-ask-for-any-of-this paladin over the tipping point. And I am both excited and terrified to see how this will play out.

March Plans

• Non-work priority #1: get the Midnight Show sequel rewritten and sent off to betas. Ideally, I also should name it before sending it to betas. I have two ideas, so that's something; I'm just trying to decide which fits better. My one comfort: the release this year will be later than previous years' releases have been, so I'll have a little more time to work with. Not a lot. But a little.
• I also am really hoping that we can wrap up the current arc in the D&D campaign I'm running this month, or at least get close to wrapping it up. Does that necessitate my writing the rest of it? Yes. Yes, it does. But it'll happen. I just need to sit down and do the thing.
• And, as the NaNoWriMo website has been helpfully reminding me, Camp NaNoWriMo is just around the corner at this point, so I need to start thinking about what I'm doing there. "Nothing" or "TMS sequel edits" are the obvious choices, but if the timing works out, it could also be a good idea to work on other projects. Like whatever I'm doing for next year's Arista Challenge. Or one of the many projects I want to write or rewrite that I don't have a specific publication plan for. We'll see where things stand.
• Other than writing, I don't have a lot of plans. Hopefully I'll do something for Pi Day — it's been a while since I made a pie. (But my mom might want to make something, so . . . we'll see.) And I'm torn between wanting warm weather to come as soon as possible and wanting it to stay cold long enough for one last batch of biscotti.
• Do I have a life outside of work, writing, D&D, and food? Sources suggest no.
• (I'm also at a point where I'm a bit bored of my current knitting/crochet projects, but I also don't want to abandon them because if I do, who knows when or if I'll finish them. So that's a problem.)

How was your February? Any exciting plans for March? If you've read Rhythm of War, Return of the Thief, or Neverwhere, what were your favorite bits or the parts that stuck with you the most? Have you ever tried to write a story via steadily more detailed outlines or another weird method? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!