September 2021 Doings!

Hello all! Here we are, through September at last — storms, this was a busy month! Between a lot of challenging projects and problems at work, hosting a Silmaril Awards category (check back for my ceremony tomorrow!) finishing final edits and proofs on Gilded, and preparing and participating in the Frosted Roses release tour, well, I certainly haven't had time to be bored. Tired, yes. Bored, no.

Writing!

• As one would expect, much of my writing time this month was dominated by final formatting and edits on Gilded in Ice, which went well. I would like to express again how great an investment a widescreen monitor is, especially when you're trying to transfer the edits from your final proof to both your Kindle and paperback versions at the same time.
• The rest of my time was taken up by writing posts for the blog tour: four character spotlights, four guest posts, and five review lists — plus, of course, my regular posts for the month, including the Silmaril Awards. Do make sure you check out all the tour posts, particularly the guest posts; I had fun writing them. (Also, there's character art scattered throughout the guest posts and character spotlights!)
• The Silmaril Awards went great, though! I hosted our new category, Most Majestic Ruler, and it was quite fun. The results for that go up tomorrow. No spoilers, but I can say that the ceremony post was quite interesting to write. (On a side note, I am incredibly thrilled by how many awards the City Between characters have won or been finalists for. It's high time the series and W.R. Gingell's books in general got some recognition in the Awards!) If you haven't been following the Silmaril Awards ceremonies, make sure you go back and check those out; you can find a complete list on the Awards site.
• On the D&D front, we finished out the last bits of the arc — the denoument, if you will — and sent the Defenders of Serys onto their next adventure with an old friend back in the group, a new ship, and the prospect of a return home after a long time away. Then we took a break for a few weeks so I could finish up my book and the next module. The book happened; the module didn't. Ah well.

Reading!

• This month's reading wasn't quite as impressive as August's was . . . but that's not a bad thing. It was, however, much more varied.
• I finished rereading the Invisible Library series, including The Secret Chapter, which I hadn't gotten to read until now. The Secret Chapter was good, but not my favorite — I love a good heist, but it was a lot of new characters to keep track of. The Lost Plot and The Mortal Word have, on the other hand, been elevanted in my esteem.
• I did manage to fit in a couple non-fantasy — nonfiction, even! — books this month: James Herriot's All Things Wise and Wonderful (a reread, and as thoroughly delightful as ever) and C.S. Lewis's The Weight of Glory (a collection of essays, some of which I think I've read already, all of which were very good). I intended to fit in a few more still, but life had other plans. (I did start reading The Anthropocene Reviewed, so there's that.)
• I got in plenty of new-to-me reads as well! Obviously, I read all the Frosted Roses releases, and if you scroll back, you can see my reviews. I also read A Wind From the Wilderness by Suzannah Rowntree, which . . . I didn't love it nearly as much as I wanted to. I liked Ayla and her internal conflict; I liked St. Gilles and seeing all the intricacies of diplomacy and tactics, as well as his own conflict between care for his own and sometimes feeling the need to be hard in order to care for them. But I did not enjoy Lukas or his POV, and I liked it less by the end of the book.
• On the flip side . . . I finally decided to give Fierce Heart a shot, partially because so many people I know seem to be crazy for the series and partially because someone finally informed me that it's less of a romance-first book than I make it sound. Having read it, I will agree that people have good reason to like it so much. I'm still not all heart-eyes over it, but, as Kendra put it, "it's about a marriage, not a romance, and a marriage of two countries, not just two characters," and therefore I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.
• I finished out the month by starting my long-intended reread of Bryan Davis's Dragons in Our Midst series, which is fun. Dragons in Our Midst, DragonKeeper Chronicles, and Wayne Thomas Batson's books used to be pretty much my life. Coming back to the series now, I rather appreciate that Billy and Bonnie are so much less angsty than the average YA protagonist seems to be.

Watching!

• . . . I might've watched an episode of Leverage at some point? Book and book tour crunch time, especially combined with Silmaril Awards, does not leave much space for watching stuff.

Life!

• . . . Hold on. I'm having a moment. To be specific, a "I know I did three million things this month, but I suddenly blinked on what ANY of them are" moment.
• Ok. Ok. Back on track. Labor Day weekend, we went up to White Sulphur Springs for a retreat with some other people from our Bible Study and another related Bible Study, which was nice. I had high hopes of doing some writing, which didn't happen, but I spent a lot of time reading on the porch. I also got some new recipes (one for rolls, one for bagels) that I'm excited to try when I have a non-busy weekend sometime.
• I also volunteered with my church's Connect Group Fair, which is basically an event where people can find out about different Connect Groups (Bible studies or small groups) that are open and how to start their own group. Pretty much all I did was stand there and occasionally say "Hello, yes, you can take one of these booklets of information," but that's probably better than having to try to explain something I've never actually attended?
• On the work front, this month was pretty hectic. We brought back the bulletin, which meant I had to learn a new process and everyone in the office (with the exception of the accountant) had to adjust their routines. We were also finishing up preparations for a pledge campaign, which had a lot of moving parts . . . and on top of all that, our Facebook page ended up getting hacked, which caused considerable panic and stress for almost everyone in the office. Resolving that was quite the, ah, adventure.
• On a less stressful and more pleasant note, my dad and I went to a local museum's outdoor exhibition of tanks and other military vehicles, so that was very cool. Our main purpose was to take photos, but it was generally interesting even without the photography. A lot of the tanks still worked well enough that they could be driven, and at one point there was a demonstration of how tanks are actually used in combat scenarios (which I made sure to pay attention to for writing research purposes). Plus there were reenactors and other volunteers in period uniforms, and that made for some interesting photo opportunities.
• Ok, that was much a shorter section than I expected it to be . . . but I guess a lot of my busy-ness has been the same things taking a long time, rather than many new things. Plus I covered a lotof what I did in the Writing section of this post.

October Plans

• First things first: once my Silmaril Awards ceremony goes up tomorrow, I will be taking a semi-hiatus from blogging for the duration of October. I say semi-hiatus because I still plan to post my On the Taleweaver's Desk writing update in mid-October. And if I manage to be particularly motivated, I may make some updates to various pages on my sites. But I will not be doing weekly posts.
• What will I be doing? On the writing front, I'll be finishing up my next D&D module (and possibly starting the one after that), participating in a short story challenge, and maybe starting on my next big writing project? I'm torn between a desire to jump into the next thing and a desire to just, y'know, take a break.
• I'm also hoping to get back into photography in the coming months. I rejoined the photo club I used to attend with the intention of actually entering the monthly contests, which means I need photos I can enter in them. October's theme is circles, and while I have some pictures from a while back that I should be able to use, I need some options.
• On the social side of things, I'm attempting to start a board games and Bible study group through my church. We're supposed to have our first meeting this coming week, and I am . . . nervous. I really want this to work out, but there's already been several hiccups in my best- and second-best-laid plans.
• Something I am not nervous about: my church's Trunk or Treat event! I am going to start prepping earlier this year than I did last year, and I'm aiming for something more broadly recognizable, and it's going to be great. That also means I get to do some crafting throughout this month (and some repairs/updates to past crafts), which will be delightful.
• Work will probably continue to be busy. I get the impression that fall and the Advent/Christmas season generally are. But I'll manage.

How was your September? Any exciting plans for October? Do you do anything for Halloween? How do you feel about the Silmaril Awards winners so far? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!