March Ishness 2017

What? A post on a Saturday?????Nope, I'm not foolin'! I wanted to get an early start on letting you know the doings and happenings around here from this past month before we get too far into April.Good morning, dear Reader! I hope you had a good March, mine was certainly filled with lots of fun and productive things.

Monthly Ishness is a blogging meme created by Deborah O'Carroll @ Road of a Writer, and I liked the whimsy of it and begged permission to use it way back when. It's a fun way to keep you apprised of all the fun stuff going on around here!

Lifely Happenings

Towards the end of March, my 5 year old ditched her training wheels and is now an independent bike rider. Look out world! Guess this means we need to get a pull-behind trailer for some family bike rides this summer!

Listening

I listened to an eclectic mix of old school favorites such as Gordon Lightfoot and Anne Murray. Of course I listened to a ton of Brittany Jean - as her CDs are a constant fixture in at least one of our many and sundry CD players (yep, I still listen to music on CDs... though I have come to appreciate things like Pandora and Spotify, sometimes I just want to listen to MY CDs on "shuffle" without random songs I've never heard of thrown into the mix).

Then there were a ton of soundtracks I listened to as the story I was writing began to get more intense and wind down towards those climactic finales. The soundtracks were mostly comprised of these albums... which may or may not tell you anything about the book I'm working on (I DID actually choose them because they go with the story and the elements I was writing... so they aren't random, despite my conversation last month about the randomness with which I often pick my writing music - apparently the random-levels drop as I get more serious).

Watching

Lots of good movies this month. We finally watched In the Heart of the Sea, which my sister had recommended. It is a movie based on the true story that inspired the fictional tale of Herman Melville's Moby Dick... which I have never read. But I have seen various movie versions of it.

It was... an interesting movie. Very tough to watch for many reasons. We looked up the events and discovered that things did not end up quite so happily as the movie makes them appear for many of the characters. My favorite thing about the movie was Herman Melville himself, and the very last line of the movie, which is just a simple line of text, brought the very good kind of tears to my eyes... but it's not one I'd ever be in a hurry to watch again.

Arrival, which I absolutely loved. The ending, unfortunately as is the case with many mind-bending movies like this, fell a little flat... and the philosophical questions that arise from it - while being fun mental gymnastics - completely shatter into a billion tiny fragments when viewed through the lens of a Christian world-view. However, it was an enjoyable ride, clean, and had one of the best AHA! moments I can remember experiencing in a movie in a long time. Also, Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner. I mean... worth it just for the two of them. If you ever saw the indie-sci-fi film Primer... it very much reminded me of that just with the way that the movie was shot and played out.

Because of Wynn-Dixie a rewatch, but still every bit as heartwarming as ever. The kids really enjoyed this one, probably because the story revolves around a dog.

Lots of Little House on the Prairie, we are now into season 2 and continuing to love watching these as a family. Such a beautiful series of television episodes, many of them make me cry (not that that's hard to do), most of them make me laugh, and I love that they teach some good life lessons along the way. Also, my husband realized that my dad is basically Pa Ingalls, so that makes it fun to watch, as well!

Moana: I hope to do an actual review of this in the near future, but suffice to say... where was I when this was in theaters? I somehow totally missed the hype! Very fun, beautiful movie and fun for the whole family. More to come on that in a more comprehensive review later.

We rented Doctor Strange and watched it again and I loved it every bit as much as I did the first time.

Blogging

Sorry the blog was so sparsely populated this month. I didn't have a lot of extra or additional brain power to write blog posts... which I will explain later on in this post. I did manage to share a few helpful things and a review, so hopefully those were fun to read.

Reading

Dragonfriend by Marc Secchia for the Fellowship of Fantasy book club. Very good, a new favorite. Review has already been written and is coming soon.

The Journeyman by Elizabeth Yates was an interesting read about a young boy who gets apprenticed to an itinerant painter in the early 1800s America. We learned some things I hadn't known before, and enjoyed the story.

That's all I managed to read in March... mostly because...

Writing

My friends, I wrote a grand total of 23,000 words this month!!!! Which are no nano-wrimo numbers, but pretty good for me, nonetheless. I am definitely getting close to the end of this second book in the Turrim Archive, and I think I may even have a title figured out. I'm not sure yet, though, so I'm keeping it mum for now.

*throws confetti and cupcakes at anyone willing to come celebrate with me*

I might have to do some extra celebrating when I finish this rough draft... before I dive headlong into the edits for Minstrel's Call. What might be an appropriate way to celebrate completing a rough draft? It's been a while....

Looking forward to April...

April is, of course, going to bring a new baby into our home, so we are all anxiously looking forward to that. I hope to finish up the rough draft of Turrim 2. Various Spring-related activities such as going to parks, riding bikes, etc. Family visiting to meet said newest member of the family... lots of fun times there! And finishing up our homeschool curriculum for the year, that's always a nice feeling.

I have a couple of character interviews and a few more book reviews coming this month, so be on the lookout for those!

And that's all I've got for March. I hope you had a lovely month. What did you get up to in March? I'd love to hear from you in the comments! Now we head into the meat of Spring, and I hope that wherever you are the weather is beautiful and go-outside-worthy.