October 2017 Adventures and Episodes

Good morning, dear Reader! It's time for the monthly rodeo-roundup of all the doings around these here parts.October was absolutely packed with fun!Writing AdventuresI finished the major editing pass of Minstrel's Call! I am so excited to have finished that round of edits. So much of the story got re-written and reorganized over the past several months. Now it is on to the polishing effort... which is a bit more tedious, but also easier in a lot of ways.After finishing that round of edits, we went to Kinkos and printed and bound the manuscript so that I can read through it out loud and polish as I go. But before I started that, I used the remainder of October to write a short story for the Fellowship of Fantasy's next anthology. The story takes place in the realm of Minstrel's Song, but many years before King's Warrior. It includes a dragon and a magical doorway... I am hoping that it is accepted into the anthology—which they are planning to release in March, but if it isn't, I'll publish it on my own... either way, I think you'll enjoy it!I made a pinterest board for it:Bookwyrm AdventuresI finished reading Fairest and Stars Above by Marissa Meyer, finishing the Lunar Chronicles. Both were very good, and I am planning to write the series review shortly.I read The Beast of Talesend by Kyle Robert Shultz for the FoF October Book club book and highly enjoyed it. You can find my review of the book HERE.I also read The Emerald Atlas by John Stephens. It is a book that Leiana has listened to on audio book several times, and she recommended it to me. I enjoyed it. It was cute and fun and filled with adventure, and I am planning on reading the rest of the series.I re-read Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones and enjoyed it every bit as much as I remembered.Real-Life AdventuresDerek and I took the youngest hobbit with us down to Nashville, TN to meet up with my parents and siblings for my sister's in-house concert at Z Music Room. We spent a long weekend in a cozy little log cabin and had an absolute blast! We played some games, explored Nashville and Franklin, enjoyed a wonderful concert by my sister, talked, relaxed, and dreamed together of the future of Stormcave.As a little aside/plug for my sister's music... Brittany Jean's third album is releasing soon, and on Friday she is releasing her first single! I'm hoping to be able to hop on back over here and tell you more about it. If you enjoy Americana music that is beautiful and has powerful lyrics that tell stories, then this is the new up-and-coming artist to keep an eye on! Her music is my absolute favorite.Leiana turned NINE (I'm still a little in shock over that... I don't know who authorized it... but it went and happened). We celebrated her birthday with a marvelous Bunny-Decorated Carrot cake, she got to choose the restaurant (Red Robin), and presents. I think she enjoyed it.We also enjoyed trick-or-treating with our friends and the entire family dressed up as Star Wars characters for our annual Fall Family Photo. Princess Leia, Ashoka Tano, Jyn Erso, a Youngling, Darth Vader, and Anakin Skywalker!We are 11 weeks into the 2017-2018 school year and still going strong. We're even on track to be a week ahead of my plans by the end of this week... so that's exciting!Episodes on the Silver ScreenWe went to see the My Little Pony movie in the theater for Leiana's birthday. It was super fun and cute and quirky and all the things I've come to expect from this franchise. I loved it. The previews were less-than thrilling, and made my heart shrivel in despair at the offerings the film-industry wants to hand children of the current age.... but the feature itself was charming.We rented quite a few movies in October.The Mummy - kind of lacking in story/plot. Mostly just a lot of Tom Cruise running... which is apparently how we can solve all problems. This is a thing in action movies that kind of drives me crazy.Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales - this one actually surprised me. I enjoyed it thoroughly. It was definitely better than Pirates 4, and I think I'd probably put it ahead of Pirates 2 (though Pirates 2 does contain the BEST sword-fight out of all of them). Chatting with my sister, the one thing we both noticed was the absence of "Jack Sparrow" - oh, he's in the movie, but he isn't the ingenious, precocious, "how does he do that and get away with it?" pirate we've grown to know and love. He's down and out... and he never really manages to get beyond that in the movie itself... though the end gives us a glimmer that he might be back. There were some moments of absolute brilliance in the story-telling, however, and a return to many of the things I loved about Pirates 1.Transformers: The Last Knight - All I have to say about this movie can be summed up in 2 words: Incomprehensible Mess.Spiderman: Homecoming - Loved this every bit as much the second time through!Derek and I have continued watching through "Hawaii Five-O," which is fun. We've also watched some more "Little House on the Prairie" as a family, and Leiana gets to stay up "late" every Sunday night to watch an episode of "Girl Meets World" with Derek and me.Online EpisodesI hosted #Drachtober over on Twitter/Facebook and had an absolute blast! I was so grateful to everyone who participated, either for part of the month or for the entirety of the game.I participated in the October #WIPjoy and had fun chatting about Minstrel's Call throughout the game.I wrote a short spooky story for the blog, which you can read HERE if you missed it.Future AdventuresOctober was full, and November promises to be a little less hectic. I made up my mind and decided to ignore the siren song of NaNoWriMo this year, instead focusing all my auth-ing efforts for the rest of the year on 1) polishing and submitting my doorway story to the anthology and 2) the final polishing rounds of editing Minstrel's Call. I have some books still on my nightstand, but I haven't added anything new to the stack, which is why I don't really have a Nightstand Books post for this month. Mostly, we just plan to enjoy the month as a family and relax a bit...And that's all I've got for now! How was your October, dear Reader? Are you participating in NaNo? Do you have any Holiday Plans? I'd love to hear from you!