Adventures, Episodes, and Nightstand Books: April/May 2021

The end of last week got a little busy, so I’m combining my April Adventures with my May Nighstand Books post. I didn’t figure anyone would mind. grin

April Writing Adventures

April felt like a bit of a rough month, writing-wise. We started the month off with a birthday and a holiday weekend plus hosting our homeschool group activity, and then dove straight into all my children getting colds, which took up the first week and a half of April. Then the second week of April saw me battling the headache from the abyss for 4 days straight… during which time I did not have a full-on migraine, but I couldn’t read or write at ALL.

However, in spite of these difficulties, when I glance back at the month, I actually made a ton more progress on Mantles of Oak and Iron than I thought I had.

I got 28,278 words edited/re-written on this project, bringing me to a little more than a fourth of the way through this book.

Most of what is slowing me down these days is that my writing style and story-telling style has changed dramatically in the past couple of years, and these first couple of books in the series were written 7 - 10 years ago. I hadn’t learned back then all that I know now. This often leaves me feeling extremely overwhelmed and discouraged about the whole project, and wondering if it’s even worth all this work.

But then I remind myself that my early beta readers enjoyed the first book even in its rough state and that when I’m finished I’ll have FIVE more books out there.

So I press on.

The Minstrel’s Song series is now complete in AUDIO! We celebrated the release with a bit of a blog tour and social media party a couple of weeks ago.

Reading Adventures

I did not read nearly as much this month. (See above) But I did finish reading City of Thirst, the second book in the Map to Everywhere series.

fun/unique opener/refresher to what happened in book 1 // took a bit longer to get sucked into this one // got very exciting at the end // some intriguing reveals about Fin! // I have THEORIES about the villains! (view spoiler) // felt like some of the character interactions back-tracked a bit, but then grew more at the end, so it was okay

I also continued blitzing through H.L. Burke’s Supervillain Rehabilitation Project series and stayed up late far too many nights to finish reading Refined.

I feel it would be impossible to review this without giving away massive spoilers for both this book and the first books in the series. But suffice to say… I was very nervous going into this book, but I am quite happy with the way everything ended.

Absolutely gorgeous Beauty and the Beast retelling // loved how much the library played a key role // loved the idea of "Beauty" being semi-illiterate and needing a reading spell // what if the Beast WANTED TO STAY cursed? // some interesting secondary characters throughout // epic climactic resolution... and I'm suddenly intrigued to learn more about the villainess who I HATED throughout the book, but there was this WOW moment right at the end that brought things full circle in a way I hadn't expected....

Watching Episodes

Mostly just watching Star Trek still.

Working our way through Star Trek: Enterprise with the kids. This continues to be my favorite of the Star Trek shows I’ve seen so far.

Derek and I are in season five now of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. And… it’s getting better? I mean… a little. I’m enjoying the characters, but the writing is just…. AWFUL. My deepest apologies to you if this is your favorite Star Trek. Don’t hate me. But man the script is heavy-handed and cringeworthy. Subtlety is not something that Star Trek in general has ever been known for, but this show seems to go over the top when it comes to the writers needing to add in extra dialogue to make absolutely certain that you know what they were hinting at just then! Yep. (For example, in the episode we just watched recently, Jake and Dr. Bashere end up in a field hospital on the front lines. A man comes in with an injury to his foot and claims he got hit with a Klingon disruptor. Bashere looks at it and comments, “This looks like a phaser burn.” The man loudly denies it. At this point, I turned to Derek and said, “Ah. He shot himself in the foot to get out of the battle because he was scared.” The episode proceeded to then have the man turn to Jake and explain in great detail what had been going on and the fact that, yes, he had shot himself in the foot). Subtle.

We also watched the 2008 Journey to the Center of the Earth with Brendan Fraser. And this is where you can laugh at me all you like, but I LOVE this movie. It’s such a fun romp, and I love how it’s not another retelling of Jules Verne’s story, but more of a sequel that examines the idea that Verne wasn’t just an author, but actually a historian and that all his works were based on real-life events! So fun.

The kids and I are also working our way through Gortimer Gibbon’s Life on Normal Street. When we are finished, I plan to do a whole post about it (and maybe a few other shows I really enjoy with my kids) because this show is fantastic. It is absolutely breathtakingly charming and I want to shout about it here on the blog.

Life Adventures

I put up the slack line that the girls got for Christmas, and it has been an endless source of entertainment for us and the neighbor kids. I enjoy going out and playing on it, as well!

We planted some vegetables… possibly too early. Most of them have died already and I haven’t even gotten them outside yet! ha

We’ve been getting out on our bikes again now that the snow has retreated a bit.

Let’s see… we also had to rebuild our two sets of stairs out the back of the house. That took up most of our weekends. But they look pretty nice. Not that there was anything wrong with them before… but the building inspector said that if we wanted to have 4 steps, we had to give them a landing (which is ridiculous, because we could have legally made them three steps and then we wouldn’t have needed to change anything… but you’re still gonna fall 2 feet if you fall, the number of stairs doesn’t actually change anything). Shakes Head.

A friend of mine hosted a mother/daughter art day and I tried my hand at a semi-guided watercolor painting. (We had some written instructions and examples to follow, but we didn’t all paint the same thing. I’m actually kinda proud of how my painting turned out (considering that I’ve never managed to make watercolor look like anything more recognizable than a colossal mess before).

Future Plans

May and June are shaping up to be pretty full with rather a lot of traveling happening around here. (See Important Notice At the End of this Post!)

My main goal with writing over the next couple of months is to get Mantles of Oak and Iron completed by the end of June. The second half of the book is in better shape than the first, so I think that’s doable… but we shall see.

I’ve also got some plans to edit and expand my Cinderella retelling I wrote a couple of years ago. I went ahead and bought a cover for it already!!!! Another gorgeous design by the incomparable Savannah Jezowski. The cover isn’t quite finalized yet, as I need to figure out an actual title and tagline (right now it has place-holder text), but if you are in my facebook group, I did post it there.

I’m also working on the basic plot for a sequel to An Echo of the Fae, so that’s exciting. It’s always fun to begin a brand-new project, and I’ve got so much editing to do, that thinking about that project is a nice break at times.

Nightstand Books

And future plans bring us to… what books do I plan to read in May?

Well, given the kind of lots-of-stuff-going-on nature of the next 4-8 weeks, I’m not sure how much time I’m going to have to read. So I’m just going to keep working on the books I’m currently reading:

Snuff by Terry Pratchett - yep, still working our way through this one!

The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale - a re-read, but one I haven’t read in a very long time and I am loving getting to return to this story that I enjoyed so much when I was younger.

The Dragon Librarian by Marc Secchia - Set in the same world as Dragon Friend, Secchia’s storytelling style is vibrant and his language is simply gorgeous. This is a massive book compared to what I’ve been reading lately, but it is so very beautiful.

Not Pictured

The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss - This is my listening book for the next good long while. I haven’t read this one before, and I’m enjoying the continuing story of Qvothe and his various exploits.

HIATUS NOTICE

I’ve got a pretty normal complement of blog posts already scheduled for May, but due to trying to finish up school a few weeks early, and a TON of traveling, AND trying to get some serious editing done in the next two months… I just wanted to let you all know that I’ll be on hiatus here on the blog and pretty much on all social media as well from about May 20 - June 16. You might see a blog post or two go up inside that time, but I probably won’t be super quick to respond to comments and things. I WILL read and respond to your comments eventually, though, so don’t stop leaving them!!!

How has your April been, dear Reader? I’d love to hear about YOUR adventures and episodes since Spring has sprung! Did you read or watch anything you really enjoyed this past month? Did you create anything you’re super proud of? Tell me about it in the comments!