June Monthly Wrap-Up

I wasn’t planning on doing one of these, but I decided that I would do one anyway, which is why this is late.  Here is what happened in the month of June:

Books Read:

I read 15 books and wrote reviews on all of them.  They’re not all published yet though.

• Indianapolis – Lynn Vincent
• The Wrath and the Dawn – Renée Ahdieh
• Smoke in the Sun – Renée Ahdieh
• Use of Force – Brad Thor
• Never Stop Walking – Christina Rickardsson
• An Ember in the Ashes – Sabaa Tahir
• A Torch Against the Night – Sabaa Tahir
•  A Reaper at the Gates – Sabaa Tahir
• Far Forest Scrolls Na Cearcaill – AAAAA (that was what was listed as the author)
• Ace of Shades – Amanda Foody
• My Real Name is Hanna – Tara Lynn Masih
• Friction – Jeff Rosenblum and Jordan Berg
• The Kiss Quotient – Helen Hoang
• Echoes – Alice Reeds
• Strange the Dreamer – Laini Taylor

Blog Stats

• So in June I passed 1500 Twitter followers :-).  I gained 50 followers.
• I didn’t set up Google Analytics until halfway through the month, but I’ve seen an increase in blog traffic.
• Pinterest monthly views rose from about 2.3k views per month to 6k views per month.
• I finally figured out how to add my blog to Bloglovin’.

Writing

• I finally finished the first draft for Chapter 22 to Like Normal People (a Legend fanfic)!  I’ve had writer’s block on that thing for a couple of months now.  It needs quite a bit of work, but now that I have gotten past that little hurdle, I can finally finish the book.  The fact that I started this story in early 2016 with the intention of “throwing this thing together in an evening”, and it didn’t quite turn out that way, is why I’m no longer publishing any part of my WIPs on AO3 until at least the first draft is done.  I hate to make people wait while I have writer’s block.
• I started a new work in progress, Gamers, which is a Young Elites modern day AU.  I wrote 38 pages.  I have a glimmer of an idea of what I want to do with the story, but I don’t know everything at this point.
• The first draft of Saving Adelinetta (a Young Elites fanfic) is at 249 pages, and is now about 2/3 of the way done.
• The AO3 Writers group on Facebook is having a challenge for July called fandom roulette: they want me to write a gen fusion fanfic.  I wrote 21 pages on July 1st, and it’s going to be a Legend/Divergent fusion.  I’ve never written anything like this before.  I already know the end… the story is going to stay gen (no romantic relationships) until the last page, LOL.  Don’t know how long it’s going to be, but I have to finish it this month for the challenge.

Life

I took a leave of absence from work for the entire month of June, which is why I got so much done.  Unfortunately, the LOA was due to family issues which are still ongoing, but I had to go back to work.  One good thing about going back to work is that my job really only takes about half of my brainpower, so I can dream up scenes while I work.  Today I mused over the last scene in my Legend/Divergent fusion, and while I will probably tweak what was in my brain today when I finally get there, I really like how it’s going to end.

Not much else is going on… other than my car’s starter stopped wanting to start, and I have to take it in to get fixed tomorrow.