January is on its last legs, so it’s time for a wrap-up of the month to see what happened.
Books Read:
My reading this month absolutely rocked! I read ten novels and one short story. Some of these books were on the shorter side, so I guess that helped.
- The Gilded Wolves – Roshani Chokshi
- Empire of Stormes – Sarah J. Maas
- The Wicked King – Holly Black
- “The Midnight Heir” – Cassandra Clare (short story)
- The Unbroken Hearts Club – Brooke Carter
- Spectacle – Jodie Lynn Zdrock
- The Light Between Worlds – Laura E. Weymouth
- Twisted Roots – Shelly Goodman Wright
- Pennies – Pepper Winters
- Dollars – Pepper Winters
- The Last Year of the War – Susan Meissner
Blog Stats:
- I went over 1900 Twitter followers this month. 1500 was a milestone for me, and 2000 will be another one of those milestones I’m looking forward to.
- Blog traffic seems to remain steady. I’m trying to visit more blogs, but it’s difficult when so many things are trying to get out attention.
Writing:
- This is one area I’m super excited about. I finished the first draft of The Brightness of Shadow! I’ve been going through edits and the second draft is looking so much better. I’m not one of those writers that loathes their work in the early drafts, but there’s a lot I’m doing in this 2nd draft. I’m looking forward to getting feedback from beta readers and my critique partner… they get to see the 2nd draft, not the first.
- I started Shadow’s Queen. I’m not officially working on it or anything, but if your characters are telling you to do something, you listen. I have about 2000 words on this one.
- I’ve done some editing on Hero, but not too much. My efforts have been focused more on The Brightness of Shadow.
- My boy and I have started doing the #AtticNotebook together. It’s something that Laini Taylor started where you get a prompt (or not) and you write for 15 minutes in a notebook. Once the notebook is done, you put it aside for at least a month before looking at it again. I’m amazed at how many ideas are coming to me. Some days I have more interesting things to write than others.
Life:
- I had to go to court for October’s car accident. I guess in Colorado they try to contact the other party when there’s an accident, and they couldn’t contact them, so I get to go back to court in March. My dh and I are absolutely convinced that the other party was speeding (on a dark and snowy night) and when I go back I will be bringing up those points to hopefully mitigate the fine.
- My dd is back in the hospital, maybe for a month or more. We’re praying she gets better. She had to drop out of school last semester, but when she gets out I think we’ll get her into a flexible online school that hopefully won’t cause too much anxiety. When you miss a lot of school it’s really hard!
- I’ll be back to teaching Spanish next week, but I’ll take next year off. We’re going to Hawaii for two weeks in the middle of the school year and I don’t really want to deprive the kids of two weeks of teaching. It’ll give me more time to advance my writing too. My friend Shelly Wright (I read her book this month) is taking a semester off teaching writing this fall to work on her books too.