This month was so crazy! Good crazy though. I did so many new things I hadn’t before and made so many memories for years to come. Yes it had it stressful moments, but the majority was absolute bliss. Any time I’m surrounded by people who love and care about me it’s a slice of heaven for me.
What I did:
1.) I’m about three quarters of the way through editing Starbloods, so whoo hoo! I’ve also decided on what my NaNoWriMo novel is going to be this year and that is the project I’ve been holding off on which is my adult sci-fi novel Silhouette.
2.) I did so much stuff in my offline life. My goodness. First of all I spent Fourth of July with my family in Chattanooga.
Then the next day I went on my first business trip with my job to Alabama, a state I hadn’t been before. It was mostly work, but I got my own hotel room and I was fed well and I earned the last of the funds I needed for Realm Makers!
After a week of flailing to get all of my conference prep finished, Cassia visited me for about a week! We had so many amazing adventures going to a tea room, going down to central Georgia, tubing, exploring Rock City, hiking at Kennesaw Mountain, and eating lots of good food!
Cassidy visited for the weekend for Rock City and Kennesaw Mountain. It was a great time. We hadn’t all three been together in two years.
Overall I got to visit three states I’d never been to before: Alabama, California (Had a lay over in San Francisco), and Nevada. I met up with so many people I’d met online in person and I got to spend some great time with my best friends in the world.
3.) I really didn’t have much time for reading this month and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets still hasn’t become available to me so I finished reading Scarlet Moon.
4.) Believe it or not I actually did manage to get one drawing finished. *pants* This is of Elasa and her bloodbonded Icha from Starbloods!
5.) This month I wrote three pieces for Geekdom House: Not Afraid of Falling Up, Video Game Music for the Soundtrack Obsessed, and Worse Games to Play: Katniss’s Gratitude and Depression.
The Geeky Department:
1.) Again, I watched mostly anime this month. I watched Usagi Drop, A Silence Voice, and I’ve started One Punch Man. Out of those three, I enjoyed Usagi Drop the most.
2.) I played Avatar: The Last Airbender on my DS, which is a short game, but it was a neat side story to the Avatar universe.
3.) At Realm Makers, I donned my fem King Graham cosplay and even brought Cedric with me!
4.) I’ve made a little bit more progress on my new cosplay. I’ve bought more pieces for it and I should have time to actually get some significant progress done soon.
What I Learned:
1.) Elevation Makes You Out of Breath – So I live in the Atlanta area which is at about 1,000 feet above sea level. Over in Reno it’s 4,500 feet above sea level. I didn’t really know this until I started getting shortness of breath every once in a while for no good reason and looked it up. This is a good thing to keep in mind for your characters, because if you’re not used to it it is a bit of a shock to your body.
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| That white stuff is snow. |
2.) I Think I Actually Prefer Humidity Over Dry – So everyone over here in the southeast complains about the humidity (me included), because it’s like walking in soup, it makes your hair curl, and you sweat like heck. So when I went to Nevada to experience the legendary “dry heat” I expected to find some sort of relief. Well let’s just say at least humidity doesn’t make your fingers and nose bleed.
3.) Valleys Trap Heat – When I went up north to Rock City, I stayed the night with my aunt in Chattanooga Valley. I would have thought it would be cooler up north closer to the mountains, but the mountains actually trapped the heat in the valley so it was significantly hotter than my house.
4.) Germans Love Potatoes and Russians Love Sour Cream – During my travels, I ate a German restaurant and a Russian restaurant, two restaurants I’d never eat at before. I noticed in German cuisine everything was served with fried potatoes, boiled potatoes, or potato salad. Then on the Russian side most stuff was served with sour cream.
5.) Red Eyes Aren’t Fun and They Mess You Up for Days – So I took a red-eye flight home from Reno (cause it was cheap). I’m not sure if I want to do one of those again, because I was up most of the night and then I slept all day when I got home (10:30 am till 6pm). And I’m still messed up. XD
What I’m Going to Do:
1.) I’m going to finish my edits of Starbloods and then go over beta critique. Unfortunately, no agents put a priority on this one, but I still want this book finished and in my pocket. However, I may submit it to a smaller press that’s currently taking submissions.
2.) Offline life has nothing exciting in store that I know of. I’ll be working at my job and working on my cosplay. I want it finished for Anime Weekend Atlanta which is at the end of September, beginning of October.
3.) I’m hoping to finish Cress by Marissa Meyer and Black by Ted Dekker.
4.) I want to draw my last piece in my blood bonded series, then I want to start working on some drawings of my characters from Silhouette, because I don’t get to know my characters as well as I’d like until I draw them.
5.) I’m hoping to do a couple of pieces for Geekdom House at least.
Last Month on Wanderer’s Pen …
Comic Relief Characters 101
So Your Character is From South Korea … Featuring Lizzy @ The Bent Bookworm
The Dual Character Inquisition Tag
Villain Necrologies and Debacles: DreamWorks Animation Edition
Wanderer’s Pen Fifth Bloggoversary!
So Your Character is From Japan … Featuring Mami Suzuki
Beautiful People #26 ~ Author Writing Process Edition
Writing Lessons from Movies: Once Upon a Forest
So Your Character is From Taiwan … Featuring Astrid Kaniele
A Book Review of Defy the Stars by Claudia Gray
The Significance of Names in Stories
So Your Character Has a Broken Bone … Featuring Hannah England, Morgan Richert, and Christian Johnson
A Book Review of Scarlet Moon by S.D. Grimm
How to Prevent Writers Block and How I Cope with Lack of Motivation
Coming Soon to Wanderer’s Pen …
August 8 – So Your Character is From Italy … – Emmy from Little Black Sheep will be joining us to talk about her beautiful country! If you have a character from Italy, you don’t want to miss this.
August 11 – Beautiful People – I’m not sure what Cait and Sky have in store, but I definitely want to use this BP to flesh out my characters from Silhouette. So expect a little previous there.
August 12 – Sass versus Subtly: A Discussion about the Popularity of Snark – I’m going to be honest here. I’ve never really cared for the growing popularity of snarky/sassy/salty characters and in this post I’m going to discuss why. It will involve Throne of Glass, Star Trek, and Blood Blockade Battlefront.
August 15 – So Your Character is From Portugal … – Marta, Catia, and Joana will be coming on the blog to talk about their lovely country!
August 18 – Tag – I have a stockpile of tags right now. I’m going to use some for this post haha.
August 19 – Villain Necrologies and Debacles: Studio Ghibli Edition – Another edition in this ever-growing-popular series!
August 22 – So Your Character is From Uruguay… – Ruty will be coming on the blog to talk about what it’s like to live in this South American country!
August 25 – Tori’s Tips for Convention Preparation – Eventbrite has asked me to do a post about preparing for conventions, so I’m doing one for that. This is the third company that has contacted me about writing posts. This is kinda cool … I guess I’m doing something right on this blog. XD
August 26 – Writing Lessons from Movies: the Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl – I recently rewatched this film and I noticed a lot of cool writing posts and I thought this would be a good post to end the summer with.
August 29 – So Your Character is From Greece … – Lisa, Artemis, and Zizeloni will be coming on the blog to talk about what’s like to be Greek!
Overall, this was a pretty awesome month. It’s weird settling back into a normal routine after all of that happened, but I’ll never forget all of this and I’ll treasure these memories for years to come.