Month: February 2018

February has been a hard month and a good month. It was kind of my January, actually. I got a lot of work done in January, but it didn’t feel like I had quite gone back to normal life yet. I feel like I finally hit my stride in February. Anyway, here’s the roundup.

In My Life

I trudged through snow, splashed through puddles, made my first latte art, watched Black Panther, baked Maori bread and Hungarian chimney cakes, read books, had lovely coffee shop conversations with friends, followed the Olympics, won an ARC, chatted with my editor, played Dvorak, went to Orchestra Hall for a concert, belted Broadway songs in a hayloft (where my co-workers couldn’t hear), pulled multiple twelve hour work days, cuddled under blankets on cold mornings, shared cocoa and an early morning with a little brother, celebrated sibling birthdays, kicked off the NASCAR season with pizza, ate tons of Chinese food for the New Year.

Books:

Read: The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner, Fifty Reasons Jesus Came to Die by John Piper, Prisoner B-3087 by Alan Gratz, and A Gathering Tempest by Catherine Jones Payne.

Book Haul:

Breakwater by Catherine Jones Payne

Reclaiming Shilo Snow ARC by Mary Weber (Am I excited? Yes I am.)

Ten Thousand Thorns by Suzannah Rowntree

Writing:

For those who haven’t seen my social media posts, I got my manuscript back from my editor and so most of my writing, okay, actually all of my writing this month has been editing Crowning Heaven. It’s currently at that hard and thankless stage, but I’m confident that it’s at the best it’s ever been and I cannot wait to share it with all of you!

 

What I’ve Been Listening To:

Black Panther soundtrack: Make sure you find the score, not the rap songs written for it. I particularly recommend A King’s Sunset and Wakanda.

Homecoming by Thomas Bergersen. Because this music is Crowning Heaven.

Justice from Murder on the Orient Express. All of Patrick Doyle’s score is incredible, but this track is genius.

Anticipating:

Book releases!!

Mary Weber is releasing her sequel to The Evaporation of Sofi Snow (Reclaiming Shilo Snow) on March 6^th, and I had the privilege of winning one of her ARCs. Which is good news because I raced through her first book and it left me on a cliff hanger.

Also, Catherine Jones Payne is releasing her sequel to Breakwater (Crosscurrent) on the same day! Talk about one good day!

Crowning Heaven Announcements

March will be the month where some big announcements roll out. Can’t say more than that yet, but I am excited for the coming weeks!

Spring!

In the north you can’t really count on spring until sometime in May, but March is always where winter turns the corner and you get sun again and some gentler temperatures. I am so ready!

I don’t know about you, but sometimes it takes a little time post-Christmas to let life shake out before I can set goals that I know I can handle. I often have to recover from Christmas anyway. It’s hard to see what direction the year is actually going when you are staying up way too late and watching movies with out-of-town family, am I right? So here are my big goals for this year.

It’s going to be good.

 

Publish my debut novel:

Barring a calamity, Crowning Heaven, my YA portal fantasy will publish this spring. Watch this space! There will be exciting announcements forthcoming, street team opportunities, and some new things coming to The Herosinger.

Read more books by authors I know

The wonderful thing about making friends in the writing community is that you get to share in their writing and publishing journey. Even though I am in a penny pinching stage of life, my goal is to find ways to get my hands on as many of my friends’ books as I can.

Keep a writer’s journal

My sister gifted me with a beautiful journal this Christmas and last month I started to chronicle my daily successes, failures, and the odd things that happen to inspire (or stall) my writing. The goal is simply to be consistent with it.

Cultivate a beautiful bookshelf

My room is getting an overhaul which means there is now a beautiful white bookshelf I can use for photos. I will readily admit I haven’t time or an eye for anything dramatic, but I would love to start collecting my favorites and my friends’ published works and display them. #shelfies anyone?

Join a book group

I would love to get more involved in the reading side of my writing community, and Mary Weber just started a book group on Facebook which I am joining. Now to just get my hands on the book….

Go on a writing retreat

A couple of my good writing friends and I have talked before about going on a writer’s retreat together, and I feel like this could be the year. I love the idea of getting so much writing done and having fun at the same time!

Meet more writing friends

I am hoping to go to a writer’s conference or two this year and if it works out, I am going to finally meet some of my long-time writing friends! I can’t wait to be able to chat face-to-face over coffee or have long discussions with you all!

 

Your turn: do you have any big or book-related goals this year?