Monthly Recap: June 2017

Life in General

School has been a bit busier with mid-year exams coming up. I've also been working on my mid-year English Writing folio.

I took a study at my youth group  a week ago which I felt pretty happy about, too. 

Writing 

This month I had planned on writing between 5-7000 words more on my Lisa De Haven Project  but instead decided to do some more plotting. I think a bit more plotting will help my story get out better.

A new story idea came and I plotted one scene for it. As well as making a prologue that went into my English writing folio.

My writer's Facebook page reached 10 likes. Most family and friends. Although I haven't invited a lot of people to like it yet. It's a bit of a nervous experience.

I won a short short story competition that my Writer's Club at school ran. The basic instructions we were given was to base it off this picture and that it had to be a short short story. There wasn't a specific word count mentioned. The prize was Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, The movie.

In July I plan plot more on my Lisa De haven Project so that when I start writing again that it will be able to be more fully written with not so much breaks in-between.

Books

This month I read The Coronation by Olivia REST OF NAME. It's currently available for pre-order on kindle.

Current Read/s

I'm still slowly making my way through This Changes Everything: Subtitle by Jaquelle Crowe. It definitely a great read and has much in it.

On Jumbled Thoughts

I'm back: With updates
That Word: Twilit
I fell in love with stories
That Word: Zarf
That Word: Kemp

What's coming in July

There's one more That Word post coming in June before July even begins.

Scripture

That Word

Story Post

That Word

July 13th: Something special

That Word

Writing Post: Beautiful People or the Writer's Tag

That Word 

Monthly Recap.

How was your June? What did you do?

Monthly Recap: February

Welcome to my February Recap. Here I relay to you what has been going on in my life this month. 

In My Life 

School

I started grade 12 this month. It was more exciting than nerve wracking. I've been all of my classes so far but I have to say English Writing is my favourite by far. My teacher makes sure it's more of a relaxed atmosphere. Our first assignment we have to do about life but for the rest of the year we can negotiate. I'm really excited for it. 

My Writing 

I feel that I have begun writing with more consistency lately and I have been more excited and motivated constantly. I am so happy for this. Procrastination is step behind. I haven't written as much as planned for the story this month. Only a few scenes here and there, but what I have done is a lot plotting. My goal for next month will be to write 20,000 words and with a plot I hope that I can achieve that. What I can say is I am feeling confident about this story at the moment and that makes me really happy.

What I've Read

My aim each month is to read at least four books which would mean about 1 book a week. This month I pretty much started with three. Once school started plus some procrastination my reading time went downhill. Still I am ahead of my goal this year by far. I am currently 7 books ahead of schedule.

1. Scarlet (Lunar Chronicles #2) by Marissa Meyer 
2. Thor: Season One
3. The Raven Boys (The Raven Cycle) by Maggie Stiefvater
4. Bracelet of Bones by Kevin Crossley-Holland 

What I Plan to Read 

1. Dragonborn by Toby Forward Almost Finished
2. Do Hard Things by Alex and Brett Harris Half-way Through
3. Cress (Lunar Chronicles #3)
4. Eve by Wm Paul Young

What I've Watched

I've been watching each RWBY volume 4 episode as they come out. The feels I feel. It a pretty awesome show with fairy tale links amongst it all.

My family and I finished watching SG1. It was sad to see it end. We've started watching Knight Rider. It is really interesting.

On The Blog

That Word: Fulcrum
That Word: Querulous
That Word: Expedite
Writing Desire Part 1

Well, I definitely wasn't as consistent this month in blogging. My bookstagram account was almost non-existent with posts this month too. Hopefully March will be a new month in that aspect.

Around the Blogosphere 

• How Movie Trailers Can Help You Write Back Cover Copies by Victoria Grace Howell @ Wanderer's Pen
• Are you Reading Enough by Nadine Brandes

What's your month been like? What books have you read? What's been exciting? Feel free to comment and tell me your thoughts.

Monthly Recap: January

Welcome to the first monthly Recap where I recap the month on the blog and tell you a little bit about her my life has been going.


This month I decided to go all planning crazy. I have done many That Word posts in advance and have decided on posts to do for the next few months. Although, that of course is liable for change. Along with blogging plans I've also been outlining and fleshing out one of my stories that has been brewing since 2013. I've started writing it and hope it will be finished by the end of the year.

This month has been full of holidays, but also one of my cousins got married. That was exciting.

I've been able to be mostly consistent on my bookstagram account which has made me proud. I hope to continue the consistency this month too.

I also started a bullet journal this month. It doesn't look altogether exciting yet, but it has been an excellent excuse to use my pretty gel pens. I hope to pretty it up more as I go along.

February Goals 

1. Reach 10,000 for current WIP
2. Read at least four books
3. finish writing character profiles
4. write two blog posts a week (That Word and one other)
5. Back Fear Away. In other words write like crazy. 

Books I plan to read

1. Scarlet (Lunar Chronicles #2) by Marissa Meyer
2. Read Bracelet of Bones
3. Do Hard Things by Alex and Brett Harris
4. Dragonborn by Toby Forward

Book I Read

The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater Reviewed 

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green Reviewed

Page by Tamora Pierce.
Dragon's Treasure by Maya Starling
Blue Lily Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater

Currently Reading

1. Scarlet by Marissa Meyer
2. Do Hard Things by Alex and Brett Harris 

What I've Watched

My family and I have been watching SG1 for awhile now. We're just started season 9. We actually watched Stargate Atlantas before this one and now I feel like watching it again. Hopefully we do after we finish this one. Mum and I have also been working through a bit of Chasing Life. I didn't see most of Season 1, but have seen most of season 2. It's an alright show. And sad. Heart breakingly (also this is not a word, apparently) sad.

On my own I've started watching Merlin. I love it and Merlin is such a loveable guy. I've also started re-watching Dragon Booster, a show from my childhood that I love.

On Jumbled Thoughts

• That Word: Inception I restarted my That Word segment for the year.
• A New Year Where I introduced you to my goals for this year and some fun facts. 
• When Dreaming Gets Complicated: A Book Review
• That Word: Flavescent
• That Word Standoffish 
• That Word: Cosset 

I've been posting consistently this month with regular That Word's but for February I hope to post more regular weekend posts as well. 

How was your January? Did you get lots done? What are your plans for February? 

September Recap

It 's once again time for my monthly recap. The year's almost going by too quickly.

In My Life

My Writing

Well lately I have been doing a lot of planning for a story that began to come to me while I was in the middle of writing my Camp Nanowrimo novel. I am really liking it so far and am trying to develop the world a bit as well as work on government which I have a vague idea on. I have started doing a bit of plotting for this novel which is something I have tried to do but not really succeeded at it before. I think I'm doing okay with it at the moment. I think there is a possibility that I will be working on this during Nanowrimo in November but that all depends on how school is going because I'm pretty sure I have exams around then.

I also took the plunge and purchased Scrivener. It's the first program I've really fallen in love with for writing a novel and has already helped me so much in planning. I've also officially starting writing my novel in it and loving the program. I've found She's Novel Scrivener mini-series really helpful in learning about it too.

School

My school ball happened it was only okay, I still went but sadly was coming down with a cold so didn't enjoy it as much. Scary thing with school is that in November I have exams for the first time ever. 

What I've Read

1. I reread Anne of Avonlea by L.M Montgomery and am really enjoying reading the series. Though I am slightly confused because on goodreads it says Anne of the Island comes next but inside the cover it lists Chronicles of Avonlea next. Some people at school have seen me reading it and have expressed the love for the series too. It exciting meeting people who love the books I do. 

2.  A Time to Die by Nadine Brandes and reviewed this month too.

3. I read The Plot to Save Socrates by Paul Levinson. I quite enjoyed it too but did find it a bit heavy, I guess. There was so much in it and it was put together so intricately. Overall it was a good read though because it made me think.

3. Everything is Fine (and Other Lies I Tell Myself) by Cathy Brett.

I also met my goodreads goal of reading thirty books this year. I was quite proud of myself because this is the first year I have regularly tracked my reading progress. I would like to be able to read more than I do but school and other things sometimes have to be a priority.

What I Plan to Read

So far I have three books I plan to devour this month. While I can. I have one week of holidays left which means time to read but after that it's the last fiveish weeks of the school year before exams! So I don't expect to get much reading in but you can expect me to still use my bus time for reading. 

 

Anyway the first book I plan to read are We Bought A Zoo by Benjamin Mee. I've watched the movie a few times and think it is a good family movie and after watching it recently again with my family I decided it was about time I read the book. So it was impulsively put on hold at the library. I'm hoping to get this one finished in the holidays. Hopefully. 

Number two is The Candlestone (Dragons in Our Midst book 2) by Bryan Davis. This is still a favourite series of mine and I've decided to reread it earlier this year, but it's been going slow because of school and other books that I've been placing on hold at the library. I think for my Christmas holidays I will probably binge read these as much as I can. 

The last one I have on the list (that I have limited myself to) is The Skin Map by Stephan R Lawhead.  It's one I bought with a gift card at my local Chrsitan bookstore a while back. I was planning to read it sooner but I wanted to have a bit of a break after reading  

My Blog

So my last monthly recap got recommended by two people on google plus. At first I didn't understand what the plus 2 meant but it was awesome to see once I figured it out. I feel like a newbie at this sometimes probably cause I am one.

Naming Characters

Crown of Midnight: Up Up UP

That Word Ethos

Beautiful People September Edition

A Time to Die Book Review

That Word Disparage

Around the Blogosphere

Here are some blog posts I found after my last monthly Recap. 

• Kristen A Kieffer @ her author website wrote a post titled Let's Talk Criticism of the Fantasy Genre. This post spoke about something that I have considered myself lately. If you write fantasy I think this post is definitely worth checking out. 
• Relax -- blogging doesn't need to be stressful a post by Katie Grace @A Writer's Faith that I really related with.
• Go Teen Writer's post on What Make Fantasy Epic that I totally agree with. 

How has your September been? Can you believe it is already October? Did you get done all you wanted? What books top your list for this month?