February in Review: Wow, That Went Better

I feel like I blinked and February is over. That's what happens when it's the shortest month of the year and I feel like I've done a lot. I also got sick, which was so freaking annoying, but it gave me a very good excuse to watch the Olympics. Also, people crabbing that the USA didn't win enough can go away. We got the gold in women's hockey after 20 years of losing to Canada. We got gold in men's curling for the first time ever. So what we didn't do that great in other categories? Part of that, like figure skating, is the fact that we need to up our program. Also, it would be great if the guys didn't fall so much but apparently I'm in the minority on that. Oh well.

Right, February review. Let's get back on track. Mystery of the Dark re-edits are done and it is out to readers! Readers who, at the moment, are enjoying it and put the idea in my head that Mark might be better as gay. To be honest, I've entertained that idea far too much in my head and it would be so easy to change Celestrina to Celestrino. That might be happening, which is great, and yeah. Book 1 is done until I get my reader's feedback so it's been put away.

Now, book 2 - Sleight of Hand - is still a bit clunky. I've got where I want to start, but the outline is still unfinished. I decided to start writing and see where I go with it. I know what I want to focus on, but this is the hart part of taking it out of my brain and putting it on paper. I need someone to get on the idea where you can just plug your brain in and it just spews out everything into a word document. That would make my life a whole lot easier.

Also, books! I finished World War Z which had a lot more realism than I expected it to. I expected it to be more zombie focus and less human focus, probably due to the movie, and it was the opposite. It was an excellent book and I have way too many parts highlighted but it was a ton better than the movie. I wish, instead of the movie, that we could have a TV series focused on the different parts of the book. Tell it in flashbacks or something, but yeah, it needed a better adaptation than it got. I also read, in a day, Dragonsinger because it's been a while since I read it. I can't remember where I left off in the Dragonriders of Pern series, but I'll probably figure it out soon enough. I do remember enough of the series so I won't be lost, so that's good too.

How did your February go? Feel free to leave it in the comments or hit me up on Twitter at CrescentLizzy. Until next time, happy writing!

January Review: Dropping Plates

Heeeyyy... so you know the thought about dropping plates in a metaphorical sense? It's when you have way too much to do, so you're balancing plates that have everything you need to get done in your life. One plate is family and another plate is writing and another plate is something completely else that is going on in your life. With dropping a plate, you're doing so in order to keep the other plates and your life in balance. It's kind of refreshing to realize that, depending on what plate you're dropping, it will not bring about the end of the world. Now, if you drop the family plate without good reason - toxic family relationship, people demanding too much of your time when you don't have enough to give - then there are big consequences. If you drop say, the writing plate, you are going to suffer because you're not writing and growing as a writer.

For me, the plates I dropped were this blog and my big reading list for January. I did read a book and started others but the book that I finished was 11/22/63 by Stephen King about going back in time to save Kennedy. It's one of the best, believable time travel stories that I have read in a long time and I forgot how much I love Stephen King's writing. I started Turtles All the Way Down but didn't really finish it. That's more my fault than the book - the start is excellent and grabs you - but I just dropped it for no good reason than I needed to. Devil in the White City is being pushed back and so on and so forth. So, yes, I completely dropped my reading plate. However, I am picking it back up in February and allowing myself one fiction and one nonfiction book that I am reading on my own. I am now part of a very loose book club and I will allow myself a third book as the book club choice. However, we might also go with a read your own book and talk about it thing so that would be helpful too. So, in dropping the plate of reading, it helped me realize that I tried to do too much. Scaling it back to one dedicated book of fiction and nonfiction will help. Now, might I read more? Yep. However, we're going to stay with the baseline.

The other plate I dropped was this blog. I apologize to people who are here reading and were wondering where the heck I went. I am always on Twitter as CrescentLizzy so please, feel free to go follow me. I am a lot more political on there, so you have been warned, but I'm not ashamed of it. Sorry not sorry as people say now. However, the reason I dropped the blog is two fold. One is that I just had a mental breakdown the second week of January. I was getting nothing done, it felt like everything was sufficating me, and I just felt there was no way out. Thankfully, I have a very understanding friend who got it and showed me the way to get out of the funk. Basically, it's a list everyday in my Erin Condren planner of what needs to get done no matter what during the day. Every day I write down dishes as the last thing to check off because I always need to do dishes. I've taken up yoga which has been so helpful with the mental health and that goes at the top of the checklist. Making order out of my life has helped a lot with getting things done.

The second reason, that I am extremely happy to annouce, is that I finished getting the edits in for the third chunk of Mystery of the Dark. As of this writing, it has been sent back to my editor who is going to rain down rainbows and puppies on me for fixing a lot of the things. Ok, maybe not rainbows and puppies, but I feel a ton better just getting that out of the way. The problem now is that I need to go and fix the series to redo some subplots. Like the entire romance subplot between Kate and Justinian that is now on the official slow burn train. It works so much better for them, so I'm happy it got pointed out and I went that way. However, it now means that I have to figure out when their official first kiss is and so on. Also, I have a better understanding of where to go with book two because I was kind of floundering with writing it. It was a minor clusterbomb and it's going to be better now. So, yeah, the blog plate got dropped due to mental health and editing.

I'm looking at my January goals and laughing at getting the third chunk done by the 15th. That didn't happen but it did get done. Ditto to the second book being completely written and so on. For next month, we're going to have overall goals for the month and, if things get done before the 28th, then that's great. If they get done on the 28th, that's great too. The thing is that shit is getting done and, for me, that's an awesome goal to hit.

How did your January go? Leave a comment or hit me up on Twitter and I'll see you next time.