Hello! February is almost over, so it means it’s time for a monthly wrap-up! We have an extra day this month because it’s a leap year. If you’re reading this on the 29th, today is the ONLY day in four years you can order Brigadoon Breakfast tea at Adagio. I love Adagio teas and have waited almost 4 years to try it. I ordered 18 ounces of it, LOL. I don’t get any referral bonuses off that link, but I thought you might want to know about it if you like tea and want a once in four year opportunity. Anyway, let’s get started!
Books Read:
The last few months have been abysmal in getting books read. It’s so bad, I’m not even close to finishing my Winter TBR. I’m still on track for my Goodreads challenge, but I only read seven books last month.
- Lord of Shadows – Cassandra Clare (reread)
- Killing the SS – Bill O’Reilly
- Belle Révolte – Linsey Miller
- Queen of Air and Darkness – Cassandra Clare (reread)
- Chain of Gold – Cassandra Clare
- Broken Throne – Victoria Aveyard
- Sensational – Jodie Lynn Zdrock
But I suppose there’s more to a reading life than numbers. Queen of Air and Darkness is 880 pages long. The first time I read it, I read that, Lord of Shadows, Lady Midnight, and Clockwork Princess is 8 or 9 days and it was exhausting. I took a lot more time reading them this time around.
Blog Stats:
- Blog users have fallen but I haven’t been posting as much, so that’s not much of a surprise. Hopefully I’ll get more into the blogging and reading groove soon.
- Twitter has been up though, to 2172. Not sure where that is coming from.
Writing:
- I finished my fourth draft of The Brightness of Shadow. I entered into Author Mentor Match, but I know I won’t get picked, even though they won’t announce the mentees until March 3rd. That’s okay.
- I had two of my short stories chosen for publication! Twist in Time Magazine is doing an anthology called Thank You For Your Service, and my personal essay, “September 11th” was chosen for publication. It’ll be published on November 11th this year. I also was picked for the 42 Word Story Anthology. They’re picking a lot of authors for that one.
Life:
- My boy has been grounded from his phone and computer for most of the month, and he’s used it to read a lot. He read the entire Young Elites trilogy, which is good, because I’m taking him to see Marie Lu, Astrid Scholte, and Melissa de la Cruz on the 5th. He’s read 10 of Marie Lu’s books now, plus her short story in Slasher Girls & Monster Boys. He wanted a book recommendation yesterday and I suggested Four Dead Queens.
- Sandhya Menon’s book launch for Of Curses and Kisses went great! The evening was spectacular, until I was almost home. I almost died. It started snowing, my windshield wipers stopped working, I couldn’t see, and then when I tried to get off the freeway, my car spun around on the freeway twice. I was so scared, and I was praying hard in the car. I hope to turn that event into a short story which I hope to submit to Chicken Soup for the Soul. Fortunately, nobody got hurt, and the weather is supposed to be nice for the Penguin Teen Tour next week.
So that was my month! I really hope to step up my reading next month because there are so many books I want to read and they’re just not getting read! I hope you had an excellent February and have a wonderful March! And that we finally see a curtailment of this snow.