Monthly Coffee Talk & Mini Reviews: September 2018

All right, everyone grab their pumpkin spice lattes and let’s talk about September!

First of all, I want to let everyone know that what they have to say always matters. People care. Remember that your words are valuable.

Given everything that’s going on right now, I wanted to throw that out there. My goal in life is to radiate positivity and happiness and love, and ignoring the news makes it hard to spread the good vibes to people who need the good vibes the most. I know nothing is that simple, but I just wanted to remind everyone that their words and stories are important.

You know what always makes me really happy? Talking about books and writing. Let’s roll.

WHAT I’M LIVING AND LOVING

(I just realized how cheesy of a sub-title “What I’m Living and Loving” is but I’m going to roll with it because I love cheese.)

September was basically me trying to get back into the routine of school. I’m a really routine driven person, so going back to school after four months at home during summer break meant I had to readjust a lot of my routine. Every day in college is different (between my class and work schedule) so I had to get the weekly momentum going here.

That being said, I think I’m comfortable with my routine now! I’ve still been waking up early to write. I would love to join the 5 a.m. writer’s club (#5amwritersclub) but on a good day I’m usually up by 6. I have a hard time getting into bed early enough to wake up before 6. But I wrote a total of 37 hours in September, which I’m proud of.

Here’s what else I was up to:

• I’m considering getting into the #writersofinstagram/#bookstagram game — I do have a personal Instagram, but I’m thinking about building my author platform on Instagram instead of Twitter. There’s just a lot of negativity on Twitter. Like I said, people’s opinions and stories and voices matter, but I think I want to build a space that’s a little more welcoming? I don’t necessarily want people I know finding it (ugh, I know I stink) so that’s kind of holding me back right now
  Hogwarts is back in session! — September 1 is the first day of Hogwarts classes, and I was at home that weekend. I watched a lot of movies and picked the books back up again. I also found out I’m a Hufflepuff, which is really cool! I always thought I was in Ravenclaw, but Hufflepuff is a much better fit.
• Labor Day — Okay, nothing wild happened over Labor Day but I felt the need to throw it in there BECAUSE I CAN’T BELIEVE Labor Day HAPPENED THIS MONTH? That feels like YEARS ago.
• First day of fall — YES! Not technically an accomplishment in my personal life, but whatever. I like PSL and I’m not afraid to admit it.
• I went camping — I went camping, and it actually rained the entire weekend. That’s not even hyperbole. There were 3 hours of dryness. So obviously we decided to pack up early and go home.
• I stressed myself out to the point of giving myself a stomach ache, but then I read and felt better — Right! A much needed reminder that self care is really important. Also, the world isn’t going to end if I take a break from homework. I spend a lot of my time trying to get ahead so I won’t get stressed out by last minute things. Instead, I just end up stressing myself out even more.
• I’m feeling 22! — Okay, so not yet. My birthday is on Sunday (September 30) so I’m not yet 22, but I’m feeling like it. And it makes me feel old for some reason? I get freaked out when I think about time: I’m never going to get younger. I will never be 21 again. I maybe want to do a post about 22 things I’ve learned about storytelling/being creative in 22 years. Does that sound interesting?

WHAT I’M WRITING

I originally wanted to finish the second draft of my contemporary fantasy WIP by the end of December (it was my 2018 goal to have it ready to query and snag an agent before I graduate in May 2019) BUT—

An idea I had one day while driving home from my summer internship has not left me alone since.

Me: okay, okay, I can’t stop thinking about it so it won’t hurt to do an aesthetic board
Also me: don’t do it don’t you dare make that board we are focused on revisions remember? REVISIONS!
Also also me: *makes board*

Yeah. The idea blossomed into a full fledged story until I couldn’t ignore it and I made an aesthetic board so. . .

I plan on doing NaNo! I don’t know, November is just such a good month to curl up with coffee and write.

And hear me out! This is not me procrastinating revisions. This is me deciding to finish revisions by the end of October so I can pass my novel off to alpha/beta readers during November.

When I come back to revisions after NaNo, I’ll have fresh eyes.

AND ALSO A FINISHED FIRST DRAFT OF A STORY I’M EXCITED ABOUT!

Right.

Deciding to finish revisions by the end of October meant that I needed to pick up my pace a bit. (I did the math, I have to write 18% faster to finish in time for NaNo) It turns out that using NaNo as a motivator to finish has actually made me revise faster and harder. Which is totally awesome that my reward for writing is more writing. (It means I’m passionate about writing, which makes me so happy to know!)

I spent this month letting the idea grow in my mind, and I’ll spend October finishing up my current WIP and outlining for NaNo!

Lots of exciting things! Lots of excuses to drink more coffee! Lots of exclamation points!

WHAT I’M READING

The beginning of this month was pretty good for reading. As the month went on, though, I didn’t do the best of prioritizing my health and happiness first.

Which means in October, I plan on taking more breaks and reading more books. (Yay!)

   

HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER’S STONE by J.K. Rowling

What I liked:

• Everything. (All right, a bit of a cheap answer, but I have nothing to say that hasn’t been said before!)

What I didn’t:

• Nothing.

HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS by J.K. Rowling

What I liked:

• Everything. (Yup, you know the drill)

What I didn’t:

• Nothing.

STARFISH by Akemi Dawn Bowman

What I liked:

• I cried! Which is weird that I think a book is good when it makes me sad?
• This gave me all the feels — happy ones, too
• The characters were so vivid
• The ending was beautiful

What I didn’t:

• The plot wasn’t super compelling? But I was totally in this one for the characters

THIS MORTAL COIL by Emily Suvada

What I liked:

• Emily Suvada has mastered the art of ending chapters on cliffhangers.
• The plot was unique!
• Definitely a strong debut

What I didn’t:

• I was just “eh” about the characters
• Things get pretty wild toward the end? Like a bad kind of wild “wait what?” wild
• It also maybe got a little too scientific for me, so I was stuck relying on character explanations of why I should care/what the stakes were/all that jazz.
• This book was good! I don’t think I’ll really be recommending it to anyone, though, because there are still so many other great books I’d rather read and recommend.

WHAT I’M BLOGGING

I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t been very attentive to blogging this month. I cut back to posts only on Fridays, and I’ve actually seen a pretty big change in stats because of that. And while stats aren’t everything, this blog is for me to build my author platform and share my passion for stories with other storytellers. It’s kind of discouraging to see low stats, but — so it goes.

I might bring back writing two posts per week. I’m thinking about getting in the book blogger meme game (Top Ten Tuesday) or just using Tuesdays to post fun listicle-style articles about books and writing Tuesdays and more serious posts Fridays.

That being said, I do have a plan for writing posts in October: I plan on blogging about NaNo prep!

Then in November, I want to keep the motivation and inspiration high by spreading around some pep talk blog posts.

Stay tuned!

And in case you missed it, this is what I wrote about this month:

• I Just Read My New Favorite Book: Summer Reads, Part 2
• How to Be Creative as a Student When You Feel Stressed
• Unique Blogger Tag: Harry Potter and My Favorite Childhood Books
• How to Turn Your Dreams into a Motivating (and Cute!) Vision Board

 

How was your September? Are you on Instagram? Should I be on Instagram? Are you ready for fall or do you need more summer?