Milestones Reached: The Midgewater Marshes, Weathertop
“Not far ahead were dreary hills, rising higher and higher, dark with trees. On some of them were old castles with an evil look, as if they had been built by wicked people.”
~The Hobbit, Chapter 2: Roast Mutton
Hey guys! I got bogged down in the Midgewater Marshes this month. I actually missed the Weathertop mark by 0.8 of a mile, but I’m counting it, because I’m sure I can see it from here…
I’m coming up on a long stretch of lonely land (125 miles!), which is probably gonna take me two months to get through, if previous months are any indication. Better get started!
Whoops, I’m a day late! Sorry, guys. Let’s start with the old favorites!
Tumblr
I have posted/reblogged so many cool things on Tumblr in the past (almost) two months, it’s hard to choose! I’ll try to keep my faves down to the minimum ;P
That’s right, I’ve started using Pinterest again! Because that’s definitely what I needed, a new social media site to keep up with ;P
Featured Board: I’ve decided to feature one of my boards each month (because, why not, mostly ;P). This month’s board is my inspiration for my Loki fanfiction, Clarity, which I am editing this month for Camp NaNo.
Favorite Pins: I think you all know what this means… ;P
Just For Fun
Last, but not least, I’ve gotten some really great asks my tumblr from my friend Sarah, and they’re really long, but I find them entertaining and apparently some other people have too, so I’m going to share them here 🙂 Enjoy!
I have fallen so far behind on this, you guys. I’m gonna have to read some of the comics I have on my list to catch up… But for now, this is what I’ve got.
Here’s the link to my star rating breakdown if anyone needs a refresher. It’s also up in the header 🙂
I have watched nothing of note. Seriously. So far behind at life. Next month!
Now I’d like to take a moment to introduce something new to the Book-Hugger blog post. Every month, I will pick one of my recently read books and highlight it in this new segment, called…
I came to The Princess Bride later in my life than most people my age. I didn’t see it as a kid (though I don’t really know why, it seems like something that would have been right up my family’s alley), I actually didn’t see it until I was in my twenties and someone looked me right in the eye and said, “You haven’t seen The Princess Bride, are you kidding me?” I love the movie dearly now, and when this book was picked as a book club read, I was excited to dive into it, mostly because of all the good things I had heard about the audio version. But I knew that the narrative would probably not hold the same amount of nostalgia, and therefore emotional impact, for me as it had for many others. I went into this book with that expectation.
I was wrong.
I was tearing up within the first few moments of Cary’s lovely recollections about the 25th Anniversary. He speaks about his experiences with such a sense of awe and wonderment, not just at the lasting endurance of the movie that he and so many others loved and worked so hard on, but just at the sheer joy of creating and sharing with others. He is at once humble and proud, in an endearing and captivating way, that spoke to me as a creative person as well as just a human being in general. His inclusion of so many interviews (often read on the audio by the contributors themselves) added another layer of excitement and insight that made it all the more fun to read.
I feel like I could just go on and on, but really, the only criticism I could possibly give is that the book was too short, mostly because I think I could just sit and listen to Cary read to me for hours, and not feel like a single moment had been wasted. Definitely worth your time if you have any love for The Princess Bride 🙂
And that’s it, guys! Not much new to report, and next month will probably be even more sparse what with Camp NaNoWriMo going on in April, but I am trying to catch up! Comics to the rescue! ;P Until next time…
So, I posted WAY more chapters in March than I had planned, which is AWESOME! I’m still not finished with the first draft of this story, but I feel like it will probably come to me as I go, and I still have at least 30 chapters to post before I really need to start worrying about it too much. I’m just really excited to get this all out there and ACTUALLY be done with Mel and Boromir’s tale 🙂
I’m gonna be honest, this came completely out of left field. I wrote the first 50,000 words of this by accident in July 2014, but I just had too many other projects going at the time to even consider posting it. I still have too many stories running at the same time (I’ll be posting THREE simultaneously, come June…), but I happened to read a really great Hobbit fanfiction (Stirring The Leaves, recommended to me by my friend, Sarah!) and it made me realize that my story deserves to be read. So here I am, with yet another story I’m posting even though the first draft isn’t quite finished. But I feel like I have enough of the framework figured out to get a start on it, at any rate. It’s just for fun right now, so we’ll see where it goes 🙂
What’s Coming Up in April
I finished all my editing prep work for Clarity, my newest Marvel fanfiction set during the year of Loki’s imprisonment preceding (and including) the events of Thor: The Dark World.
From my Camp NaNo Synopsis:
Clarity (A Loki Fanfiction)
Loki (the traitor, the usurper, former prince of Asgard) is imprisoned below the palace that was once his home, cut off from even his mother, possibly the only person in the whole of the Nine Realms who still cares for him. But Lady Frigga has always been a clever woman. And there is a girl in her service, a girl with no past and an unusual quality that makes her uniquely suited to the task the Queen has in mind. Klara might not know who she is, but in the dungeons of Asgard, she might learn who she wants to be.
Despite that terrible blurb, I’m really, really excited about this project, and so far it’s been a joy to edit! I’ve been adding and cutting and rearranging like a crazy person and it’s been a lot of fun! I’m really hoping to have everything done and ready to go by the end of the month, then it will rest for a couple of weeks before I start posting in June.
Speaking of long-term goals, it’s time to introduce our newest segment!
The Quarterly Round-Up!
So, at the beginning of the year, I set out some yearly goals and some quarterly goals, and vowed to reevaluate and re-prioritize every three months. Three months have come and gone and it’s time to keep my word! Let’s start with a reminder/recap of my goals for the year:
Overall goals for the year:Finish Changing History rewritesDONE!, Finish first draft of Changing History: Entwives, Write the Worth Living For short that I’ve been planning for ages, Edit and begin posting Clarity, Finish the first draft of all three parts of Wonderland Reclaimed.
Reward Project: If I finish Wonderland Reclaimed, I can write my Avengers: Age of Ultron fic for NaNoWriMo in November.
Now, let’s break it down by month!
January:First month of NaNoWriMo’s “Now What?” months, focusing on revising and editing. My goals are to finish editing and posting Changing History: Second Chances, and to finish the first draft of Entwives.
I didn’t finish my rewrite in January, which set everything for the year back a bit. I also didn’t finish my Entwives (now Calenhiril’s Search) first draft, but that didn’t set me back as much as I feared it might.
Unexpectedly, I started work on my new Star Wars collaboration, Resolving of Gray, with Sarah this month! We’re still working on it, but it’s slowed down a bit now, with both of us working on other projects at the moment.
February: Second month of NaNoWriMo’s “Now What?” months. I’ll be setting aside Changing History this month and shifting my focus onto my intense editing of Clarity (Loki fic). I will also add new words to the rewriting of Part One of Wonderland Reclaimed.
Because of the setbacks in January, February had to be completely rethought. I made the decision to move the editing of Clarity to April for my Camp NaNoWriMo project, and shifted my focus from new words to editing and finishing of Changing History. I also made the decision to add a new villain to Wonderland Reclaimed, which means that when I do finally sit down to finish it, it’s gonna be a lot more work than I had anticipated…
I finished the Changing History: Second Chances rewrites this month! It was glorious! There were gifs!
March:Prep Month for Camp NaNo #1. Prepare to edit Entwives, write out an outline of what I have so far and make note of any plot holes that need filling. I’ll also continue to add words to Wonderland Part One.
So, by the time March got here, everything was all outta whack. I did start posting the fourth and final part of Entwives (now Calenhiril’s Search)(see above), but I didn’t work on Wonderland at all. I did finish all my prep work to edit Clarity for April Camp NaNo, though.
Began posting Double The Baggins, Twice The Took on a whim (6 chapters posted)
So, despite a slow start to the year, I did actually manage to accomplish quite a bit in this first quarter, even if not all of it was in the original plan (the best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men, amirite? ;P). I’ve decided to put less emphasis on new words this next quarter, and more emphasis on getting these projects finished, be that writing, editing, or posting. On the flip side of that, I just found out that Alice Through The Looking Glass is being released on May 27th, and since my original novel is an Alice In Wonderland retelling, I would like to get that finished sooner rather than later, in order to capitalize on any resurgence in that genre that might result from the movie (which looks AMAZING, by the way, check out the trailer!).
As much as I’m enjoying editing my Loki fanfiction, in light of this news, I kind of wish I had set it aside and worked on Wonderland this month. Since that’s no longer an option (I’ve COMMITTED, dang it! ;P), I’m going to try (try!) to work on finishing the first draft in May, instead. With that in mind, here’s a break down of my goals for the second quarter!
April: Camp NaNoWriMo #1! Edit Clarity (A Loki Fanfiction).
May: Continue to post at least one chapter of Calenhiril’s Search and DBTT a week. Finish the first draft of Wonderland Reclaimed, or add 50,000 new words (whichever comes first).
June: Prep month for Camp NaNoWriMo #2! Depending on how May goes, either prep for editing Wonderland Reclaimed, or prep for a finishing WriMo (50K words on Wonderland/Calenhiril’s Search/DBTT). Begin posting schedule for Clarity (M/W/F).
I’m going to be honest, this next quarter looks super intimidating. It’s a lot of work. And I’m going to make a side-goal this quarter of making time for my original fiction, even if that means setting aside a fanfiction project I’m enjoying. I can always come back to it once I’m done 🙂
And that’s it! We’ll see what happens! If you’re doing Camp NaNoWriMo this month, break a leg, and I’ll see you all on the other side!
FogIsBeautiful 