Blogging, life

A Hobbit’s Walking Tale- August 2016

A Hobbit’s Walking Tale (Twitter tags: #AHobbitsWalkingTale #byfogisbeautiful)

  • Miles Walked This Month (July 26th-August 30th):  83.7 miles
  • Total Miles Walked:  473.8 miles
  • Milestones Reached: Rivendell, Thunder Battle

“And so at last they all came to the Last Homely House, and found it’s doors flung wide […] His [Elrond’s] house was perfect, whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all. Evil things did not come into that valley.”

~The Hobbit, Chapter 3: A Short Rest

“All was well, until one day they met a thunderstorm – more than a thunderstorm, a thunder-battle […] Bilbo had never seen or imagined anything of the kind […] When he peeped out in the lightning-flashes, he saw that across the valley the stone-giants were out and were hurling rocks at one another for a game, and catching them, and tossing them down into the darkness where they smashed among the trees far below, or splintered into little bits with a bang. “

~The Hobbit, Chapter 4: Over Hill and Under Hill

Well, I reached Rivendell, but I didn’t get much rest. I had my best month so far in August! And like Bilbo, I spent a great deal of it climbing around in the mountains:

But I also spent some time in the air as well:

My Colorado vacation got me all the way through the Thunder-Battle, and well on my way to the goblin’s Front Porch! We should be through Gollum’s Lake (plus One ;P) and reunited with our beloved dwarves before September is done! We are a fourth of the way through our adventure, guys! It’s exciting!

See you next time!

 

 

Save

Save

Writing

A Peek Behind The Curtain- August 2016

Well here it is, the newest addition to the blogging round up! And honestly, I’m a little freaked out. I’ve seen posts like this before. And they usually made me feel something like this:

wizard-behind-curtain1

But I think this could be good. It’s actual proof that I’m working on something, especially my original fiction, which tends to stay nestled in a deep, dark hole on my hard drive, never to be seen by the eyes of another living soul, until I’ve convinced myself that it’s complete crap and given up on it. No more! Well, hopefully no more ;P

The rules of this post are real simple. Below, you will find a sample of what I’ve been working on the past month. Sometimes it will be original, sometimes fanfiction, sometimes edited, sometimes not. It all depends on what has been occupying my time lately. So without further ado (and before I lose my nerve), let’s take a Peek Behind The Curtain!

Wonderland Reclaimed (Book 3): Through The Looking Glass

Alice kept to the path before her, her eyes and ears open. She knew that Bridget would not go far, and that she would be back in less than two minutes, but still being alone in the forest made her skin crawl. She saw imaginary shadows moving at the edges of her vision, and forced herself to keep walking, glancing to either side with jerky, nervous movements. Madge hadn’t wanted to leave her with the jay March, but she hadn’t really been given a choice. Dedra didn’t trust Madge to keep to her word, and so had insisted on accompanying the Hatter herself. Carlisle and Jaxson had paired up instantly, leaving Alice with Bridget as a searching partner. There was very little distress among the group, if you didn’t count Dedra, shifting nervously and vibrating dangerously every so often. But Alice was worried despite herself. She had been out alone in these woods not so long ago. She wouldn’t wish being lost out here on anyone, not even the heir to the Reds.

The Caterpillar’s words echoed back to her: You focus too much on the bad, Alice-that-might-be. The Reds had done terrible things, she knew that. But had the Whites been all that much better? Had they not sentenced all the people out here in the Tulgey to death, death by neglect, by abandonment? She thought of Mal and his family, the family that had died out here in the Tulgey, in fear and desperation. And for what? For the crime of being born with magic? For being different? How was that any more justified than a beheading over the color of some roses?

Bridget burst out of a clump of brush and Alice ducked, her heart pounding in her chest. She felt a pulse and then the girl was standing beside her, an arm on her elbow.

“Oh Alice, I’m sorry!” the girl exclaimed, bending over her, “I didn’t mean to startle you!”

Alice swallowed and managed to catch her breath.

“It’s… It’s okay,” she said finally, “Just jumpy that’s all.”

And that’s it for now! Tune in next month for more progress (hopefully)!

Reading

Have You Hugged A Book Today?- July 2016

Alright y’all, I went on vacation and completely forgot about the blog. My bad. But I’m here now, let’s get to it!

ReadingChallengeJuly16

You read that right, folks, I am eight books ahead of my schedule! There were a lot of comic books involved, but I regret nothing!

tumblr_m8954pxefk1qkar3s

Here’s the link to my star rating breakdown if anyone needs a refresher. It’s also up in the header 🙂

  • What I’m currently reading (in order of Date Started)
    1. Wizard and Glass by Stephen King– This. Book. Is. A. Slog. Ugh. Seriously, I could not care less about what’s happening here if I tried. I like Roland for liking the Mayor’s wife and feeling bad for her, but that’s basically the only interesting and surprising element in this plot line, and trust me, it’s not that interesting. I just want to get back to the actual story, that is all I want in life right now…
    2. Audrey Hepburn: An Elegant Spirit by Sean Hepburn Ferrer– I haven’t picked this book up again, but I plan to fix that this week! 🙂
  • Books I’ve Finished 
    1. The Superior Spider-Man, Vol 1: My Own Worst Enemy by Dan Slott- Four Stars
    2. Loki: Agent of Asgard, Vol 1: Trust Me by Al Ewing- Five Stars
    3. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon- Three Stars
    4. Original Sin by Jason Aaron- Four Stars
    5. Rocket Raccoon, Vol 1: A Chasing Tale- Four Stars
    6. Rocket Raccoon, Vol 2: Storytailer- Three Stars
    7. Daredevil Legends, Vol 2: Born Again- Four Stars
    8. S.H.I.E.L.D., Vol 1: Perfect Bullets- Three Stars

Fog’s Book Of The Month
All-New, All-Different Avengers, Vol. 1: The Magnificent Seven (All-New, All-Different Avengers, #1)All-New, All-Different Avengers, Vol. 1: The Magnificent Seven by Mark Waid

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have three words and an honorific for you: Nova and Ms. Marvel. Their interactions almost completely made this book for me. With a nice side of Miles Morales (who I am now going to have to find more of), and lady!Thor (who was AMAZING with Sam Wilson, I am right with Kamala on this ship). I loved the tiny nods to Sam’s struggle to be accepted as Captain America, and the struggle of the adults to trust the kids while at the same time wanting to protect them. Basically, this book was amazing and I will definitely be reading more.

View all my reviews

And that’s it! Like I said, a lot of comic books, but I’m going to try really hard to read a few more other books now that I’m back home again (if I can ever trudge through Wizard and Glass, oh my god…). Until next time!

readmorebooks

 

Save

Blogging, life, Writing

Once More Unto The (Writing) Breach- July 2016

Last night, at writing group, I was so tired that I actually could not imagine writing this blog post. I felt like I hadn’t slept in two weeks (mostly because I basically hadn’t slept in two weeks) and I had no more words to word. I couldn’t even Pinterest. That’s how tired I was.

Well, I’m still tired, but here I am. And now, I’m going to explain why I felt that way 🙂

What I’ve Accomplished This Month

CNW_Winner_1500-1

This was the big one. 50,000 words, over three different stories, in 29 days. July has 31 days, you say? Well, thinking I was going to have plans this past weekend, I pushed through and finished on day 29 instead.

tumblr_ma152013jw1r2a8tc

First draft of Calenhiril’s Search is completely finished. All it’s going to need is some editing and filling out as I go along. I have written the actual end of a story I have been writing for 15 years… I’m feeling… well. That’s a blog post for another time.

I wrote the fanfic short story sequel to Worth Living For. It went really well, a lot better than I thought it would. I’m very excited to start editing it, but I haven’t decided if I want to try to do that in the last two weeks of this month, or wait until September. If I get my mojo back, I will try for August, but I’m not holding my breath.

Wonderland Reclaimed. It’s a mess. It’s going to need so much tweaking and fixing and nitpicking. But Part One- Down The Rabbit Hole – is complete. Again. And I used the rest of my words (nearly 11,000!) to work on Part Three until I could work no more! I’m still a little stuck on how I want the plot of Part Three (tentatively titled Through The Looking Glass) to go. There are so many things that need to happen, most of them in the background of the two main characters’ arcs and I’m still not entirely sure how to work it all in. I’m going to let it rest for the next two weeks or so until I get my bearings back.

  • Clarity 9 chapters posted (COMPLETE!)

It’s finished! And it went really well! I got so much positive feedback and so many people that are excited for the sequel! I’m still planning to write the Age of Ultron sequel, but unfortunately it might not happen in November like I planned. I may decide to write 50,000 words on Double The Baggins, Twice The Took instead (see below). And of course this is all completely dependent on whether or not I finish Wonderland Reclaimed before November. If not, I’ll be working on that instead. Again. I’m going to be sick of this story before I even get out of the first draft.

nope

Once I finished Clarity, I was feeling pretty good about myself. So I posted a couple chapters of Calenhiril’s Search, just as a nice surprise for readers. I pretty much ripped their hearts out, but that’s neither here nor there ;P Right now, I’m thinking I will have this story completely finished by the end of the year, which is going to be weird. I won’t even know what to do with myself. Wow.

Yes, I fell into this trap again. I just really want to get them out of Rivendell, is that so wrong? And on that note, all my characters seem to get trapped in this Rivendell vortex. Why is that exactly? Elrond?

giphy

Right, well, clearly he’s not talking. But anyway, now that Clarity is done, I feel like I can take another crack at this story. I’ll probably only post a chapter a week, because I do want to focus on finishing Calenhiril’s Search, but I hope to have this finished by this time next year at least.

JulyWordKeeper

Yeah. This is why I have no more words left to word.

writing-bad

What’s Coming Up in August

Well, the first two weeks are going to be R&R time. I’m going on vacation, so I’m prepping for that and then I’ll be gone, spending time with fogishandsome, riding steam engines, climbing around Pueblo settlements, floating in hot air balloons, that kind of thing 🙂

When I get back is when real work will start up again. I’m still desperately trying to finish Wonderland Reclaimed before November. Preferably before October, so I have time to prep a project for November. Which means I have a month and a half to write roughly 40,000 words that I have not plotted yet. I know what needs to happen, but I have no idea how to get there. And one of my main characters has changed race no less than three times, it would be very helpful if she would just PICK A LOOK ALREADY! *ahem* Anyway, I’m going to try to write at least another 10,000 words in the two weeks that are left to me in August.

Along with that, I will still be posting at least one chapter of Calenhiril’s Search a week (sans vacation week), along with trying to post one chapter of DBTT as well. I’m rapidly running out of written chapters for DBTT, hence the possibility of writing another 50,000 words on that story in November, rather than the Age of Ultron fic I had planned.

It’s only August and I’m already looking forward to December. I’m so tired, I think I’m going to just go sleep for another couple of days.

bunny-falls-asleep-at-desk