Blog

Blogging, life

A Hobbit’s Walking Tale- April 2016

Emily

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

  • Miles Walked This Month (29th-25th):  59.8 miles
  • Total Miles Walked:  199.2 miles
  • 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…

weathertop

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!

Blogging, Crafting, life, Random, Reading, Singing, Writing

#Hashtags And Other Minutiae

Emily

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

  • Favorite Posts:

Hey, it’s my voice! 🙂

http://fogisbeautiful.tumblr.com/post/141549785172/so-since-i-didnt-manage-to-post-a-new-chapter-of

THE SAGA!!!

http://fogisbeautiful.tumblr.com/post/142353479462/i-just-started-following-lin-manuel-miranda-on

http://fogisbeautiful.tumblr.com/post/142367706103/still-creeping-on-lin-manuel-mirandas-tumblr

  • Favorite Reblogs (March):
http://fogisbeautiful.tumblr.com/post/140641619352/holepsi-the-knight-of-rey-a-small-gift-for-a

http://fogisbeautiful.tumblr.com/post/141752113569/everyone-lies-about-writing-they-lie-about-how

http://fogisbeautiful.tumblr.com/post/141700485030/yourweeaboobs-weloveshortvideos-theres-a

  • Favorite Reblogs (April):

This is Cat, one of my writing group members. I still regret nothing 😀

http://fogisbeautiful.tumblr.com/post/142153796421/startyourbenjens-my-campnano-project-is-a-star

Someone needs to make this vid because I can’t and I would wATCH THE HELL OUT OF IT!!!

http://fogisbeautiful.tumblr.com/post/142208874855/rekylo-ᵀʰᵉ-ᵐᵒᵐᵉᶰᵗ-ᵗᵒ-ᶫᶦᵛᵉ-ᵃᶰᵈ-ᵗʰᵉ-ᵐᵒᵐᵉᶰᵗ-ᵗᵒ

Poe Dameron, still an A+ life ruiner.

http://fogisbeautiful.tumblr.com/post/142463464987/bhucewayne-bleep-bloop-yes-bb-8-i-see-that

Watch this video. Don’t question, just watch. You’re welcome.

http://fogisbeautiful.tumblr.com/post/142763579416

 

Twitter

  • Favorite Tweets

For context, my friend Peggy tweeted about our walks at the new Hike and Bike trail. This was my response 🙂

Camp NaNo is hard, yo ;P

  • Favorite Retweets:

I don’t even know what’s happening here, BUT I LOVE IT!

This happened to me 🙂

 

Instagram

Hey, I remembered that Instagram exists, good for me!

  • I’m spinning milk fiber and let me tell you, it is pretty, but also weird…

  • I FINALLY FINISHED THE KNITTING ON THIS SCARF, I HAVE BEEN WORKING SINCE SEPTEMBER!!! 😀

 

Pinterest

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!

http://fogisbeautiful.tumblr.com/post/141451310059/my-sister-is-finally-reading-romeo-juliet-for

http://fogisbeautiful.tumblr.com/post/142016605631/kay-so-ive-been-meaning-to-ask-you-this

http://fogisbeautiful.tumblr.com/post/142714666316/okay-so-ive-been-going-through-an-aidan-turner

That’s it! See you guys around the interwebs! 🙂

Writing

Have You Hugged A Book Today?- March 2016

Emily

ReadingChallengeMarch16

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 🙂

  • Books I’ve finished
    1. The Gunslinger by Stephen King- Four Stars
    2. Successful Self-Publishing: How to self-publish and market your book in ebook and print by Joanna Penn- Five Stars
    3. The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett- Four Stars
  • What I’m currently reading (in order of Date Started)
    1. The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King– I’ve only read a few pages of this book so far. I just keep running out of time! Soon, my precious… Soon…
  • Book to Screen (Twitter live!tag-#fogwatches)
    • 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…

Fog’s Book Of The Month

This month’s selection:

As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess BrideAs You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride by Cary Elwes

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

 

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 🙂

(View all my reviews)

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…

tumblr_static_tumblr_static_9civ1dh6syccgk8wgscg4o0s8_640

Blogging, Writing

Once More Unto The (Writing) Breach- March 2016, Plus The Quarterly Round-Up!

Emily

What I’ve Accomplished This Month

  • Changing History: Calenhiril’s Search– 7 chapters posted!
    • 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 🙂
  • Double The Baggins, Twice The Took– 6 chapters posted!
    • 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

CNW_Participant

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 rewrites DONE!, 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!

 

 

 

Blogging, life

A Hobbit’s Walking Tale, by fogisbeautiful- March 2016

Emily

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

  • Miles Walked This Month (1st-28th)– 65.8 miles
  • Total Miles Walked-  139.4 miles
  • Milestones Reached- Bree, The Forsaken Inn

“Now they had gone on far into the Lone-lands, where there were no people left, no inns, and the roads grew steadily worse.”

~The Hobbit, Chapter 2: Roast Mutton

I didn’t quite make it to the Midgewater Marshes, but that’s mostly because I’m posting this a bit early! I didn’t want to wait until the end of next month to post an update, so here I am, just short of the Marshes and about to catch sight of Weathertop for the first time! I’m quite pleased with my progress and pleased to report that every month I have increased my distance, at least a little bit! We might make it to the Lonely Mountain yet!

A quick view of the current landscape:

Midgewater_Marsheslotr

Well… that’s depressing. But all the more reason to keep moving forward! 🙂 See you next month!

Blogging

Wrappin’ Up The Month With… Wait, What?

Emily

I know what you guys are thinking:

WahlbergNotThePost

And you’re right, it’s not. For one, it’s too early for March’s wrap up post. And, let’s be honest, how often am I early with anything? ;P For two, you’ll notice a distinct lack of content in this particular post. This is not because I haven’t done anything this month (quite the contrary, actually), but rather because this is more of an… announcement, than an update. There’s going to be a slight change around the blog, and I wanted to make everyone aware.

piggy

I’ve enjoyed posting my Monthly Wrap Ups for the past nine months. It’s been nice to have an excuse to look at what I’ve done and either pat myself on the back, or kick my butt into high gear. And it’s been nice to have a regular segment on the blog that I can keep up with. It’s very encouraging. But I am aware (as I’m sure the rest of you are) that it is a little… unwieldy. Honestly, it feels a little bit like this:

tumblr_inline_n438katthd1rd8izi

And no one wants their blog posts to feel like an unholy contract with the King of Hell. So, I am proposing a small modification. Rather than one long post at the end/beginning of the month that no one wants to try to wade through, I am going to break up each segment of my regular Wrap Up into four separate blog posts. These will be posted once a week, starting in April, and will detail what I’ve been up to in each respective area since the last post of that nature. Hopefully, this will also give me more room to explore each area in more depth, should I choose too, which will be nice. And also keep people from looking like this halfway through my posts:

bunny-falls-asleep-at-desk

…I mean, not that this wouldn’t be adorable… You get what I’m saying ;P

So I’ll see you all again in April!

giphy

Blogging, Random, Reading, Writing

Wrappin’ Up The Month With Fog: February Edition

Emily

 

Once More Unto the (Writing) Breach

  • Changing History: I DID IT! I ACTUALLY FINISHED THE EPIC REWRITE!!!

tumblr_mdtxe4jxan1qh0vhjo1_500

Part Four (Calenhiril’s Search) will start posting on March 3rd and I’m SO EXCITED!!!

tumblr_lrx5jpomhz1qhlc2x

I’m not… technically… finished with the entire first draft of Part Four yet, but I’m far enough along (and I’ve edited the first half enough times in the past year) that I feel pretty confident in my ability to begin posting in March. Of course, I’ll probably only get three or four chapters posted before Camp NaNoWriMo in April, but that will be FOUR CHAPTERS CLOSER TO THE END, OH MY GOD, I CAN’T EVEN!

tumblr_n22z3c1vfa1tq4of6o1_400

  • Writing Excuses: “15 minutes long, because you’re in a hurry and we’re not that smart.” If you haven’t listened to this podcast (starring Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Howard Tayler, and Dan Wells), then you are missing out! My friend, Elissa (who I’ve mentioned on this blog more times than I can count. If you aren’t reading her blog, WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU???) mentioned this podcast in a recent post and (surprise, surprise) I had never heard of it. But I had heard of Brandon Sanderson, so I decided to give it a shot. From that very first line, I was sold. I downloaded several episodes through Podcast Republic on my phone, and have been listening to the playlist for days. They make being an author feel like something attainable, something that real, actual people do, and do well. It’s both encouraging, entertaining, and informative, I highly recommend it!

Have You Hugged a Book Today?

ReadingChallengeFeb16

I’m still behind, but I’m working on it. No, really! Stop laughing!

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

  • Books I’ve finished:
    1. Star Wars: The Force Awakens by Alan Dean Foster- Three Stars (though, to be fair, I really only skimmed it. I’ll be reading it again in more depth at a later time)
    2. Ms. Marvel Vol. 3: Crushed by Willow G. Wilson- Five Stars
    3. The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss- Five Stars (Patrick Rothfuss is a god amongst men…)
  • What I’m currently reading (In order of Date Started):
    1. The Gunslinger by Stephen King– I finally started this series! I’m hoping to read the whole series this year, but I’m definitely behind, so we’ll have to see.
    2. As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride by Cary Elwes– This is the book that my book club has decided to read for March, but I started it early 😉 I came to the Princess Bride later in life, but the story is so timeless and lovely that I fell in love instantly. Cary Elwes tells the tale of his experience making the movie with such wide-eyed wonder and humility, it is a joy to listen to. And the guest appearances from the other members of the cast and crew add delightful flavor to the book.
  • Book to Screen (Twitter live!tag-#fogwatches):
    • Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix- I’m gonna be honest here. This was not as jarringly awful as I thought it was going to be. It was horrendously painful (and god, I hate Umbridge SO MUCH!), but it wasn’t “awful”. There were several wonderful moments, mostly containing Sirius and Remus, and I think I felt more sympathy for Harry in the movie than I did in the book. I mean, he’s still an annoying emo-teen, but I felt a little more sympathetic toward his emo-ness. If you really want all of my feelings, you should check out the live!tag on Twitter (listed above), I’ve been told it was entertaining ;P

#Hashtags and other minutia

Do I Actually Have a Life?

“At first they had passed through hobbit-lands, a wild respectable country inhabited by decent folk, with good roads, an inn or two, and now and then a dwarf or a farmer ambling by on business.”

~The Hobbit, Chapter 2: Roast Mutton

As I suspected, I nearly made it to Bree! I am roughly 11 miles away, as of this writing! I probably could have made it to Bree in fact, if I hadn’t taken a week off from doing nearly anything this month, and then gotten sick in the last week. Oh well, next month! 🙂

DuolingoFeb16

I was doing really well, but then I lost my 20 day streak and I sort of… gave in. I’ve done really well though! I got through my review of the first set of lessons and nearly finished the second set, which was exactly what I expected to accomplish 🙂

I also wanted to share some highlights from my lessons with you guys because, quite frankly, this program has been so entertaining, and deserves to be shared with the world ;P

2016-02-05 13.50.50
Why yes. Yes, I am.
2016-02-05 13.51.58
This is unnecessarily frightening. Mostly because it’s true…
2016-02-08 18.34.57
Even my Spanish lesson thinks I should be writing!
2016-02-17 18.40.12
It’s occasionally uncanny how well this program knows me…

“And In Conclusion…”

  • Writing- Begin posting Calenhiril’s Search and start doing the preliminary work for Clarity (my Loki fanfiction, which I will be editing for Camp NaNoWriMo in April!)
  • Reading- I still haven’t managed to fix my audiobook files that I messed up, I’m going to try to do that this month, and then catch up on my reading!
  • Social Media- Don’t forget about Instagram! ;P
  • My Personal Life- Walk to the Midgewater Marshes. Complete 5 more lesson bubbles on Duolingo and reach level 7 (nearly level 8).

And… that’s it! This has been an exciting month, hopefully the momentum will continue!

 

 

Blogging, Random, Reading, Writing

Wrappin’ Up The Month With Fog: January Edition

Emily

First Wrap Up of the New Year! Let’s get to it! 🙂

Once More Unto the (Writing) Breach

  • Changing History: I managed to post three chapters last month, which is not as much as I wanted to get done. I also did not get any work done on Entwives at all.  I feel a little bit stuck to be honest, I’m going to try to push through that this month, even if it means skipping ahead.
  • Surprise!: I started a new, exciting project this month, completely unexpectedly! Not only is it in a fandom that has been currently ruining my life (Star Wars: The Force Awakens), but it is also my very first collaboration! The story is a High School Alternate Universe fanfiction, based on this tumblr post:
http://mamalaz.tumblr.com/post/137822574112/the-force-awakens-high-school-au-finn-plays-for

I am really excited about this project and my collaborator is a complete delight! I’ll be sure to keep you guys updated as progress is made.

Have You Hugged a Book Today?

JanReadChal16

I’m sort of failboating here. Not good. Part of the reason is because I haven’t been listening to my audiobooks, like I did last year. And I am out of time when it comes to actual paper, apparently. I’ll see what I can do to fix that, but for now let’s take a look at what I did finish this month!

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

  • Books I’ve finished:
    1. Mirror, Mirror by Gregory Maguire- Four Stars
    2. Wolverine and Jubilee: Curse of the Mutants by Kathryn Immonen- Three Stars
    3. The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: Vol 1 by Ryan North- Three Stars
  • Book to Screen:
    1. The Help– I put this off for a long, long time. And even though I tried to wait until the book’s effect had worn off, it wasn’t long enough. The movie just can’t compare. It was good, don’t get me wrong (I mean, it did make me cry… twice), but the book was so much more. I actually don’t think it would be possible for anyone to make a movie that could compare to the book for me. I enjoyed it, but only in that it made me want to read the book again 🙂
    2. I feel I should mention, I’m trying to live tweet whenever I watch one of these movies. If you’d like to follow along, or just go back and read my reactions to some of the movies I watch, the hashtag I use is #fogwatches

#Hashtags and other minutia

I did pretty well on the social media front this month! Yay me! Let’s play those highlights!

  • My Favorite Tumblr Reblog: Truth talk.
http://fogisbeautiful.tumblr.com/post/138109185959/reasons-i-am-like-bb-8

  • My Favorite Tumblr Post: Poe Dameron is ruining my life, someone help…
http://fogisbeautiful.tumblr.com/post/137699426079/i-wrote-the-beginning-of-this-thing-and-it-made-me

  • Twitter Retweet: Look me in the eye and tell me this was necessary.

  • Twitter Post: In honor of Alan Rickman’s passing I watched Sense and Sensibility. I expected it to make me sad, but instead it just made me angry.

  • Instagram: I’m constantly in awe of how much my friends just FLIPPING GET ME! ;P

View this post on Instagram

MY FRIENDS FLIPPING GET ME!!! MY VERY OWN BUCKY!!!

A post shared by Emily (@fogisbeautiful) on

  • Instagram: My crafting accomplishment of the month- Supported Spinning!

  • Just For Fun: I CAN’T UNSEE THIS, OH LORD…
http://fogisbeautiful.tumblr.com/post/138246776541/millenniumfucko-im-gonna-tear-up-the-fucking

Do I Actually Have a Life?

For the first time in several months, I actually have something to report in this area! Two things actually! Let’s get started! 🙂

  • My good friend, Elissa is my Gandalf.

You see, not long ago she sent me a link to this post, by a blog called Nerd Fitness. It was all about walking to Mordor. Now, I know what you’re probably thinking:

And I concur. Wholeheartedly. In fact, after checking out the original website that contains the details of that particular walk, I felt a little bit overwhelmed by the enormity of the task. I mean 1779 miles? ONE WAY??? Eep.

But if you’ll look closely (and scroll down a little farther) there is another path that we might take. The path of that great (albeit reluctant) adventurer…

The path of Bilbo Baggins to the Lonely Mountain.

So, as a fan this really appeals to me, I get to start my adventure with the adventure that started it all! As a couch potato that is easily discouraged this also appeals to me, because (according to my calculations) the journey is only going to be 1755 miles, round trip! That’s still a lot, but because I am a complete nerd, I modified Nerd Fitness’s Google spreadsheet and broke the journey down into (mostly) manageable chunks. So, I went out and bought a Fitbit Flex and I have started my journey!

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You are welcome to follow my progress on my modified spreadsheet, or even save your own copy of the spreadsheet and walk with me! After all, Bilbo didn’t go it alone:

Either way, I’ll be sure to keep everyone apprised of my progress, both here on the blog and probably on Twitter and/or Tumblr. Because nerd things deserve to be shared! 😛

  • Anybody use Duolingo? It’s a free online program and app to learn a language. I discovered it before, but never really committed. Now I think I want to try again, starting with Spanish. It’s a fun app that feels a lot like a game and I’m really enjoying it 🙂 If anyone is using it, or feels like signing up, feel free to find me and make me a friend, I can always use the competition! 😉 As always, I’m fogisbeautiful.

“And In Conclusion…”

  • Writing- I’m already having to modify my goals for the year. But that’s just life I suppose 🙂 In February, I plan to finish posting my edited chapters of Changing History: Second Chances, finish the first draft of Entwives, and finalize an outline for my Force Awakens collaboration. This is going to be a lot of work, but I’m going to do my best.
  • Reading- Get my audiobook files fixed, so I can start listening again. Finish The Wise Man’s Fear. Start The Gunslinger.
  • Social Media- Keep up the good work, yo! 😉
  • My Personal Life- According to early calculations, I expect I can almost make it to Bree by the end of the month, if I’m persistent. I think I can make it through my review of the first section of my Duolingo lessons and also finish up the second section as well.

And that’s it! The first Wrap Up of 2016! Not a complete fail, not a complete win, but I’m working steadily and that’s what counts 🙂 See you all in February!

Blogging, Random, Reading, Writing

New Year, New Goals: 2016

Emily

2015 is dead! Long live 2016!

…unless of course it sucks as much as 2015 did. But let’s try to stay positive, shall we? 😉

A new year is upon us and it’s time to evaluate what worked, what didn’t, and prepare for the year to come! This is going to be a little bit like my monthly review posts, with sections for Writing, Reading, and my Personal Life goals. So let’s get started!

Writing

2015 in Review

Goals were: Finish Changing History, Finish one original novel, publish something new every 4 months.

At first glance, these goals don’t seem like much. But they turned out to be far more complicated than I could have imagined. As a result, I did not actually finish a single one of them. This might be depressing, if I hadn’t carefully recorded the things that I actually did do this year. Here is that list.

  • I almost completely rewrote my Changing History trilogy this year. This is the major feat that I’m really congratulating myself for. I finished all three parts except for the last five/six chapters of Second Chances. This means that I reread, rewrote, and reposted 281,557 words this year. That’s a LOT of work! And the sad part is, as part of a reviewer’s journey, I’ve recently found myself rereading Choices again and discovering even more grammatical errors that need correcting! I’m ignoring them for now, but it’s just proof that I will need to go through this story at least one more time before I am truly done. There is still so much left for me to do, but the bulk of the work is finished and that is something to celebrate.
  • I finished the first draft of my Loki/OC fanfic, Clarity. This is also a big accomplishment for me, as I’ve been planning this story for over a year, possibly longer. I’m very pleased with it, I think after some major revision and editing it will be just as good, if not better than Worth Living For. As much as I love the Changing History saga, I feel like I have poured more of my soul into these Marvel fics than I have into any other pieces of writing I’ve done thus far. They are extremely close to my heart and finishing even one more part feels like something worth recognizing.
  • I overcame The Great Disaster of 2015 and managed to finish Part Two of what I hope will be my first published original novel, currently titled Wonderland Reclaimed. Those who know me personally will know how much I struggled with this, how hard it was for me to open that project knowing how much work there was to be done. But I did it. And I’m fairly happy with the progress I have made, enough to feel even a little bit of eagerness to jump into rewriting the missing pieces of Part One in the near future.
  • I started blogging regularly! Granted, it’s not that often, but once a month for six months is far more than I’ve blogged before on a regular basis. I have a long way to go, but I’m determined to at least keep plugging along on what I’ve started.
  • Lastly (and what I feel to be most importantly), I learned more about myself as a writer this year than I think I have in any year previous. I kept records of what I accomplished and didn’t accomplish, I focused my writing efforts into chunks that seemed reasonable, and when I did not reach my goals, rather than falling into depression and giving up, I took a step back, reevaluated, and modified. I feel as if I have a better understanding of what works for me as a person and as a writer, I have a better understanding of how much I can reasonably expect of myself, and I have a better understanding of how much WORK I am actually putting in to these projects. I am able to celebrate my accomplishments, rather than just berating myself for my failures, and that is in itself an accomplishment.

2016 Goals

Overall goals for the year are: Finish Changing History rewrites, 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.

The following is how I am planning to break up my week and what I plan to accomplish on each day:

  • Catch-up Monday- Spend this day working social media, responding to reviews, and generally playing catch up from the weekend. Writing Group meets on this day, so work on anything related to that.
  • Blogging Tuesday- This does not mean I will be blogging every week (that would be crazypants), but I will do at least one thing blog related on this day every week. Whether that be updating the draft of my Monthly Wrap-Up post, or working on something completely new, well, we’ll just have to see.
  • Whatever Wednesday- This is a day I can do what I want. I can write, I can watch TV, I can read, I can lounge around and do nothing at all, WHATEVER!
  • Writing Thursday- This is my writing day. I dedicate this day to nothing but writing related shenanigans, whether that be new words or editing.
  • Friday, Saturday, Sunday- Are usually pretty packed with social interactions, so I’m leaving those open.

After some consideration (and talking with my writing group!) I have decided to do Quarterly Goal updates this year. That means that ever three months, I will reevaluate my goals and re-prioritize, based on what I’ve accomplished thus far. As such, here is the break down of the first three months of my writing life in 2016!

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.

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.

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.

Reading

2015 in Review

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And just for fun, here are some cool stats about what I read!

2015ReadingStatsPages2015ReadingStatsRatings

My original Reading Challenge this year was to finish 60 books, but as I began to take my writing more seriously it became apparent that something was going to have to be done to make time for that. So I lowered my goal to 50 books rather than 60, and I stand by that decision. 50 books is a great goal, I feel like it pushed me to continue reading, but didn’t overwhelm or depress me. I also had a personal goal to reread the Harry Potter novels this year and I accomplished that! It was so rewarding to return to a series I had enjoyed so much and read them again with fresh eyes.

2016 Goals

ReadingChallenge2016

I’m going to repeat my goal of 50 books for the year. As I said before I felt like it was a perfectly reasonable goal that gave me a sense of accomplishment without overwhelming me and I see no reason to fix something that isn’t broken 😉 The series I would like to try to finish this year is The Dark Tower series by Stephen King.

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I started to read these books several years ago, and I devoured the first three, but I stalled on book four. I’ve heard so many good things about the series, and I think I’m ready to try tackling it one more time. If you’d like a list of the other books I’m planning to read this year, here is a link to my To-Read list on Goodreads.

Personal Life

I didn’t really have any goals for my personal life this past year, other than the usual. Get in shape, lose weight, be the best you can be. And really, that’s all I ever want, so that’s what 2016 is going to be about too. I plan to get back into the gym, starting this month. I want to eat in more than I eat out, and try to find some way to keep my (sometimes damn near crippling) anxiety at bay. I don’t know how yet, but I’ll be exploring some options to see what I can squeeze in to a schedule that already feels full to bursting. That’s the best I can do.

On that note, Welcome to 2016! I’ll be seeing you around.