May Wrap-Up/June Goals

We have now reached the end of another month. All in all, I had a pretty good time, despite the fact that's rained and poured every single day for the past month, and got a good bit done.

~Writing~

1. Finish Draft Four of The Dawn of a Hero. Yes, you read that correctly! Sarah Rodecker has finally finished draft four! I'm really excited about it and I hope it turned out better than the previous drafts. It is about to go into the excellent hands of Jules for an alpha read. 

2. Write first draft of short story. This was super fun to write, though a little tough. The themes behind it are pretty heavy, but it is perfect for a short story. I really love it. I'm working on the first round of edits before it goes in for an alpha read.

~Reading~

I managed to finish reading five books this month, which has got to be some sort of record for me.  

Scarlet by Marissa Meyers. Not quite as good as Cinder, but still pretty awesome. I loved getting to know my dear cyborg better while getting to know some new characters. Scarlet was super cool! She and I share a hoodie need. #comfort #safety I didn't manage to get a picture of this one before I returned it. I've already requested Cress from the library, so hopefully I can start on that soon. 

The Hobbit by J.R.R.Tolkien. A reread. I always love reading about Bilbo. He and I are kindred spirits in many aspects. I just love him so much. It was much improved by my family's rewatching of the Hobbit (the first one only). Martin Freeman does an amazing job portraying Bilbo!

Kingdom's Dawn by Chuck Black. A reread again and an excellent Lord's Day book. The writing is a bit rough and he made the fantasy blunder of using the word okay (which is especially bad because he was following the older style of fantasy writing), but the themes and allegories are strong, which yet again proves that themes will carry me through just about any book, regardless of characters or plot. I live for themes, y'all. Keep that in mind. 

DragonKnight by Donita K. Paul. A reread from years ago. Such a super awesome story that I love so much, though I have a big issue with two of the characters (really, it's three, but one of them gets better as you learn to appreciate her). I typed up a long rant about them, but I figured I might keep it to myself unless y'all want to hear it, in which case I'll happily write a post about it. Believe me, I love to rant. But anyway, I immediately moved onto the next book in the series because I love these books so much. 

And The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle. I was sort of let down with this book. I almost DNFed it. I expected it to be a cute story, and I guess it kind of was, but most of it didn't make any sense, I never connected with the characters, and I just was bored. It was especially bad because, after one use of the Lord's name in vain, my red flags went up. I honestly wasn't able to enjoy it all that much after that. Plus, a lot of the stuff didn't make sense to me in the least. Like, I couldn't pin point what kind of fantasy he was going for. Medieval? Victorian? Urban? Like, what? And he also used the fantasy blunder (which is maybe just me having a problem with that? Is there anyone else in this camp?). So yeah, probably won't read this too much anymore nor will I really recommend it to anyone.

Also, I really appreciated that a lot of the books I read this month matched the little wildflowers growing outside. So that's what I went with for my theme this month.

~Life Stuff~

This month was fantastic. I had so much happen that I was really proud of.

1. I finished two college courses. Here's an actual conversation in the Rodecker household as I was working on the last course:

Younger brother at the dining room table: "What are these?"

Me: "Don't touch my chromosomes!"

YB: Chuckles like it's no big deal, but probably just died inside.

I was working on Bio Labs and I had to demonstrate mitosis with pop-it beads. Hence the chromosomes.

Not the greatest picture, but it was for school, so I don't care.

2. I made a baby quilt for a cousin of mine. This wasn't my best work, but it was cute and I think she'll like it.

3. I finished knitting a blanket. It only took me three tries, but it's done! I messed up the pattern so badly. Basically, it went like this:

Me: "Hmm, I've never heard of this stitch before. I'll just wing it and hope it turns out."

Me to me after winging it fails: "You know, there's this thing called YouTube that has videos for every stitch you could ever make. Maybe you should check it out."

It still looks... bad, I guess, but I claimed it as my own and now it brings me a great deal of comfort. The messed up part actually creates a sort of collar, so it wraps around my neck pretty nicely. It's more like a caplet instead of a blanket. I'm not mad.

4. My younger brother and I went to GA to visit my older brother for a day. We didn't get to spend enough time with him, but I enjoyed the time that I had.

We wanted to steal my brother's cats. They were awesome.
But not as cool as Dustfinger. He's far less weird.

It's going to be a light month for writing, but I'm going to make up for it with school.

1. Edit short story. I'm hoping to get this cleaned up this month as I won't be able to work on any big projects until July. I'm working hard on finishing school by the end of the year, so my studies have to take priority right now. 

2.Celebrate Blogoversary!! My anniversary is on June 19th. I can't believe it's been a year. Jules and I have a really awesome thing planned, so stay tuned for that! 

3. Continue smashing down my current TBR. I'm hoping to keep up with my progress from last month. I felt like I got a lot of reading done and that's encouraging. I know it's nothing compared to a lot of you, but I'm happy with it. I'm thinking I might take the month and read non-fiction, especially considering I need to study for a test, so a lot of my reading time will be taken up with pouring over books on the subject. That'll be fun, I'm sure! I also want to go through some craft books to learn some new techniques to use on my next draft now that I'm taking a break from revisions. Who knows? Maybe it'll help me with my short story!

4. Participate in GTW's 100-4-100. Jules and I are planning on using Ships, Secrets, and Survivors for this challenge. So hopefully, by the end, we'll have at least 20k extra written on it without even trying too hard. So that's pretty awesome. We've already done pretty well, if I do say so myself, and it's only been about two weeks! This obviously will take several months, so it'll get crossed off next month if I stay faithful throughout the month.

5. Participate in Rosalie's Penprint Flash Fiction Dash. This is my second year participating and I'm so excited about it! I love writing flash fiction, so doing this challenge is a no-brainer.

6. Finish three more college courses. This is actually my main goal this month. If I finish these three this month, I'll be ahead of schedule and that means I can take July off of school so I can focus on Camp NaNo! Obviously, I'm highly motivated to do so.

A pretty light month writing wise, but that's just so I can focus on studying. I'm excited about everything ahead and I can't wait for Camp NaNoWriMo in July. Anyone looking for an epic cabin to join? The Order of the Pen always loves guests.

Oh yes, speaking of the Order of the Pen, we have decided to delete our Facebook page so we can better serve each other in our writing adventures. So if you're looking to follow the page, it's no longer there, but we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your support! Someday, if any of us get close to publication, we may start it again, but for now we need to make sure the needs of our group are met.

Anyway, that's what's going on right now. I hope y'all have an amazing month filled with many blessings!

What sorts of things did you accomplish this month? Are any of you participating in either of the mentioned challenges? Let me know because I'd love to cheer you on! Anyone participating in Camp next month?