September Recap

Fall gives us the best skies! 

Welcome to October, y'all! Is it starting to cool off where you are? Where I am, we're having typical NC weather, meaning it can't decide what it wants to be. We go through all four seasons every few days. There's a meme out there that says "Welcome to North Carolina, the only place where you can wear flipflops and snow boots on the same day!" It's so true.

Anyway, you're not here to watch me be a weather-woman. Let me recap what I've done over the past month.

~What's happening in WIP-Land~

I actually have three projects in 'WIP' status right now: The Dawn of a Hero, of course, plus my NaNo novel and another project. I managed to get just about halfway on my edits this month, which makes me on track to finish by the end of October! I'm pumped about that. 

I also finished outlining my NaNo novel, which relieves me. I was worried that I was going to go into November blind. I know some of y'all are pantser/plantsers, but I'm not. I need some sort of outline to stay sane. So yay! Now I have one! Except I need to go back through and add some scenes for my antagonist. That shouldn't be too difficult. I'll probably do some free writing on it during October as I participate in Ivie's October Challenge. That should get me prepared for NaNo.

And then I have my special project. I hope to share the details about it soon. I'm really enjoying working on it and I can't wait to let y'all in on it! 

~What's happening in non-WIP-Land~

I started a new series on the blog. You can go check it out here. I'm pretty excited about it and about the prospect that I can get others involved in it as well!

Other than that, I haven't done much else. 

~What's happening in non-Writing-but-Still-Creatively-Driven-Land~

After struggling with edits for a while, I realized what my problem was: I'd run myself dry creatively. For years I spent so much time writing first drafts and rewrites and hadn't refueled, that I was completely run down. So for the past month or so, I've determined that I am going to make sure I add in some creative endeavors into my schedule. Here are some of the things I've pursued alongside writing. 

Quilting. My mom and I love quilting. It's something we've always loved doing together, but I've sort of slacked off for a few months. My mom all but quit when she received her diagnosis two years ago. Now that's she's regaining mobility in her hand, she wanted to get back to it but didn't have the necessary push. I finally told her that we should spend fifteen minutes after lunch just working on whatever our project is at the moment. I'm pleased to say that we've made some excellent progress on a few projects. We have almost 40 quilts in various states of completion, so we really need to buckle down and focus on finishing some of these. #drowninginfabric #loveit

Oh yeah, and I'm also working on designing/constructing a costume for one of my characters. Still working on the details, since I'm converting an old costume and I've never done something like this before.

Cooking. If you haven't figured it out already, I love food. I love making food. I love baking, even though I'm not fond of sweet things. Give me spicy or sour foods any day.  I'm also obsessed with meal prep bowls (yes, Jules, I'm still working on that post. I just don't know how to write it). Cooking is my stress relief, so I can often be found in the kitchen whipping up something new (or old).

Reading. Some of you may have read my book haul/#21for21 post. There I stated that my goal was to read 21 books this year. I've made some progress on it and I'm pleased to say that I'm still (sorta) on track. 

Knitting. I love knitting in the evenings while my family watches a Hallmark movie or show. I make baby blankets so that I have them on hand if I ever find someone in need of one. A few years ago, I was inspired when a girl I knew was pregnant with her first child. I really wanted to support her during this time, but I didn't have anything on hand. I swore that I wasn't going to let that happen again. So I from then on I focused on knitting baby blankets, though I sometimes do other projects. They're super cool because I can try new techniques without having to make a big project. I'm trying to start (for the third time) a chevron blanket. I might post pictures at a later date if I ever manage to finish it. It seems so simple, but it's actually one of the hardest projects I've started.

Art. I'm not great at art. I'll admit that freely. But with that being said, I'm not terrible at it either and I enjoy throwing together something that looks relatively nice. So I started a piece of art inspired by Beauty and the Beast (I'm obsessed with roses, okay. Obsessed. Which is weird since I've never been good at drawing them). I tried my hand at painting it and decided that was a bad idea, so I switched to colored pencils (which I'm better at than paint, but mechanical pencils are my favorite. Seriously, that's my best medium. It's weird.) Anyway, it looks pretty nice, but it's not done yet. 

Music. I love playing the violin. I don't practice as often as I used to when I was taking lessons and in youth symphony. I play hymns with my younger brother a lot and I enjoy the freedom that comes with not having to practice anything in particular. I can play whatever I want (Vivaldi's Violin Concerto in A) and I don't have to play songs I don't like (I'm 100% done with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. #suzukikidprobs). So that's always a fun outlet for me. Except when my D-string decides to snap in my face and I have to play on my old violin while I wait for new strings to arrive.

So yeah, that's my month. I had a really awesome September, kickstarted with a great visit from Jules and a great library book sale. I don't know if I'll continue updating about my other creative endeavors in the future, but I felt like it was important to cover this month. 

How has your month gone? Are any of you participating in NaNoWriMo this year? If so, please drop your username below so I can add you as a buddy! And if anyone ever needs any help with it, I'm always available. Also, aside from writing, what sorts of creative endeavors do you pursue?