May 2021 Recap

May just flew by. I blinked and it's already over. In true Maryland fashion, last week was in the 90s, and this week has been only 60, making for difficult fashion choices. But I hope it warms up more soon.

• I had a lot of church events. Fellowships, psalm sings, pizza parties, and more. I like that we have more activities as a body now, but it can be tiring.

• Made delicious chocolate cupcakes with salted caramel buttercream frosting. I wish I could send you want to eat, but you'll have to make do with this picture.

• As always, I celebrated Star Wars day by watching a movie and wearing an inspired outfit. We watched Empire Strikes Back. I also made cookies, since I had the day off, using our Star Wars cookie cutters.

My R2-D2 inspired outfit

• Our dress code changed at my job and I now have to wear an apron. I don't like it, but there's nothing to be done but wear the dang thing.

• Had jury duty, again. Thankfully, I was blessed to only have to go in one day and all we did was sit there for three hours and were told we could go home. Of course, I had to go to work straight afterwards, but I survived.

•Started watching Shadow and Bone. I'm not binging through it and only doing one episode a week. So far it's been really good, even if the storyline is diverging more every time. The cast is great.

It was a pretty slow reading month for me, and I only got done half of my normal amount. This is mostly due to the fact that I'm working on some bigger books right now.

•Whichwood- Tahere Mafi (5 stars)

•Deny All Charges- Eoin Colfer (5 stars)

•The Midnight Library- Matt Haig (3 1/2 stars)

•Crooked Kingdom- Leigh Bardugo (4 stars)

•The Mummy Returns (not as good or funny as the original. Also, the creepiest CGI Dwayne Johnson you've ever seen)

•Back to the Future 1-3 (just as good the second time around)

•Skyfall (another James Bond, nothing super special about this one)

•Legally Blonde (my first time watching this gem of a classic movie)

•I sent New Magic to beta readers at the beginning of the month. It's still scary. Novels become so close to you, it's hard to hear any criticism. But at the same time, I want this to be the best story it can be, so I'm willing to work to do that.

•While NM is with betas, I've been working on it's sequel. It's not cooperating, and I've recently had some breakthroughs that make me think it would be better to go back to book one for now and re-do some things. Oh, the joys of editing!

•First off, you notice that the way you receive my posts looks different, it's because I switched my RSS feed. Feedburner is being removed and so I've switched to Follow.it to send out my posts. You now have more options on how you want to receive my content as well. The switch should be seamless, but if you aren't seeing this, I guess it didn't work.

•I've also reached 250 follows on Instagram. I'm hoping to do some read-alongs of classic books soon, so if you want to participate in that, please follow me over there.

If you're in the art community at all, you'll know that May is better known as MerMay, a month long mermaid drawing challenge. For it I drew several mermaids of various kinds, starting with this angel mermaid.

Then for Star Wars day, I had to draw Obi-Won Kenobi as a merman. I could not help myself.

One of the prompts was to mermaid-ify someone, so I drew my sister as a mermaid and she drew me. I love the end product, but getting there was so hard. I did like three different versions and hated two of them.

Then we have Supergirl as a mermaid. I don't think her pose is great, and she ran off the page by mistake.

Lastly, I spent several days drawing this massive mermaid in my biggest sketchpad. It's probably about 1' by 2'. She was so much fun to do.

•I get the feedback from my betas and decide how to proceed from there. I would also love to start working on An Octopus Ate My Homework, but I'm not sure next month will be the time.

•Like I mentioned, I plan to organize a classic book read-along over the summer, starting next month, so that should be fun.

•I have several art projects to complete and I'd love to learn to use my gouche paint better (because I currently suck).

•Hopefully I'll also get some more reading in as well. I want to finish my Return of the King re-read and work on some more owned books from my shelf.

How was your May? Did you do anything for Star Wars Day? Have you ever sent a book to beta readers? Tell me in the comments.

Suggested Posts:

Thoughts on the New Star Wars

Behind the Novel: New Magic