Monthly Highlights - October

HAI GUYS, I'M BACK.

The two week hiatus went WAYYYY faster than I expected it to. But, I'm slowly catching all of the falling leaves and life is finally piecing itself back together again. Except the fact that NaNoWriMo is tomorrow, hahahaha.

But, here's the October "monthly highlight" installment as promised.

                    T h e    H i g h l i g h t s 

- I got a haircut! It was needed, too. Long hair looks nice and all that, but it drives me crazy so there's no more having that urge to tear all my hair out because it's all in my face. So this is how you'll be seeing me over the internet from now on:

- I FINALLY saw Age of Ultron and, um, excuse me. Ouch. Help. Nonono they weren't supposed to kill THAT character. *pouts forever*

- I also saw The Martian in the theaters (thank youuu, Mom and Dad for the surprise. xD) which I think was better than I expected it to be. I laughed a lot. :P

- I babysat these two adorable children and one of them said (prayed) the funniest things:

Me: *to little boy I was babysitting* You want to pray before dinner? Boy: *nods* *folds hands* Dear Jesus, thank you for Batman.

— Katie Grace (@KatieGraceWrite) October 11, 2015

- Also, I have been exchanging chapters of Song of the Desert with my critique partner to start getting it ready for beta readers, and she gave me just about the best compliment ever. *looks pointedly at her who's probably reading this*

My critique partner just read my chapter and said: "Dude, I feel like I've been hit by a train."
#bestcomplimentever

— Katie Grace (@KatieGraceWrite) October 20, 2015

- Our youth group set up a harvest festival at our church as an alternative for Halloween. Each grade sets up a themed room with decorations, candy, and games. Our theme this year was "Under the Sea." The earliest I can post pictures is the 1st, so I'll edit them into the post if you want to check back then. ;)

- And of course excessive listening to Twenty One Pilots was a thing. Cause why not. 

- *whisper* I um have NINETY-ONE OF YOU GUYS reading my posts and honestly that just makes me so happy. Like, there are no words. So thank youuu. <3 -

B o o k   T h i n g s

So, this month was literally the worst month of reading so far this year. Guess how many books I read.
Go.
In your minds.
Take a guess.

(No, I'm not being sarcastic in that this was the worst month.)

I READ NOTHING. 
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. 

Okay, that's only a tiny bit of a lie. I did read some things: 65k of my novel, beta read chapters for two writing buddies, blog posts, the first couple chapters of Gregor the Overlander, and all that.

BUT I DIDN'T READ ANY REAL BOOKS. 

So excuse me while I go cry because this is a tragedy. And since NaNo is stinking TOMORROW I doubt I will get any reading done during that month. Which only means that I'm going to read a bazillion books in December. :3

GIVEAWAYS: 

- win six Enclave Publishing books! (only open for a few more hours, so enter quickly!)

- you can win a copy of Radical by David Platt AND A Time to Die by Nadine Brandes here!

- Cait @ Paper Fury is giving away two ebooks... one you get to choose, and the other she picks FOR you. (Neat idea, right?)

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  R a m b l i n g s   o f   t h e   M o n t h    

I actually had a pretty good month of posting despite my two week hiatus and crazy insane schedule.

I posted about the stresses of life in general and trying to catch a bazillion falling leaves at once.

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Aaaand here I wrote about all of the end of the year goals I have. (One of the goals may or may not include pizza. Surprise, right?)

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Go and stalk all my secrets behind writing a novel. Mwahahaha.

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Aaand lastly I shared the first post in my new series: Easy Blog Tutorials for the Blogspot Blogger. Want to learn how to off the annoying Navbar at the top of your blog? *points to post* I share it there.

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O t h e r   A w e s o m e   P o s t s

This post by Zachery of "alternate titles for sci-fi and fantasy" post is quite hilarious.

MY VERY GOOD WRITERLY FRIEND SIERRA STARTED A WRITING BLOG AND GO FOLLOW IT BECAUSE I AM VERY EXCITED ABOUT THIS.

So I read fast. Very fast. Like I can read five-books-in-two-days fast. Cait @ Paper Fury posted a lovely post about the dire agonies of being a speed reader. (There are lots of problems. o.o)

Aimee made me laugh (as always, let's be real, here) with her very truthful post about NaNoWriMo. In her words: "NaNoWriMo is awesome. There are no survivors." *nervous laughter*

I found this book review blog that reviews books from a Christian perspective. (and lists the content) Yass, I needed this.

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T h e   W o r l d   o f   W r i t i n g

*whistles innocently* ...

*is researching third degree burns* *sees a picture* Me: I'm scarred for life. Character: And so am I. Oops.

— Katie Grace (@KatieGraceWrite) October 23, 2015

I'm about three-fourths of the way down with my third draft for Song of the Desert! As I mentioned above, as I'm line editing/adding new scenes, I'm sending them to my critique partner who's *very* helpful. I succeeded in my 65k editing goal (yesss) and so I'm just relived that editing is over. xD (until December, but I'll just ignore that.)

So NANO starts tomorrow. I'll be staying up until midnight (because why wouldn't you start off a month with little sleep with sleep deprivation?) to celebrate the start. I'm writing the sequel to Song of the Desert and it's titled The Sand Dragon's Song. 

(I'm so happy that all these titles are working out for me -- does someone else understand this wonderful feeling? :P)

But even though ALL I'm going to be doing is writing these next weeks, it feels weird to not be writing, so I'm okay with it. ;)

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T h i n g s   t o   C o m e!

What you can expect in November: 

• weekly posts on NaNo! I'll be linking to other NaNo posts, sharing progress, rambling on about NaNo in general, *maybe* snippets and all that sort. i promise it will be more interesting than it sounds.
• november monthly highlights. 
• a TAG or the second post in BLOGSPOT BLOGGER design. (I'll do whichever one has the most votes down in the comments. ;)

- Katie Grace 

So which post do you want to see in November? Did you read more books than me? (I wouldn't be surprised if EVERYONE did. xD) 
Are you staying up until midnight for NaNo? ARE YOU EXCITED? IF YOU AREN'T, GET EXCITED!