A Week After New Years, we get to the 2015 Roundup

Work’s been BUSY. I’ll talk about the New Star Wars in another post. But First, the Reading Challenge:

 

A Trilogy – Eh, take your pick between the Metawars 4 pack or the Maze Runner 4 pack. I know: not a trilogy. I didn’t finish book 4 of metawars prior to 2016 though. Both were YA adventure series, I think aimed at boys. I could go on and on about Cliffhangers and how I’m not impressed, but the big thing that irked me was how much blatant hero worship for the MC there were in both series.

A Memoir: A More Perfect Union by Dr. Ben Carson – Okay, I wouldn’t really call it a memoir. It’s about the presidential candidate’s interpretation of the Constitution, supplemented by his faith.

A Book You’ve Owned by Never Read: Battle by Michelle Sagara West. I’ve had the title for like, two years – finally got around to reading it last April.

 

So, that was awful. Got another reading challenge, looks like it could go a bit easier. To be fair though: I was loaned a bunch of books throughout the year, so hurray for free reads, but it wasn’t always what I wanted to pick up and read.

Speaking of, I finally finished all my loaned books from R.J. Hore, so now I’m looking at my shelves going “I need to go to the bookstore.” I also need to find my Ereader (it’s around – somewhere) because I have about a dozen titles on there I want to get to this year. We’ll see when I get around to what.

 

HOW ABOUT THAT DRAWING HORSES RESOLUTION?

Okay – so I’m better, but not great. I have nothing to show you, because I’ve spent the last two months learning how to draw dolphins and undersea creatures. I have nieces who want to watercolor paint some mermaids. I think my generic resolution this year is to continue on and do more painting and drawing this year. Maybe finish some pictures – I’m supposed to paint with my niece this weekend, and we’re doing an acrylic paint night at my mom’s place for a christmas present (she wants to do stuff; winters can be rough in MB – but so far it’s been a very mild winter. I shall rue this later).

 If I do anything decent maybe I’ll post pics later this month.

WHAT ABOUT THAT WRITING?

So besides being tired from all these 60ish hour work weeks, I feel more confident, because damn if it doesn’t feel good having a job where you can call people out on their BS. I know it’s been a mental issue for the last few years – I don’t want to talk about self doubt, false modesty or anything like that; I am in a place where I’m not getting beaten up mentally all the time and while the nature of my job is potentially dangerous, it’s not like the station is a hostile territory. My regular partner has been on mat leave and is coming back, so I work with a variety of people. Being thrown into situations that I can’t control with new people honestly did a lot of wonders for my mental health.

So where i am writing: I hired the same editor I did in 2014 to go over an older manuscript, mostly so I could look over my generic problems and try to fix them. I picked something stylistically different, hoping to learn from the editing process. Ironically, that manuscript is still at a publisher I met this Summer at WWC, but I’m not holding my breath that she’ll end up taking it. I met some other publishers at WWC, so I am planning on getting some more stuff out during their submission periods. It’s a slow game (I have gotten rejections like two years after I assumed they were lost) so if you’re submitting, kids, make a spreadsheet, and get to work on something else.

I spent a lot of time working on two kids books, which honestly were a lot of fun. Then for NANOWRIMO, I’m still slugging away at the novella. I should be done, but as said above: 60 hour work weeks and a self-loathing unreliable narrator makes for oodles of fun. I was supposed to have 4 days off this week (or usual for the EMS shiftworker), but I went in last night because they needed a body with a class 4. And my time off has been spent seeing people and exercising the dog, who has honestly been a trooper during these long days (and when I work nights, he lets me sleep, hurray) I got more time off later this month so hopefully I can focus.

Anyway, I hope you and yours had a fantastic 2015, and that you have a blessed 2016.