Scribes & Archers

Can you believe it’s almost October?? I don’t know if it’s the fact that I was gone all summer or just the usual shock that fall is already here and there are only three months left in the year, but it feels like this year has flown by. And this month somehow seems like it was super short and at the same time like it’s been a lifetime already!

Writing

I’ve made a lot of progress on writing projects this month! I finished editing Calligraphy Guild and got it sent to the editor last week! That’s probably the most exciting thing on the list (though not for lack of competition). I’m super excited to get my editor’s notes back!

I also finished recording my first worldbuilding course! It’s currently in beta-testing and I need to re-record one of my intro videos, but I’m aiming to launch it by the end of October at the latest. So far the feedback has been really positive and I’m super excited to share this resource with y’all!

I also wrote a short story and submitted it to a contest this week. The contest isn’t anything fancy, but I’m really happy with how the short story came out and I had a lot of fun aiming to build in symbolism and use a broader sample of my vocabulary in a way that I hope emulates the classic literature I’ve been enjoying lately.

Reading

It’s been so nice to be home with time to read again, lol. I’ve finished ten books this month and I’m working my way through Renegades by Marissa Meyer, hoping to have it finished by the end of the week as well. I’ve finished:

• Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie (don’t shoot me down for having written a retelling without reading the source material, but this was my first time reading Peter Pan!)
• J.R.R. Tolkien: Myth, Morality, and Religion by Richard L. Purtill
• On Stories and Other Essays on Literature by C.S. Lewis
• The Household and the War for the Cosmos by C.R. Wiley
• Man of the House by C.R. Wiley (I’m not the intended audience for this book, but it seemed to be a sort of companion to the prior book on this list and I did still find it valuable to read. Both books were excellent!)
• Adorning the Dark by Andrew Peterson (reread)
• The Bridge Kingdom by Danielle L. Jensen
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• George Washington’s Rules of Civility
• Competent to Counsel by Jay Adams

As you can tell, I’m still not reading much by way of modern fiction, though Renegades has been enjoyable thus far and I have plenty of modern fiction unread on my bookshelf that I’d like to change to “read” soon, lol. But my most immediate TBR is still largely classics: I’m currently reading Plato’s Critias and Timaeus dialogues, and I’ve been anxious to reread LOTR. Other top items on the TBR include a collection of Lewis’s essays on theology and ethics, The Tolkien Reader (including Tree and Leaf, which I’m most excited about), and Phantastes by George MacDonald.

What’s Next?

I’m super excited for the release of my worldbuilding course next month! While I work on getting that finalized, I have a non-fiction book project I’m working on between drafts of Calligraphy Guild and I’m excited for that as well. It’s my first non-fiction piece of this length, so it’s been a bit of a learning curve adjusting to the expectations of a book, but it’s been quite fun so far and I’m enjoying the project. I’ve also been trying to improve my platform and make my online presence more appealing and valuable for readers and other authors, a goal which I’ll obviously be carrying through the coming months. (If you have anything you’d particularly like to see from my blog or social media, or if there’s anything I already do that you particularly appreciate and want me to keep, let me know!)

Overall, I’m pretty happy with the progress I’ve been able to make recently and I aim to keep learning and growing next month and beyond!

How about you? How was this month for you? Any milestones we can celebrate? Struggles I can encourage you in? Books you’re super excited to read? Comment below!