That’s a wrap! April 2019

My April was a fairly quiet month as far as these things go. I made some decent writing progress, read 6 wonderful books, and am now counting down the days until I finish my university degree. Read on for all the details! →

My April was a fairly quiet month, as far as these things go. Not a whole lot happened aside from the day-to-day drudgery of life haha! Some of my monthly “highlights”, both good and bad, include:

Suffering through university work. I am utterly sick of studying, but with the end now in sight I’m taking my final semester at uni one week, one assignment, at a time. There are only five weeks of classes left now!!

Mid-semester break. Last week was the mid-semester break at uni, and I had a whole list of things I planned to get done. Do you think I did them? Of course not! Why would I, when I can sleep half the day away and spend my evenings re-watching Game of Thrones!

Anzac Day. April 26th was Anzac Day which, for those who don’t know, is a national remembrance day in Australia and New Zealand where we commemorate those who have served in war. I attended a lovely dawn service in my local area! Lest we forget 🌹

Once again, I published 2 blog posts this month, which you can check out below!

As you may be aware, I currently have 2 key writing projects: one a contemporary YA novel, and the other an epic fantasy series. My progress on these is revealed below…and you can click on each heading for more information!

Holding Up the Sky

“The weight of the sky—of the whole world—was pushing down, and it was crushing me.”

Status: Beta reading

Word count: 84,200

What’s new: The beta reading phase for my contemporary YA novel Holding Up the Sky is still going nicely! I plan to start collating all the feedback I’ve received later in May, then conduct my final edits. Eek! I’m willing to take on some last-minute beta readers, so if you’re interested in taking part, all the details are available in this post here.

Blood of Old (Graceborn #1)

“The Old has returned…and what once was, will be again.”

Status: Writing 2nd draft

Word count: 50,500

What’s new: This month, I wrote another 30k words in the 2nd draft of Blood of Old, the first book in my fantasy series Graceborn! I’m now over 25% of the way through, and about 3 chapters shy of finishing Part 1 of 3. Though I’d hoped to by finished with Part 1 by the end of April, I did run into a few hurdles and am fairly happy with the 30k words I did write. Bring on May!

This April, I read a total of 6 books, and for once I actually got through all those on my TBR! The books I finished over the last month are:

“Here’s what I think,” I say and my voice is stronger and thoughts are coming, thoughts that trickle into my Noise like whispers of truth. “I think maybe everybody falls,” I say. “I think maybe we all do. And I don’t think that’s the asking.”
I pull on her arms gently to make sure she’s listening.
“I think the asking is whether we get back up again.”

— from The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

The Knife of Never Letting Go is full of little gems like this! The story is told in the utterly unique voice of Todd, the young protagonist, and it is an absolute joy to see how he grows and develops over the course of the book. I love this quote in particular not only because it comes at such a pivotal moment, but because of how applicable it is to real life! We all make mistakes and we all fail at one point or another, but what’s most important is that we pick ourselves up and carry on.