October 2014: Recap

Converse: the official fall attire as far as I'm concerned. Fall is here, NaNoWriMo is almost here, and these Converse will help me on my journey. I'm ready. Let's go. 

October has come and gone, which is pretty hard to believe. This month has been extremely full, mostly with my wisdom teeth surgery recovery since the 24th. As I write this, it's 1:45 am on the 29th of October, and I'm still very sore, but excited to be on the mend. My month wasn't all wisdom teeth surgery though; I did a lot of plotting, planning, and writing in the early weeks of October. Mostly, I anticipated the arrival of NaNoWriMo. Now it's about to happen in four days, and I'm completely excited (and maybe a little terrified, due to my lack of plot. But hey, that's the fun of it, right?) 

I started out the month ready for my wisdom tooth removal surgery on the 10th. I got all ready for it and everything... only to have to reschedule. Thus, I got my wisdom teeth out on the 24th of October. They had to use three times the amount of anesthesia they normally would (whoops), but otherwise it went well. (Though I do remember parts of the surgery and... eeeew.) Days 1 and 2 were decent, but days 3, 4, and 5, were worse. On day 6, I ended up getting dry socket, which lives up to the horror stories, but we're on day 7 now and recovery is imminent. While dry socket is miserable, I'm feeling much, much better because of the medicated dressings they put in. (Seriously. They're MAGICAL.) I'm feeling better today than I have in a week, and I'm looking forward to being able to be fully back on my feet again!

On the day this is published, it'll be Halloween, and if all goes according to plan, I'll be cosplaying as a female version of Bucky Barnes. We'll see, though. (I'm going to try to make a metal arm out of tin foil. My mother was completely unperturbed that I wanted to dress up as a man. She's just thrilled it's a cheap costume.) I'll keep you posted on the results. (Update: it worked. Picture at the end of the post.)

Throughout all of this--my surgery, the recovery, everything else--I feel myself growing a lot closer to my family, my mother and sister in particular. My sister and I are seven years apart, so it can sometimes be hard for us to get along, but we have found a shared outlet: a TV show. Once Upon a Time, to be exact. After Christine's guest post, I found myself wanting to try to get into OUAT again. So I hit play on episode six where I left off. I was ambivalent, until my sister came down and started watching it with me. She begged for another. And another. By the time the day was done, we had watched five episodes. And we were completely hooked.

My mom has been incredible through all of this; helping me through my recovery in particular. Whether it's getting me loads of ice packs or trying to find me soft foods, her help, and more importantly encouragement, has been unparalleled and incredible. She's my rock, and I don't know what I'd do without her. My dad also took me to the doctor the morning I had dry socket, and I'm incredibly grateful to him for doing that.

As for the months ahead, I have NaNo to look forward to, and after that we'll gear up for the holidays and a hopefully-not-very-long winter. Fall is my favorite season, I've officially decided, so my main goal is to just soak it in as long as I have it. I love it--the leaves, the crisp feeling in the air. As Anne of Green Gables said, I'm so glad I live in a world with Octobers. That's definitely true for me.

On the Blog

October was an incredibly prolific month on the blog. I started off the month with A Novel Idea: Astrid & Cobie, and in general did the A Novel Idea blog meme a total of four times: Here We Have Six, Evee and Hal, and All About the Writing Process #3. My first non-meme blog post of the month was to celebrate my 8-year-blogiversary, along with sharing 20 facts about me. You can find that one here.

I participated in two fantastic cover reveals this month, both of which I was privileged to be a part of: Plenilune by Jennifer Freitag, and Portals of Water and Wine by R. L. Haas. My new link-up with Cait, Beautiful Books, debuted this month, and that was a whole load of fun. I loved reading all of your posts! I participated in it as well by sharing about my NaNo novel, and that was amazing, too.

I did not get my wisdom teeth out (though I did later on in the month, so not to worry), and bought two new fabulous plushie friends. I revisited a couple of my older posts and spun them into new ones, with both Five Reasons Why I Love NaNoWriMo: Reprise and Courage to Rewrite. In a fit of inspiration and bravery, I wrote Trust Me, I'm a Superhero (And You Are, Too), which is one of my favorite posts out of the entire month. And finally, we launched into my Week of Scheduled Posts due to me recovering from wisdom teeth surgery. I had a fantastic guest poster, Christine Smith, come share 7 Reasons Why the Once Upon a Time Writers Are Magic. (Check that one out if you haven't already!) I also asked what's on your character's bucket lists, and shared what I stay alive for. I also wrote about how I want to write about family. Which brings us to today, my recap, and the 18th post on this blog for October, which I frankly can't believe. I don't know if my posting record will be this good every month, but I'll take what I can get! I've so enjoyed flinging my words across the blogoverse for the world to see this month.

Writing

My writing hit a bit of a slow spot as far as novels go (apparently my writing spark migrated to my blog, whoopsie-daisy). I have lost almost all inspiration for Petrichor, but I'm continuing to try to plug away at it. I'm still doing the 100-4-100 challenge, though most days I'm meeting the bare minimum (and I'm on break because... you guessed it! Wisdom teeth). I hope to finish Petrichor, still. My goal was to finish it by November 1st, but the ending is taking a little longer to come to me, and maybe that's okay.

Speaking of the ending of Petrichor... I realized that the ending I had in mind might actually be a bad one. So it's back to the drawing board, and I think that's a little bit of where I'm hitting my snag. I don't know honestly how to end it. So I might have to take a little time on this one.

My sister is also still doing the Go Teen Writers 100-4-100 challenge, and I am so proud of her. Despite losing some steam, she's still going at it. For her writing projects, she's started a blog, where she'll write from the perspective of our puppy dog, Ace. Due to the sheer amount that Ace gets into trouble, my sister's new venture is sure to be an entertaining and fabulous read. I promised her I'd "advertise it", so here's the link. I'm sure my sister (and Ace) would love comments!

"Pleeeeease read my blog, please?"

And now for the nitty-gritty details: writing stats. In Petrichor, I wrote a total of 9,825 words this month. I'm at a total of 94k out of my goal of 100k. So close! I'm pretty sure I won't finish by November 1st, but that's okay. The ending is taking a little longer to come to me, so I shall sit back and let it.

Music

There was definitely one song for me this month: Pour Some Sugar On Me by Def Leppard. My dad showed it to me on an 80s playlist one night, and since then I've listened to it too many times to count. I didn't listen to too much else, but here's the official playlist for October.

pour some sugar on me - def leppard

the writer - ellie goulding

the writer (live acoustic version) - ellie goulding

home - ingrid michaelson

tee shirt - birdy

photograph - ed sheeran

bloodstream - ed sheeran

tenerife sea - ed sheeran

i'm a mess - ed sheeran
save rock and roll - fall out boy

(I wasn't kidding when I said Ed Sheeran slayed my feels. It is very, very true, and this playlist is proof.)

On Instagram

1. selfie / 2. my plushies, rainbow dash, and the owl-of-many-names. / 3. my sister and me. / 4. my dog ace keeping me company after wisdom teeth surgery. / 5. you mean the sky didn't really turn to cotton candy that day? / 6. fall snapshots / 7. i'm having a moment. / 8. my sister lighting up my life. / 9. a sunset lighting up my life. / 10. fall leaves lighting up my life. / 11. one of my favorite pictures i took this month. / 12. wisdom teeth recovery has entailed a looot of icing. / 13. this is my favorite color. / 14. front-porch selfie: i'm happy because FALL. / 15. my dog ace on his second birthday. / 16. converse, the official fall shoe in my opinion.

On TV

As mentioned, my sister and I (finally) got into Once Upon a Time. I love it so far. We're currently on episode 11 of the first season. (Binge-watching will do that to you.) In addition I watched the series premiere of The Flash, and loved every second of Grant Gustin / Barry Allen. He's fabulous. I also got back into Arrow s1 (both by myself and re-watching with my sister). I watched Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and cried over Fitzsimmons. 

Another huge development happened as of the 30th: my brother and I finished the entire series of Breaking Bad.

It was awesome. Thought-provoking, violent, and oftentimes terrifying... but awesome. 

I might write about it in a post sometime.

With my family, I started Star Trek: Deep Space Nine with my dad, continued Utopia with my brother, and started watching 19 Kids and Counting with my mom and sister. (I wanted to see Jill's wedding, and now I want to see more. I set up all the episodes to record. Whoops.) We got a shiny new DVR this month with a fancier layout, an easier setup, more recording space, and the opportunity to record a lot of shows at a time. This has greatly improved my watching experience, if only for the shiny-newness and technological beauty of it all. While down with my wisdom teeth recovery, I've been watching a ton of HGTV. Property Brothers and Love it Or List It have absolutely been my go-to shows. I love them both so much. It's great mindless TV. (And the Property Brothers are... really, really cute, I have to say.)

Then, of course, I watched a couple of the usual shows scattered throughout the month--New Girl, Parks and Recreation, etc.

My 12-year-old self agrees.

Other Media

I watched the movie Stuck In Love and absolutely adored it. It was about a family of writers--including but not limited to: Greg Kinnear as the dad, Nat Wolff as the son, and Lily Collins as the daughter. I loved them all so much. It had sexual content and lots of language, and is rated R, but other than that I really recommend it. As a writer, it really resonated with me.

I also picked up the book If I Stay by Gayle Forman, after seeing the trailer for the movie during Heaven Is For Real, and I love it. Stay tuned. (Ironically, Liana Liberato is in both Stuck In Love and the movie adaptation of If I Stay. I don't know. It just seemed worth mentioning.)

In Conclusion

MY WISDOM TEETH ARE OUT AND I'M SO HAPPY! AND NANO IS COMING AND I'M SO HAPPY! (And no, I'm not still high from medication. I don't think. I'M JUST HAPPY.)

I've been working on this recap over the past few days, so I wrote the above sentence before dry socket set in. When I worked on this post again after getting dry socket, my general attitude was, "....eeeeeh." Nevertheless, recovery is on its way. I'm feeling much better now, and I'm very much looking forward to the month to come, and I'm greeting next month with open arms. November, it is so nice to meet you. I am ready.

Onward,

--Sky

"well then, you'd better finish it. because i'm with you till the end of the line, pal." 

my halloween costume. it ended up working out perfectly! i had a wonderful time.