March Reading Goals!

Hey, everyone! This post will be a bit haphazard since I haven’t had much time to focus on blogging lately. (Normally I like to put a lot of thought into my blog posts, so I apologize if this is a step below what I usually release.)

The past few days have mainly involved three things: music, school, and family history. Everybody out there is sure to have cool family stories. Maybe someone in your family tree served in a war, established a town, has a mountain named after them…something interesting like that. Besides the occasional story told by my dad or grandparents, I never knew very much about my family history, but I would love to seek out more information one day. After learning some stuff from my dad about distant relatives and lost family photographs, it makes me feel like a small part of a much bigger story.

When you’re young like me, you obviously don’t have the experiences or memories of your predecessors, but thinking harder about it is enough to make your head spin. Generations of people lived before me. Assuming the world doesn’t self-destruct in the next few years, generations of people will live after me. I’m a person, a soul, a living being who exists right now at this moment in time and who is aware of my existence. I know my own thoughts, not anyone else’s, and the same is true of other people. I don’t just live in a world full of mindless robots. Everybody has thoughts, emotions, hopes, and convictions, just like me.

Okay, I think that’s enough self-awareness for one day.

I’ve also been listening to music a lot! I don’t know if I’ve mentioned Nathan Wagner on this blog much, but he’s an artist I discovered on Youtube a few months ago!

Here’s a cool song of his that seems to fit with the beginning of this blog post:

I plan to make a full post on his music someday, so stay tuned for that!

And finally, my reading goals for this month! I went to the library today for the first time in forever. (I won’t start singing that song, don’t worry.) It seems like a simple thing, but I have missed that place so much. Anyway, I was browsing the shelves for books and I spotted… Cinder. The first book in the Lunar Chronicles (AKA, the series that has haunted my steps for years, but I’ve never brought myself to actually read). Well, I started the book and am enjoying it so far. I expect to devour it.

I’m also wading through Revision and Self-Editing: Techniques for Transforming Your First Draft into a Finished Novel by James Scott Bell. An author friend recommended it to me, so I’m reading it! Thus far, it’s quite comprehensive and easy to understand.

I also ordered Fight Write: How to Write Believable Fight Scenes by Carla Hoch, as per the recommendation of Mary over at Wild Writing Dreams. Fight scenes are something I struggle to write since I can’t visualize action very easily. My brain isn’t just wired that way, or maybe I haven’t watched enough unrealistic superhero movies. (For legal reasons, that is a joke.)

That’s all for now! I hope you have a great week!