July was one of those months where I feel like I didn’t get a lot done, but it’s because I was mostly focused on one thing, well two things: not losing my marbles with *gestures to the US* and writing The Reanimator’s Fate. As a refresher, here were my goals for July:
- Write at least 20,000 words of TRF
- Set up the preorder for TRF
- Work a little on the rewrite of F&F
- Manage my stress better as a USian living in this hellscape
- Keep up with my bullet journal better
- Catch up with my cross-stitch
- Enjoy my birthday
- Read 8 books
- Blog weekly
- send out my monthly newsletter
Books
My goal was to read 8 books, and I read 9 during July.
- The Ancient Magus’s Bride (#20) by Kore Yamazaki- 4 stars, in this volume we are heading into a new arc at the college where the families are coming together and the kids are going to be stuck in another power play. I’m interested to see where this new arc goes.
- Six Crimson Cranes (#1) by Elizabeth Lim- 4 stars, a princess realizes her stepmother is actually an evil snake, witch person who turns her six brothers into cranes and makes it so the princess cannot speak about her past without killing her brothers. While in exile, they struggle to break the curse and defeat their stepmother with the help of the princess’s betrothed (who doesn’t recognize her) and a dragon.
- Ark by Veronica Roth- 5 stars, the world is ending and the only people left behind are those working on a seed bank that they will take from earth to their new outer space home. It’s a story about loss, futures, and what is truly important. It is very short, but I LOVED it immensely.
- Void by Veronica Roth- 4 stars, a murder mystery on a space cruise that has some interesting wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff going on. I won’t say more to avoid spoilers, but it was also quite good.
- Therapy Game Restart (#5) by Meguru Hinohara- 5 stars, in this volume, the one MC is doing a photoshoot for the drag queens at his job at a beautiful location, which turns steamy with his boyfriend after they haven’t been able to have any time together. It is a very sweet and steamy volume, and I absolutely love seeing these two navigate a new world together. There are also more hints about a trans side character that is quite interesting.
- Copper Script by KJ Charles- 5 stars, an amputee graphologist falls in with a honest, straight-laced police detective who must solve a mystery together while navigating anti-queer historical sentiment, mobsters, and a crooked cop in high places. I really enjoyed this story and how much of London at this time period we get, especially the diversity of it.
- Masked City (#2) by Genevieve Cogman- 3 stars, a world-hopping librarian and her dragon librarian trainee sidekick get more than they bargained for when stealing a book turns into a kidnapping. Kai, the dragon, gets taken to a chaos world of fae where our librarian must find him before the magic breaks all of them and sets them on a crash course with fae who would happily sacrifice them like pawns.
- Compulsy (#0.5) by Martha Wells- 4 stars, a little prequel to Murder Bot. I bought the box set for the first half of the series and dipped my toe in by reading this short. I’m eager to read the others and get more of our sardonic but good hearted murder bot.
- Fence: Challengers (#7) by C. S. Pacat and Johanna the Mad- 4 stars, the boys are now at a fencing competition where they need to face rivals, be strategic, and perhaps figure out where they stand with each other. This is sort of a bridge/filler volume, so it is a little slower than others but not bad.
Admin/Behind-the-Scenes Stuff
- Was on the Trope-ology Podcast and talked about hurt-comfort
- Had a lovely and relaxing birthday
- Ventured to the DMV in person (bleck) and renewed my license
- Actively tried to pace myself to avoid burnout
- Managed to catch up with my bullet journaling
- Finally hit my stride with TRF (this was my main focus this month)
- Blogged weekly
- Sent out my monthly newsletter
Blog
- June 2025 Wrap-Up Post
- No, You Shouldn’t Use AI, Even on the Small Stuff
- Do You Need a MFA to Write?
- Join Me on the Trope-ology Podcast
- July newsletter
Writing
I figured now was a good time to give a bit of a writing update about book 4 since it’s been a while. Usually by now I would have a cover reveal and a preorder for the next Reanimator Mysteries book up by now, and frankly, that has been weighing on me. Earlier this year, I had a few setbacks writing it. Initially, I was absolutely fried. With the US election going the way it did and then just being tired from writing, it took longer than usual to get a plot together. As soon as I thought I had an idea, I jumped into writing it only to belatedly realize it wasn’t working. I ended up having to completely restart the draft of TRF from scratch. It was the best option, but it also set me back by like 2-3 months, so more than likely, book 4 won’t be out until the end of November or beginning of December. I don’t want to set a preorder for it until I’m a bit farther along and better gauge when it will be finished since pushing preorder dates out can be dicey.
What I can tell you is that I am really happy with how this draft is turning out (especially compared to the previous one), and that hopefully by the end of August, I will have a preorder and possibly a cover. We’ll see about that one as I don’t ever want to rush my designer who has been very understanding about me having to push things back. In July, I was able to write a significant amount, all of which works well and has been edited, so the draft is rather clean this far. This book starts with a bit of a groutesque bang that I hope all my book lovers will appreciate 😉 More than anything, I want this to be the ending Oliver, Felipe, Gwen, and my readers deserve, so I hope you will hang in there while I make it as good as possible for you all.
Hopes for August
- Write 20,000 words of TRF
- Get my book cover stuff in order for TRF
- Attempt to work on the F&F rewrite
- Make my syllabi for my classes
- Set up my Blackboards for my classes
- Read 8 books
- Blog weekly
- Send out newsletter
Kara Jorgensen 