Tag: May 2024

new blog post: may 2024 wrap-up post May 2024 Wrap-Up Post
Monthly Review

May 2024 Wrap-Up Post

Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

May has been one of those months that felt twice as long as it should. I feel like I’m finally hitting my stride with The Reanimator’s Remains, and I don’t want to jinx anything, but things are finally going smoothly. Before getting into things, let’s take a look at the goals I made for May.

  • Writing goals are as follows:
    • minimum 15k words
    • standard 20k words
    • stretch 25k words
  • Finish outlining the next chunk
  • Finish grading finals
  • Do more creative stuff to avoid burnout
  • Read 8 books
  • Blog weekly
  • Send out my May newsletter
  • Keep up with my stitch-a-long

Books

My goal was to read 8 books in May, and I read exactly 8.

  1. Night for Day by Roselle Lim- 4 stars, a second chance romance where a couple reunites only to be sent to an escape room-like challenge in order to end a war between the gods. The catch is that they must work together but in separate pocket dimensions, and the gods can be friend or foe.
  2. The Brides of High Hill (#5) by Nghi Vo- 5 stars, a Gothic East Asian fantasy with nods to Bluebeard stories and Asian folklore with plenty of twists and surprises. Loved it!
  3. Lore Olympus (#6) by Rachel Smythe- 4 stars, I’m deeply enjoying this series, especially seeing Hades finally standing up to Zeus and the loom of consequences for certain people.
  4. Spear by Nicola Griffith- 5 stars, a Medieval fantasy featuring a crossdressing/living character, a queer romance, and plenty of Arthurian goodness in a small package.
  5. The Binding of Bloom Mountain by Siggy Chambers- 4 stars, a lightly horror fantasy that takes place in a slightly unsettling down and its deeply unsettling mountain, which is full of creatures, nature gods, and potential ways to die.
  6. Therapy Game Restart (#4) by Meguru Hinohara- 4 stars, in this volume we get to see some of the issues queer couples in Japan face as well as some sweet and steamy moments between my fav couple.
  7. The Lies of the Ajungo (#1) by Moses Ose Utomi- 4 stars, a story of a young boy who goes looking for water to save his mother and discovers things are not how they appear. I am very curious as to how Utomi will handle the sequel.
  8. She Loves to Cook & She Loves to Eat (#4) by Sakaomi Yuzaki- 4 stars, a super cute sapphic story about neighbors who are slowly becoming more. I love how we get to see more of the main couple’s relationship along with their new friends.

Admin/Behind-the-Scenes Stuff

  • Edited the entirety of what I’ve written so far for TRR
  • Wrote fairly consistently in the second half of the month
  • Finished grading finals/last minute papers in a timely manner
  • Turned in grades and collapsed into a heap
  • I commissioned art from OblivionsDream of Oliver and Felipe (it’s GORGEOUS- please follow and support her, she’s awesome and a fan of the series)
  • Had a small emotional/mental breakdown after everything that happened in April, but I feel better, so it’s all good.
  • Blogged weekly
  • Sent out my monthly newsletter
  • Listened to my body and actually rested
  • Kept up with the Femurs and Fungi stitch-a-long

Blogs

Writing

This month has been a bit of a weird one for writing. I feel like I’m finally hitting my stride with The Reanimator’s Remains. I ended up having to revamp part of it because Gwen is going on this investigation with them (yay!). While this makes the book so much better, it also means rewriting and reconfiguring things a bit (boo). On one hand, I’m very happy that things seem to be flowing better, but on the other, I feel behind because I had to fix stuff and I’m going to end up sending less of my book to my cover artist than I intended. I don’t think he’ll mind, and I can always send him more as I go, but yeah, I am struggling to keep the “you’re not doing enough!” thoughts out of my head. Listening to those too closely is a one-way trip to burnout ville, and I don’t need that right now at all. I’m really liking this story, especially knowing what the big emotional beats for Felipe will be. I apologize in advance to Felipe fans because you will be put through the wringer with this one. Something that has been low-key shaking my confidence a little bit is that this is a quieter, more internal focused book than books 1 and 2. It’s still very dark and has a spooky forest and the undead, but it’s less overtly action packed. I think you all will enjoy it, but knowing this book won’t be an action movie worries me a bit. This will not be the last book in the series, so I have to remind myself that we don’t need to go out on a bang with this one. We just need to put the boys through it.

Hopes for June

  • Write at least 20k words
  • Outline next chunk of book 3
  • Start the cover stuff for The Reanimator’s Remains
  • Maintain some semblance of brain balance to avoid burnout
  • Keep up with the stitch-a-long
  • Read 8 books
  • Blog weekly
  • Send out June newsletter