Monthly Highlights - March 2017

   So the last day of March (and the fact that I needed to do a highlights post) nearly passed me by because my mind is so full of all the things that need to be done before Camp NaNoWriMo that I still haven't done. But I shall survive, and you guys will still get a Monthly Highlights post.

   Let's do this thing. 

  
   So March was definitely a less busy month, as far as months go. I got a lot done - though, not much of it can go in the 'monthly highlights' section, because a lot of it had to deal with writing. Go figure ;). But some interesting things besides writing did happen in March ...   

   - Apparently I hit 90 followers this month (email and GFC)?! You guys are the best. <3

   - I won some books from participating in an Indie E-Con, and so I will have some beautiful little incentives to keep me writing during Camp NaNoWriMo. Or perhaps my idea of bribing myself to write with books will backfire and I'll end up in a corner reading while my wordcount suffers terribly. Who can tell *shrugs*.
 
   - I made more of a set-in-stone plan for what I'm going to do with Killing Snow this year, and I'm MADLY excited about it xD.

   - I realized that, out of all my 90+ books that I own, very few of them are dystopian and my current WIP (Killing Snow) is quite dystopian/sci-fi. This fact is sad. This fact needs to be fixed. Know of any good dystopian or sci-fi books, anyone? xD

   - I had an accidental NaNoWrimo. My wordgoal that I set for myself this month was 15k - and guess what? I hit 49,348 words (including the words I wrote in my incredibly-detailed story outline). I would have written those last few words to hit 50k, but I told myself that I would take a little break before Camp NaNoWriMo comes around, because I burn out fast xD. 
    Also, Killing Snow (my current WIP) was sort of slaying me slowly throughout the whole month. And (as the girls in my chat call me Sav) some of my friends wondered if it could have been better titled ...

   - I finished the outline for novel Killing Snow. It's incredibly detailed (for me, at least), and it's just over 6k words long. But now I have a path to follow when I rewrite Killing Snow into a novel, instead of traipsing around in the wilderness and getting hopelessly lost and probably killed. xD

   - I've been getting majorly attacked by plot bunnies. Why does this always happen to me right when I actually have a legit project that I need to get done?
   Some of said plot bunnies include; a retelling of the 100 Dresses (which probably won't get written, because its poor plot bunny is slowly dying, but you never know) and two books entitled 'All That Haunts' and 'Death Comes Early'. They want to be written, so I scribbled down the titles and one-sentence hooks for them in a document and immediately shoved it aside so that I don't get distracted during Camp NaNoWriMo.

   Okay, I should get onto sharing a snippet, otherwise more plot bunnies are going to wiggle their way into my brain. That won't be helpful. Moving on (basically unedited work, as usual - and I took out a name because #spoilers)...

   *cringes because those covers look terrible together* Three of those were actually schoolbooks (A Tale Of Two Cities, Animal Farm, and Pride And Prejudice) but I included them anyways because they're fiction books, so they kind of count. Anyways ...

   - A Branch Of Silver, A Branch Of Gold by Anne Elisabeth Stengl. Definitely the best book I read this month - and it was reread at that! But gracious do I love this thing. It's beautiful and strange and magical and all-around wonderful. Her writing style is unique and I LOVE it <3. Also, the characters are GOALS, each and every one of them. This is most definitely a book that I'll be rereading again (what is this phenomenon?!), so I give it a full five stars. 

   - Pride And Prejudice by Jane Austen. Not a book I would have chosen to read (Emma was the first Jane Austen book that I tried to read, and I ended up being like 'uh ... nope' and putting it down because classic, older books and me almost never ever click. Sadly.) - but school decided that I should, so I did. Not the best, not the worst, but THE CHARACTERS (who's already guessed that that was what I was going to say?). Seriously, Jane Austen did an amazing job with her characters, I really admired that. So this book gets 3 1/2 stars.  

- Literary agent Tessa Emily Hall was (is?) searching for new authors to represent. Sadly, I didn't fill the "finished novel" qualification xD. Someday soon!

- The lovely Mary Horton started a new blog! (this post is one of my favorites from it)

- More Burning Youth posts. Obviously. Like this. And this. *flails over the wonderfulness of BY*  (also this because it basically shares the title of a gorgeous song my sister wrote + composed and I kind of stared at it in shock for 1.7 minutes when it came through my Blogger feed)

- Morgan LuaAnn posted some of her favorite artwork and OH MY was I hit with all the story inspiration.

- Hannah White did a post about writing pitches that was incredibly helpful and that I badly needed xD.

- One of my favorite blogs in the blogosphere, Musing Of An Elf, celebrated its SIXTH YEAR of being a blog. This seems like an impossibly and wonderfully long time to be blogging to me :D. (also, Christine did a post about her epic character, the Dragon, from her Burning Thorns novel and I may or may not have squealed wildly over the whole post and I may or may not have failed to comment because #whereistime *smacks myself* xD)

- Deborah O' Carroll did one and two posts about how to read a Diana Wynne Jones book, and I LOVE them both to death and now desperately need to read another DWJ book (preferably Howl's Moving Castle, because it's my favorite <3).

- Audrey Caylin did a beautiful post entitled 'To My Fellow Dreamers'.

- Tracey Dyck graced us with some of her gorgeous writing and my only response is 'how is she this good'? xD

- Abbie did another music video and it is beautiful and GLORIOUS and I love it and all of you should go check it out *shoos you away*. 

   Well ... there won't be as many ramblings as usual, seeing as Camp NaNoWriMo is going to take over life for awhile. So there will probably only be three or four-ish posts in April, and I won't be bouncing around on the blogosphere so much (*cringes because I'm already behind when it comes to comments*). But at least I won't die :D.

   - How To Liven Up Your: Main Character is probably going to be coming. I think we have ... about four posts left in this series? That could change, but there it is.

   - A review of Jesseca Wheaton's A Question Of Honor, which looks like it's going to be AH-MAZING.

   So there's my March in a nutshell, and now I shall bid you adieu and race off to the land of insanity. Camp NaNoWriMo is upon us in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... 

~ Savannah Grace 

   How was your March? Do you have any suggestions for good dystopian/sci-fi books? What are your plans for April, writer-ly or otherwise?