Monthly Highlights - July 2017

   Have I ever posted a 'Monthly Highlights' post late? Is this the first time I have missed the mark?! *cue gasps*

   Yeah, well, I'm late - sorry, but you can blame it on NaNo. Every problem can pretty much be blamed on NaNo xD.

   - The week of 4th was basically an epic shebang of relatives being here, TONS of noise, and lots of sitting-on-the-porch-until-the-moon-comes-up-while-watching-fireworks. Or we'd lay in the trampoline and watch colors explode in the sky. The whole week smelled like fireworks and was just really happy, so it was fun <3

   - Okay, so for how BUSY July was, I actually didn't do much? Nothing too far out of the norm? Stuff changed, but nothing super interesting. It was a good, hectic, awesome month.  

   - I wrote 22,158 words this July (all words went to my two Snow White novellas that I'm writing for the Rooglewood contest, but they're still being held under lock and key. Maybe I'll tell you more about them later this month xD), which is about 2k words over my Camp NaNoWriMo goal, so I'm pretty happy with it! Speaking of NaNo ...

   - July's Camp NaNoWriMo was insane. I was writing on and off for most the month (a crazy busy month, as there were some lifestyle changes and school changes and writing changes and UGH *passes out*), and then on the last day realized I + my cabin was really behind. So all of Cabin Mitchtam buckled down and churned out AN ENTIRE 80K WORDS in one day to get our cabin to victory. It was epic xD. Shout-out to Katie, Hannah, Gabriela, Athelas, Nadine, Katriona, Lydia, Emily, Faith, Tricia, Jeneca, Rosalie, and Stephanie for making it to their goals! Cabin Mitchtam rocked <3    

   And this happened, too -

   It was highly amusing xD.

   This was a so-so reading month for me, there were some EPIC reads, and then some not-as-good ones. But all in all, I'm happy with the reading status for July xD.

   - The Ascendance Trilogy by Jennifer A. Nielson. So, is it always the series that one puts off reading that one ends up loving the most? Because IT SEEMS THAT WAY. I knew about The Ascendance Trilogy for awhile, but decided that I had to read it when I saw Mary Horton mention it on her blog, and OH MY am I glad I picked it up! The main character, Sage, is now one of my top favorites. I'd rate each of the books in this series differently, but overall I'd give it a solid four stars.  

   - The Maze Runner Series by James Dashner. Uh ... so it went downhill. Maze Runner (the first book) was pretty good, Scorch Trials (the second) was okay, and Death Cure (basically the last book) was ... meh. I didn't really like the conclusion, and I couldn't really get attached to the book. Still, I'll probably give some of James Dashner's other books a try, because maybe his other series/books are better? We shall see! I'd give the different books in this series very varying star ratings, but I'd give the overall series a three stars.

   - Unblemished by Sara Ella. And yet again a book that I put off reading, but then ended up loving. I think the cover was a little princess-y for me, and that's why I never picked it up? Guess it just goes to show that you don't judge a book by its cover xD. The author has such a unique writing voice, and it was so easy and fun to read. And it's definitely worth mentioning that I randomly bought the newly-released second book in the series without reading it. I basically NEVER do that, but Unblemished was good to make me want to (plus ... the second book is super pretty ... hehe ...). But anyways - I give Unblemished a solid four stars!   

   - The Clockwork Three by Matthew J. Kirby. Oh my goodness, this book. *no words* I randomly picked it up when I found it secondhand (and I mentioned it in this book haul vlog), and I never imagined that it would be as incredibly good as it actually was. This book had three main POV characters, and normally in a book with only two POV characters, I get slightly tired of one, and I always want to be reading in the viewpoint of the other. But that almost never happened in The Clockwork Three - I loved all of the characters so much and I never got tired of being in the heads of any of them. It's one of the best MG books I've ever read, and it gets a glowing five stars from me!

   And then I did three posts for the #SilmAwards2017 - the nominations, the voting, and the award presentation. 

   -  The amazing Aimee Meester restarted her blog, and it looks epic.

   - The WhiteFire publishing house is looking for submissions, so definitely check that out if you have a finished manuscript!

   - Burning Youth posted one of the most gorgeous things I've seen on their blog.

   - A ton of cool posts went up on the 29th of July to celebrate the 63rd birthday of Lord Of The Rings, and you can find the links to those in Jenelle Schmidt's celebratory post.

   - Katie Emmons released her first book, The Blood Race, five days ago (!!!!), and her sister Abbiee did an epic post of reasons to read it.

   - Katie Grace did a post all about her WIP, Where Shadows Lie, a book which I must read stat.(she also did an awesome post on what she learned from the MYWW conference)

   Okay, also, super cool thing - THE BRIGHT EYES PODCAST WAS RELEASED. With all the hype, I'd be surprised if you haven't heard about it, but it is the most epic thing, and you need to go listen to it immediately. I can't stop obsessing over it. It's wonderful and slightly creepy in a sci-fi kind of way and I love it. <3 

   Well, August is definitely, 100% going to be the busiest month of this year - I won't be taking a hiatus, but I might be a little scarce around these here parts. xD I'm going to try and get a Camp NaNo wrap-up post done, and finish the How To Liven Up Your Character series (I would have done it in July, but I figured I should wait until August so I could put a little more time into the final post) - but other than that, who knows what's going to happen? (*cough* there's a rumor that I might be doing a post to ask y'all what I should do for my upcoming one-year blogoversary, but WE SHALL SEE *cough*) 

   Have en epic August, frens <3

~ Savannah Grace 

   Have you listened to Bright Eyes yet? What do you guys think I should do for my one-year blogoversary? What epic stuff did you guys do (or read!) in July?