Highlights of September 2018

September was a more of a quiet month compared to the rest of the year - quiet, but still a very, very good month. And yet it also felt like it flew by in an editing-filled blur? ;D

Who wants to hear about it? 

First of all (and I'm still on cloud nine because of this one) - my parents surprised me on my birthday by telling me that I'm going to Realm Makers 2019! I'm beyond beyond excited to go back again next year (honestly, RM 2018 was one of the best experiences I've had in all of my life), even though I don't think it's quite sunk in yet that I'm really going back next year! ;D Will I see any of you there? (I dearly hope so!)

My sisters also put together a killer birthday present for me - they emailed and texted tons of my friends and relatives (even a bunch of my sweet Realmie friends!) and put together a massive montage of birthday-wish videos for me. It was an incredible present.

And art has been happening! I've been messing around with using oil pastels instead of lead or ink ... but they're just so smudgy. Very hard to use. We'll see what comes of that ;D. I've done most of my sketches this month with my mechanical pencil though, and I'm still loving that. I'm learning that when I run dry of writing inspiration, falling to my sketchbook seriously helps. Thus, since I was editing this month ... lots of sketching happened ;D.

I've doodled a quote from each of Mary Weber's Storm Siren books, and it took me FOREVER to chose a picture to sketch along with this quote (from the third book). I finally chose to sketch the Realmie taco night, because why not? ;D

Come on, it's never too early for Romanov fanart ;D. I did that one right before the cover reveal (*cough* because I was overexcited *cough*), and then doodled Moana as well, because it was too fun to resist!

The writing front has been... well, I can't decide whether it's been 'pretty quiet' or 'exhausting', honestly ;D. It's been quiet in the sense that I haven't worked on much new stuff, and exhausting in the sense that I've been editing all month.

All. Month.

But I've FINALLY finished my current round of edits (yay!) - and I'm incredibly happy and thankful about this, because this was both one of the hardest and yet best of round of edits I've done so far (...confusing, I know xD). I've got a couple more rounds of edits to complete, and then it will be DONE. I'm planning to have the beta call posted in mid-October (so it's happening SOON!).

Oh, on another exciting note - Kerilynn Wilson posted the illustrated version of Uncharted! Her work is AMAZING, and there's so much blue! (y'all know I have an affinity for the color blue ;D) I loved seeing what she did with it, and absolutely cannot wait to get a physical copy of it!

Also NaNoWriMo is coming in one month. Am I ready NO.

Two of these books were assigned for school, four of them I chose to read - so while it was a slower month reading-wise, I also discovered a new trilogy that I ADORE, so I consider it a win ;D.

- The Storm Siren Trilogy by Mary Weber. This trilogy, people - THIS TRILOGY. I read The Evaporation of Sofi Snow and Reclaiming Shilo Snow right when they came out, but for some reason never finished the Storm Siren trilogy after I read the first book a couple years ago? But I decided to nab it again after I meet the lovely author at Realm Makers, and YOU GUYS. I honestly can't even express my thoughts on it here without going on for hours, so I'll just tell you that I LOVED this trilogy to death, and a review is coming soon ;D.

- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. So...I went into this book expecting to dislike it. Nothing against the book itself, but "classic" books normally don't sit well with me (for some reason I just find it hard to connect to them?) but THIS ONE WAS DIFFERENT. I literally couldn't stop reading it, it was such a good book. 4.5 stars to this one. (and maybe I'll think twice before refusing to read other classics now, haha!)   

The nominations round, voting round, and award presentation ;).

- Danielle at Life is Like a Book, R.M Archer at Scribes and Archers, Allison at The Little Bookworm, and Jane at Jane Maree did my Get To Know Me Tag: Writer's Edition! Go check them and out and give these epic girls some love <3 <3 <3. (also, if you've done the tag, let me know in the comments so that I can check it out and include you in my next wrap-up post!)

- The lovely Deborah O' Carroll and the epic Jane Maree both celebrated blogoversary's this month, so go pop on over to their amazing blogs and throw some confetti at them ;).

- Micaiah Saldana guest-posted an amazing story on the lovely Hanna Rothfuss' blog - make sure to go check it out! It's beautiful <3.     

- Danielle over at Snapper did an epic post on her writing process in GIFs, which was a ton of fun ;D.

- The amazing Rosalie over at Penprints did an equally amazing post about why The Lion King means so much to her, and I have been fully convinced that I need to see that movie!

- Victoria over at The Wanderer's Pen did an awesome post about how she juggles two jobs, writing, editing, social media managing, while still having a  social life (I am beyond impressed, y'all).    

- Paper Fury's Cait did an epic review of Blackbird of the Gallows by Meg Kassel, and I immediately scrambled over to my library to snag a copy, because this book is right up my alley.

- The incredible Kara Swanson started up a STUNNING author website! So y'all should definitely scamper over there and check out it, because it's absolutely gorgeous, my gracious <3 <3 <3

- The final Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindewald trailer released and I AM SCREAMING. Who else is excited for this move to finally release?

   Well, like I said - the beta call is coming! Hopefully sooner than later, because I have to get this thing off to agents (o.o). And then I have a couple book (and movie!) reviews planned, so that'll be fun. I also miiiight do a Q&A vlog (as a late celebration for my blogoversary, which was on Sept. 12 and which, yes, I totally skipped ;D) - maybe if you guys really want me to ;). We'll see what happens!


I hope y'all had an amazing September, and that October is just as good! Keep being epic, my friends <3.

~ Savannah Grace 

how was your September?

who's planning on doing NaNoWriMo?