Monthly Highlights - April 2017

   April was such a good month - we had heaps of fun, and I wrote heaps of words! Want to hear about it?

   - My sisters + brother and dad traveled to watch the FEI World Cup Showjumping Finals and OH MY. That's definitely something I'm never going to forget. It's one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. It's the coolest feeling ever to jump to your feet with 17k other people and cheer at the top of you lungs when an American rider wins on American soil for the first time in 30 years. So incredibly awesome.

    *smacks the sad little photo that I took with my phone* Best I got xD. And we were sitting so close to the arena that we could hear the horses breathing when they went by. Like I said - so incredibly awesome.

   - There were some fair-sized storms in April (<3 <3 <3), which made for epic reading weather. Which meant that my Camp NaNoWriMo wordcount may or may not have suffered a bit on those days. But I have no regrets! :D   

   - Musical-sister performed with her orchestra, and one of the songs they played was one of her originals. It was so so cool to watch and hear them playing one of her masterpieces. <3        

   Where do I even start?

   - Camp NaNoWrimo. I had started out saying that I was going to hit 75k - and then totally forgot that I can't write that fast when it's not a zero (or first) draft. So I switched it to 50k, which I realized just wasn't going to be doable for this draft (no matter how much I really really wanted it to be) - so I ended up on 30k, which I hit a few days before the end of Camp. So I sort of managed to lose AND win, but I'm super happy with how this month turned out.

   - I got half of my novel, Killing Snow, written. Killing Snow was my Camp novel, so all 30k went to it. And once I had won, I decided that I wasn't stopping there, because it'll be a lot harder to start up again if I stop! So I set up a goal tracker on the NaNoWriMo site, and I'm planning to finish the other half of Killing Snow in May.   

   - I've had many ideas on how to expand The Testing into a full novella. I'm trying to keep it on the back-burner without killing it, because I need to get Killing Snow done first. But the plot bunnies have been coming at me full force so SEND HELP. xD

click the image to read the bit of the story that I posted on here - before I knew it wanted to be a FULL story ;)

   I'd give y'all the usual snippets - but I'm too brain-dead to look for anything suitable to share :D. However, you will get snippets in my post about Camp NaNo - which should go up around the 4th of May, along with my Camp NaNo vlog. It'll be lots of fun ;).   

+ the Five Enchanted Roses collection, Rehabilitation by C.B. Stone, and Passenger by Alexandra Bracken

Worst book: Passenger by Alexandra Bracken
Best book: It's a direct draw between Heartless (Marissa Meyer) and A Time To Speak (Nadine Brandes)

   And of course I forgot a good portion of the books I read and had to add them in as a caption. Of course. Anyways - I found a new favorite book this month! A Time To Speak by Nadine Brandes was pure gold. I loved it death, it was so amazing. Definitely, definitely a book that I would recommend.

  - Heartless by Marissa Meyer. Not a book for everyone, I'll admit that for sure, but I loved it (or hated it, whatever. It's kinda simultaneous for this book). Heartless is a retelling of the Queen Of Hearts from Alice In Wonderland, and I was super curious as to how Marissa Meyer was going to pull that off. I honestly didn't know if she'd be able to - until I started reading the thing. Then (because she's Marissa Meyer, people) I was pretty sure she'd be able to do it. And OH BOY, you guys - that ending. I couldn't. My poor heart. My sister and I are still mourning it xD. A great big five stars for this book. 

   - A Time To Speak by Nadine Brandes. This book, you guys. I couldn't stop reading it once I started, and it was so amazing. I have no words. (literally, I'm having a hard time writing this because NO WORDS) The characters were some of the best I've seen, and I'm so picky about characters. The plot drew me in until I couldn't put the book down if I'd wanted to. The highest praise I can give this thing is that, should I ever need to pick my top-favorite series of all time, the Out Of Time series would be one of the top contenders for that name. I can't even with this book. A full five stars and more. 

   Also, I wrote a review of White Wolf And The Ash Princess (by Tammy Lash) this month, and I'll be writing a review of A Question Of Honor in May, if you want more of my bookish thoughts ;).

- Alea did an epic post on how to create professional book covers (and she's also the epic girl who created the epic mock cover for Killing Snow, and her other cover work is AH-MAZING, so definitely check that out).

- Jonathan is still slaying it with his posts about faith and writing (<--- and that's only one of them). They're seriously awesome, you guys.

- Emily wrote a gorgeous poem that I couldn't get over. <3

- Burning Youth is killing it. Like usual. I won't even bother linking to all the posts - here's the blog.

- Madison did a guest post on Abi Ellison's blog on hooking readers with your first line, and it was one of the best posts I've read on the topic.

- Hanna did a amazing post about when we need a hero. I love it. Go read it. <3

- A post when up on Helping Writers Become Authors on moving the plot and OH BOY was it helpful.

- Abi posted and gave us an awesome checklist for self-publishing writers - and it's super helpful even if you aren't planning to self publish!

- Apparently people were into first drafts during April? Because Nadine, Katie, and myself all did a post on them ;).

   My NaNo vlog. The awesome Katie Grace did a vlog about her NaNoWriMo last year, and I decided to do one chronicling Camp April 2017 (somewhat sporadically), as an apology for slacking so much during April. But I guess I did have an excuse :D.

   The vlog should be going up around May 4th, and then another How To Liven Up Your Character post, and a review of A Question Of Honor will be coming along, too. Lots of cool stuff ;).   

   So that was April! Probably one of the best months I've had this year - and now I'm super excited to see what May is going to bring!

~ Savannah Grace

   What awesome stuff happened in your April? Have you read Heartless or A Time To Speak? Did you survive Camp NaNoWriMo? (I dearly hope so!)