For as short as February is, I had a pretty successful month. I worked really hard at time management this month, and the effort paid off. It’s a very gratifying feeling. With that being said, I have lots to report. 🙂 

 

Reading

Since I tried to focus more on writing than reading this month, I was only able to squeeze in three books. But they were great reads, all of which you can see my opinion on by clicking the links below the picture! 

The Ghost and the Goth by Stacey Kade, Queen of the Dead (Ghost and the Goth, Book 2) by Stacey Kade, and Vanish (Firelight, Book 2) by Sophie Jordan

Writing

 At the start of the month, I found myself rather addicted to the site Polyvore. After pinning (on Pinterest) a variety of outfits people had created that I felt represented my style I started thinking that creating outfits for my characters might be an awesome way to keep them visually in my head. See, often times when I’m writing I can usually associate an actor or actress who might play that character should the book ever be a movie, but with the two books I’m currently writing, I have no celeb faces to attach to the people in my head. Creating outfits based on their style though has really kept them alive this month.

 

For those curious this is what the Dreamsters cast “looks like” – 

And this is what the Crack the Sky cast “looks like” – 

I truly dedicated my weekends to writing this month and as a result wrote a total of 15,518 words (13,448 of which belong to Crack to the Sky (which, btw, is now 20,519 words long!) and 2,070 of which belong to Dreamsters). Admittedly, I’m excited about this because I’m pretty sure the last time I wrote so much in one month was probably late 2010. If I can keep up this weekend pattern of 4K+ words, there should be no reason I can’t actually finish a book this year. I really hope this wasn't a fluke and March is equally as generous to me.

 

 

Music: On Repeat

It’s been another strange month when it comes to music for me. Some days I couldn't get enough (sometimes listening to just the same song over and over again relentlessly), and then other days I preferred silence. And despite listening to a lot of new* music, I found myself craving some of the older stuff I've loved for a long time, too. Because of this, the top three played songs are sort of a happy mixture of old and new.  

*new = new to me, not necessarily new to the world

Hurt – “Rapture” 

This is a band  actually introduced me to last year (you may remember “Overdose”?), but I’m just now getting to enjoy a whole album. This song will be featured on Crack the Sky’s playlist and because of that, it got played on a loop while writing this month.

Shearwater – “Breaking the Yearling” 

Currently the most played track of the year so far with 220 plays, credit can go to for this track. While I’m still not sure how I feel about the rest of Shearwater’s music, I know I love this track without question!

Underoath – “A Fault Line, A Fault of Mine” 

This one snuck in towards the end of February. I woke up one day craving a band I’ve loved for quite some time now and once satisfying my craving, realized so many of their songs were perfect for my books. This song, in particular, got over 150 plays already while working on Crack the Sky. No doubt the play count will continue to climb until this books complete. 

**Obviously, the latest Arctic Monkeys track, "R U Mine?" has already been played equally as many times as the tracks listed above, but since I just posted it two days ago here, I didn't see a need for re-posting it. 

Photography

No, I’m not a professional, but I have been spending a great deal of time researching and learning new techniques to take my nephew’s pictures every week. Like the effort I put into writing this month, I think the effort I’m putting into being a better photographer is paying off, too. Check out the ‘Best Of’ from February of Gideon!

And that’s all from me! I can only hope to have an equally, if not more successful month in March. *fingers crossed*

How did you fare in February, friends? Anything exciting to report? 

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