May’s Moments of the Month: October // For Once It’s a Good Month Full of Reading and Positive Mental Health!!

That’s right… I somehow had a decent month??

I don’t know how it’s possible but for once it wasn’t terrible! In general, my mental health was surprisingly good (thank you jesus for school breaks), and I somehow managed to break my reading slump?

I still didn’t get to do other things I wanted to (like prepping for NaNoWriMo), and I did fail completely at Inktober, but overall October was… definitely one of my better months. And thank god it was because I needed a break from all the bad stuff!!

I read 12!! books!!! in October, and I couldn’t be prouder of myself!! I read exactly 4 books in September, and I’ve been in a slump all year, so this is amazing to me. (This is how much I used to read every month, before the Slump of 2019.)

I owe it a lot to Marie Lu and her ability to make me so addicted to her books that I’ll consume a whole book in a day. But I had a really good reading month overall, so enjoying what I was reading definitely made me more inclined to finish the book, instead of just dragging it out.

I also started reading more webcomics again!! One was terribly long but so good, and the other was very short because it’s new, so it balances out!

     

• Prodigy Marie Lu // reread! again I love this series so much and Marie Lu is god for making me care about hets so much. that’s all I have to say ★★★★★
• Champion Marie Lu // reread! I don’t understand how my first time reading, I only teared up, but my second time reading, I literally SOBBED ★★★★★
• Love Advice From the Great Duke of Hell unfins // this was a really funny webcomic! I’m not too obsessed with it but definitely entertaining ★★★★☆
• The Weight of Our Sky Nisrina AN // webcomic adaptation of the YA novel! really beautiful art so far and I’m excited to see where it goes

     

• The Dragon Warrior Katie Zhao // really fun and adventurous MG book! perfect for my PJO-loving and Asian fantasy-loving heart ★★★★☆ [review]
• I Love Yoo Quimchee // this is honestly trash quality, and there are so many questionable things going on, but I just love it. was obsessed for days ★★★★☆
• Down Among the Sticks and Bones Seanan McGuire // disappointed again by the sequel in this series! I don’t know what’s wrong with me I WANT TO LOVE THEM ★★★☆☆
• Wilder Girls Rory Power // not the favorite I was hoping for but still a good and captivating read! definitely chilling and I loved the characters ★★★★☆

     

• Foolish Hearts Emma Mills // NEW FAVORITE OF THE YEAR. you all were so right to yell at me, I loved this so so much and I can’t tell if I love Iris or Gideon more, but all I know is maybe hets DO have rights ★★★★★ [4.5]
• Rebel Marie Lu // so what if this was a mostly useless book, I loved it for the June/Day content (the ENDING!!!!) and that’s all that matters. my heart is happy ★★★★☆
• A River of Royal Blood Amanda Joy // slightly lacking in the character department, but fun story and excited to see where it all goes! ★★★☆☆ [3.5]
• Goddess of the Hunt Shelby Eileen // beautiful writing, but I wasn’t very connected to it ★★★☆☆

favorite book?

FOOLISH HEARTS!!! I’m upset with myself for waiting so LONG to read it, because you all were so right. The friendship, family, humor, and even the heterosexual romance… they were all so good and so well-written. Gideon is now on my list of boys who actually have rights, and I already have another Emma Mills book checked out and ready to read. Perfection.

book haul?

This was my biggest haul month yet!! And probably like ever!!!

I went to a book fest in the beginning of the month, and I got a bunch of ARCs! (I went in there expecting to get 0 books and went out with like 8.)

And in the beginning of the month, in preparation to meet the authors of the books, I got Wicked Fox, There Will Come a Darkness, and Wilder Girls! I also was lucky to receive an ARC of The Electric Heir, the sequel to one of my favorite books, and I’m so excited to get started on it.

I actually have two copies of both A River of Royal Blood and Time of Our Lives (there was a giveaway for KINGDOM OF BACK!!! and somehow my mom and I both got Time of Our Lives). I’m giving Time of Our Lives to a friend, but hopefully I can host a giveaway for A River of Royal Blood!

updates?

• I actually felt slightly more motivated to post in October, but my motivation to interact and comment was just gone. I tried to cut back on posting so that I could focus on replying to comments, but sadly I just used the time to do my homework instead.
• I also got plagiarized! So that kind of ruined my motivation/inspiration for a bit. I thought it wasn’t going to be a big deal when I approached the plagiarizer, but things escalated and I got accused of a bunch of things (like telling people to send them hate, wanting to crush smaller creators, and believing people can’t have the same opinion as me because I’m high and mighty). I’m feeling fine now and can laugh at the situation, but still irritated about it!
• Here’s a graphic I made to compare excerpts from my original post and the copied one (which is now taken down), because the person refused to see that they were similar and I’m still annoyed:

top posts?

   

favorite post?

My favorite post was actually my top post, which got 1K views in one day. (The day it was posted was also the first day I’ve ever hit 1K views in a day on my blog in general!)

• I tried to prep for NaNoWriMo, but absolutely failed. I did some minimal planning (as in like, working out like one concept of the setting), but it definitely wasn’t enough to have a full-fleshed out plot.
• I was going to work on my previous WIP, the one I worked on over the summer and wrote three chapters of, but I decided to say SCREW IT and decided to do the one that I had barely plotted out! So now I’m completely pantsing it and kind of terrified but also kind of exhilarated? (I also am much more motivated to do this not-planned WIP than my planned one, which is good because I Need that motivation.)
• I’m not sure if I want to do any writing update posts/talk much about my WIP, because 1) since it’s not planned, I don’t really… know what it’s about, 2) I’m trying to be more secretive about things for fear of plagiarism, and 3) I’m not sure if anyone would be interested? But you can keep up with my progress and read a few snippets here if you’d like!!

• I had a week off of school and it helped monumentally. It felt so refreshing to be able to do nothing and not have it negatively affect me academically. And it felt like school was slightly less hectic, so that’s a bonus! (However it’s a whole different story now, as the end of the semester + exams are coming up.)
• Halloween was also a fun time with my friends!! I don’t usually do anything on Halloween, but this year my friends wanted to be the Heathers from, well, Heathers, so I got to be Heather Duke and went trick-or-treating with my friends.

• I also….. uhhh….. re-watched Miraculous Ladybug. I started out with French audio and subtitles, but returned to English because I just wanted to rewatch it in English. Yeah, my excuse of rewatching ONLY to practice my French failed. (But it’s not my fault the subtitles don’t match what they’re saying and I need the subtitles!!)
• Another thing I almost forgot to talk about (that’s how badly I did) was that I tried and failed Inktober! I really want to practice drawing and doing art, and it really does work wonders for my mood, but I tried to do things without reference images and it made me so frustrated that I didn’t want to continue.

• read 9 books ✓ (LOOK AT ME GO I’m genuinely so proud of myself)
• read more webcomics ✓ (read/finished 3 and started another one!)
• write posts in advance ㄨ (oh no I didn’t do this at all)
• get back into blogging you idiot ㄨ (I am still an idiot because this didn’t happen!!)
• plot my WIP?? do something with it??? ✓ㄨ (I don’t even know at this point? I came up with Something and I’m writing it for NaNo so I guess I did something)
• accomplish the 7 goals I’m setting for my break ✓ (I only remember 6 of them, and 1 turned out to be useless, so I achieved 4/5!)

• read 16 books (I have to read this many during both Nov and Dec to read 100 books this year… wish me luck I sorely need it)
• read more webcomics and poetry books (if you know any short ones… hit me up!! it’s cram time baby)
• post at least 5 times (I want to focus on writing but still want to blog, so this is a good amount for me!)
• answer some comments!! comment on blogs!!! (this is really important to me and I’m LOSING IT AGAIN)
• write at least 25k for NaNoWriMo (secretly hoping for more but based on how I know Nothing about the plot of my WIP… very unlikely)
• stop procrastinating as much (I’ve started putting school things off again so I want to lower the amount of procrastination I’m doing!!)

My birthday!! Very proud to say that my birthday, November 17, is shared with not only book legends Simon Spier and Becky Albertalli, but ALSO general legend Danny DeVito. I don’t have an Amazon wishlist because I always feel weird about asking people for books, but if you want to get me something for whatever reason ???? you can DM/email me for more info ????? (Literally the only reason I’m saying this is because people have asked me about a wishlist before; even just saying that makes me feel weird!!)

Another week off of school! I’m very excited about Thanksgiving break because I am happy about any and every break I get from school. I probably/hopefully will spend it writing and reading, aka my favorite things to do that get stifled from school! I also hope to do some more blogging stuff, though I won’t promise it.

NaNoWriMo. No exclamation point for this one because it’s SCARY and STRESSFUL, but I’m somehow doing better than I expected? I’ve written 4k so far, which means I’m on track. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep this up, but I know I’m going to lose my motivation soon, because that’s how it always is. (Feel free to add me as a buddy so we can cry together!!)

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did you have a good October like I did? (it feels so weird to say I had a good month for once) are you a November baby like me? and are you participating in NaNoWriMo??