Category: updates

Disappeared for a while…

~ EMM

But I’m back. I think.

I stopped blogging at the end of last year because I was studying for my private pilot check-ride. Good news: I passed! Bad news (at least as far as the writing and reading stuff goes): I immediately jumped into instrument training. Then I passed that check-ride as well… and now I’m working on my commercial certificate. 🙂

Because of all that focus on flight training, I’ve really only been reading extremely dry books written by the FAA about how airplanes work and the associated regulations. Which means there hasn’t been much to say here. At least about reading. Or writing.

To say that I’ve become obsessed with flying is probably not far from the truth. It’s kind of taken over my life. Which I am not mad about, because I freaking LOVE it!

But I also love to read. And I love to write books. I’m hoping that if I can get back into blogging regularly, it will hold me accountable to actually finishing some books (both reading them and writing them).

I’m not setting ANY reading goals, though. Or writing word count goals. But, I think blogging about how I’m trying to find my way back to some semblance of balance will be useful — and maybe entertaining for anyone reading these posts.

One of the reasons I’m not setting any reading goals is that I am reading at a snail’s pace these days, which is very unlike me. I’m barely even reading my email. It’s a serious problem. To give you a sense of how much I am not exaggerating, I’ve only finished reading ONE book so far this year, and it’s already May!

I’ve started and stopped reading several books over the past few months. Not because I didn’t like them. Just because, when it comes to anything that’s not advancing my flight training goals, I appear to have developed the attention span of a goldfish. I’m hoping this is only a temporary affliction.

I have quite a bit of fun stuff to share with you in the coming weeks, including (hopefully) an update on the book that (I think) is finally going to break my epic reading slump. But there is also this other major adventure coming up for me that I am very excited to talk about…

I am participating in the 48th annual Air Race Classic this summer!

I dedicated a page on this blog to the race so that there will be one place where I can point folks to with all the relevant information. I’m just getting started on it, but you can check it out here. More on that very soon… including my plan for how I’m going to ease back into my writing habit (and hopefully keep it going) while I’m flying cross country in a tiny single-engine airplane (twice).

Talk with you more soon! ❤

September Wrap-up and October TBR

~ EMM

Outbox

I read three books in September. I think that puts me at 34 books read so far this year (plus 2 DNFs), which is 5 books behind schedule (according to Goodreads) to hit my annual goal of 52 books read.

Five books isn’t that bad, I suppose. It means I need to average about 5 books a month for the last three months of this year, though. And I sincerely doubt I’m going to finish 5 books in October. So, this may be the first year since 2014 that I haven’t read at least 52 books! Shocking!

Anyway, to re-cap from previous posts, here’s what I read in September:

Bride by Ali Hazelwood — The only book I finished on my Orilium Autumn Equinox TBR.

A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske — I liked the magic and world-building in this book, but the story seemed to drag a bit in the middle for me. I think I’m going to continue with the series, though, if only because the next book features two different main characters, and they were two of my favorites from the first book.

Marque and Reprisal by Elizabeth Moon — A re-read of book two so that I can refresh my memory before continuing on with the rest of the series.

In-Progress

I continue to make slow progress through Furious Heaven by Kate Elliott. This is by no means a reflection on the book, but only a result of my lack of time to read and also the fact that I insist on listening to the audiobook instead of reading this on my Kindle. I have a trip coming up that will require a lot of time in-transit, and I am looking forward to finishing the second half of this tome, uninterrupted.

Meanwhile, on my Kindle, I am slowly making my way through Engaging the Enemy by Elizabeth Moon for the second time. This is book three in the Vatta’s War series. I’m doing this re-read as a series buddy-read with my Camp Book Club friends (L & S). I am especially enjoying revisiting this story because it features Aunt Gracie, a character I really love. I sincerely hope she survives to the end of the series.

Inbox

Because of my upcoming trip, I have just downloaded a bunch of books from the library. Here’s a sampling of what I’m considering reading while I’m traveling:

  • The Undermining of Twyla and Frank by Megan Bannen — I read the first book in this series last year and really enjoyed the imaginative world-building and the characters. I don’t think this is a direct sequel. More like different story, same world, maybe? Regardless, I’m looking forward to checking this out.
  • Lost Ark Dreaming by Suyi Davies Okungbowa — I pre-ordered this because Suyi has become an auto-buy author for me, but it keeps getting buried on my Kindle. I have pushed it to the top for this trip.
  • Missing White Woman by Kellye Garrett — I’ve read several books by this author and enjoyed all of them, so I have been very much looking forward to this one, her latest release.
  • Darkside by Michael Mammay — Another new release by another of my auto-buy authors. This one is an unexpected book four in his military sci-fi series! Hooray!
  • Grave Expectations by Alice Bell — I can’t remember who recommended this one to me (maybe S?), but it’s been on frozen on my holds list for a while now, and a hilarious paranormal murder mystery sounded like excellent vacation reading to me.
  • Stories are Weapons by Annalee Newitz — Several of my author friends are reading and recommending this right now. I’m very much looking forward to listening to this on audiobook during my travels (once I finish Furious Heaven).

I’m not considering this an actual TBR, because I will probably just read whatever I feel like, and I may not feel like reading any of these. Plus I may have more studying I need to do in order to wrap up “secret summer project” by the end of October. But, these are the books I feel like reading right now, if I had more time to read for fun.

What are you reading this month?

Planner System Update

~ EMM

It’s that time of year again! Everyone in the planner community is eyeing the 2025 planners and making their decisions about what is going to give them “planner peace” in the new year.

As for me, I think “planner peace” is like the Easter Bunny or Santa. Doesn’t exist. And that phrase is beginning to make my ass twitch.

Why am I so grumpy about planners, you ask?

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you can probably guess. You might remember my previous posts on my various misguided attempts to find the perfect (for me) planner to replace my bullet journal, and you’ve likely been expecting this post.

To catch you up if you haven’t been following along on this adventure… I first tried the Bullet Journal method back in summer of 2017. Then, during then pandemic when “planning” sort of seemed like a sick joke, I decided to try moving from a BuJo to dated planner (Passion Planner monthly). I don’t think I made it through even half of 2021 before I bailed and went back to the BuJo method.

I tried again in 2022 with a slightly different dated planner system (Midori monthly). That also didn’t work out. Then I made another attempt in 2023 with yet a different planner set up (Passion Planner weekly). Another fail by mid-year that had me trying the Hobonichi Techo half-year planner instead. I was convinced it was going to work because it had monthly, weekly, AND daily planner pages, which seemed to be what I was missing in my previous attempts to replace my BuJo.

And I was right. Mostly. That set-up worked well enough that I convinced myself to try the full year Hobonichi in 2024.

This year’s planner: a Hobonichi Techo 2024

However… there aren’t a lot of blank pages available in that planner for goal planning or what the BuJo folks call “collections” (ex: project task lists, notes, etc.). And, because I wanted to have a dedicated place to track my running, I got a running journal as well.

Running journal

In addition to those, I have a separate notebook for journaling, plus another for each of my writing projects.

The current in-progress notebook stack

It’s too much, and it’s making me want to return to my bullet journal. I was doing my best to hold off until January before making a change, but this past week I decided to give up and go back to the BuJo, at least for the rest of September.

The notebook I was using for my bullet journal before I switched to the dated planner still has about a hundred blank pages left. I think it’s nearly enough to get me through the rest of this year. So, I’m going to see if I can even remember how to BuJo, and see if it’s just the entire concept of planners that has been frustrated, or if I finally can find some “peace” by going back to the BuJo Method.

Expect an update sometime in December, when I commit to a 2025 planning system…

August Reading Recap

~ EMM

For some reason I was sure I only finished one book in August. Then I checked Goodreads, and what do you know? I actually read THREE whole books last month! Shocking!

Seriously. I have been so busy with “secret summer project” that I really haven’t had much time for reading aside from just before falling asleep. When I’m in that mode, I average about a chapter a day, and I really don’t make much progress on anything. (Side-note: I promise I will reveal “secret summer project” at some point, but don’t get too excited because it is not at all writing or reading related)

But apparently, I did make progress! I finished three books!

Outbox

Here’s what I read in August:

The Weight of Command by Michael Mammay — Catching up on my backlog of Michael Mammay military sci-fi. This was a really good one that I very much enjoyed and definitely recommend.

The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst — Look. I LOVE all the SBD books I’ve read so far, so don’t hate me when I say this is probably my least favorite. I just think that cozy fantasy is really not my jam. Ha! That pun was not intended, but considering that raspberry jam plays a huge part in this story, I probably should have seen that one coming.

The Friend Zone Experiment by Zen Cho — This was a delightful and unputdownable (for me) contemporary romance that I recommend if the synopsis sounds at all interesting to you.

Also, I just finished reading A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske this week and enjoyed it enough that I think I’ll continue with the series. That leaves only one more in-progress book from this summer’s reading.

Inbox

I’m still listening to Furious Heaven by Kate Elliott on audiobook. I haven’t had much time for audiobooks, either. So, it’s taking me a while to get through this one, even though I really like it. (Persephone is still my favorite character.)

And I just started on my Orilium TBR! I decided to kick things off with Bride by Ali Hazelwood. I’m enjoying it so far, even though first person present tense isn’t my favorite.

Orilium Fall Equinox Readathon TBR Time

~ EMM

This was a hard one to put together! But the readathon starts tomorrow, so here we go….

If you remember back to my April wrap-up post (aka the last update I posted before disappearing for several months), I finished seven books, but only four subjects. That I knew of. I never bothered figuring out if any of the other books I read counted for any of the other subject prompts.

Instead of doing that now, I poked around at some of the other “callings” that sounded interesting and then tried to see if I had the subjects to pursue that calling. After attempting a few of those, I gave up and decided to just stick with leveling up my Story Weaver calling.

But the prompts for Story Weaver are HARD! And I’m not sure I can read six books this month with everything else I have going on. In the end, I managed to pull together this TBR for September, but I’ll be shocked if I get even half of these read before the end of the month.

Here’s the breakdown by subject:

Inscription

I only need “O” level in this one, which is just one book, but the prompt is to read a book with a title that has all the letters in your first name. That’s a lot of letters! And one of them is a Z!

Luckily, the folks over on the discord came to the rescue and let me know that The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson basically covers all the letters. And it works! Plus, it looks like it’s a stand-alone. So I went with that one.

Psionics & Divination

I need “Q” level in this subject, so two prompts/books.

The first prompt is to read a favorite author’s debut book. Okay. Sure. but who is my favorite author? I considered a lot of options for this one, and ultimately went with an author I really like who has been writing for a long time. I’ve only read a few of her more recent books, and I never read her first book. So, I’m going to try that one. It’s called Sheepfarmer’s Daughter and the author is Elizabeth Moon.

The second prompt is to read a book where the same letter appears in the title four or more times! For this I picked a short one that I was planning on reading next(ish) anyway, The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djèlí Clark.

Lore

To get to “D” level in this subject, I need to read three books.

The first prompt is to read a vampire book! Vampires are not my fave… BUT, I’ve been wanting to give Bride by Ali Hazelwood a try, so I’m going to try that one for this prompt. I’ve never read anything by Ali Hazelwood before, and this is her only non-contemporary romance novel (that I know of). So this is going to be interesting…

Next is to read a translated book! I’ve been meaning to finish the Elena Ferrante Neapolitan Novels series. I read the first two books a long time ago, though. I’ll need to find a recap of those books to refresh my memory before diving into book three, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay.

And then I need to read a re-telling. For this prompt I am going for another book that has been on my TBR forever. It’s a YA contemporary retelling of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park called Hearts, Strings, and Other Breakable Things by Jacqueline Firkins. It looks super cute.

May Reading TBR

~ EMM ~ 2 Comments

April isn’t quite over. I am still working on finishing the last book in my Orilium TBR. But (of course) I’m already thinking about what I want to read in May…

May 2024 TBR

These are the three books I have at the top of my TBR for May:

  • Those Beyond the Wall by Micaiah Johnson — I loved The Space Between Worlds, and I have been eagerly anticipating this second stand-alone set in the same world. Luckily, so have my Camp Book Club friends. So we decided to buddy read it in May.
  • Generation Ship by Michael Mammay — Another long awaited space adventure written by my current fave military sci-fi author. I have been struggling to get this to the top of my TBR for a while, but it’s going to happen in May!
  • A Grave Robbery by Deanna Raybourn — One of my two favorite historical cozy mystery series has a new book out, and I cannot wait to read it!

Are you picking up on the general vibe for my May reading plans?

If not, let me explain. May is my birthday month, and I really want to fill it with anticipated five star reads. Nothing with DNF potential, please. I want to have the BEST reading month.

That’s not to say that April was a bad reading month. It wasn’t. More on that when I do my wrap-up post. It’s just that, readathon months, with their reading prompts, tend to help me clear off titles that have been lingering in the middle to bottom half of my TBR. Which is awesome, but it means I’m very behind on some new releases by my auto-buy authors.

The three books I picked to read in May are exactly that. New(ish) releases by three of my auto-buy authors.

In addition to these three, there are two new releases coming out in May by two other authors on my auto-buy list. I pre-ordered both. The first is Kilby Blades’s second Green Valley Heroes book, Young Buck, which comes out May 9th (her first in this series was Forrest for the Trees). The other is Suyi Davies Okungbowa’s near-future sci-fi novella, Lost Ark Dreaming, which releases on the 21st of May. But, in order to read either of these, I’ll need to take my Kindle off airplane mode, which means reading or renewing my current library haul. (#ReaderProblems)

I’m excited to see how many of these books I can devour in May! Happy reading (and birthday month) to me!

Book Overload — A mid-month check-in

~ EMM

To give you a sense of how my reading is going this month, here are some numbers:

  • Books carried over from previous months = 3
  • Books started this month = 3
  • Books finished this month = 2
  • Current number of books in progress = 4

Do I have more in-progress books now than I did at the start of this month? Yes.

Have I finished reading everything on my Orilium TBR? No.

Status of my Orilium Spring Equinox TBR

In fact, I haven’t even started the Psionics & Divination read (A Fate Inked in Blood) yet! I meant to start that one in the first week of this month so that I could be sure to have plenty of time to finish, but plans changed. I can’t remember my reasoning now, but I’m sure it made sense at the time.

Seriously, everything feels backward and wrong on so many levels this month. Why would reading be any different?

Is some celestial object in retrograde or something? BRB. *Goes to Google.*

Yes. It appears that is in fact the case. Well, there you go. That makes me feel a little better, I guess.

A Game of Hearts and Heists (my Art of Illusions reading assignment) is one of the books I started reading already. But I had to put it aside so I could read (and hopefully finish) The Tainted Cup before my Camp Book Club discussion this coming Friday. The good news is that I am really enjoying The Tainted Cup and find myself excited to get back to it every time I have to put it down to do something else.

After I finish The Tainted Cup, I plan to start A Fate Inked in Blood (finally!) and get back to A Game of Hearts and Heists. There are still two weeks left in the month, so I think I have time to finish all three of those books.

As for the two books I’ve already finished this month, they were both contemporary romance reads. The first was It Happened One Summer, and the second was The Homecoming War. Both were really fun books that I tore through and didn’t want to put down. I sighed happy sighs when I finished them. Highly recommend both if you like contemporary romance.

How is your reading going this month? Are you off to an equally awkward start? Or have you already finished your TBR?

Picking a Book for Inscription

~ EMM

If you remember, there was one open slot in my Orilium Spring Equinox TBR. I needed to pick a book for Inscription. I was going to put this off until I had at least one of the other two books on my TBR read. But, for reasons explained below, I decided to go ahead and do the selection now.

My long-awaited library hold for The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett became available to borrow, so I convinced my Camp Book Club friends that it should be our book pick for April. This automatically added this book to my April TBR.

Then, I remembered that I planned to give my niece a (signed) copy of my friend Addie Woolridge’s latest book, The Homecoming War, for her upcoming birthday. I got myself a copy at the same time that I bought one for my niece, but my TBR has been packed, and I haven’t gotten around to reading it, yet. Another non-Orilium Readathon book added to my April TBR.

At that point, I figured I should just make these options number one and number two for the Inscription draw. But, in order to determine which one would officially make it into my Orilium TBR, I needed a third book.

For my third pick, I added a (relatively short) contemporary romance novel. Rafe: A Buff Male Nanny by Rebekah Weatherspoon surfaced from the depths of my Kindle when I was trying to think of romance books I knew that had a very specific hero-heroine dynamic. I’d actually forgotten that I purchased this book on Kindle back in 2020! So, that book became Inscription option number three.

I used a random number generator to pick one (rather than slips of paper). The result?

The Homecoming War by Addie Woolridge won! Yay!

My Orilium Readathon Spring Equinox TBR

I still need to read The Tainted Cup. So, technically, there is also a fourth book on my April TBR. Fingers crossed I can finish all these by the end of this month!

March Reading Wrap-up

~ EMM

I didn’t realize until I started writing this post how many of the books I read in March were actually audiobooks. Out of the six books I finished, only two of them were in print (both ebooks). The other four were all audiobooks!

What I read in March:

  • Let Your Mind Run by Deena Kastor and Michelle Hamilton — As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’ve been slowly getting more and more into running. For most of my life, I’ve been a competitive swimmer, but we don’t have a lap pool where I live. We do have some excellent trails to run on. I’ve been finding books like this one to be really helpful to me as I attempt to learn how to train myself to build my endurance and speed. This one was especially good for better understanding how to improve my mindset around running. I listened to this on audiobook and really enjoyed it.
  • Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott — I listened to this on audiobook as well, and the narrator was great. This book is pretty dense on the world-building and politics, which is exactly the type of thing I appreciate in epic fantasy and sci-fi. It’s supposed to be a sort of Alexander the Great retelling (in space and gender swapped), but I don’t really remember that much about that bit of history, so I’m pretty sure that any of the cool connections made between history and this retelling were lost on me. I wasn’t reading it for that, anyway, so it didn’t matter to me. I did love the ensemble cast and am really looking forward to reading the next book in the series (or listening to it on audiobook).
  • Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree — This was pretty much what I expected it to be. Cozy fantasy. Not a lot of plot or character development. Just characters that you grow to love doing things that are (mostly) domestic in a D&D-like fantasy world. Glad I read it, but I think I probably should have saved it for a time when I was really craving a chill fantasy read. Instead, I read this at the same time as the next book (a murder mystery), and found myself gravitating more to that one.
  • Sense and Second-Degree Murder by Tirzah Price — Another one I listened to on audiobook. This was another solid Austen re-telling and murder mystery. Though, if you know the original story, it’s somewhat obvious which characters you should trust vs. not. And since I’ve always been more of an Elinor than a Marianne, I was predictably annoyed by Marianne’s actions and her stupid infatuation, which is exactly as it should be. Basically, if you love Austen and cozy mystery, you should definitely be reading this series.
  • The Bomber Mafia by Malcom Gladwell — I wasn’t planning on reading this book, but it was available on audiobook (so many audiobooks in March!) and was something both me and my husband could agree on for a long car trip. This book was actually produced as an audiobook before being turned into text, so the audiobook contains snippets of interviews from history and from present day. Listening to it was kind of like listening to an episode of This American Life. I enjoyed the deep-dive into a bit of history that we only covered at a high level in school. The narrative sparked lots of discussion and maybe even planted a few seeds for future space opera novel plotting.
  • That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon by Kimberly Lemming — This was a fun read, and I enjoyed it. I don’t have too much to say about it beyond that. Just be aware, even though the setting is semi-medieval (like Bookshops & Bonedust), the language is really modern. So, if that’s going to bug you, then you may want to skip this book. I didn’t mind it. In fact, I thought the set-up in the first couple of chapters was a nice twist on what you usually see in these types of stories. I’m curious to see how the writing and the world progress over the course of the series.

I’m ending the month with two — no, technically, three — books in progress. One is a contemporary romance (ebook), another is a Fairyloot hardcover (fantasy) that I’m listening to on audiobook, and the third (the one I almost forgot) is the Fairyloot hardcover (also fantasy) that I started reading in January and set aside (because, hardcover). It’s really too bad that I’m enjoying the Fairyloot selections so much, because I really REALLY don’t like reading hardcover books.

In-progress: Faebound, Immortal Longings, and It Happened One Summer

Anyway, none of these books are going to count for the Orilium Spring Equinox readathon. I think I’m still going to try to finish reading at least the audiobook (Immortal Longings) and the ebook (It Happened One Summer) before the end of April. I’m far enough along in both that I don’t think it will prevent me from finishing the other books on my April TBR.

Given how long it’s taking me to make progress on physical books, I think I may start off April with A Fate Inked in Blood, which I have in hardcover (another Fairyloot selection). If I want to finish it before the end of the month, I should probably get started on it right away. Besides, that’s the one I get to use my book bingo card for, which will make it extra exciting! 🙂

It’s Orilium Spring Equinox TBR Time!

~ EMM ~ 1 Comment

It’s that time of year again! Time to head back to the Orilium Academy for the Spring Equinox Magical Readathon!

I have four subjects I know I need to complete if I want to take another shot at advancing my Story Weaver calling from Novice to Apprentice. If you remember what happened last year, I completed the Spring session, and then failed to finish all the prompts I needed to complete in Autumn.

  • Lore: “The Legend of Dia” — This is an Orilium lore short story, and I’m pretty excited that just by reading it I fulfill one of the prompts for this readathon! Woohoo!
  • Inscription: TBD — For this prompt I need to take the titles of three books, write them on scraps of paper, scramble them up, and then pick one at random. I think I am going to do this closer to when I am ready to actually read for this prompt, which probably won’t be until after I read the books for the other two prompts. That way, I can pick three short reads if I’m running out of time. (I’ll do a blog post mid-month to update on progress and tell you what I picked for this.)
  • Art of Illusions: A Game of Hearts and Heists by Ruby Roe — I chose this because, for the prompt, the title needs to include the word “game” or “play.” This works perfectly and also happens to be a book I’ve been meaning to read for a while.
  • Psionics & Divination: A Fate Inked in Blood by Danielle L. Jensen — The prompt for this one involves creating a book bingo card. I created the book bingo card first (see below), and basically put together what I felt was a sort of generic romantasy book bingo card (feel free to borrow if you want, and tag me on Instagram if you use it). Then I waited to see what the book club pick was for my guild (the Mind Walkers). I’m thrilled that this book got the most votes because it is one of my Fairyloot hardcovers, and I needed to work one of those in somewhere anyway if I want to stay on track with my 2024 reading goals.

Since I only have four subjects (and one of them has a super easy prompt), I’m thinking that I might also try to complete the Lore side-quest. Or at least, I’ll get it started, even if I don’t finish all of it in April, since there are no deadlines for the side-quests.

However, I’m also starting a new writing project in April. So, I may be happy to have a light reading month. We’ll see how I’m feeling once I get started on my first two selections.

Are you participating in this readathon? What are you planning to read in April?