It’s Alive!

It’s been one heck of a year!

The craziness of the world aside, my daily life is finally calming down. The part of my job that has kept me from this blog, reading as much as I would like, and working on my novel at all, is done! I feel like I can finally breathe, and it’s so lovely. But I haven’t been completely unproductive outside of work, so let’s get caught up.

Reading: I’ve managed to read 4 of the books on my planned 2020 reading list. Here’s the full list of books read with a brief rating of each.

• The Other Einstein by Marie Benedict (3 out of 5)
• The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski (3 out of 5)
• The Kiss of Deception by Mary E. Peterson (DNF – not even close)
• Catch-22 (DNF – totally unlikable characters made it miserable to continue)
• Competing Spectacles by Tony Reinke (5 out of 5 – Audiobook)
• The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (DNF – 3 out of 5 – too much about the building of the World’s Fair, and not enough about H. H. Holmes)
• The Conviction to Lead by Albert Mohler (5 out of 5)
• Pleasing God by R. C. Sproul (5 out of 5)
• Moby Dick by Herman Melville (DNF – Audiobook – 24 hours of unabridged audio. It was really good up until about hour 6, then it turned into a whaling manual. I stopped there.)
• Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis (5 out of 5 – 2nd read – Audiobook)
• Let Me Be a Woman by Elisabeth Elliot (5 out of 5)
• The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey (5 out of 5)
• The Infinite Sea by Rick Yancey (4 out of 5)
• Humble Calvinsim by J. A. Medders (5 out of 5)

I’ve currently got my reading stretched across several books for different areas of study and enjoyment:

• The Last Star by Rick Yancey
• Making A Difference by R. C. Sproul
• Quiet by Susan Cain (2nd read – 5 out of 5)
• DIY MFA by Gabriela Pereira (I already recommend this book to writers! And I’m not even half done.)
• Writing Voice by Writer’s Digest
• The Inefficiency Assassin by Helene Segura
• Own Your Life by Sally Clarkson

So, the reading is slow, but it’s there. I’ve had worse years for reading.

Writing: I didn’t touch my novel until this month. It feels so good to be working on it again! I’m world-building. Deeply world-building and working out a basic story outline. Right now, I’m hoping to have enough prep done to participate in NaNoWriMo and hammer out a first draft. If you follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram you may already know this stuff. I’ve been really excited about it, so I’ve been sharing my progress. I’m waking up early on Saturday and Sunday, as if I were going to work, and spending 3 solid, quiet hours working on my novel. Did I mention it feels good? Because it does.

Blog: It’s been nothing but tumbleweeds here in 2020. But with work easing up, I can start focusing on the content I want to create here. I still want to get a Patreon set up to help with novel support, and to share more of my work with people. Still working out the details on that and several other things. I think I’m still going to lay off of doing a book review for every book I read, like I used to do. The thoughts exist. The plans must be formed. Maybe I’ll finish the planning through the end of 2020 and drop the new content in 2021. It’s close enough to be feasible. Either way, content is coming: Reading, Writing, Christ-following.

How has your year been? What are you looking forward to? Drop me a comment below!

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash