August Wrap-Up!

It seems like school starts back up and time starts flying. I can’t believe that August if over, and that I’ve already been in school for three weeks.

In Life

School started and it feels like it never really ended. I have a lot of the same teachers as last year, and the new teachers I have are for classes similar to the ones I took last year. Very little has changed, besides how much I’m enjoying various subjects. I can already tell that I won’t enjoy my AP English class, which is killing me, because I had really high hopes for the year. Unfortunately, my teacher is treating us like its a regular (not AP) class, and we’ve spent most of our time doing group work or coloring.

The rest of school is pretty good. We had our first round of tests last week, and everything went pretty well (not perfect, but that’s life). As much as I talk about school being a pain, I generally enjoy it, and I love getting to spend every day with my friends, which you just can’t do during summer.

In Reading and Reviewing

I read nine books this month! The first four were another reread of The Queen’s Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner. I fangirled about the series instead of reviewing it. Then I read When Lightning Strikes by Meg Cabot, which was okay, and reread Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins, because I needed a pick-me-up before school started. In the mood for some historical fiction, I picked up The Mirk and the Midnight Hour by Jane Nickerson, and then read the companion novel, Strands of Bronze and Gold. Both were good–they’re historical fiction retellings of fairy tales, set in Civil War ear South–and I’ll have reviews for them soon. The last book I read was Black Dove White Raven by Elizabeth Wein, which was beautiful and incredible and ripped my heart out at the end.

I also reviewed the first two Mara Dyer books (Unbecoming and Evolution) by Michelle Hodkin, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Steven Chbosky, Aces Up by Lauren Barnholdt, The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh.

In Blogging

I published 17 posts this month. Considering that school started, I feel pretty great about that number.

I took part in all four TTTs: Fairy Tale Retellings I Want to Read, Authors I’ve Read the Most Books From, Auto-Buy Authors, and Books That Would Be on My Syllabus If I Taught Friendship in YA 101. And all of them were on Tuesday! Success 🙂 I also did two book tags (The Fandom Book Tag and Rip It or Ship It) and loved both of them.

Probably the thing that I’m most excited about this month is that I debuted my new feature at this blog: Weekend Words! I love that I finally found a way to incorporate quotes into my blog, and that it gives me an excuse to work on my Photoshop skills a bit. All information can be found here if you want to take part!

In Writing

This was a good month for writing. In my WIP, I shattered my goal of writing 10,000 words, adding 17,000 words! I’m hitting my stride and I only have a few more scenes before draft #2 is DONE! (And then edits start… 😦 )

I also shared the haikus I wrote in school and talked about ways to stay motivated when writing during a hectic life.

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Hello, September! I’m excited to begin my first full month of school, and proud of myself for surviving the first three weeks of school so far. 🙂

How was your August?