Monthly Wrap-Up: February

January felt like a life time, that month took forever, but February's always seem short... probably because they are. It's been a good month, but I'm ready for March! My birthday is next week on Friday and I'm turning twenty! I'll officially no longer be a teenager. :( ;) The weather is starting to warm up a little bit. I mean, it's still cold most days, but more frequently we're getting 50-60 degree weather, which is nice... but also... I love the cold and wearing jeans and boots. Spring is always bittersweet for me because by the time March comes around I'm sort of ready for a little warmer weather, but on the other hand... I'm also just not. I'm not ready for summer and the heat and having to wear shorts at all. 

Anyways, here's everything I've been up to over the past month. 

February Writing: Writing-wise, it's been a pretty productive month. I've finished the pen and paper revisions and edits on Project Hellion and am now putting it into Word. I'm ahead of the schedule I had planned for Project Hellion so I'm happy about that.

Also, I'm having a bit of a new idea for new books block, so instead of pushing it, I decided to work on a book that's been in the back of my head all of last year. In May 2016 I wrote a book about a teen vampire hunter with romance and action and awesomeness. It was probably one of the most fun I've had writing a book before writing Golden. Tabitha and Sebastian were so real to me from the very beginning and I know the supernatural genre full of werewolves and vampires so that whole world is very familiar to me and I can write it so easily. Anyways, I revised it through five drafts in 2016 and then I got stuck and just decided to take a break. I guess I sort of got caught up in other stuff, because I'm just now touching it after a whole year of not even looking at the document. But I've been itching to get to work on it again, so I'm excited and really excited cuz I have some great ideas for a second and third book! So yeah, that's what I've been doing. Along with writing a few things here and there, just sort of messing around with ideas. But right now, my main focus is Project Hellion and working on that. 

February Reading: February has actually been a really productive reading month. I read a sweet, fairytale-retelling middle grade book called Snow and Rose with beautiful illustrations inside by Emily Winfield Martin. Natalie Lloyd also came out with her new book The Problim Children, which is a first in a new series of hers. It was really good and sweet and funny and quirky and magical. Natalie Lloyd is one of my most favorite writers because of her sweet, silly and whimsical middle grade tales she spins. 

After reading those two books, I was feeling the middle grade magic vibe and went ahead and read the entire nine books in the Sisters Grimm series by Michael Buckley. I love those books so much and will never outgrow Michael Buckley's series. Just a few days ago, I also started the sequel to Empress of a Thousand Skies by Rhoda Belleza called Blood of a Thousand Stars. So far, I'm liking it. I wish there was more romance, but it's pretty good. I know some people find this cliche or like its all run out in the YA genre, but I love the story of forbidden love and just romance in general in the books I read. This book is good, but like the first one, it's lacking some major romance. 

February Music: I've been listening to a lot of instrumental music like Two Steps from Hell and Autiomachine along with my usual. My Project Hellion playlist and now, when I'm working on Tabitha's story, I listen to the playlist I made for her like forever ago. 

February TV Shows and Movies: February has also been pretty full of TV shows and movies. At the beginning of February I went to see The Maze Runner: The Death Cure with some friends. I literally was about ready to have an anxiety attack when those creepy zombie people showed up. I had completely forgotten that the virus turns people into zombie people in the second movie and so it took me by surprise and they totally freaked me out! They were so gross and creepy looking! Of course, Dylan O'Brian was amazing and I enjoyed watching him in the movie. 

The movie was super action packed and full of near misses and near death experiences. It kept me on the edge of my seat like the whole time! I rewatched some Teen Wolf, mainly the Void Stiles season, cuz despite it being one of the creepier seasons, it's also one of my favorites. Then I saw Black Panther with some friends. I was really unimpressed with the trailer and went in with very low expectations. It looked like a total guy-action packed movie with no plot from the trailers, and after seeing Thor Ragnarok and Guardians of the Galaxy 2 which had way too much humor in and Spider-Man Homecoming which was a total disappointment, I figured Marvel would continue their movie slump with Black Panther. 

I was so wrong! I was thoroughly impressed with Black Panther and honestly, T'Challa is one of my new favorite Marvel characters. He was a great leader, very wise and honorable. Not to mention the movie had the perfect amount of serious and funny, unlike the last few Marvel movies. 

But what sold me on the whole movie, was Erik Killmonger. 

Oh my gosh, he is my new favorite Marvel villain. They did an amazing job creating him and giving him backstory and making you understand where he's coming from. I really liked how they spent almost as much time on him as they did on T'Challa. He was just a really great bad guy and I thoroughly enjoyed watching him in the movie. 

I also just recently watched Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. I'm a big fan of sci-fi. I love aliens and space and high tech gadgets and the weirdness that goes with sci-fi. This movie was fun... It was a good, like, zone out, forget life movie. The romance wasn't very good... though I did enjoy watching Valerian and Loreline's interactions throughout the movie and how devoted they are to each other as partners and friends. 

There was absolutely zero character development and some parts were just really strange, but that sometimes goes with the territory of odd alien races and stuff. Somehow though, by the end of the movie, I still found myself really liking Valerian and I did enjoy the movie quite a bit. 

I've also caught up on the latest and last season of Star Wars Rebels. I was like crying last night cuz of that... spoiler, that happened in the Jedi Night. Oh my gosh! I just knew it was going to happen. One of them would be gone, I just didn't know which one. It was very Joss Whedin of them to do that. The minute two characters are happy and they're ripped apart. It. Was. Brutal! 

February Life Stuff: I guess one big thing that happened in February is I got accepted to IU. I don't know... I guess I should have reacted more excited and like a normal person when they get accepted to a college, but I am just sort of happy? And a little indifferent? Probably because I was so confidant in myself that I figured I would make it in and didn't even have to worry about being rejected. But I do know it's a big accomplishment and an exciting thing and I'm happy and proud of myself for getting this far and doing well enough at Ivy Tech to actually get accepted. 

I signed in and I have a few other things to do, but yeah, I'll be starting IU in the Fall! I guess I should probably figure out what I want to be when I grow up, besides being a writer. Gotta make money while I wait for my writing career to kick off, somehow, right? So yeah, there's that. 

I got a new phone too! The Iphone 7! So I was excited about that, especially since my old phone was starting to kind of die.

Also, it was my little brother's birthday. He turned eleven this year! They grow up so fast and I can't believe he's already eleven. We had cake and Chinese food and it was a fun day and he had a good time. There was Valentine's Day which is always a good day cuz I get chocolate. And yeah, that's about it. Nothing super exciting happened in February haha Now I'm looking forward to March and my birthday and stuff. 

So yeah, that was my February. Lots of reading and writing and going to see movies. I can't believe I went to see two movies in theaters in one month! Usually, I don't go and see like any cuz they're so expensive! But it was fun and I had a good time hanging out with friends while watching those movies. Like I said, I'm looking forward to March, which is my favorite month. 

I hope you're guys' February was great and safe and fun and flu-free! My flu and cold season is still going pretty strong, but me and my family are out of the woods I think. We've gotten pretty much everything you could get over the Winter... or at least I did. So I don't have to worry about getting anything else. Have a great rest of the week everyone and a great March!