November Wrap Up

 Happy Wednesday! 

How did your November go? It's crazy we only have one month left of the year! We're officially in Christmas season and I'm ready for it! 

I also just want to say thanks for anyone who still checks up on this blog. I know I have been super inconsistent. Pretty much the only thing I've been posting is wrap ups this year, so thanks to anyone who reads them. I mostly make them for myself. I love having a digital archive of the things I did each month, but I hope others enjoy them too haha 

November Writing: 

This month has been a lot of jumping around. I got about 40k into my WIPNO story before it lost steam and died out. It felt like a chore to work on it and was draining, so I decided to take a break from it. I still want to write that story one day, I just don't think it was the right time. The idea needs some more time to sit and that's Ok. 

I ended up getting my last 10k in for WIPNO through rewriting and editing my pirate story IWWP. I'm really enjoying rewriting it and loving where the story is going. It definitely needed an overhaul and a change and the story is much stronger for it. The rewrite is inspired by that one scene between Zuko and Katara in The Waterbending Scroll in Avatar The Last Airbender with the pirates where he has her necklace. The main character and love interest also now have some Zutara vibes, which I'm loving haha 

I've also done some small edits on Immortal Circus here and there. My mom's been my alpha reader for it, which has really helped me to figure out where the story still needs some work. 

November Reading: 

I read three (almost four) books this month! The first, of course was Stellarlune by Shannon Messenger.

Oh my gosh, it was so good! It lived up to every expectation and then some! Shannon Messenger gave me everything I could have wanted out of that book. I'd love to scream about spoilers, but I still have friends who haven't read it yet, so I'm gonna keep it spoiler free on here. But it was just... really good and I can't wait for the next book. That cliffhanger was brutal!! 

The other two I read were two in the Kingmaker Chronicles by Amanda Bouchet. It's an NA series and the first book, A Promise of Fire, was really good! It was definitely a fun read and had a great enemies to lovers romance.

The second book was... alright. I ended up not continuing the series because book two just kind of died out for me. 

And now I am almost done with A Forbidden Fate by Kaven Hirning.

This is also an NA fantasy. I've followed Kaven on Tiktok for a while now and really enjoy her content on there, so I checked out her book and have ended up enjoying it a lot. It's also very much a romance than anything else, which I enjoy haha Just as a head's up, those last three books have some spicy parts to them. In case you found the books interesting, just thought I'd throw that out there. 

November Life Stuff: 

November kind of feels like it went by in a blur. A good blur, but still... a blur. I went to a Harry Potter party at a friend's place and that was really fun! We got to make our own wands and they had a giant tarantula on the roof of their house and a giant homemade basilisk in the basement. It was crazy cool how much they decked out their house! My dad works at a local place called Connor Prairie which is like an historical reenactment place, and so one Sunday evening he took us while the place was closed and we got a private tour of the place. It was cool to have it all to ourselves. I went to a few game nights with some friends, which was really fun and got to hang out with two of my besties! My long distance best friend Keturah came into town for Thanksgiving so I got to see her and another friend together. We spent almost the whole day together. It was so fun! 

I also went to see Wakanda Forever with my brother. It was so good! I loved the first Black Panther, so I wasn't surprised that I walked out of the theater loving this one too. Namor was a great bad guy. He's now up there with Killmonger for me. Whoever is writing the villains for the Black Panther movies is one of the best writers the MCU has right now. Actually, just whoever is a part of the writing team for those movies are some of the best writers the MCU has in general. Both movies did not miss. It had me in tears within the first two seconds and kept the emotional ride going the whole way through. 

To finish off the month... I bleached my hair. Not all of it, but I wanted some highlights like I used to have. I've wanted to do this all year, but just either haven't had time or the courage to change up my hair color. I love it though! I think its the change I needed. 

We went to my grandparents for Thanksgiving. That was a fun time and I'm very thankful that we have family to get to spend the holiday with. 

Scarlet Phoenix also came out this month!! I can't believe I have the first three books in the Archive Series out now! :o

Looking forward to December: 

There's so much happening in December! We've got things going on every weekend pretty much the entire month. I have a Christmas Costume party I'm hosting on Friday, we're going to a tree lighting/decorating celebration on Saturday and then a children's choir at church on Sunday. We plan to go to the zoo lights at our zoo, the Christmas light show they do at Connor Prairie, and go to the Children's Museum and the local Christmas Market, plus the other things going on at church. I know there's another Christmas party happening for my church group at some point in the month that I'm excited about. In other words, we're doing all the Christmas things. 

Also, Avatar The Way of Water comes out in December!! I love the first Avatar, so I'm very excited for this one! I don't care what anyone says or whether it's good or not, it's just fun to be excited about a movie. I enjoy MCU movies and stuff, but I don't get super excited about them much anymore. But this? I've been looking forward to it all year! 

I also graduate in December! Like officially done done forever!! I have two more weeks left not including this one and then I am done!! I can't wait! I've worked so hard to get to this point. It's really cool to get to finally be here. 

So, yeah, that's all that's going on in December as far as I know. I'm excited to jump into the Christmas season and do all the things and just soak it all up. I'm going to try and be more in the present and just enjoy where I am right now. I'd like to read Come Matter Here by Hannah Brencher again during this season to help with that mindset. 

Thanks for reading up until this point! Let me know in the comments what you're plans are for December and what some of your highlights of November were!