Things I Love Thursday

Greetings, lovelings! Welcome to my first Things I Love Thursday post here on Strangely, Chantel. I used to do these on a regular basis when I still posted on LiveJournal, but I stopped as people switched from LJ to other blogging platforms. Hopefully I will be able to keep these up as a frequent way of reminding myself of all the great things I encounter and enjoy throughout the weeks. Here we go!

• Scott Lynch’s The Republic of Thieves – This is the third book in the Gentleman Bastards series, and it was just as thrilling, beautiful, and amazing as the previous two. I absolutely love these books and Scott’s writing! I can’t wait for the fourth book!
• Master of Tides – Lindsey Stirling – This performance is so cool, and it makes me very sad that I don’t know how to play violin (even though I have a violin).
• The release of AlchemicMuse’s autumn fragrances! - There are quite a few I’d like to try, such as ZomBee and Bonfire.
• White Chocolate Mocha Frappuccino with raspberry. – I love the combination of white chocolate and raspberry, but I only recently thought of asking the Starbucks barista to add a pump of strawberry syrup to my white chocolate drink, and it was super tasty!
• Making envelopes! – I found a tutorial online for making envelopes, so I tried making a few. I’m thinking about labeling them and using them to save for various things, like dolls, a new laptop, or an Etsy shopping spree. XD
• Planning my kawaii witch outfit for next year’s A-kon. – I have a bunch of items favorited on Etsy that would work for my original idea, but now I’m considering doing a dark mori girl style witch. I just don’t know anymore, but it’s fun looking at ideas!
• Clean sheets and blankets. – I always sleep so well when I have freshly laundered bedding.

The three envelopes I made!

Well, that’s it for this week’s list. Hope you are all having a lovely week so far! Take care!

Strangely,

Chantel

Writing! And Hunting! Oh My!

Greetings, strangelings! I’m still working on getting posts up on a more regular basis, but things are happening, fun things, so I’m hoping I will have much to talk about.

July was an eventful month as far as my writing goes. I really want to be a published author, but I’ve been in a bit of a funk for quite a while. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to write, but I had a lot of trouble making myself do it. To be honest, it was kind of painful to be disconnected from my writing for so long.

So, when my friend and fellow blogger, Lilian, over at Petticoat Pedaler asked if I was going to participate in Camp NaNoWriMo, I gave it the briefest of thoughts before deciding that I would. I needed the push, the challenge. I could have started something new, but I chose to edit existing content and write new content for my oldest story, The Unheard-of. My goal was 25,000 words. Although I did a significant amount of copying, pasting, and editing, I also wrote a whole new scene and added quite a bit to the end of the story. I’m still not sure what I will do with the middle to build tension and move the plot along, but I’m pretty happy with what I did considering it’s a very rough piece of writing.

Most importantly, I’m excited about my story, my world, and my characters again. I once again feel the desire to write, to expand my story and learn more about my characters through writing them. It’s an amazing feeling after going so long without writing much. And I’m proud of myself because I reached my goal. Actually, I exceeded my goal a bit. I ended the month with 25, 454 words.

Now comes the task of keeping up with my writing, of developing better habits so I can finish this thing, find an agent, and get published. Writing is the only thing I’ve ever really wanted to do, and I need to work harder to make this dream come true.

By Yan Moura

What else? I undertook another challenge of sorts over the last week when I participated in GISHWHES, a scavenger hunt of epic proportions. This was my first time participating, and it was challenging and fun! It forced me to be more social, which is always a bit of a problem for me as I tend to be pretty shy. I did a lot of strange, wonderful, silly things, and I’m fairly certain I will participate again in the future.

I was buried in sand (during which I got a sunburn for the first time in YEARS), played a bookie for a paper boat regatta, created tweed porn and a life form made of books and book parts, played a vampire sucking blood from a doughnut, took pictures for a rock album cover, a Sears-style gender-swapped photo, and several mug shots. I also drew a picture of an actor/panda hybrid, made a museum-style installation using dishes, painted a backdrop, fed a demon, and decided on the next hipster accessory. Most importantly, I met and worked with a lot of really cool and interesting people.

Now, I embark on the rest of the month. Now that the hunt is complete, it’s time for more writing, more searching for a better job, and more creativity in general. I hope you all are having a wonderful August so far, and that the month brings you many wonderful things.

Strangely,

Chantel