Month In Review: February 2016

This should've been an amazing month and it fizzled. I just could get traction on any of my projects, and to be honest, it kind of bums me out. Here's the review:

WRITING: A paltry 8,000 words. That's embarrassing for someone with some aspirations of being an author AND an entire week off from work to write. I was sick for about two weeks, Winter break included, and just couldn't get any traction on the project. The frustrating part is that I think there is a ton of potential in FALCON and I just need to figure it out. I'm contemplating a little break to look at some books that I think will share shelf space with FALCON. As it stands now, it's about 23k, so I'm still about 57k from what I'm imagining being the end. I'm going to slow down and not put so much pressure on myself about it. The rest of March is relatively free, so maybe setting a goal of 30k is achievable. Only 1k a day. I think I can manage that, though I think I can nail about 50-60k if I focus. All I know is that I want June 1 to be the starting point of this big new project I'm thinking about.

READING: Slowed down the reading this month. I finished six books:

• Insurgent: Very good follow up to Divergent and Roth writes terrific action scenes. 
• Allegiant: This books vexed me. It felt like she was under intense pressure to finish the trilogy and just didn't quite stick the landing at all. Roth didn't have an ending, so she just rewrote the first two books while mixing in three viewpoints (Tris, Four and Tris's mother) in a condensed volume. Disappointing to the point that I'm thinking hard about endings for everything I write. 
• The Lumberjanes, Vol. 1: Brilliant. My daughter picked up my Kindle and fell in love. 
• Black Widow: Forever Red: Very good, though I wasn't sure which canon the story belonged to. 
• Steelheart: Disappointing to say the least. It's hard to make a sociopath a hero, but Sanderson sure tries. Steelheart is only the second Sanderson book I've read and I have to admit that I'm kind of "meh" on him so far. 
• American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America: Fantasy writers...this is a must read for all of you if you want to see how culture molds a nation just as much as geography. It was an incredible read that makes me look at the US in a whole new way. And has me thinking about all different ways I can apply this stuff to my own writing. 

Presently I'm reading:

• All Fall Down by Ally Carter (Research for the thriller)
• Sleeping Beauty by Ross MacDonald (My pseudo-obsession with noir continues.)
• The Dumbest Idea Ever by Jimmy Gownley (The title of this graphic novel did it for me)
• Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan (Chipping away)

WATCHING: Just started streaming VIKINGS, so I'll talk about that next month, but this month here's some of what I've watched:

• Nebraska: A b&w movie featuring Bruce Dern, Will Forte, June Squibb and Bob Odenkirk that I had to turn off the first time because it was late and I knew I couldn't stay up until 1:30 to watch it. A melancholy road story that's all about a man's relationship with his family. It was terrific.
• King Kong (2005): There are some movies, when they are on, I put the remote down and watch every time. Peter Jackson's epic take on the giant gorilla is one of them. And yes, I will watch the entire 3 plus hours of the movie when I can. I'm going to do a blog on it at some point. 
• Law and Order: SVU: On Super Bowl Sunday, the wife and I literally sat around on the couch and watched a marathon of old school SVU episodes. That was a great show. Don't get me started on what happened to the show after they ripped its heart out: Elliot Stabler. 
• Vinyl: If you have HBO. Watch it. It's epic. (I've been on a 70s kick lately that I may talk about at some point.)
• The Walking Dead Mid Season Premier: Everything that is wrong and right about that show in one episode. I don't watch the show all the time, but I'll poke my head in here and there. I was on the edge of my seat but the writer part of my brain was just disappointed with some of the laziness that the show did. 
• The Good Dinosaur: Just brilliant. I didn't think I was going to like it but I ruined dinner that night because I was so engrossed. I'll do a review of it at some point. (I seem to be making a lot of demands on my blogging workload.)

DID: Celebrated my 43rd birthday. Still struggling to maintain a workout schedule. Not much else. It is winter. Oh, well.