Month In Review: September 2016

Ah, September. Dancing in September. Wake me up when September ends. You get what I'm talking about,right. September, the end of summer and the start of school for many of us. And the real ramp up to this damned, stupid election that I hate if for no other reason than sullying my opinions of people that I know. Anyway, how was September. That depends.

WRITING: September is a light writing month for me anyway as I re-acclimate to life as a teacher, so I had no expectations of my productivity and, that being said, I didn't write a word this month that wasn't related to lesson plans. Sorry to disappoint. This dry spell/funk that I'm in continues. I'm just struggling. I've got some ideas down and I'm starting the preliminary plans on something new, but we'll see. I could rewrite/revise something, but I'm just stuck and that seems like it might be a bad idea. I need to find something I am passionate about and fully engage with it. I'm going to play around with this new idea ad we'll see how it turns out.

READING: Seven books. Not bad for the first month of school, but a 7 day respite in the middle of that helped. So here's the best of what I read:

• The Dragonlance Chronicles Books 2 & 3: I'm going to longform this later in the week. Let's just say I was a little disappointed by them.
• The Black Dahlia: God this was so good. I'm in the early stages of planning a scifi version of this. 

I'm in the process of reading one of the "Lost Dragonlance Chronicles" and it's marginally better and listening to THE FELL SWORD in the car. I'm plugging away at another writing book as well. The plan for the rest of the year is to really ingest some epics to see what I can see about them.

WATCHING: Again, school started and I didn't watch as much as I have in the past. Lots of college football and baseball. (PLAYOFFS BABY! LET'S GO METS!) Anyway, a few noteworthies:

• ESPN's 30for30: 9.79: I'm fascinated with human speed and this show about Ben Johnson was just brilliant.
• Lord of the Rings: Surprisingly these movies hold up despite their flaws. And watching them planted the seed for a great fantasy idea.
• The Battle at Bristol: a college football game on the infield of a NASCAR race course. It was amazing and a spectacle. 
• The Force Awakens: So good. I'm going to blog about this at some point. 
• Dancing With The Stars: Am I the only one that assumes the partners are schtupping? And if Laurie Hernandez were a D&D character, she'd have a Charisma score of 25, right?
• Never Been Kissed: Quintessential 90s movie or overrated Drew Barrymore crap? I say something in between. It has moments where it's smart and moments where it's creepy. 
• Caddyshack: I want to write a YA book in the same tone as the movie. 

DID: Went to Disney World and had a riot. 

So, October. I'm going to write...if it kills me I'm going to write.