Saturday 28 October 2017

October Wrap-Up

Hey look guys! It’s a New Thing™.

I’m actually pretty excited about this. So from now on, hopefully, I’m going to be doing wrap-up posts at the end of each month.

The basic layout for this is as follows: I’ll talk about different topics (e.g. music, books, tv) and my experiences in that topic over the month in question, then offer you a recommendation in that topic. I’ll also update you on my writing!
Is this just an excuse to flail about tv shows/music/books? Maybe.

And on we go!
Music

Honestly, this first one could count as either film or music, but it’s a musical so I’m putting it in music.
So back during September, I was sucked into the hole that is Newsies: The Broadway Musical and I have not yet escaped. I watched the Newsies film a few years ago and really enjoyed it. When I discovered via Tumblr that the stage adaption had been filmed and put on Amazon Video, well, I couldn’t just ignore that.
So I shot over to Amazon and bought it. I have no regrets.
I forgot just how much I loved this musical. It just makes me feel so warm and tingly inside. I feel so happy when I’m watching it.
Here. Watch the thing. You’ll get itCarrying the Banner




My song recommendations for this month are as follows:

Red Hands by Walk Off the Earth: It’s such a perfect song for a bunch of my characters? Morally complex characters. That’s what it fits.
Battle Scars (acoustic) by Paradise Fears: This is such a beautiful song. It’s perfect for the abundance of Found Families in my stories.
The Broken Ones by Dia Frampton: Once again, perfect found families song. I’ve been looking at these ones a lot for the Hezekiah crew playlist I’ve been compiling, so they’re heavily featured. Once again, a really beautiful song that I get really emotional about. I love it.

My artist commendation for this month is: Sleeping at Last

Very instrumental and calming, with lyrics in most of the songs but not all (also, I’m pretty sure there’s pure instrumental versions of even those). The most chill. Listen to Slow and Steady, Mars and Uneven Odds. They’re three of my favourites by him.

Films

I didn’t get massively into any films this month, so straight onto the recommendations!

This month’s is: Mad Max: Fury Road – which is a beautiful, powerful film that I adore. I watched it in April for the first time and I just love it. Be warned though, it is quite dark and violent and it is a 15. It’s not normally really graphic, but still, if you’re sensitive to that, it might not be a good idea.


It is very pretty.

TV

I mean, the obvious thing to talk about is The Great British Bake-off which came back on last month. And it’s amazing and way too intense for a show about baking.

I also watched Hetalia: Axis Powers for the first time this month and it’s pretty good. All the history jokes!

Other shows I watched this month include:

Voltron: Legendary Defender: I finally got onto Season 2! I know, I’m behind, shush. I love this. It’s funny and suspenseful and I love the characters so, so much.

The Adventures of Sir Lancelot: The one from way back in the fifties. It’s a mix of black-and-white and colour, but I love it either way. I love Arthurian legend and this is a great adaption. In some ways. Little lighter than most Arthurian legends.

And my monthly recommendation is:

Leverage: Leverage is this incredible, beautiful show about a group of criminals who form a team to help people and bring down corrupt corporations. It kind of starts out a bit dark and goes upwards into cheery comedy. They filmed an entire episode in the style of The Office, people. And it was hilarious.
And it centres around a found family and I am a total sucker for that particular trope.


I love these nerds.

Writing

I did a whole bunch of work on world-building for Asteria, which took a fair amount of time. And I’m not far off finishing the first draft. So that’s good!

I also came up with a new idea! It’s called Searcher currently, and it’s about a pair of brothers who are searching for their dead mother’s final heist. It’s nowhere near ready to write, still early in the planning/brewing process. I have characters, but even the plot’s not really figured out yet. Still, I’m excited.

I’ve been writing a collection of short stories for the backstories of the secondary main characters of Asteria – the rest of the Hezekiah crew specifically.  I started work on the last of them (out of ten stories, so I’ve already written nine) and I currently have four hundred words on it (out of an aimed two-thousand) and I’m pretty happy with how it’s turning out so far.

I chose my NaNoWriMo novel, Ghosts, Doughnuts and Other Related Things and planned out what I needed.

I posted three different posts this month:




Reading

I read As You Like It by Shakespeare, The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen as well as a few of the One Piece manga volumes this month.

I haven’t had too much time to read, since my last OU module started this month and I’ve been prioritising writing when I’m not working on that.

My recommendation for this month is:

Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor: I read this back in July and it blew me away. Beautifully written and just…amazing. One of my favourite books that I’ve ever read. Read it. Now.

Blogs

Paper Fury wrote 10 Reasons YA Books Should Mention Food. It’s really funny and actually pretty smart. I officially want to mention food more in my books now (which considering I mention food every other chapter basically might not be a good thing) I highly recommend any of her posts. Just go read her blog, people. She's also publishing a book next year! Which I am very excited for.

My blog recommendation this month is:


Feels Like Hope (Aimee Meester): Beautiful, often raw and pretty much always what I need to read at the time.

And that's all for this month! What did you think of this type of post? Do you want me to carry on doing it or is it completely stupid? Tell me down in the comments.

1 comment:

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