oops I did it again (started my WIP over from scratch)
WIP rewrites, trade reviews, and the usual odds and ends updates
November was A Month for many reasons. the election went so, so bad, and Ohio didn’t get any of the wins other states did, despite how well our special election went back in August. the cat got sick and within one day had already figured out how to eat the pill pocket and spit out the pill, so we have to force-feed him meds every morning. the car ended up at the mechanic three separate times. I had constant meltdowns. fun times were had by all.
luckily, book stuff has been going well, which is about all that’s been keeping me afloat.
well, book stuff has been going well except the part where I rewrote my manuscript approximately 92 times before sending it to my editor, then told myself “okay, time for a break! no working on this again until my editor has read it!” then immediately turned around and wrote a brand-new synopsis to yeet at her, THEN started rewriting the whole thing even though I was going to Not Do That until she’d read what I sent her.
and then the other day I had an Idea and started rewriting my rewrite. again.
trade reviews
early this month, I got my first-ever trade reviews, from Publishers Weekly and Library Journal. both reviews are positive, and the LJ review is starred!
I am however laughing a little bit over the PW review calling the book a “gothic romantasy” with “just the right level of spice.” I love a good gothic, but I personally would use none of these words to describe The Keeper of Lonely Spirits. is the right level of spice…none? or is the book spicy because Peter was born in 1810 and finds the sight of a man’s bare throat a bit 😳
read the reviews here:
preorder The Keeper of Lonely Spirits: link to Gathering Volumes Bookshop
odds & ends
recent reads
turns out I.A.R. Wylie’s book The Duchess in Pursuit (1917) does NOT end where it ends on Wikisource, as I now know thanks to a print copy I drummed up, so I’ve been liveposting (slowly) my way through the book on Bluesky. click here to follow along: link to thread
Someone You Can Build a Nest In (2024) by John Wiswell, which I picked up on a whim because sapphic monster stuff, even though it also appeared to maybe be a horror (it is not)(or if it is, I guess this is what I’d term “cozy horror” despite not really understanding the concept), and I absolutely loved it. very excited for this author’s upcoming Hercules book!
The Memory of Forgotten Things (2018) by Kat Zhang, a beautiful middle grades book that made me cry
The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina (2021) by Zoraida Córdova, which kept me reading with an intriguing family mystery and had many elements I’ve enjoyed in movies lately, like overcoming generational trauma and people working together instead of a single person defeating a single evil alone
recent listens
I would like to be listening nonstop to the Moana 2 soundtrack, but alas it’s not available on CD until mid-January. yes I know I could just buy the digital download right this minute. no I’m not going to. it’s not the same
recent watches
Red One (2024), which I already see people hating on because “it didn’t even make back its budget!” as if the amount of money a piece of art makes is what determines how good it is (it is not).
but look, what did y’all come here for? I personally came here for a dumb Christmas action film in which saving Santa is conflated with saving Christmas, but we learn a valuable life lesson along the way, and also it stars Dwayne Johnson. if that’s what you were expecting (as you should’ve been, from the previews), then it can’t possibly have disappointed you.
actually it exceeded my expectations and also made me cry, which I didn’t remotely expect, because the central tenet of the film is (a) my educational philosophy and (b) reminiscent of The Little Prince, which is my favorite book, so what I’m saying is that this film was made for me, specifically
Moana 2 (2024), which was just as good as the first one and also made me cry the entire way through lmao. if I don’t see this one in theaters six times like I did the original, it’ll be because (a) MoviePass no longer lets you see unlimited films per month, (b) films don’t stay in theaters as long as they used to, and (c) there are at least two other films I want to somehow see this month despite the holidays and travel
there’s a lot of crying in today’s list of recent stuff, huh
maybe it’s just that I was in a very weepy mood all month
recent birds
lots of dark-eyed juncos around at this time of year! and overall I’ve hit 100 birds ID’d in a year for the first time ever
photo by Gerry Sibell
until next time!
