Hey all! I know I've been missing some updates lately but hopefully that will come to an end soon because my spring classes are done! *hugs all my A's* Yes, you were worth using Bilara's black magic to ensure my success, weren't you?

...haha. Just kidding (Sedgewick would kill me). I did sacrifice weeks and weeks of a good night's sleep though. Please ignore the dirty coffee cups behind me and the bags under my eyes.

But now summer is upon us and I have plans! Big plans! Lots of plans!

And by "big plans" I mean that I'm planning to do a lot of reading and a lot of writing (and maybe work out more when I'm not sleeping). So! Here's my reading and writing plan for the summer.

Vanna's Super-Realistic-Summer-Plan
(That is not at all setting her up for failure)

1. Write at least 250 words a day, more if possible. Ideally, this would put me at a chapter done a week and by posting every-other-week, I should be able to rebuild some of my buffer before classes start again. Ideally. Recent experience has shown that the chapters for Magic's Memories tend to be longer than Magic's Minister's.

2. Draw more. No specific goal. I just want to fiddle with my digital drawing tablet more.

3. Read all the books. Okay, not ALL the books, but I do have a sizable stack that I want to start cutting into (so I can go out and stop feeling guilty about buying more...).

Here's the top priorities:

First up, an odd, older fantasy book about a girl and a dragon who fall in love and have to deal with her crazy, demon-consorting long lost father while discovering that they're destined to break a curse on some equally long lost dragons. The romance is a bit odd since I haven't gotten to the part where the dragon turns into a human yet and the beginning is slow but I've liked it all right so far.

The second one is actually an e-book and thus shunned from the picture. A somewhat trope-y but still enjoyable fantasy about a hardened sellsword who gets stuck with a literal spirit of compassion who pulls him into a political conspiracy involving a banished princess and her older brother bent on ruling all of his siblings kingdoms.

Next up, a first-person fantasy about a powerful, legendary magic user. I've heard a lot of praise for this one. Only read a little bit so far but it looks promising.

I read The Black Prism by Brent Weeks and liked it pretty well. The world building and magic system were particularly impressive, as were the action scenes, despite a rather, how do I say this, male-gaze centered description of the female characters. Despite my annoyance with that, I picked up a used copy of his other series and want to give that a go. It's got immortal assassins and inexperienced apprentices so fingers crossed.

Next is probably my bravest attempt that will take way longer than the summer. I read Notes from Underground by Dostoyevsky in my World Lit. class that I just finished up and loved it. My English professor recommended this one. It's his favorite book and he claims it's more like ten books in one and I'm a sucker for pain apparently because I got it.

I always strive to be a good Tolkien nerd and while I've started this, I've had no time to finish it.

And last, a new friend of mine gave me an actual hard copy of a literary journal. Some of the articles look pretty interesting.

I highly doubt I'll get through all of them, but it's good to have goals, right? What about you guys? Any summer reading or writing goals?

Bonus goal: Write some more shorts/poetry/brainstorming in my favorite journal:

Bonus bonus goal: Eat chocolate.