So, I had planned to read all the spooky books, and I ended up reading, like, two.
Turns out I’m really bad at sticking to plans. Who knew? (Hint: Everyone).
October was a slow month for me, in general, for several reasons.
First, I focused a lot on my health over everything else, both mental and physical. I’ve been diagnosed with depression and PCOS, which means two new medications, and while I feel better, I’m not quite there yet. So bear with me! If I miss posting some days, that’s why.
Also, my husband moved to a new position in his company, which is exciting, but means that I need to take over a few chores that were previously his, so we’ve got that general shuffling of household duties that occurs after promotions. It’s exciting, but more so for him because he gets to sleep an extra hour every day.
As far as books go, I received a lot of them … and haven’t read very many of them.
But gosh, I even organized my bookshelves, and now they look all pretty and sort of neat, with all the new books in them. So in November, I even plan on giving you a bookshelf tour, and you’ll just have to forgive the fact that no matter what I do, my shelves will never be aesthetically pleasing because dragons hoard books, they do not decorate with them, okay? If I thought I could get away with it, I would just throw all my books in a stack and sit on them in true dragon fashion … but books have pointy edges and aren’t comfortable seats, and hubby would have a meltdown because he’s silly like that.
#AmReading Update
Books read this month: 11
Book DNF’d this month: 2
October Book Reviews:
After The Fire by Will Hill (★★★★★)
Damsel by Elana K. Arnold (★★★★☆)
In The Night Wood by Dale Bailey (★★★★☆)
Black Bird of the Gallows by Meg Kassel (★★★★☆)
The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White (★★★☆☆)
Upcoming Reads
I did pretty well last month, so here’s to keeping up the pace, hopefully. I’ve got a lot of ARCs that I’m looking forward to coming up.
Follow me on Goodreads.
Discussion Posts
✦ Is YA Becoming “Too” Mature?
✦ Book Haul || Birthday Edition
✦ NaNoWriMo || Weighing The Pros and Cons
Top Ten Tuesday
✦ Authors I’d Love To Fangirl Over In Person (Oops, I Mean Meet)
✦ The Longest Series I’ve Read (Wow, Now We Know Where My Time Goes)
✦ Literary Worlds I’ve Always Wanted to Visit
✦ 10 Deliciously Gray Characters I Love
Blogger Post Love
Here are some great posts this month from other bloggers:
✦ Shattering Stigmas 4.0 has continued with their fabulous series about mental health with a guest post by Silvia V. (though I highly recommend the whole series)
✦ Sim at Flipping Through The Pages discusses why graphics are important for a blog.
✦ Brianna at Pearl Bayou shares her writing playlist (along with an adorable doggo pic)
✦ Krysta at Pages Unbound posted a DNF review of Children of Blood and Bone that spawned a really interesting discussion in the comments
✦ Annemieke at A Dance With Books examines how well Goodreads knows her based on her recommendations (and now she’s got me wondering)
October Twitter Fun
Not following me on Twitter? Maybe you should.
YOU’RE STILL A “REAL” WRITER, EVEN IF YOU DON’T:
– Write every single day
– Attend writing conferences
– Have a degree in creative writing
– Have an agent
– Have a published novel
– Read all the writing advice books
– Outline
– Drink coffee#writerslife #thursdaythoughts— 🎃 💀 Sammie Skeleton 💀 🎃 (@srbetler) October 25, 2018
THINGS TO DO WHILE WAITING FOR #NANOWRIMO: – Outline your novel – Buy more notebooks and pens – Set up a writing space – Stock up on coffee/tea/chocolate – Binge watch The Haunting of Hill House – Sleep while you still can – Abandon all hope ye who enter here.#writerslife
— 🎃 💀 Sammie Skeleton 💀 🎃 (@srbetler) October 22, 2018
YOU MIGHT BE A WRITER IF:
– You own 20+ pens
– But you buy more anyway
– Your search history could land you on watch lists
– People you don’t like are your nemeses
– Books > people
– When you zone out, you’re really plotting
– Maybe another book, maybe murder#writerslife— 🎃 💀 Sammie Skeleton 💀 🎃 (@srbetler) October 5, 2018
WRITERS BY HOGWARTS HOUSE: G: The hero slays the dragon with their bare hands. R: The hero outsmarts the dragon, steals the treasure. H: The hero and dragon are now BFF. S: The dragon kills everybody and takes over the kingdom. … It’s me. I’m the dragon.#writerslife
— 🎃 💀 Sammie Skeleton 💀 🎃 (@srbetler) October 30, 2018
Sorry about your mental health. I hope you get well soon and the medications stop eventually.
Congratulations to your husband on the promotion. yeah, I can understand the shuffling of things aorund the house when there is any change in already set routine 😛
Looks like you had a great reading month though. I only read 4 books but I guess that’s okay 🙂
Thank you for featuring my post. Have a lovely November.
Thank you! I’m feeling so much better already, and I’m thankful for that. 🙂
Four books is still good. Any books is good, especially this time of year. xD
Sorry to hear you haven’t been feeling well! Take all the time you need! I hope you feel better soon!
Thank you so much! Feeling much better already, so it seems like it’s helping. 🙂 Also have too many books I’m looking forward to reading in the next two months to get bogged down! Must read all the books. 😉
I’m sorry about how you’ve been feeling. Hopefully the meds will help. If you want to talk my dm’s are always open. I have been struggling with depression a lot at the moment too.
You read a great amount of books! What did you think of The Archived?
Thank you so much. <3 And my DMs are always open if you need to talk, too. 🙂
I was sort of surprised. I felt like I didn't do so well in October, but I read more than September and I'm not sure how. xD
The Archived was ... I don't know. I haven't reviewed it yet because I'm still sort of deciding. xD I loved the idea of it, and the characters were fabulous. But it felt like it took forever for anything really to happen, and then the romance was awkward to me, and I didn't understand the antagonist's motives, and I'm still not sure even what the library is for? So it was a bit of a mixed bag, but I liked it enough to read the sequel! And I like Victoria Schwab's writing style. I'm actually reading Vicious this week, so that's exciting. 😀