My March Highlights

  So March was a little bit of a crazy month, which is weird for me. Generally my January/February/March consists of seasonal depression and a lot of being holed up in my bedroom having an existential crisis because going outside entails being in a climate where the air hurts my face and the only reason to leave the warm house is forced labor with cattle. Creatures I despise. 

  In any case, this is the first March of my teenage life that the above has not come to pass, or at least hasn't seemed to. It's been a thoroughly enjoyable month with tons of things to keep me busy and focused. Some of which I'll tell you about below, since I'm going to jump fully on the blogging bandwagon and share some monthly highlights with you guys. 

  LIFE IN GENERAL

  Well, the beginning of the month our homeschool group had it's annual Medieval Feast. My family was the royal family and I was a princess. Yay. :P It was a lot of fun though. We ate traditional fare and had dancing and our homeschool band performed live as did our choir (which I am part of). There was also some sword fighting that I would have loved to join in, but as princess it probably wouldn't have been proper. 

Myself and boyfriend, Jonathan, with his mom photobombing. 

  After that there was my local Christian camp's All Girls Winter Camp, a weekend with a cooking theme. Lord help me. I know zilch about cooking and though I be a counselor and oldest of five, I am the worst with kids (and don't entirely enjoy it all the time) so it was a rather stressful weekend herding children around while also trying to bake. My worst skill after math. Still, I enjoy my camp and have a lot of fun when there, even if it's cooking themed.

  I had a double date that Sunday with one of my oldest friends and her boyfriend, who is blind. We were playing UNO and he actually won twice, simply memorizing his hand. It was pretty impressive. Not for us though. We lost UNO to a blind guy. :P

  I got to go see my awesome cousins in the city for Abby's seventeenth birthday too this month, that was a good day. They are some of my best friends and I am always thankful of their company.

  My biggest thing was probably my family's roadtrip to California this past week and a bit. We went to SeaWorld, Disneyland, the beach and the Grand Canyon all in ten days. It was a lot. I got sick as well. All of that can be read about in my last post here. As awesome as the sights were and as fun as it was and as much as there was a lack of cows I was missing home and I'm happy to be back. There really is no place like home. 

My siblings and I at Laguna Beach

  Other than that the month was full of my usual; my daily chores feeding our 300 cows, floor hockey, youth group, as much horsebackriding as possible, trying to draw, trying to read, write, etc.

  WRITING STUFF

  I participated in Go Teen Writers "300 for 30" Challenge this month and while my vacation kind of sucked the wind out of my sails for a while there, I did manage to get in about 10,000 words for my WIP Faithless which you can read about under my "About My Writing" header, here.

  That was the project I worked on this month, since I've finished the first draft of my novel(la) The Sorceress and the Squid in February I needed something new and I've had the makings of this story in my head for a little while now. I wanted to get it down. So I did, getting into my sixth chapter by month's end, which I was pretty happy with. I hope to finish the first draft in the next three months (hopefully less) before summer starts and I have no time for writing since I'll be at summer camp for two months. It will be a feat for me, especially as the months get busier and busier, but I will try!

  I also did a fair bit of editing in The Sorceress and the Squid (which can also be found on my "About My Writing" page). It currently stands at 18 chapters and 55,000 words and I am working on the 14th one currently. So far the editing/rewriting process hasn't been too bad, since it's a shorter story. However, the ending got a little messed up so I'm going to have fun with fixing that one. Wish me luck!

  (I will also be debuting the first chapter of The Sorceress and the Squid on my next Writing Wednesday, so stay tuned for that!)

  BLOGGING LIFE

  I've had this blog up for awhile but haven't been seriously pursuing it as a platform until this year. Thus, I'm really new to blogging and stumbling madly along the way. However, I think I'm beginning to pick up some of the tricks of the trade. I've really enjoyed tapping into the great wide world of young writers that are out there, and interacting with them. I hope to do more of that this month because y'all are awesome and I love getting to know you and your projects in turn! It's so exciting to have this whole network to tap into, right at your fingertips. 

  My current blogging stats are as follows;

  1300 pageviews (as of today)

  3 followers (a quaint little number, but treasured!)

  24 posts (as of now)

  I'd really like to grow all these numbers over the next month. I have lots of new ideas for posts and hope to be more interactive, cause I'm kind of bad about that, but does anyone have any tried and true blogging tips to share? I would be most grateful.

  READING LIFE (or lack thereof)

  Since I've gotten more heavily into writing my reading life has definitely suffered, which is terrible because reading is key to writing well and I've been failing in this department for awhile....too long. I'm hoping to do better this year, though so far I have not been. It's so hard when all of your hobbies demand so much time! 

  In any case, the two books I did read this month were the last two of George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series (the last two published ones anyways, impatiently waiting for the next). I read the last one on vacation during our long drives - instead of writing, which I should have been doing for the challenge. I procrastinate on whatever it is I should be doing cause I'm cool like that. 

  Though I do not necessarily recommend the series due to some pretty graphic and intense content, the plot and characters are all-around fantastic and using your own personal discernment, these books are enjoyable. The mysteries of the magic and politics of complicated and well-built fictional realms are pretty phenomenal and I am excited for the conclusion. 

  GOALS FOR APRIL

  I've got a few of them, since I didn't do as well as I liked last month, and seeding season/summer are fast approaching and my time is wearing thin.

  I want to... 

•   Participate in Go Teen Writers April Challenge, which is a choose-your-own kind of thing. I have elected to try the categories "edit five chapters a week" and "write 100 words a day". 
•   Polish up my entry for an essay contest to win a young horse from a local equestrian event.
•   Try to get through the second draft of The Sorceress and the Squid and halfway through the first draft of Faithless.
•    Read at least one book (I know, setting the bar real low, too many things to do!)
•    Double my amount of followers (surely that's doable). 
•    Do some plotting for my summer/fall WIP, The Snow Dragon.
•    Survive and maintain a life and still ride as much as possible while doing all these things!

  Hopefully some of these goals can be met this month. I know there's some that won't be, but I'm going to sincerely try!

  Well, that about wraps up my March. It was hectic, but fun-filled, and a little productive even. Hopefully April will be even better!

  How was your March? Anything exciting happen? Do you have any goals for April? Let me know below!