April seemed to fly by! I did not do very much “writing” but there has been a lot of thinking about my stories and about how to revise them. I’m looking forward to the weather being less rainy so I can do more outside!

Queries & Writing

• 7 queries/submissions sent (33 total for the year)
• 3 rejections
• Based on feedback from my coworker/beta reader, the ending to Into the Mist was not satisfactory, so I wrote 3 alternate endings…
• I started yet another rewrite of The Nostradamus Project
• Wrote queries for Into the Mist and The Nostradamus Project

Reading

I read a total of 16 books this month, bringing me up to 64 for the year so far. Click on the links to read my Goodreads reviews, as my star ratings mean very little.

My favorite read of the month was The Project, because it was about cults.

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1. Yesterday Is History by Kosoko Jackson (3 stars)
2. Rosie Loves Jack by Mel Darbon (3 stars)
3. Send Me Their Souls (Bring Me Their Hearts #3) by Sara Wolf (3 stars)
4. My Brother’s Husband v. 1 by Gengoroh Tagame (4 stars)
5. The Project by Courtney Summers (4 stars)
6. Cults: In Too Deep from Jonestown to Scientology (3 stars)
7. The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings #2) by Mackenzi Lee (3 stars)
8. Rule of Wolves (King of Scars #2) by Leigh Bardugo (3 stars)
9. Wake (Scars #3) by Rachel Runnals (4 stars)
10. Dune: The Graphic Novel v. 1 by Brian Herbert (3 stars)
11. When We Were Infinite by Kelly Loy Gilbert (3 stars)
12. The Strange Fascinations of Noah Hypnotik by David Arnold (4 stars)
13. Lost in the Never Woods by Aiden Thomas (3 stars)
14. My Brother’s Husband v. 2 by Gengoroh Tagame (4 stars)
15. Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline (3 stars)
16. The Mysterious Disappearance of Aiden S. (as told by his brother) by David Levithan (4 stars)

TV & Movies

Binge-watching:

• Murder Among the Mormons (mini-series)
• The Vow (mini-series)
• Wild Wild Country (mini-series)
• RuPaul’s Drag Race seasons 1-4
• Des (mini-series)
• Doom Patrol season 1
• Shadow & Bone season 1 – I’m still reeling over how good this was!
• The Undoing (mini-series)
• Murder Among the Mormons (mini-series)
• The Falcon and the Winter Soldier season 1 – there better be another season with only 6 episodes!!

New Movies:

• Archenemy
• Thunder Force – so funny!
• Days of the Bagnold Summer
• The Call
• Yellow Rose – the music was so good in this one
• Tesla

Movie Marathons:

I was still on my cult kick. In addition to the mini-series “The Vow”, “Murder Among the Mormons”, and “Wild Wild Country,” I also watched:

• The Source Family – the coolest cult so far
• Jonestown: Paradise Lost – I have 3 other documentaries about Jonestown to watch, but this one was super heavy
• My Scientology Movie
• Holy Hell
• Kumare
• Children of God

I also did a marathon of the three Mighty Ducks movies, as I just discovered there’s a new Mighty Ducks series on Disney+!

Other Stuff

I had a little staycation this month. I planned to do a lot more writing but given that I just finished a manuscript, what I really needed was a break. I did get through my mending pile and unraveled two sweaters, and started knitting a new sweater. You can see some of the new aerial silks moves I’m learning over on my Youtube channel.

Did you accomplish anything big in April? Give it a shoutout in the comments!