Lately 1.7.2017

Good day, readers and friends! I’m checking in with my very first “Lately” post of 2017. I’m still shocked that it’s 2017. We’re only a few years away from being in the 2020s. I wish we could make the next set of ‘20s like the last one; with shingled haircuts, (even though I attempted that once and it did not work on my naturally frizzy, thick hair.) fringe dresses, and jazz music. It would be so fun!

Anyway, it’s been awfully cold here. We got snow! We hadn’t had a real snow in two years where I live, so it was very exciting. It’s so fun to go outside and look at the snow and then come inside and read or write. Speaking of which, here is what I’ve been reading and writing lately.

Snow in our backyard!

Reading

I’m making progress on my goal of reading 60 books this year. I read books 2 and 3 in the Dear Daphne series by Melody Carlson at the beginning of the month and finished Grave Consequences by Lisa T. Bergren this morning. If you follow me on Twitter or are my friend on Goodreads, then you already know that I finally read Daddy-Long-Legs and I loved it. Why did I wait so long to read this book? I know that it’s only January, but I’m just going to go ahead and say that it is in top ten reads of the year. I’m going to start on my non-fiction read for the month; I just can’t decide if I want to read a Susan B. Anthony biography I have on my Kindle, or Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. Maybe I could start one this weekend, and another one toward the end of the month.

Writing

At the end of December, I reached 50K on my latest novel. This month I have really started to edit it (I had been editing certain parts, but now the whole book is getting edited). I’ve finally come up with a title, but I want to keep it a secret for now. Sorry! But I’m planning to do a cover reveal soon, so you’ll all know it then. My beta readers are going over it, so it is all coming together! It’s very exciting. At times this book has been difficult to write because there are a lot of important historical events that take place and I want to keep them as straight as I can. The fact that I started this book only five months ago hasn’t been a huge help, either. But sometimes things just take more time and effort; in the end, it’s all worth it, though.

I hope 2017 is going well for you all so far. Thank you for stopping by, and come back soon for more tales from this writer’s life.

-Miranda Atchley