Quarantine Update – April Part 1

April 27, 2020April 27, 2020 ~ britneyshae ~ Leave a comment

Hello! First of all, I hope everyone reading this is staying safe and healthy amidst the current pandemic. I have officially been in self-isolation for *checks calendar* forty-four days. (In some ways it feels shocking that it’s been that long; in other ways I can’t believe it’s only been forty-four days – but what is time?) Also, as many of you know, April is #CampNaNoWriMo. I personally do not take part in #CampNaNoWriMo (although I’ve had many a failed attempt) but I did want to do a week-by-week blog detailing what I’ve been up to… only for it to suddenly be April 26 and I have yet to make a single “what I’ve been up to” post. SO, consider this a catch up post! Even though I didn’t take part in #CampNaNoWriMo, I have been quite busy. So, I thought I’d still share a bit of what I’ve been doing throughout this very bizarre time. To keep you all from getting bored as I regale you with my entire month of April, this post will only cover April 1 through April 15.

So, sit back… and enjoy.

Writing Update

We’ll start with a writing update. If you read my last post, you know that I finished the first draft of my most current project on March 25.

Here was my goal: I was going to start my revisions in about a week after finishing and wrap up said revisions by the end of April.

Here’s what happened: I started my initial read-through on April 1 but ended up getting distracted by a brand spanking new idea. I don’t want to be over-dramatic and I don’t want to get too ahead of myself, but this idea came to me while I was working (maybe working from home has been good for my creative well?) and I have not been this excited for a project in a very, very, VERY long time.

So throughout this post, I’m going to be talking about two projects: My contemporary YA, which I refer to as “EEMRS”, the acronym for its current title (in my head I pronounce this as “ee-mers,” in case you were curious). And then there’s my new idea, which is a thriller (currently I’m referring to it as “WTW3,” again, an acronym for its current title). While I was supposed to be working on EEMRS, I was, instead, working on WTW3.

I won’t be saying too much about WTW3, but here’s an aesthetic I put together… pretty much immediately.

My plan was for every hour I spent revising EEMRS, I could write 1000 words for my new thriller idea. However… all of my brain power was used up working on WTW3. I made a lot of notes for it and I think I have all of the pieces figured out, but otherwise, I finally put it away (*cries*) and got to work seriously on EEMRS.

For EEMRS, I started my read-through on April 1, as I said above, and I finished my read-through on April 3. I try to do my initial read-through as quickly as possible, preferably in one sitting, but I was distracted (see above aesthetic haha). Normally I like to print my MS out so I can make notes but I have this VERY BAD habit of printing out my MS and not actually using the print out. However, I have a new fix for that problem! Introducing my iPad + Apple Pencil! Now I can read through my MS on my iPad and highlight and make notes with my Apple Pencil! Brilliant!!

And the weather was so beautiful at the beginning of the month. Hasn’t been nearly as nice lately, but OH WELL.

Anyway, I finished my read-through of EEMRS on April 3 and did I jump right into revisions? Noooope. I kept playing around with WTW3. I wrote 3k+ notes. I made a playlist on Spotify (which I might be listening to right now, oops). Basically I did nothing but obsess over WTW3.

I realized pretty quickly that my whole “work on EEMRS for 1 hour, then work on WTW3” plan wasn’t going to work. Apparently I’m not great on working on two projects at once. So… I decided to do my EEMRS revisions so I could get that off to CPs and then I can work on WTW3 with ZERO distractions. (Also my mom really wants to read EEMRS so anytime I mentioned WTW3 she’d be like, “But I want to read EEMRS!” FINE, MOM, YOU WIN.)

So, on April 11 (LOL), I finally began my EEMRS revisions. You should also know that at the end of my digital markup of EEMRS, I wrote the following: “Just finished reading and I have no idea how to fix this ha ha ha.” So yes, I had my work well cut out for me.

Reading Update

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’m not a fast reader. I also am not good at dedicating time to reading. However, during this quarantine period, I have been reading a lot more – which has been really, really great!

So here’s my reading update for the first half of April:

On April 9, I finished reading HARLEY IN THE SKY by Akemi Dawn Bowman. I had been really excited for this one for a long, long time. Basically I can only wish my writing style was like Akemi’s!

Also on April 9, I finished an audio book. I’m not a huge audio book fan (my boyfriend, on the other hand, ONLY “reads” audio books) but occasionally I’ll listen to a nonfiction book. (I can only do nonfiction because I don’t actually have the ability to listen to a fiction book.) So I gave SCRAPPY LITTLE NOBODY by Anna Kendrick a listen. And, um, I really liked Anna Kendrick but liked her a bit less after listening to her book. *shrug*

Finally, on April 12, I finished SUCH A FUN AGE by Kiley Reid. I loved this book. Such a fun read (see what I did there?) while also being thought-provoking. I’ve recommended it to pretty much anyone I’ve come into (virtual) contact with.

What Else…?

Here are a couple of quarantine highlights:

(1) Food. I’m not gonna lie, I’ve been eating a lot more snack-y foods than usual. The highlight is my boyfriend’s attempt at a “Japanese pancake” (I think better known as “soufflé pancake” – we just happened to have these in Japan when we visited last summer) on Easter. I made cheesy potatoes, he made soufflé pancakes. They weren’t quite perfect, but not bad for a first attempt! Also, they were delicious.

Some other highlights include all the cookies I’ve been baking, a bagel every morning (normally I try not to eat too many bagels; little known fact, bagels are my absolute FAVORITE food), and a lot of other goods.

(2) TV & Podcasts. Like most people in quarantine, I have been watching TV, although my boyfriend and I try not to binge watch (apparently we like to torture ourselves). A couple highlights for what I’ve watched or been watching include: (1) Onward on Disney+; (2) Little Fires Everywhere on Hulu; (3) Nancy Drew on the CW; and (4) Bachelor: Listen to Your Heart on ABC, which my friend and I watch at the same time so we can text each other while we watch. As for podcasts, my boyfriend and I have been living for Staying In with Emily & Kumail. We listen every Thursday when a new episode drops.

(3) Exercise. Prior to the gyms closing, I ran a mile a day on the treadmill at my apartment’s gym. I stopped going to the gym a little bit prior to the gym officially closing out of caution and now of course the gym is closed so I can’t go. At first I tried doing at-home workouts through YouTube but I hate being sore, so I went back to running – outside. It’s been oddly refreshing? Especially now that I don’t get out much. I look forward to my run because I get to go outside and get some fresh air. I only run a mile (I am not a runner) and my goal is to get to 8 minutes and 30 seconds, which was my time back in the fourth grade when I had to run a mile in gym. Unfortunately my time seems to be getting worse and worse, probably because I sometimes get stuck waiting for traffic so I can cross the street or sometimes I have to zig-zag around my neighborhood to avoid other people…

Still, I am proud to announce that I ran a mile outside every single day from April 1 through April 15.

And yeah, I think that about wraps up what I’ve been up to! Stay tuned for my next update covering April 15 – April 30. Some teasers: I came up with another thriller idea and made an aesthetic for that one, which I’ll share. Plus, you’ll find out – was I successful in my first round of EEMRS revisions?? Did I get too distracted with my new thriller ideas? What have I been reading? More importantly, what have I been eating??? Did I keep up my mile streak??

All these questions will be answered!! For now, stay safe!

Quarantine Update

April 5, 2020 ~ britneyshae ~ Leave a comment

Hi friends!

I wanted to start this post off by saying that I hope everyone has been safe and well in this very unique and, honestly, kind of difficult time. Even though I’ve been joking that, as an introvert, I’m “thriving,” the truth is, it’s been difficult to maintain productivity and I’ve felt a lot of pressure to “create” during a time where, honestly, it’s been difficult to do so.

SO, I wanted to just take a second to chat here and share what I’ve been up to. I hope no one is discouraged by what I have managed to get done (I finished the first draft of a new manuscript, for example) but I also hope this post provides some comfort because while I did finish the first draft of my new manuscript, I haven’t done much else. And that’s okay!

Let’s just dive in, shall we? This post will basically cover March 14, 2020 through March 31, 2020 (I want to do a different series of posts for April).

Backing up just a bit, my boyfriend and I traveled to my hometown in southern Minnesota on March 4 – March 8, in part so that I could do some research for said manuscript I’ve been working on since January. However, because things changed so quickly and because my boyfriend and I had recently traveled, we began self-isolation and self-quarantine a bit earlier, aka before our state issued the shelter in place. I have essentially been in self-isolation since March 14, 2020. I am also so fortunate to have a job that allows for remote work and all of my in-person meetings were cancelled.

So what have I been up to?

Honestly, the main thing I’ve been filling my time with is reading. I’m also extremely lucky that a bunch of my library holds came in and I was able to swing by and grab them literally the day before my library closed. Best timing ever!

I’m a bit of a slow reader, not because I’m not capable of reading fast but because I tend to find it difficult to sit around for long times. It also doesn’t help that I live in a rather small apartment and haven’t quite created a proper reading nook (which is the dream). However, during this quarantine period, I have been voraciously reading. Probably still at a slower pace than most, but for me, reading three books in three weeks is HUGE.

(Of course, I’m also running through my library book pile way too fast – I have five books total and I’ve already read 3/5.)

I would love to get more into goodreads and to rate books but if I’m being honest, I hate the thought of “officially” rating a book with less than 5 stars and on the flip-side, I hate the thought of rating a book 5 stars if I don’t actually think it was a 5-star read. So instead of update my goodreads page, I thought I’d post about the books I’ve read during quarantine (so far) here.

#1 – THROW LIKE A GIRL by Sarah Henning

As a contemporary sports YA author myself, of course I had to give this book a go! I loved how awesome Liv was at stepping onto the field of a male-dominated sport and making a name for herself. Most refreshing for me was that, for the most part, her all-boy team was welcoming. She had some boy-drama on the team but it wasn’t because she was a girl on a team of boys. I really liked that a lot.

I finished this book on March 21, 2020.

#2 – A GOOD GIRL’S GUIDE TO MURDER by Holly Jackson

I’ll be honest that this book took me a quick second to get into because the third person POV/past tense narration threw me off (been a while since I’ve read that!) but once I got into it… ooooh boy. Y’all, I could not put this book down and it is RARE for me to feel this way about a book (again, small attention span over here). I loved this book. I saw on goodreads that people were claiming the main character, Pip, wasn’t realistic, but honestly, Pip was me in high school a-ha-ha-ha. A little obsessive… I will say I didn’t love the ending and while I didn’t guess the twists, it seemed a bit out there to me. But that didn’t ruin my reading experience!

I finished this book on March 23, 2020.

#3 – OPPOSITE OF ALWAYS by Justin A. Reynolds

Let’s first take a moment to appreciate how well this book’s cover matches my favorite mug…

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Anyway, I loved this book purely for the main character’s voice. Ahh to be able to write like Mr. Justin A. Reynolds!! THE DREAM. I loved our hero, Jack, so so much. I also loved the friendship in the book and I love how while this book was basically about Jack trying to save the love of his life, really it was about him being there for his friends. And did I mention the voice???

I finished this book on March 30, 2020.

What else have I been up to?

As I noted above, I finished the first draft of a new manuscript I’ve been working on since January. My *official* start day was sometime in December when I wrote 500 words (lol) but I really rolled up my sleeves and got to work on it on January 8. I had about 25k words by the end of January, took a quick break to add some tweaks to my previous MS, and then got back to it in the last week-and-a-half of February, ending February with around 50k words. As I mentioned, in early-March I went home to Minnesota to do some research for the project, and got back to work pretty much when this self-quarantine hit.

…now, that doesn’t mean it was easy. In fact, the week of March 16 – March 22 I really, really struggled to get words down. My goal was 10k words for the week (yeesh why so many) and I had to write that out in my planner to force myself to do it… which meant I’d write a minimum of 1k words a day to a maximum of 3k words a day and on Friday, March 20, I didn’t write at all.

Then the week of March 23 – March 29 I wanted to finish the draft before March 29 because, well, March 29 was my birthday and I didn’t want to have to write! So on March 25 I hit 70k words and I wrapped up the first draft (*ahem* may have wrapped it up too quickly, but WHATEVER). And hey, as a bonus, I got to write outside!

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My plan after finishing this first draft was of course to let it sit for a while, but I got antsy and decided to start revising for Camp NaNoWriMo, which I will update you on next week!

So what’s next…?

I thought it might be helpful to list some things that I am excited for as we move forward into April (I know it’s April 5th as I write this, but bear with me). I mean, it looks like we’re doomed to another month (MINIMUM) of quarantine, I’m nearly out of books to read (lol LIBRARY books; I still have my whole bookshelf), and I have a very ugly first draft to tackle and barely any motivation to do so.

So here’s a list of GOOD things:

(1) For my birthday, my boyfriend bought me a second monitor that I can hook up to my laptop. It’s been AWESOME purely because it’s so helpful when working from home, but the real reason he got it was so I could use it when revising. I love to have a huge screen when revising and this second monitor is massive. So, while I am dreading revision because this manuscript is such a dumpster-pile, at least I get to revise on my pretty new monitor!

(2) Speaking of revising… I can finally revise solely in Scrivener!!! I’ve had Scrivener now since 2018 and I really, really like it (like, a lot) but I don’t get to use it very often because when I’m actively writing/revising/editing I often do it between my home laptop and my work computer (I often write/revise/edit on my lunch breaks at work). I don’t have Scrivener on my work computer so it doesn’t make sense to use Scrivener when I have to go between computers so often (literally daily, other than weekends). Plus, I have a PC at work, a Mac at home. Anyway, now that I’m not going into work, I can revise solely on Scrivener! I think this is going to make revising not only easier, but more fun as well.

(3) Comfort reads! I can FINALLY not feel guilty for doing some comfort reading. My idea of “comfort reading” is really weird (I have the oddest desire to re-read Mrs. Dalloway for the… fourth time) but I’m such a slow reader that I always feel guilty re-reading my favorite books when there are so many other books in the world to read. But now that I’ve been flying through books, am nearly done with my library list, I figure I might as well finally enjoy Mrs. Dalloway again!

(4) Tea, tea, and… more tea. This really isn’t anything new for my quarantine life, but I’ve been drinking a lot of tea and not feeling guilty about it. Normally, at work at least, I attempt to only have one cup of tea a day. But tea is like a hug in a cup and since person-to-person hugging is frowned upon, why not fill that void with tea? (And I’m a bit touch-adverse, soooo I actually prefer tea to a real hug, heh heh.)

(5) Rediscovering other creative outlets! I’ll talk more about this in my next post, but I got an iPad and an Apple Pencil on Black Friday but felt like I wasn’t fully utilizing said Apple Pencil, so I finally bought Procreate because it was only $10 and people said it was such an awesome program. At first, I was kind of like, oh, dang, did I totally waste my money? because I had no idea what to do with it. But then I started doodling a cartoon hockey player (which is allllll I did in high school) which led to doodling the picture that now serves as my “author logo” picture for this website! So I also drew my best friend, another one of my really good friends, and then my boyfriend. It makes me SO HAPPY. I’m definitely no “artist” (my boyfriend continually points out that I hold my pencil wrong, which, yes, I do) but I’m SO HAPPY. Although my best friend now wants me to doodle her roommates and her so they can frame it and that’s a lot of pressure… still, that’s a good goal for April!

(6) Finally, checking in with myself. This is a stressful time. A weird time. Something none of us have experienced before. So I need to remind myself to be kind to myself. Be patient. If I don’t feel like working on my revisions, then that’s okay! If I want to read all day, no problem! If I want to binge watch Tiger King, have at it! (I actually haven’t watched Tiger King, but I know from my countless hours spent on social media that’s it’s very “in” right now.)

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And on that note, I’m going to go ahead and wrap this post up! This has been my quarantine update. I will continue updating you as long as I don’t get bored of doing so. Hopefully posts about my revision process will be coming!