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The Queen of Wind and Wave: This one’s currently sitting at 39% complete. I gave in to the voice nagging me and have decided to give more attention to another book, but I’m still working on this one, albeit slowly.

The Witch of Myrwist Wood: I’ve finally gone through Phill’s edits and am happy with how this one is shaping up. One more draft to go, then I may give it to beta readers.

Untitled Ghost book: I’ve made this book my primary focus once more, with the intention of finishing it by the end of August. It’s currently sitting at 69% completion, so I’m on track to make that deadline.

I finished The Hermes Protocol by Chris M. Arnone and then listened to Christmas Pie, a short story in The Chronicles of St. Mary’s series by Jodi Taylor.

This is one of my absolute favorite series. I picked up the first one on audio book, thinking the premise sounded interesting, and liked it enough that I moved on to book 2, then 3. I devoured book 4 as quickly as possible, and have been hooked ever since. Not that the first few books weren’t good, because they were. But something happened in the story at that point that made me a super fan. I won’t say more than that as I don’t like to give spoilers. If you like history and time travel stories, give the series a try. It’s a long one, with several short stories that I recommend you don’t skip. I’ll even give you a recommended reading order, if you like. (Send me a message!)

I’ve now moved on to The Heart of Winter by Shona Kinsella. It’s been an interesting one, though things didn’t really start picking up for me personally until chapter thirteen or so. That said, I’m curious to see where it goes.

We finished the third season of Ted Lasso, which was good, even though it didn’t end quite how I would’ve wanted. There’s a fourth season in the works, but based on how season three ended, I’m not sure how I feel about that. We’ll see how it goes, I guess.

From there we jumped right back into Squid Game, this time with season 3.

This show is brutal, and the final ending is heartbreaking. If you’re not a fan of violence and blood, don’t watch it. Otherwise, prepare for a wild ride.

I briefly jumped back into Animal Crossing: New Horizons, trying to finish filling out my museum and finish the DLC storyline. I didn’t quite make it before Tales of the Shire released on July 29, so I’ll have to return to it another time.

I also finally finished packing up and transferring all my housing items in The Lord of the Rings Online. It was wild wandering through the server, since it’s pretty much abandoned at this point. My kin has been waiting for me on the new server, though, and I’m excited to play with everyone again.

In the meantime, I’ve been playing Tales of the Shire, which is really fun so far!

It’s a cozy game set in the Shire. You play as a new hobbit who has just moved to the area. The main quest involves trying to help Bywater gain village status. You can befriend your hobbit neighbors, cook, decorate, fish, and garden.

During a recent trip I listened to the album Aventine by Agnes Obel. I originally discovered her through Myth and Moor, Terri Windling’s excellent award-winning blog. I was immediately drawn to the music and picked up her first three albums. It was nice re-immersing myself in it for a little while.

Below is one of my favorite songs from the album, “Dorian.”

August 12 - 18: Phill and I will be attending Worldcon this year in Seattle. I’ve never been there and am looking forward to it. I’ll also have my birthday while I’m there, which should be fun.

In this section I like to share words from languages I’m learning. This month I’ve chosen more Irish words.

I post once a week on Patreon about all sorts of things: writing, books I’m reading, things going on in life. Once a month I also share sneak peeks of whatever book I’m working on. It would mean the world to me if you considered joining.

I am also on Ko-fi, which is sort of like Patreon, but with one key difference: you’re not locked into a subscription. Ko-fi allows patrons to donate however often they’d like to creators they follow. No subscriptions if you don’t want them, no commitments, and you have control over when and how you donate. I don’t post quite as often on Ko-fi, but I’ve been having fun sharing little micro-stories there, if you’re interested.