October // The Month of Firsts

I thought it was time I started doing a monthly recap, so here it is! October has definitely been a month of firsts (both bookishly and otherwise), obviously one being that October was the month of:

The First Monthly Recap :-)

Here are some more legitimate first things from October.



1. I met a Real Live Author whose book I loved and got things signed in person!

Marissa Meyer is the sweetest lady and all the other Fierce Reads ladies are also wonderful. Thankfully, I was able to restrain my excitement on the drive over and not get in a car accident. I am definitely going to look out for more bookish events in the future. (BEA 2016 Chicago, anyone?)

2. I won some giveaways! 

I did win a giveaway before, but the book didn't arrive until October, so it counts for that month, right? :-)

I've never won giveaways, and then suddenly - bam - THREE. And one was signed! And personalized! 

3. I actually plotted something for NaNo. 

I rarely plot and character-profile this extensively for my NaNo shenanigans. I mean, I don't go in blind, but I rarely physically write any ideas down. And guess what? I filled up about a sixth of a notebook purely with character profiles. This is big stuff, guys.

4. I got over my fear of writing in pretty notebooks.

I used to be freaked out of "ruining" all the nice notebooks my friends give me (since they know I'm a writer) with "bad writing."
Somehow, a month ago, that fear just disappeared. I pulled out a moleskine I had been saving and decided Who Cares. It's beautiful and I'm going to write my character profiles in it. I don't care if I scribble stupidities - at least I'm scribbling something.

5. I got a Pinterest!

I succumbed and got one to organize inspiration for my NaNovel. But GAH it's super addictive! It's so easy to get caught up pinning all the beautiful Venetian masks.... :-)



Let's do this in two chunks, shall we?

Here, we have:

Cinder, Scarlet, and Cress by Marissa Meyer (all signed and personalized from the Fierce Reads Tour)

The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander (50th anniversary edition - thank you Read Now Sleep Later for the giveaway!)

Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein (thank you Shae for the giveaway!)

Begin by Ken Ham (nonfiction, a rare sight around here - thank you Robyn for the giveaway!)

And here are books I picked up at my church's book sale for only $4 total. *happy dance*

The Robe by Lloyd Douglas

World's Great Detective Stories collection

Christmas Books of Dickens collection

Works of Gilbert and Sullivan collection

The Works of Doyle collection

Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis

Quite a successful month! (And I'm going to more church booksale tomorrow so... mwahahaha)

Top Ten Tuesday: Let's Travel! (Through Bookworld) Tromping around Bookworld is always fun. Where would you go if you could go anywhere in any book?

20 Things You May Not Know About Me Clearly you all are interested in learning about my secret life outside of blogging. Beware: that post contains sensuous images of lovely dark chocolate bars.

Beautiful Books #1: The Venice Novel I introduce you to my current WIP! And my plotting struggles.

Happy Halloween! Let's Play Some Literary Dress-Up My sister and I model book character costumes for you.

And now - on to November and NaNoWriMo!

Tell me about your October! Do anything exciting? Dress up for Halloween? 
And what are you looking forward to in November?

~Sophia

P.S. This post is getting linked up for Stacking the Shelves at Tynga's Reviews!