What I focused on in May

1. Resting and family time

2. Editing WLHYL and Echoes, and learning about Vlogging and editing movies

3. Reading

Birthday Challenge Update

Buy 25 books – Bought 9

Vlog 25 times – Vlogged 2 times

Request 25 books – Maybe 5?

Watch the Sunrise or Sunset – 31 times

Reading Update

Fiction: 19

Nonfiction: 5

Book Reviews: 24

Audio Books: 0

 

Traveling 

31 nights

New Places: Yes {although not a new country or state}

What I’ve Been Learning

Ah, this month was a big one and I’m not even sure where to start. I read, studied, researched, and discovered.

The most fun thing I learned about was how to edit on iMovie and PicMonkey. There were times when it was a bit frustrating because I would forget a simple step and then have to go back through and start over again, but all in all it was great. I learned how to make thumbnails (and what they even were), how to add text, moving text, pictures, adjust audio, add overlays, and the list goes on. I also learned about when are the best times to post, pros and cons about vlogging, how and why others do Youtubing, and on and on. It was interesting indeed.

One of the nonfiction books I read was about body language and how to read other people. That was intriguing. I learned so much and became a lot more aware of what I’m doing and how it comes across to others. I hope to continue learning about this subject because I think it’s beneficial not only as a person, but also to make characters more realistic.

Another one of the books I read was about 8 shifts people can make to work at becoming a future leader. (And that means a leader of anything – big or small.) The book was insightful and practical and helpful.

“No Limits” was a great John Maxwell book that I read slowly throughout the entire month. In the book he talks about how we can make lots of tweaks and changes to make sure we are heading in the right direction and not limiting ourselves. The book had a lot of great things I’ll be working on over the next while.

I had so much fun having an impromptu tour of some salt flats in Mexico, and watching the salt he harvested. It was amazing to see how much work it is, but also how rewarding.

Through reading fiction I was reminded of a lot of things regarding writing. There are so many little things that bother me that I don’t want to replicate in my own books. When you read a lot of books in a short amount of time, cliches reaaalllly stick out.

I learned that editing kinda effects the whole way my brain works. For instance recently small talk has been driving me nuts – as when I’m listening to it I have to keep reminding myself to have patience and just enjoy being with whoever is talking. It wasn’t until I subconsciously began editing out the extra words the people were saying that I realized what was going on. I’ve focused so much recently on cutting out extra words from my novels, that I had begun doing that in real life. #oops

I was reminded and learned once again how important it is to save my writing. I lost about a month of editing on Echoes recently, so that was a bummer. Thankfully I had everything backed up on WLHYL, so yay!

As I was resting this month, I was reminded that it’s a lot more fun to accomplish than to rest at times. And I also realized that with my adrenals kinda fussing at times, rest is really important and getting on a good schedule when I get home is rather needed.

Other 

I’m really glad I decided not to have goals this month. Having more of a break/rest month was something I really needed. I still accomplished a lot and did a lot of work, but taking the pressure off of myself was a good move.

As you’ve probably gathered I spent the month in Mexico, and that was rather lovely. (I’m still here actually, the plan is to head home this weekend.) Nearly every night this month I’ve run out to watch the sunset. It’s been glorious and delightful and a great memory-making venture. I hope to compile all the pictures for a blog post some time.

This last week I haven’t done any writing work other than blogging, and that’s been really good for me. It was kinda a forced break, but after I took it I discovered I was glad I had.

Although I did work on eating healthy some of the time, I did allow myself to go totally off Paleo many times and had fun eating pastries and coffee and all that yummy goodness. Plus, I played a lot (times five) of Skip-Bo. It was delightful.

I would really like to hear about y’all’s May! What were some of your highlights? What did you learn? What did you focus on?