October/November 2021

Well, to say things have been busy, would be an understatement, but fortunately (for the most part) October and November have been a lot of fun. I hope you all had a spooky season full of horror movies aplenty, sweet treats, and Halloween fun as well!

Here’s some of the highlights of what my October was like:

Mr. Moth and I celebrated our 1 year wedding anniversary, as well as 6 years of being a couple. ❤ 

I completed about half of the Corpestober art challenge prompts for the month.

At work, I dressed up as Coraline for our fun Halloween festivities. It ended up being cold and rainy the day of the work Halloween party, so I was thankful that part of my costume involved a rain coat. 😛

Halloween weekend we went to Hell. (Hell, Michigan that is.) We went with Mrs. and Mr. Cupcakes & Machetes and met up with a couple of their friends for a hellishly fun game of putt putt, an amazing lunch, and just some general shenanigans and adventuring around the little town. It was such a good time. The day before that (Devil’s Night) we spent going to multiple cider mills, carving pumpkins, and watching scary movies. It was an absolutely amazing Halloween weekend with absolutely amazing friends. ❤

We also got our booster shots of the vaccine at my work, so that was nice to get that done so easily.

The whole month of October I took a break from writing and just focused on fun stuff, which meant getting to play video games, too. Something I love, but haven’t been able to devote much time to for a while. (Too many dang hobbies!) Mr. Moth got me the game Lost in Random and I absolutely loved it. ❤ 

So far in November my main focus has been NaNoWriMo, aaaand I have a buddy read of The Time Machine by H.G. Wells with C&M for Science Fiction month. I’ll probably be fairly scarce around here the next 3 weeks or so since I’m really trying to reach that 50,000 word count for the NaNoWriMo writing challenge this month. I’m a little behind where I want to be, but still hopeful I can make up for it. 🙂 I won’t beat myself up if I don’t make the 50,000 words I’m aiming for. I have a lot to do in preparation of the holidays, Mr. Moth’s birthday, and plenty other things to keep me busy, and I’ll still be co-hosting Sugar and Scream with C&M so we’ll see what I can do with NaNoWriMo this year.

Did anyone else watch the new Netflix show based off League of Legends called Arcane? Mr. Moth and I watched the first 3 episodes and it’s sooo gooooood! 😀

Anywho, I’m off to try to slay the NaNoWriMo beast. Hopefully I’ll have something successful to report when I return. Have a great November, everyone! ❤ ❤ ❤ Hoping to return to a somewhat normal blogging schedule in December. 🙂

 

Week 1 of Corpsetober Art Challenge

Can you believe the first week of October is already over? I managed to do most of the prompts for the first week of Corpsetober, an art challenge that this year presents you with very innocent-seeming prompts, but then dares you to make them horrific, spooky, or Halloweenie in whatever way you see fit. It’s been a lot of fun so far, especially since I’m not stressing myself out to complete each prompt for each day.

Prompt 1: Sunday Funnies (Comic Strips)

I had to go with an absolute childhood favorite of mine for this prompt, and choose Calvin & Hobbes.

Prompt 2: Childhood Toys

I actually never owned a Furby as a kid, but I remember them being very popular, and the recent Netflix animated film The Mitchell’s vs. The Machines has an amazing scene with Furbies that this pic I drew was directly inspired by.

Prompt 3: Retro Video Games (The 80’s)

It was so hard to pick which game to go with, but in the end I picked Pac-Man. Not only because it’s awesome, but also because I knew it would be pretty quick to draw. 😛

Prompt 4: Superheroes

I thought Zatanna would be a good choice for something fun and spooky, with her pulling some tentacled creature from her hat. I’ve always wanted to draw her, so this was a good excuse to do that.

Prompt 7: Mermaids

I love drawing mermaids. ❤ Especially creepy mermaids. This Deep Sea Mermaid was fun since I gave her a color scheme for when she was closer to the surface, and one for when she was down in the darker, deep waters. She was inspired by a few different sea creatures, some of which include: the angler fish, frilled shark, and leopard seal to name a few.

Bonus Drawings Just for Fun:

Even though I didn’t end up doing 2 of the prompts (Memes and Doggos), I did end up working on these 2 drawings instead.

I hope you guys enjoyed my weird little drawings this week. Haha I know I certainly had a lot of fun making them. 🙂 What have you been working on this October? Any goals or projects you’re working on this month?

 

Mission Accomplished: First Draft

“Writer Girl Summer” is finally at its end, and so is my blog hiatus I was on. My entire summer was pretty much just a caffeine-fueled writing frenzy of utter madness. It feels really damn good though to have completed my (very rough) first draft. I am so ready to take a much-needed break from writing to let the story breathe, and to regain some of my sanity before I go on to tackle the dreaded second draft.

Luckily for me, Halloween is just around the corner, so I’m going to use the full month of October to recover from my crazy writing binge and to just focus on doing all the things I love to indulge in during spooky season. We’re talking horror movies galore, catching up on some creepy video games, reading scary stories, fall baking, etc. I’m also planning to participate in the 2021 Corpsetober Art Challenge, so I’m really excited to get back into drawing. I really didn’t draw much this summer since I was so focused on completing the first draft of my book, so I can’t wait to get back at it and practice some more with my iPad Pro. It was kind of torturous just seeing it collect dust all summer, but I’m glad I remained focused. 

I can’t wait to start catching up on everyone’s blogs over the next several days, and see what you guys have been up to while I was away. In the mean time, how was your summer?? What are you most excited for this fall?

37 Day Hiatus

Oof. Deadlines are ROUGH. As I previously mentioned, this summer is all about finishing the first draft of the book I’ve been plotting/writing. Now that I’m in the home stretch (just 37 days left to go) I really need to shift my focus into high gear and remain focused. It’s because of this that I’ve decided to take the remainder of this summer off from my blog and devote just about all of my attention and free time to making my self-imposed deadline.

I’ll still be contributing to Sugar and Scream during this time though, so I won’t be totally removed from WP. Here’s hoping I make it back with a completed first draft AND my sanity intact come the fall. 😉

 

Pup Cups, Pumpkins, and Photos: July 2021 Wrap-Up

Update #1: Pup Cups

My mom and I like to try to get together for coffee once a week, specifically Biggby frozen coffees with extra espresso in them because we are absolute fiends for caffeine. Well, as of late, our girls’ day coffee adventures have only gotten better with the addition of a third member of our “Treat Yo’ Self” squad, that being my parents’ new resident fluff monster that they got a few months back. (Like this dog needed any more reasons to love going for car rides.) 😛

 

Update #2: Pumpkin Babies

Our pumpkin patch is already fast at work producing flowers and pumpkin babies for the fall. I think this pumpkin patch will always hold a special place in my heart, not only because I love pumpkins, but also because the first harvest was for our wedding last October. ❤ Hopefully this year’s harvest will be just as good!

Update #3: Writing Progress

Writer Girl Summer is going really well. 🙂 I’ve mostly been cruising along right on track to have my first draft complete by the first day of fall, so here’s hoping I can keep this pace up. *fingers crossed*

Update #4: Reading, Or Rather, a Lack There Of

I didn’t get much reading done in July, mostly due to a misplaced charger for my Kindle that has thankfully since been found. Also, when I wasn’t writing, let’s be honest, I was mostly watching a ton of anime. While my kindle charger was misplaced, I had to take a break on finishing Pet Sematary for my buddy read with Cupcakes & Machetes, I started reading Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House.

Update #5: Drawing

Other than completing the Drawing Shark Week art challenge I participated in, I didn’t get a whole lot of drawing time in since this summer my focus is mostly on writing. Buuuut I’m hoping to at least squeeze in a couple Fan Art Friday posts this month since my last one was *GASP* all the way back in mid-May??! I can’t even keep up with time these days it seems. 2021 is just barreling by at breakneck speed and it’s all I can even do to try to remember what day it is half the time. Back to the point though, it will be good to get some more practice in with Procreate and my iPad Pro. I’m still loving it, I just have soooo much to learn!

Update #6: Watching

July mostly had me been binge-watching the first 4 seasons of My Hero Academia with my husband, but I also started Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood on my own. We also enjoyed the 3 week Netflix event for the Fear Street trilogy of movies. I think we may have squeezed a couple other movies in as well, but the only one coming to mind at the moment is Gunpowder Milkshake.

Update #7: Baking

For my husband’s dad’s birthday I made a triple chocolate cake. My husband also really enjoys these honey cornbread muffins I make so I made some of those which we enjoyed with honey cinnamon butter. (SO good.) I also have an abundance of frozen blueberries I want to use up, so this weekend I made blueberry muffins. Aaaand if you follow the Sugar and Scream blog that C&M and I host together, you’ll have seen some pics of freshly baked bone-shaped snickerdoodle cookies we posted about in early July.

What shenanigans did you get up to in July? Any big plans for August? Hoping you all have an excellent month! 😀

1 Month Into “Writer Girl Summer”

Secretly this past month, behind the scenes, this ignited moth has been busy. Today marks one month since I’ve started my own personal writing goal for the summer. You always see the “Hot Girl Summer” hashtag so I tweaked the name and dubbed this summer “Writer Girl Summer”. 😛 I have a tendency to want to work on a million things at once, but this summer my focus is on writing (with the exception of a couple small drawing challenges like the Shark Week art challenge I previously posted). The goal is simple: take the scraps of writing I’d previously been working on, the very detailed plot outline, and a metric fuck ton of caffeine, and use this summer to complete the first draft for my book I’m working on.

I feel like this past month was REALLY productive, but the past couple days I’ll admit, I’ve been slacking, so what better way to get motivated again than to hold myself accountable by posting about it here on my blog? 😉 Changing some of my writing habits has been really helpful, and I really want to keep that momentum going.

What are you working on this summer? 🙂 Do you find that the more people you talk to about your goals, the more successful you are in the long run? I’m sure hoping that sharing my writing journey here will help keep me on track. 😀

 

Happy Shark Week 2021

Aside from binge-watching Shark Week goodness all week, I’m celebrating by participating in the #DrawingSharkWeek art challenge hosted by Marcc the Shark over on Instagram. 🙂

Some of these haven’t been posted yet on my Instagram page, but I’m posting them here anyway because I don’t feel like waiting until the end of Shark Week to do my celebratory Shark Week blog post! 😛

Prompt #1: Hybrid (Puppy Shark!)

Prompt #2: Reef

Prompt #3: Earth

Prompt #4: Titan

Prompt #5: Galactic

Prompt #6: Mutation

Prompt #7: Chonk

I hope you guys enjoyed my silly shark drawings as much as I enjoyed creating them. ❤ This was my first year doing digital Shark Week drawings and I really had a blast with it. Even though I don’t always finish all the prompts for the art challenges I participate in, I still like to give it a shot when I can since it’s a good exercise in thinking outside the box and coming up with ideas for things you may not have drawn on your own, and it’s always good to push yourself and try to learn more. 😀

Have you been watching Shark Week this year? What’s your favorite type of shark?

5 Years Ignited

Oops! I might be a few days late posting this, but my humble little blog has officially been fluttering around the blogosphere for 5 years now. Half a decade! 😀

I just wanted to thank all of you for being the best blogging buddies a girl could ask for. I highly doubt I would have stuck around this long if it weren’t for all the wonderful friends I’ve made here, so thank you for making this such a fun and amazing place to be time and time again. ❤

Utterly Pooped.

Sometimes I look at my cat and think to myself, “What a life.” She has no kitty bills, doesn’t have to spend 40 hours a week or more at a cat job, she gets constant praise and care for nothing more than being adorable, and the most anyone expects out of her is to poop in the appropriate box and not to scratch up the furniture. I can do those things, too, damnit. Ugh. Being a human is absolute butts.

None of these drawings are mine, FYI. I’m far too lazy to be drawing right now. I did do a couple pieces for that Haunted Garden Art Challenge, but I’ll post those another time. For now I just lament about my non-kitty existence. (If you can’t tell, work has been completely kicking my ass lately.)

This post is mostly just a “Hey, there, Stranger. Yeah, I didn’t drop off the face of the earth despite what my blogging activity this past month might imply” sort of post. Oh, and an excuse to post cats, too, of course.

I’ve got a 5 day holiday weekend coming up and I am SO ready! I hope June has been a kind month to all of you. ❤

Haunted Garden Art Challenge

I’m sure most of you know by now that I LOVE a spooky art challenge, so how could I possibly pass up on Grace.Moth‘s Haunted Garden Art Challenge? An art challenge hosted by a fellow moth? Clearly this was just meant to be. 😛

I can’t wait to join in on the fun of another art challenge, especially one with such fun prompts. Aaaand each prompt gives you two days to work on it, rather than having to do one per day, which should make it less stressful to take part in. Any medium is welcome, so I’ll most likely be taking this as an opportunity to practice more digital art, but I may throw a traditional piece or two into the mix. We’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we? 😉

I’ll be posting them according to the prompt schedule over on my Instagram account, and then I’ll just post a few at a time periodically here on my blog throughout the challenge as well.

What do you think of the prompts Grace.Moth came up with for her challenge? I love them. ❤ Are you working on any challenges or special goals at the moment?