January In Review

The first month of 2015 has been and gone. Hurrah! It's no secret that I'm not a January fan in the slightest. The worst thing? I seem to live in the only part of the country that didn't get any snow.

Now we've stepped into February, I wanted to look back and what I did last month, more specifically in the world of reading and writing. I had a fairly good month, although I'm a tad behind on my Goodreads reading challenge which I was expecting. I think that most of the books that I read in 2015 will be in the summer after school is out.

In total, I read eight books this month although I had started two of them in 2014.

• In The Afterlight by Alexandra Bracken was the first book I read this year, although I started it in 2014. I really enjoyed this and I thought that it was a satisfying conclusion, giving it 5/5 stars on Goodreads. 
• The Titans Curse by Rick Riordan was a book I fairly enjoyed, though I don't think that it was as good as the other books in the series. Again, I started this last year but I put it down to read other books, though I did like it. It wasn't amazing so in the end I only gave it 3/5 stars, though I'll definitely be continuing with this series. 
• The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien was next. I know, I know, a fantasy writer who only just read Tolkien is shameful, but I'm determined to read Lord of the Rings this year so I thought that I would start with this one. I really liked it, but for some reason it didn't grab me like I thought it would so I gave it 3/5 stars.
• Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge was possibly my favourite book of the month. I adored this one despite its mixed reviews and I would recommend it in a heartbeat. It's a Beauty and the Beast retelling which is probably why I love it so much and in the end I gave it 5/5 stars. 
• Everybody Sees the Ants by AS King was a book which I really enjoyed. It was thought provoking and wonderfully written, falling short of the five star rating just because it didn't grab me like other books have so I gave it 4/5 stars. 
• Billy and Me by Giovanna Fletcher was the next book I read. It isn't the kind of thing I normally read, but I have had it on my shelf for a while and I've really been trying to cut down my TBR pile. I enjoyed it more than I expected to but I gave it 3/5 stars simply because it wasn't anything special.
• If I Stay by Gayle Foreman was another book that I had on my shelves for a while. I loved Just One Day by the same author, but if I'm honest this book didn't pull on my emotions like I expected it to, hence the 3/5 star rating. I feel like I'm being really hard with my ratings this month, but I felt as if this book dragged which is strange because it's only 288 pages long, whilst something like The Final Empire is a fast paced book that you could use as a murder weapon. 
• Amy and Rogers Epic Detour by Morgan Matson was the last book that I read in January. I bought it on my Kindle and I really enjoyed it. I've decided to only give books 5 star ratings if I fall in love with them, hence why this only got 4/5 stars, but I would definitely recommend it. 

I didn't buy as many books as I expected to this month which is an achievement as I really am trying to cut down the amount of unread books I have on my shelf (it's embarrassingly high). In total I bought four books and I've already read two of them. The books I bought were:

• The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson
• Snow Like Ashes by Sarah Raasch
• Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge
• Amy and Rogers Epic Detour by Morgan Matson

As for writing, I'm 30K into the second Honour Among Thieves book, although I'm going to stop writing that until I sort out Honour Among Thieves because those changes will have a big impact on book two. I think that this month will definitely be for planning and editing, so if I don't get any actual writing done it won't be the end of the world. 

Finally, I'm participating in Katytastic's TBR challenge for 2015 (if you want more info watch this video here) and the option that I pulled out of my jar this month was to read a classic! I'm probably going to read Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury for this one, though if anyone has any recommendations I'm all ears! 

"And then I am going to rattle the stars." - Heir of Fire by Sarah J Maas

Big Changes

Over the last couple of months, I've been 'editing' Honour Among Thieves. By that, I mean reading through stuff and tweaking the odd sentence or fixing a spelling mistake. If I'm honest I've been putting off editing it properly because this is the first novel I have ever finished and that scares me enough, let alone the fact that I have to rip it apart and rewrite probably about sixty percent of it.

That's what scares me.

Yesterday, I decided that it was time. I started playing my dramatic music playlist and read through parts of the novel, deciding what needed to go and what needed to stay. Most of the first half needs to go, along with bits here and there all the way through. There is a character which I love who isn't adding anything to the story and unfortunately needs to be edited out (though maybe I'll find a way to add her back in somewhere) and huge plot points that just don't work.

My novel is fantasy, but the problem is that it just isn't epic. I've planned huge things for the series, but the first draft of the first book is not where I want it to be. It's not unique and only now I realise how much changes I'm going to have to make to it. Huge parts will be scrapped and I'll need to add in new content.

The thing is, I don't know what to put in. The fantasy element of the novel needs to be stronger, but at its core Honour Among Thieves is a heist novel and somehow what I already have doesn't work. It all seems to be a series of coincidences which just happen to get the characters where they need to be and I really dislike that.

I think a huge rewrite is in order, but the most daunting thing I need to do is reinvent the world. I want to make the magic system more unique and I want to really make this book into something that I'm proud of. I've even created an epic editing playlist on my iTunes which, unsurprisingly, features I'll Make a Man Out of You from Mulan (or, as I like to call it, I'll Make a Novel Out of You).

I know what needs to happen later on, but I think I'm back in the planning stage and that's a little terrifying.

Because I doubt that the world wants to hear about my attempts to write a novel, I'll leave you with a quote about revision that'll make me get off my backside and (re)write.

"I have rewritten - often several times- every word that I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasers." - Vladimir Nabokov