The Slowest Reading Month Ever | April 2023 Wrap-Up

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I emerge from the absolute chaos void that was April to tell you about the one book I read and what the hell is going on with my writing project. Oh, and there’s a life update with something I didn’t see coming: I’m an archaeology student now! If you’re curious to hear how all of these things came together, keep on reading! Let’s jump into my April 2023 Wrap-Up.

The Book I Read in April

Crooked Kingdom – Leigh Bardugo

Books I Started But Haven’t Continued Yet

While Crooked Kingdom was the only book I finished in April, I did dip my toes (or rather my eyeballs, mostly) into a few other books. Mainly, I started reading a few eARCs from my ARC mountain!

With both The Library of Shadows and The Death I Gave Him, I devoured the first two chapters and had to stop myself because I knew I didn’t have the time to read these books in one sitting like I would’ve ideally wanted. I love when a book is addictive from page one! Particularly The Death I Gave Him, a locked-room sci-fi thriller Hamlet retelling that’s also very queer, promises to be a new favourite and a 5-star read. That book just has “made for Lay” written all over it!

A Giant Leap is a middle-grade sci-fi adventure about a group of kids selected to go to space, except things don’t go as planned. In some ways, it’s a little like The Martian for younger readers, which is what drew me to it in the first place. Unfortunately, I’m not vibing with the voice of the main character but then again, I am very much not the target age demographic for this book.

Failing My Monthly Goals

Now let’s get into the part of my April 2023 Wrap-Up where I get vulnerable and tell you how my month was kind of a failure! I didn’t blog regularly at all, barely kept up with my other social media platforms, and Camp NaNoWriMo? Yeah, I failed that too! As someone who has set goals and failed them publicly multiple times, I’m used to this. I’m just really bad at setting realistic goals and judging my capacities for achieving them.

April was a very weird month and somehow I just did not have the time or energy to tackle all the things I wanted. Honestly, I am frustrated with myself because failing is never nice. But I’m also choosing to take this as a learning opportunity. Clearly, my goals were unrealistic!

One of the reasons I found working on my goals so hard this month was the fact that university started again and I decided to enroll in an entirely separate second degree. Yes, you read that right. In addition to studying for my media studies master’s, I’ve also started taking a few archaeology classes for an archaeology bachelor’s degree!

I wanted to take those classes anyway for my own enjoyment (and as another step towards my dream of one day studying forensic anthropology), but didn’t know I could literally just enroll for the degree! Thanks to Germany not actually having any tuition fees, I can just study a secondary degree without having to pay anything else. And all it took was filling out an online form!

Unfortunately, this added more classes and homework to my schedule that I am still figuring out how to balance with all my other commitments. Luckily, I’m having a lot of fun with most of my classes so it’s just a matter of managing my time and attention…which I am not great at! But I’m working on building a better routine to get it all done because this is my delusional girl summer and I want to do All Of The Things All Of The Time.

I guess that’s the biggest life update and honestly, I did not see myself becoming an archaeology student at the beginning of the year but here we are!

My Current Writing Plans

Let’s talk about Camp NaNoWriMo and my current novel project, affectionately known as SpaceWIP, for a moment. I did not complete any of my Camp NaNoWriMo goals except getting my draft printed. No rereading or writing was done in April, absolutely none.

But what do you plan to do now, Lay? I’m so glad you asked! Firstly, I sat down and re-evaluated my goals for the next three months. I know that technically we’re already a month into the second quarter but I don’t care. I find that I run well on a three-month planning range and it’s three months until my birthday which works as a natural cut-off point. Secondly, I figured out what I want to achieve with this writing project in these three months and my new goals are as follows:

1. spend May rereading and outlining SpaceWIP
2. write a true first draft at 80k words until August
3. aim to write 40k words during June and July, adjust as necessary

Here’s why I like these goals: They’re ambitious but hopefully reasonably achievable within the next three months. Additionally, giving each month a separate purpose makes the thought of outlining and drafting feel more manageable!

I’ll be documenting my writing process more on my Instagram, so come join me there if you want some real-time behind-the-scenes look at my writing! Let’s hope my next writing updates are full of progress.

Let’s Chat!

And that’s my April 2023 Wrap-Up! I’m sorry I was absent after yelling so loudly about how I wanted to blog consistently this month. But I’m sure looking at all the chaos of this Wrap-Up, you can imagine how strange my April was. In good news: my May is already looking much better and I’ve already finished my first read of the month! So here’s to hoping I can actually blog consistently this month. Feel free to scream at me on social media otherwise.

As always, I love hearing from you so let’s have a chat in the comments!

⭐️ How was your reading month?

⭐️ Have you had any exciting changes in your life lately?

I hope you have a lovely day,

If you like my work and would like to support me, you can buy me a coffee!