Express Yourself

The Express Yourself meme is co-hosted by Dani and Jackie. Each week bloggers must answer a different question, so they can get to know each other.

This week's question is:

What are you reading right now? It can be anything.

I tend to read two books at once; one on my Kindle, and one paperback. I'm trying to get through as many as possible, since I'm not doing very well on my Goodreads challenge to read 50 books this year. I'm about 4 books behind, so I need to get reading!

On my Kindle, I'm reading Uglies by Scott Westerfeld. It's been on my Kindle for a while, but I've only just got around to reading it. I'm only 10% through, so it hasn't really gripped me yet, but the premise seems interesting.

The paperback I'm reading is actually Japanese Manga, my favourite series: Fullmetal Alchemist, by Hiromu Arakawa. My boyfriend got me the first four volumes for Christmas, and I've only just got around to reading them. I've read part of the Manga before, but it was over the internet so it's quite exciting to have a paperback version. I doubt it will take me long to read!

Celebrate the Small Things

I've been a very bad blogger this week, this is my only post! I'll have to do better next week :)

Celebrate the Small Things is a weekly bloghop hosted by Viklit over at Scribblings of an Aspiring Author. The idea is to post anything you want to celebrate from the last week.

This week I'm celebrating:

- One of the members of my Creative Writing Masters course had the idea that we should all make an anthology together. I submitted my pieces on Wednesday, and although I feel they were a little rushed, they were still good pieces. I submitted a short story and three pieces of flash fiction. 

- I've had all of my marks back from the assignments I've done so far, and they're good, so that's certainly something to celebrate.

- And of course, I'm still celebrating Misty, my new kitten. A couple of you have asked for pictures, so here you are:

Fast asleep on my knee :)

Me and Misty, I look a little dishevelled since I had just woken up from a nap :P

Celebrate the Small Things

Time for my favourite weekly bloghop! It always makes me happy, thinking about things I'm celebrating and reading about the things that other bloggers are celebrating :)

Celebrate the Small Things is a weekly bloghop hosted by Viklit over at Scribblings of an Aspiring Author. The idea is to post anything you want to celebrate from the last week.

This week I'm celebrating:

- My holiday is booked! I'm going to Alicante, in Spain, for 10 days at the end of July. Can't wait, I haven't been on a holiday abroad for about five years!

- I'm getting a lot of overtime in for the holiday - I was worried I wouldn't be able to get much, because we're overspent on wages, but I'm getting the two extra days a week I want :)

- Kitty! Still celebrating kitty, and we've settled on Misty as her name. She's getting bigger already, and she's super playful. I spend my whole shifts at work looking forward to a cuddle from her when I get home, she's really loving :)

A to Z Reflections and Express Yourself

The question for this week's Express Yourself meme ties in with the A to Z, so I thought it would be a good idea to include it in my Reflections post.

Express Yourself is a meme hosted each week by Jackie and Dani. This week's question is:

What was the best part of the AtoZ Challenge? If you didn't participate, then what was the best part of April?

The best part of the challenge for me was visiting everyone else's blogs; there were some really interesting themes during the challenge, and a great number of blogs that I looked forward to visiting each day. I learnt a lot during the challenge from other blogs, so that's great. 

And now for my reflections:

I really enjoyed the challenge this year, and I found it much easier than last year simply because I scheduled my posts beforehand. It was much less stressful without the mad dash to write a post on the day I needed it. 

Other people have mentioned that they seemed to have less traffic to their blog than in last year's challenge, and I experienced this too; I got a lot of traffic during the first week, but after that visits slowed to a crawl. This is partially my fault, as I didn't get to visit as many people as I had hoped, and I was (and still am) very behind on replying to all of the comments I received. 

As I've said above, the only part of the challenge I struggled with was visiting other blogs. I managed to visit the blogs that I follow every day, even if I didn't always leave a comment, but I didn't visit as many new blogs as I had wanted to. I blame this mostly on the assignments I had due in on the 24th April; I was entirely focused on these for most of the month, so blogging was pushed aside a little. 

However, I'm really glad I took part in the challenge, and I can't wait for next year. I already have a theme lined up! I'm happy with the theme I chose this year; I learnt a lot about Greek Mythology that I didn't know before, and I had a lot of lovely comments from people who enjoyed my posts. I probably should have focused a couple of posts on happier Greek Myths, but I have a thing about tragedy!

Thanks to all of the co-hosts of the A to Z challenge, and their minions; once again I've enjoyed myself immensely. Thank you very much to everyone who visited my blog during the challenge, and thanks to those who left comments; I appreciate every single comment I receive. 

Goals for May

I didn't get a chance to write a goals post for April because of the A to Z challenge, but my main goal was to get both of my assignments done well in time for the deadline the 24th, and I managed that one fairly successfully.

Here are my goals for May:

- Start the research for my dissertation - I've worked out a timetable for my dissertation: research in May, planning in June, drafting in July (for Camp NaNo) and editing and revisions in August. Then I can fine tune it at the beginning of September, and get my critical analysis written ready for the deadline on the 12th September.

- Read at least 5 more books - I've only read 11 so far this year out of the 50 that I want to read for my Goodreads challenge, so I have some catching up to do!

- Work at least 30 hours a week - Now that I've got a few deadlines out of the way, I'm hoping to get some overtime in and start saving some money. I'm hoping to go on holiday at the end of July and to Centerparcs again in September, so I have quite a lot to save for! Of course, this is the time that they have started cutting back on overtime at work - typical!

Celebrate the Small Things

Celebrate the Small Things is a weekly bloghop hosted by Viklit over at Scribblings of an Aspiring Author. The idea is to post anything you want to celebrate from the last week.

I'm celebrating one main thing this week, and it's quite a big one! Last week I told you all that we had to get our dog put down. Well, it's amazing how much presence a dog can have in a house - it just felt so empty without him there. It didn't help that my mum went out of town for a couple of days, so I was on my own in the house. I had Smoky (our 15 year old cat) but it was strange without Alfie's paws pattering around.

So my mum decided it was time for drastic measures:

Yep, we got a kitten. It's incredible how such a tiny thing can bring so much life and joy. While she is no replacement for Alfie, she fills part of the hole that he left behind. I look forward to getting home now, instead of dreading returning to an empty house, so she's certainly provided a great distraction! Also, she's adorable :) She doesn't have a name yet, but we're thinking about Misty. 

I'm also celebrating the end of the A to Z challenge - we made it, yay! I'm very behind on comments, so anyone who visited who I haven't replied to yet, I'm getting there!

Also, I joined the Creative Writing Society at my university when I started my Masters course, and we've collectively published an anthology with pieces of our work in it. Three of my pieces are included, so this is definitely something to celebrate, too :)

ISWG

Time for another post for the Insecure Writer's Support Group, created by Alex J. Cavanaugh.

First of all, thank you to everyone who has visited and commented on my A to Z posts, I've had a lot of lovely comments, so thank you! I haven't returned the favour as much as I would have liked to, but I'm trying to catch up! I've had a busy few weeks.

I spent most of this month working on my assignments that were due on the 24th of April, so that's mostly what I'll be talking about. As usual, I'm wondering if I've done enough to get good marks on them - I always feel like I could have worked harder, spent longer editing them, just to make them a little better. I know this is a common feeling with writer's - not feeling like your work is good enough.

But there really isn't any point worrying about it anymore - I've handed them in now, so I can't do anything about it. I did work really hard on them, so I'll just have to hope that it was enough to get good marks.

One of my assignments, a collection of poetry based on Greek Mythology (thus the A to Z theme) is available here, if anyone wants to take a look. It doesn't cost anything, and I'd love to see what you all think of it.

All I have left for my Creative Writing Masters course now is the dissertation, and it's not due until the 12th of September, so I have plenty of time to work on it. I'm hoping to get the draft written for July's Camp NaNoWriMo, since we can choose our own word count goals now. My dissertation needs to be 13000 words long, so that only means about 500 words a day - much easier than 1600! I'll be spending May and June planning it - it's going to be a series of short stories.

I'm a little insecure about the dissertation, since it's such a big part of the Masters and I want to do it as well as I can. I just need to make sure I don't leave it until last minute, but my Camp NaNo plan should prevent that.