Reading: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games #0) by Suzanne Collins
To see all the books I read recently, click here.
Writing: #SnowQueenStory, on page 88
Editing: same as before, plus a Scribbr essay
Watching: old Hoarders episodes and some The Legend of Korra
Playing: Hogwarts Mystery, in year 4
Listening: to the Potterless podcast
Earworming: "Batman Evolution" The Piano Guys
Bookmarking: nothing new recently
Posting: a picture of Spart on Instagram, plus various fun retweets and fandom reblogs
Organizing: my Tumblr archives

Wearing: a knee-length, navy sheath dress with tan polka dots and a cowl neckline, a black
shrug, small grey pearl earrings, and my usual black compression socks
Eating: salted and roasted pumpkin seeds
Smelling: nothing notable
Hearing: oscillating fan and keyboard typing
Seeing:

When a YA author writes a book series, the most common length seems to be three books, a trilogy. However, there's plenty of variation out there. A lot of readers have expressed interest in reading series that are a little shorter and quicker to get through--i.e., a duology with just two books--and I've seen quite a few of them being released in recent years. As such, today, I thought I'd list my favorite YA duologies (all over 4 stars) for you to check out!

1) Cori McCarthy and Amy Rose Capetta's Once & Future Duology. This wild and vibrant YA sci-fi/fantasy series ​is all about bringing the LGBT+ (as well as other diversity) into the King Arthur epic. There's a female King Arthur, time travel, an overpowered galactic corporation, magical shenanigans, a sympathetic villain, and plenty of found family. I thoroughly enjoyed it!

2) Jennifer Lynn Barnes's Debutante Duology. Barnes as an author is a quieter favorite of mine, with a lot of skill at plotting out well-woven YA thrillers. This particular YA thriller series follows a down-to-earth young woman who gets pulled into the upper class lifestyle of her extended family as she searches for hidden truths. It has dramatic twists and a lot of personality.

3) Livia Blackburne's Rosemarked Duology. I'm very fond of this romantic YA fantasy series that follows a plague-carrying healer and a mind-wiped soldier who team up to take down the empire that is oppressing their tribes. It has a lot of focus on illness, both short- and long-term, and ableism.

4) A.V. Geiger's Follow Me Back Duology. This multiformatted YA thriller series follows an agoraphobic fangirl and a pop star frightened by his obsessive fans who end up in a catfishing  situation that takes a dark turn. It addresses a lot of important issues related to mental health and stalking.

Reading: A Kingdom for a Stage (Shadow Players #2) by Heidi Heilig
To see all the books I read recently, click here.
Writing: #SnowQueenStory, on page 85
Editing: same as last time, plus five different freelance editing projects
Watching: nothing in particular
Playing: Hogwarts Mystery, in year 4
Listening: to various songs on Spotify
Earworming: "In the Air Tonight" by Phil Collins, thanks to Twitter
Bookmarking: nothing new recently
Posting: a book recommendation, plus various retweets and reblogs
Organizing: my Goodreads lists

Wearing: a knee-length, keyhole-collar navy dress with a print of red flowers and paisleys, a
​black shrug, red rose earrings, and my usual black compression stockings
Eating: Dove dark chocolates
Smelling: nothing notable
Hearing: the oscillating fan and keyboard typing
Seeing:

Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, all sorts of events have had to go online--which for me is a good thing because it means I can attend them! Despite my disabling chronic illnesses and my isolation out here in New Mexico, I've been able to participate in big events like YALLWEST. But my favorite so far has been the one that I have the most personal connection to: Ch1Con! Or actually, now that I'm 26, I'm too old for Ch1Con, so this year, I attended the partnering conference for twenty-somethings that was added a few years ago, Ch21Con.

I'll admit that having it online wasn't quite as exhilarating as when I got to travel somewhere new and spend all that time in-person with my friends, but it was still delightful! There's nothing like getting to talk to people your age from all over who have a similar passion. Here's what I experienced at Ch21Con 2020:

The first speaker was Tashie Bhuiyan, whose YA romance debut comes out in May 2021. Her session was called From Fanfiction to Original Fiction, and she talked about the differences she found in going from writing fanfiction to writing original fiction. It was fun! I've actually gone the other way, kind of, where I started writing original fiction at a young age and only just wrote my first fanfiction in 2016. She used a lot of MCU examples, which works for me, seeing as all of my fanfiction has been MCU ScarletVision, haha.

There’s been a big push over the last several years to increase diversity within the media we consume. From greater visibility of LGBTQIA+ characters to the recent surge of awareness about Black struggles, readers of all identities are shouting to make their voices heard. It’s not perfect, of course--there’s still plenty of evidence that diversity in publishing remains lagging behind the scenes.
​
And while authors who choose to work with self-publishing companies have always been free to publish whatever they like, it’s nice to see some progress being made in the traditional publishing world, too, even if it is often in the form of “two steps forward, one step back.”

Despite the increased efforts to diversify storytelling, disability representation remains sorely lacking. Whether it’s invisible chronic illness, mental health struggles, or characters using mobility assistance technology, disability is often reduced to a token caricature (if it’s included at all). But to see disabled characters take the starring role in romance, as objects of desire? Surely such a book is a unicorn, right?

Yes and no! While these books are difficult to find, they do exist. With that in mind, today I’ve put together a list of 9 new adult novels that manage to not only include disabled characters, but depict them authenticity and heart. (Interested in YA instead? Check out Kira’s posts on those books here, here, and here!)

Can you believe it? It's now been eight years since I first started this blog! Thanks to everyone who's stuck it out with me, and here are the notable posts from this past year for you to revisit.

Chronic Illness
On Medical Research and Distant Cures 8/24/19

Humorous Stuff
Other Humor Pt. Twenty-Five 10/5/19
Harry Potter Humor Pt Eight 1/11/20
Other Humor Pt. Twenty-Six 4/4/20
Science Fiction Humor Pt. Three 7/4/20

Reading: What You Hide by Natalie D. Richards
To see all the books I read recently, click here.
Writing: #SnowQueenStory, on page 78
Editing: my blog archives, a friend's novel manuscript, and a Scribbr essay
Watching: Kendall Rae on YouTube
Playing: Hogwarts Mystery, in year 3
Listening: to various songs on Spotify
Earworming: the theme music from Hoarders
Bookmarking: a list of Victorian-era jobs and the women's fashion site eShakti
Posting: ​a book recommendation, plus various retweets and reblogs

Wearing: a Nevertheless She Persisted t-shirt, a black skirt, and silver square earrings inlaid with an ombre set of purple gems
Eating: sugar cookies
Smelling: kitty litter that needs cleaning
Hearing: an oscillating fan and a Kendall Rae video
Seeing:

We've made it to July, so here are a bunch of funny posts that have to do with sci-fi stories like Star Wars and Marvel, with a bit of DC, Doctor Who, and Star Trek. The other two installments can be found here and here. Please enjoy!

It's time for me to share my top to-reads of summer 2020! These are the seventeen books I'm most excited for that are releasing from July through September of this year. Why don't you add them to your list, too?

Since it's Pride Month, this seems like a good time to share how, after years of research and thought, I recently figured out that I am not just straight-up straight: I'm actually demiheterosexual and biromantic. 

If you're someone who's not all that familiar with the terminology used for different kinds of attraction, then that might sound like a confusing, complicated collection of mashed-together syllables. Human attraction is ​complicated, like most things related to humans. I'm here today to tell you the story of how writing and editing #OCDStory led to me discovering my orientations--and I promise I'll explain the words as we go.

When I was writing the first draft of #OCDStory, I knew early on that I wanted one of the important side characters to be asexual. It's important to recognize and appropriately represent people with different orientations in our stories because those people exist in real life. Not only is it unrealistic to exclude them, it's also hurtful and can leave them feeling unmoored and out of place. I chose asexuality for my focus because it's the sexual orientation that I've always found myself most interested in, other than regular old heterosexuality. It also just felt like the right fit for the character.

(Re)reading: Open Minds (Mindjack #1) by Susan Kaye Quinn
​To see all the books I read recently, click here.
Writing: #SnowQueenStory, on page 63
Editing: my blog archives and a Scribbr essay
Watching: bits and pieces of Star Trek: Discovery
Playing: Hogwarts Mystery, in year 3
​Listening: to various songs on Spotify
Earworming: "Girls Like You" by Maroon 5
Bookmarking: some websites about crystal meanings (hi, Molly)
​Posting: a book recommendation, plus various retweets and reblogs

Wearing: this t-shirt in light blue with a black skirt and these earrings in silver
Eating: more Chips Ahoy
Smelling: kitty litter that needs to be cleaned
Hearing: distant traffic outside
Seeing:

Hello, everyone! Today, I'm sharing my 2020 video bookshelf tour, as an update on my last 2017 tour. It begins with a little clip of Spartacus, so don't be confused by that, LOL. The Goodreads pages for any new books on my shelf are linked below.

I put together a bookshelf tour video for this week's post, but right now, it doesn't feel right to post it. Across the past few days, through social media, I've seen a fervor erupt in the U.S. like I've never seen before. This is largely inspired by the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, by police in Minneapolis. However, there are a lot of larger factors at play: decades of police violence, the current coronavirus pandemic, an ever-widening wealth gap in the midst of yet another economic downtown, and all of this being borne most severely by marginalized groups and particularly Black people. It's not hard for me to understand why there have been such intense protests in so many cities across the country. Black people have had enough, and frankly, it is way past time for change.

I've always been most fascinated by humans; all our weird contradictory complexities, and yet history shows us that humans don't do a lot of changing. There is always a lot of violence and prejudice and horror being perpetrated by people, especially those in power. There is always a lot of resistance to any social movement. There is always a lot of selfishness. But some things do change, in bursts here and there, and I hope this might be one of those times. It's not easy to live amid chaos, but it's also not easy to live amid an accepted status quo where people are suffering. In both these cases, privilege protects a lot of people, including me. It's quiet where I live, in my life, almost all the time, and sometimes, that makes me forget how much societal and political terror so many others are living with. But social media provides me a broader view by giving me access to other people. It shows me the suffering that people like me, white people, need to recognize and accept responsibility for changing, and it helps me be understanding about behavior that might seem extreme if I didn't know how much injustice and death and pain has been happening.

As a speculative fiction writer, reader, and viewer, I have immersed myself in so many stories about morality, injustice, and revolution. I am not in any way alone there. Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, and other popular phenomena all include these themes. But I think too many of us see this as being limited to fiction, to the past, or to other countries. We fail to recognize the way they're affecting our own modern societies, especially those of us who are people of privilege living quiet lives. We have problems, yes, many of them deeply painful, but we aren't being hurt by society in such a consistent and structural way. So it's easy for us to turn away or condemn others and not realize that we're ignoring the very heroes that we cheered for when we saw them in a different setting. Protests and riots are a part of so many important pieces of progress that have been made in the world.

In February 2013, as an almost nineteen-year-old, I wrote a post where I described my dream for my future life when I would be around age thirty. Seven years later, a lot has changed, including my vision of what I'd like my future to be. So I thought I'd share a 2020 update of what I, twenty-six-year-old Kira, dream for my future! This future vision could happen really anytime, and I would be happy with it, so I won't be specific about what age I am here. Life happens on its own timeline, after all.

First, in line with the previous version, here's a terrible Paint drawing of my dream!

It took an unfortunate amount of time for me to find and read enough appropriate books to create a sizeable list here. Now, I have so many, I'm limiting this post to my 4.5+ star reads! It is my pleasure to present recommended YA books that have central characters with disabilities in them. These disabilities do not include mental illnesses, which are instead represented in this list and in this list.

​I hope you'll give these books a read and support their disability representation!

1) Neal Shusterman's Unwind Dystology. You already know how much I love this wild and brilliant YA sci-fi dystopian series about a future America where abortion is outlawed and replaced by the "unwinding" of unwanted teens for body parts. The first book doesn't have disability representation, but in later books, all four of the main characters have something going on. Connor gets a transplanted arm, Levi has permanently stunted growth, Risa is briefly paralyzed but then cured against her will, and my boy Camus has to "relearn" a variety of neuromuscular skills.

2) Marissa Meyer's The Lunar Chronicles. I've mentioned this series here a hundred times already, but somehow, it keeps fitting with my post themes! In this futuristic YA sci-fi retelling of four different fairytales, one of the main characters, Cinder, has various cybernetic parts, including a prosthetic leg, while a different main character, Cress, lives with a much maligned fictional disability. One of the love interests, Wolf, has to deal with the lifelong results of human experimentation, and a different love interest, Thorne, is stricken with a temporary blindness. (There's also a main character, Winter, with hallucinations. This book has it all!)

Reading: Reverie by Ryan La Sala
To see all the books I read recently, click here.
Writing: #SnowQueenStory, on page 54
Editing: my blog archives and a book description
Watching: The Half of It on Netflix
Playing: Hogwarts Mystery, in year 1 on a brand new save file because I decided to delete my Facebook
​Listening: to various songs on Spotify
Earworming: the main theme from Us
Bookmarking: some websites about flower language

Wearing: a navy tank top dress and black shrug with white pearl earrings
Eating: too many Chips Ahoy
Smelling: almond sugar lip balm
Hearing: my youngest brother thundering around
Seeing:

Though context is quite important and it often gets lost amidst pithy phrases, some people really do have a way with beautiful words. Today, I'd like to share a few favorite quotes, drawn from my Goodreads and my Pinterest.

Everything you can imagine is real. -- Pablo Picasso

Life is made up of marble and mud. -- Nathaniel Hawthorne

The most beautiful stories always start with wreckage. ​-- Jack London

Nothing great in the world was ever accomplished without passion. -- Georg Wilheim
Friedrich Hegel

Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality. --
​ Edgar Allan Poe

The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery. -- Anais Nin

​​If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world. -- C.S. Lewis

The absence of violence is not love. -- from Still Life With Tornado by A.S. King8

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm currently making minor edits to my blog archives, which means I'm getting all sorts of inspiration from my past blog posts! Today, I'd like to write a post based on my short bucket list post from 2013.

Since then, my life has changed a lot, and many of those wishes are no longer feasible because of my disabilities and/or no longer fit my interests. However, my vision of what it looks like to be a successful novelist has expanded a great deal. So I thought it'd be a good idea to write an updated bucket list focusing mostly on what I want to achieve as an author!

1) Sign a contract with a literary agent. I have yet to achieve the very first step towards traditional publication despite many attempts. I look forward to making this professional connection and having another person on my team!

2) Publish a novel. This is the big one I've been looking forward to for years and years! It's only the hoped-for beginning, of course, but it's a huge step all by itself.

3) Run a book giveaway. Once I have a book to promote, I plan to run at least one giveaway on this website, if nowhere else, and since I've won many books from giveaways in the past, I'm excited to offer the same chance to others.

4) Hold a book release party. I'm not sure where I'd have one--the library is the only place in my little town that seems appropriate--but I've seen photos from the parties authors hold when they release a new book, and it looks delightful. There are cupcakes with the book cover design on them, y'all!. Even if it was very small, I'd love to have such a party.

(Re)reading: Persuasion by Jane Austen (thanks to the library being closed, there are a lot of rereads going on right now!)
To see all the books I read recently, click here.
Writing: blog posts and diary entries
Editing: my blog archives and a personal statement from Scribbr
Watching: random shows to see if something grabs me
Playing: lots of Hogwarts Mystery
Listening: ​to various songs
Earworming: Victorious's take on "Don't You (Forget About Me)", for some reason
Bookmarking: NetGalley, most recently

Wearing: this Baby Yoda shirt and black sweatpants
Eating: too much sugar because I am seriously stressed out
Smelling: nothing in particular
Hearing: keyboard sounds and a fan
Seeing:

It's time for some much-needed humor. Here are a variety of funny posts I saw on the Internet recently! Please enjoy.