🍂Second Sundays - September 2022🍂

Happy Second Sunday!

Thank you for joining me in this new experiment. My hope with this newsletter is to provide updates on the books I'm writing, the art I'm creating, and other projects in the works as well as share some things I've learned and discovered during the past month, provide some inspiration, and engage in more than a bit of nerdiness.

I hope you enjoy!

Although I didn't get to any revisions last month, things are brewing with Dragonstone. My original plan was to split the two timelines for my main characters, revise each timeline in whole individually to catch plot holes, and then weave them back together. But, I keep finding myself instinctively trying to switch back and forth and it's been a bit of an awkward fight to stay in one lane. So, I've been weighing a few different options for moving forward... but basically, I just need to find my groove. 😅

The past month was a big reading month! I blazed through G.R.R. Martin's beastly but amazing Fire & Blood, and I gotta say, in my opinion, "House of the Dragon" is really doing the book justice so far. After that, I returned to Middle-Earth and finished my first age books list with Beren & Luthien and The Fall of Gondolin. I've been absolutely loving this sojourn through Tolkien's other writings, specifically getting to read about his creative process and the different iterations of these stories as they developed over time.

Aside from watching "Rings of Power" (my notes on which would make this section even longer than it is, so we'll hold the phone on that for a bit) the next stage of Tolkien for me will be reading the histories and The Fall of Numenor when it comes out in November, so this is a good time to depart Middle-Earth for a while and read some other books that have been literally piling up. I can feel Autumn knocking on my door 👀🍁 and spooky season trying to shove through as well 👻 so I put together my TBR (to be read) lineup for September and October!

Some of the titles and authors are hard to read, so from top to bottom:

• Fairy Tale by Stephen King

• The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

• Malice and Misrule by Heather Walter

• Small Favors by Erin Craig

• Long Live the Pumpkin Queen by Shea Ernshaw

• Raising the Horseman by Serena Valentino

• Hocus Pocus Illustrated Novelization

Inspired by all of the Tolkien I've been reading, specifically The Children of Hurin, I started drawing my version of the Father of Dragons, Glaurung!

I would like to watercolor this piece, so my next steps will be doing some color experiments with markers and then some watercolor test runs. The beauty is the linework is saved in Photoshop, so I can print this guy out as many times as I like until I get it right. 😉

This artist popped up in my Instagram feed a few weeks ago and I just CAN NOT GET ENOUGH of her gorgeous, Renaissance-like art!

Visit Kinuko Y. Craft's website here and follow her on Instagram here.

🍁A Last Special Mention🍁

We have at last arrived at my favorite time of year, which also means there's a special event coming up soon on September the 22nd. So I just want to say a very happy early birthday to Bilbo and Frodo Baggins! 🥳 Normally I celebrate each year by reading The Hobbit, but as I've been reading in the Tolkien-verse for about a year now, I'll be celebrating instead by indulging in some proper hobbit-sized meals while watching the Peter Jackson films, some Nerd of the Rings YouTube videos, and/or the newest episode of "The Rings of Power."