Sarah Pennington's Blog, page 30

Five Books Whose Sequels I Need IMMEDIATELY

You know the feeling. You finish an amazing, epic book. You're in love with the characters, the plot, the world, everything. You might even say you want to marry the book, if you're the sort of person who says that kind of thing. You dash to your computer, leave your Goodreads review, and then look for the sequel — only to discover that it isn't out yet. Or, worse still, there's no sequel planned.

It's a tragedy, it is. No two ways about it.

I, like most of you, have experienced that feeli...

February 2019 Doings!

Ok, all the stuff I said about February being a horrible month? I was wrong. February was a very good month (with the exception of a few days). It was also a very busy month, so I'm kind of glad it's done . . . not that it's going to get any easier from here on out.
Writing!I spent most of the month working on the fourth round of edits on Mechanical Heart, which ended up being more extensive than I expected. My beta readers made some excellent points about pacing and character dynamics that me...

Why Honor: A Quest In Is Worth Yelling About

I spent a lot of time yelling about books on the internet. It's sort of a fact of life at this point. However, I don't yell about every book I come across — obviously, or else I'd never shut up. In fact, out of all the books I read, there's actually a very small percentage that I think are worth the time and energy it takes to shout their merits from the virtual merits. Kendra E. Ardnek's newest book, Honor: A Quest In — releasing in four days! — is one of those.

Why Honor: A Quest In Is Worth...

Honor: A Bookania Tag

Hey'a, everyone! First off, if you missed my late-night Facebook excitement last Tuesday: I saw Andrew Peterson in concert! It was amazing and beautiful and he played a lot of my favorite songs and I'm so glad I got to be there. Next up: another source of excitement for me this month: Honor: A Quest In ! This is Kendra E. Ardnek's next book, which releases in about a week and a half! I got to alpha-read it, and I'm looking forward so much to when it comes out and y'all get to enjoy it too. In...

The Only Blind Dates I'll Ever Go On

Hey'a, everyone! It's almost Valentine's Day, and you know what that means — it's Blind Date with a Book time! As a quick note for those who aren't aware: Blind Date with a Book is basically an event where the library staff wraps up a ton of books in pretty paper and puts some kind of clue or hint on the paper. Last year it was the genre and the first line of the book; the year before it was the genre and a few key descriptive words. You pick whichever book sounds most appealing based on the...

January 2019 Doings!

I'm not going to lie, y'all: it's a small miracle that this is up on time. This week — this whole month — has been a cycle of super chill days abruptly dissolving into obscenely frantic and packed ones. (Part of this is my fault; if I don't have a deadline for a project, or if the deadline is far away and the task is small, I'm very easily distracted. However, it's also partially due to the fact that professors and other people keep saying "Oh, here's this project; it's due in two class perio...

Writer Stereotypes (Part 2)!

Hey'a, everyone! Last week, I shared some of the writer stereotypes that fit me pretty well. This week, I'm focusing on the opposite: writer stereotypes that, when it comes to me, couldn't be further from the truth. So, let's get started!

 Writer Stereotypes (Part 2)Writers are insomniacs and night owls who stay up to the wee hours of the morning to write. My hallmates can confirm that this is not the case. While I have occasionally, in a fit of inspiration, stayed up to an unholy hour be...

Writer Stereotypes (Part 1)

Hello, friends! So, stereotypes. Everyone's affected by them. Everyone tries to pretend that the stereotypes for whatever they happen to identify themselves as — writer, bookworm, athlete, science person, crafter, girl, guy, anything — doesn't actually apply to them. But, y'know, while not every stereotype applies to everyone in a particular category, some of them will always apply to some of the people. That's as true for writers, and for me as a writer, as it is for everyone...

2019: It's Goal Time

Well, here we are. 2019. We're four days in and I already feel like we've been here for ages. But I guess that's not really a surprise, given how long last year felt. Hopefully, 2019 will be better than 2018 was — though, all things considered, 2018 was a pretty great year. And I did a reasonably good job meeting most of my goals . . . though not all of them.
2018 Reviewed!Writing
As you may remember, last year, my main writing goal was to set myself a writing challenge of some kind every month...

New Year, New World [A New Year's Short]

Happy New Year, everyone! I wasn't sure if I'd do a New Year's short story, but then I got this idea and it was so much fun that I just had to run with it. Hopefully y'all enjoy it too. If you're curious, my usual reflections-and-goals post will be going up on Friday. I just don't want to post TOO much in these two days.

New Year, New WorldTamison took a deep breath and smoothed the lapels of his wizardly robe. Fifteen minutes and counting until he’d leave for his first mission for the Council...