August 2018 Monthly Wrap-Up

August started with a twelve-day trip to Alaska with my grandpa, aunt, uncle, and Joshua. It was the MOST AMAZING TRIP EVER and I miss it so much. We stayed in Denali National Park for a few days; then we took a cruise that stopped in Haines, Juneau, and Ketchikan before ending up in Vancouver. Read more about the trip here.

When we got back, my grandpa stayed for a few days, and after recovering from the trip I dived back into work with a vengeance. Writing made up the bulk of the remainder of my month–tons of meetings, new clients, and marketing and learning and work–but I also started babysitting my next-door neighbors one afternoon a week and working at my nonprofit one afternoon a week. Fun stuff: brunch and shopping with Brooke, coffee with Andrea, met my (other) grandpa and watched a baseball game played according to rules from the 1800’s, and movie and dinner with Brooke.

 

This month I’m…

Reading: He’s Making Diamonds, S. G. Willoughby. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, J. K. Rowling (reread). Marley and Me, John Grogan. Culture of the Few, Brad McKoy. A Beautiful Work in Progress, Mirna Valerio. Cruise Confidential, Brian David Bruns. The Weight of Feathers, Anna-Marie McLemore. East to West, Ravi Zacharias. Anna and the French Kiss and Isla and the Happily Ever After, Stephanie Perkins. Out of Darkness, Ashley Hope Perez. Eleanor and Park, Rainbow Rowell. All The Bright Places, Jennifer Niven. 13 total.

Listening to (I discovered SO much good music this month): 25, 56, and 139, Red Rocks Worship. Daydream, Jillian Edwards. Never Come Back Again, Austin Plaine. Quintet in Eb, Schumann. Don’t Wanna Think, Julia Michaels. Way Down We Go, Kaleo. Can’t Hold Us, Macklemore. Believer, Imagine Dragons. Green, Ben Rector. Arrival of the Birds, Jason Swinscoe. My Feet Are On the Rock, I Am They. Light It Up, Major Lazer. I Won’t Back Down, Johnnyswim. Neptune, Gustav Holst. Pride and Prejudice, Valentina Lisitsa. Stupid Love, Dan + Shay. Bookseller in the Rain, Laura Osnes. Nobody Knows, The Lumineers. Lovers, Anna of the North. Can I Be Him and Say You Won’t Let Go, James Arthur. Mamma Mia. Shotgun, George Ezra. Waves, Dean Lewis.

Watching: Restless Creature, Wendy Whelan. The Parent Trap. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before AHHHHH NOT OVER IT (also watched *almost* every video of Noah Centineo on the Internet). NBC’s World of Dance (mostly just Charity and Andres’s dances, over and over and over). Mamma Mia 2.

Writing: Except for some work on the Atlanta > Anchorage flight and then a video call job interview on the ship (unfortunately, I didn’t get that job), I didn’t work at all in Alaska, and then I jumped back in with a serious 9-6 daily work schedule when we got back. I had a ton of meetings (like, SO many) and landed a ton of new clients: an ethnic advertising company I now write B2B blog posts for, an author who needed an editor for her YA magical realism novel, a company I now write business profiles for, and my DREAM CLIENT (literally still so so so so over the moon about this one and can hardly believe it).

In addition to meetings, I spent time doing assessments for two potential clients; for one, I took a course on sales emails, and it was extremely helpful although I didn’t get the job. I also began taking a persuasive copywriting course through Den 2X; this month we focused on low-hanging fruit, meaning lots of LinkedIn referral marketing. I also applied to 88 jobs, pitched four magazines, and sent out around 10 LOI’s, and I proofread the September issue of Georgia Family Magazine.

As far as guest posts and single articles, I had a feature published in Just Labs magazine, a success story published at WritersWeekly (and wrote another piece for WW, coming soon), wrote a guest post for CYC, wrote a pretty technical article on heat and metabolism for InBody, wrote a post for Write Naked, and had a devotional published here.

Fiction-wise, I came up with/messed around with dozens of new story ideas in Alaska, began editing World on a String when not editing my client’s novel, and wrote one of the best short stories I’ve ever written.

 

Loving: Margzetta Frazier’s Challenging Journey to UCLA, Nationals, and Beyond (Inside Gymnastics). Pain, training, and 73 medals: Inside the life of US gymnastics all-around champion Ragan Smith (Dallas News). To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before Movie Chat (Paper Pizza). Noah Centineo on “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” and Being a Hopeless Romantic (Teen Vogue). And Abbie’s publishing a novel! 

Grateful for: A moment on a bus driving through Alaska, curled in the seat, sharing earbuds with Joshua and laughing quietly at this. Meeting super sweet Alaskan homeschoolers in the hot tub. A girl I haven’t seen in three years sending me her Netflix login so I could watch To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before (we have since switched our Netflix account from the DVD-only option o the normal one, largely so I can watch it again). Texting snarky comments to my accountability buddy during the mastermind of our freelance writing class. My little neighbor getting into my car and giving me pictures she drew for me at school that day. Friends who find spiritual allegories in movies. Spotify Premium.

What did you do in August?