April Wrap-Up

Hey all, Sam here.

Another month has ended, which means it is time for me to talk about how my April went. I did do a decent amount of TV/movie watching, as per usual, but I’m not tracking my watches like I used to. I can say that David and I did a re-watch of all of “The Hunger Games” movies, we watched “Sakamoto Days” and everything released so far for “My Hero Academia: Vigilantes”, and have almost finished another “Wheel of Time” Season 3 re-watch.

What this reoccurring blog post really covers is looking at the same areas I cover in my yearly goals post, which means I talk about reading, writing, blogging, and trips/conventions. As per usual, the reading section is the biggest one. I really need to work on bolstering the writing and blogging sections.

All right. We might as well get started now.

Reading

I managed to read 10 books in the month of April, but I will also be transparent and say that 6 of those were novellas, so they read rather quickly. Still, I’m not going to be upset with what I managed to accomplish. I am sad that I didn’t get more of my Indie April reads in, but I’m going to keep trying to work my way through both trad pubbed books as well as indie pubbed ones.

Anyway, let’s quickly run through everything I read last month.

Go Luck Yourself by Sara Raasch — 5 stars

The Gods Time Forgot by Kelsie Sheridan Gonzalez — 2.5 stars

The Chase Begins by Aimee Donnellan — 4 stars

The Collection Awakens by Aimee Donnellan — 4 stars

The Survivor Stands by Aimee Donnellan — 4 stars

You’ve Got Chain Mail by Sam Parks — 3 stars

The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson — 5 stars

The Labyrinth Beckons by Aimee Donnellan — 4.5 stars

The Spirit Torments by Aimee Donnellan — 4.5 stars

Unrelenting Winds by Melissa K Roehrich — 5 stars

So there we have it. All the books I read in the month of April, and I will be working on getting more of my 2025 reads reviewed and posted on the blog now. Hopefully I can keep making progress with both reading and blogging.

Writing

I’ve done a couple thousand words worth of writing, but it just continually feels like a struggle…and not because I don’t want to write or I’m not motivated by the characters and their stories. I’m just constantly fighting the concerns and mental strain of everything going on in the US right now, and the fear that there won’t even be a place for my stories if/when I do finish them.

I know that I should be writing for myself first, and I love my WIPs, but it’s so hard for me to stay motivated on something that may never see the light of day. I love storytelling because we get to share that love of stories with others when they read what we write.

I just need to figure out how to keep myself writing

Blogging

Before this year began, my plan was to blog at least twice a week, with the hopes that I would get back into the swing of it and end up blogging even more than that. But I have not held myself to my plans or goals, so I have been lucky to get just a couple blog posts written each month.

Much like with March, in April I managed four posts: my March Wrap-Up, What Books Am I Looking Forward to in April?, May Books I’m Looking Forward To, and NetGalley Review: Dungeons & Dragons: Ravenloft: Heir of Strahd by Delilah S Dawson.

There are so very many books I have read that I still need to review (over 30 in 2025 so far), so I am very much hoping to spend some time getting those ready. If there’s more posts up in May then it’s because I actually made myself sit down and take time to work on this blog more.

Trips/Conventions

Well, we got our tax return back, and that enabled us to get our Gen Con tickets and to book our hotel for August, so we have the essentials purchased for our biggest trip of the year. And we’re getting ready for a trip back to Ohio to hang out with my mom in the middle of May, and that should be fun. But other than that, we don’t really have anything to report when it comes to trips and conventions.

All right, well that is all from me for today. How was your April? Let me know in the comments. Thank you so much for stopping by and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.