July has passed by quite fast. And while it wasn’t the worst month, it lagged behind expectations a bit. Let’s see why…

Reading

I managed to read three books in the first half of the month. This was mainly due to the rainy weather, though one quite fast re-read before an anticipated sequel also affected things. In the second half of the month, I haven’t been reading in the typical sense – instead, I went through my own story, looking for continuity issues.

Hiking

With hiking, it was the opposite. The rainy beginning of the month had put a dent into my high hopes for summer which, considering that my country has a public holiday in early July, meant three lost chances for hiking. I then managed two hikes in the third and fourth weekend, but that was it, and I’m leaving the month with merely 53 km over two hikes, and almost no photos to show for it as those weekends were quite hot and I preferred the shelter of a dense forest rather than the exposed peaks. The last weekend of the month also turned out to be rainy – and while the land more than needs it after the dry two weeks, even light rain isn’t too comfortable for me to set out on my own, more so if it’s to be from the very morning.

Writing

As mentioned above, I got back into writing in the second half of the month. I got back in touch with one of my betas ad the beginning of summer, and we figured out the schedule for our next swap (starting roughly mid-August). So, I’ve been checking my notes, going through the story, fixing things I’ve overlooked (such as minor issues that weren’t my focus when dealing with the major issues), adding things here and there when I had a new idea, and weeding out typos that slipped through in the previous edits. For now, the draft is at around 185k words, which puts it in a similar spot as the first book (I think that one ended up at 178k).

Other

In my June update, I mentioned that I’ve given sketching a try, and posted one half-finished sketch. On that front, nothing really moved much – at first, I was busy reading. Then, writing took a lot of my attention and the heatwave also meant that the paper would be crumpled by sweat, so I had to put that aside. This, at least, gave me a while to think about what I’d like to try next, when I get to it.

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Well, that’s it for my July. Not much, but I think I’ve taken enough chances to do something in all aspects, even if it’s behind my expectations. Hopefully, this month was a calm time before the next beta swap and the further work it’ll bring…