Bookish Breakdown No 26: February 2021

Last Updated on February 28, 2021 by ThoughtsStained

Hello, lovelies!

How was your month? February was a bit of an odd one, for me. It had a lot of dark and gloomy days, which I normally really love, but the consistent cold (plus a week where our temperatures never rose above zero) and not seeing the sun for days on end really amped up my seasonal depression a lot.

So, I had more low days than high days, especially as we near surviving a year in a pandemic and I’ve been struggling. I have a 3-month old niece who I’ve only met once. I haven’t seen my family in months. I miss hanging out with friends, going on date nights with my partner, having a fun trip to save up for and plan. I know these complaints are miniscule in comparison to many, but the feelings they illicit are still valid and real.

All of this to say, I’m really ready for spring, so I can hopefully start taking my dog on walks again, at least. Perhaps I’ll get back into letter writing again and try to be more intentional setting up some Zoom calls to see more people.

What I did:

• Started my poetry class in graduate school and felt completely out of my depth
• Bought a book to start learning Māori!
• Completed act one of BLOOD PRICE edits!
• Had an emergency vet visit for my catto.
• Took Dovah to the dog park.
• Read one of my the best books I have in a long time
• Went to virtual therapy

Honestly, it was a bit of a blur, the days sorta blending together in everything. But, this week, the weather is slated to be in the low-60s as a high and honestly, my mood has skyrocketed exponentially. I’m ready for it!

What I Read

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Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad (started)
Ioth: City of Lights by D.P. Wolliscroft
Tales of Ioth by D.P. Wolliscroft
The Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter
Queen of the Conquered by Kacen Callendar (started)

Also, for class:
M Archive by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Guy Botany by Petra Kuppers

What I Hauled

ARCS

**Thank you to Orbit Books for these fantastic ARCs!**

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The Shadow of the Gods by John Gywnne
Son of the Storm by Suyi Davies Okungbowa

Library Snags:

**Nothing this month**

Purchased:

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So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
Winter’s Orbit by Everina Maxwell

Received for Review:

**Nothing this month**

Gifts:

**Nothing this month**

What I Posted

In this section, I like to share posts that I personally wrote this past month that I either really enjoyed writing, am really proud of or wish might have gotten a little more attention.

🏹 Jaded Academia
🏹 Developing (and Learning to Flex) Those Self Love Muscles
🏹 Dreaming Beyond the 9-5

Reading Challenges Update

2021 Discussion Challenge: 3/24

StoryGraph: 10/50

ARCs: 3/12

Backlist Books: 1/12

Monthly Diverse Reads: 4 versus 3 (Goal: Every month, read equal to or more diverse reads than those written by authors who (or feature characters that) match my identity, listing diverse books first.)

I didn’t do too badly this month! I’m choosing to celebrate that I got caught up on client reading and read a fantastic novel in The Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter, despite the fact that, in this past week, I haven’t really read at all. So, hoping to get back into reading before bed and during lunch, while also continuing to practice not beating myself up when I don’t do that.

Intentions Update

Sharing where I’m at on my yearly intentions, all of which I detailed in this post.

Writing ✔️

Despite being behind where I want to be to finish editing my book on time by my April 1st deadline, I feel *so* good about the edits I have completed so far and confident that I can still finish on time!

Reading ✔️

Like I mentioned above, still counting this as a win, even if I’m trying to slump again.

Freelance Editing ✔️

On track with my biggest client project ever AND was able to work with a few clients on some smaller projects that was really lucky to do (as a result of a desperate call out after my vet scare, which just made my heart so whole that the community was so supportive of me. I love you all). Still need to figure out a good way to naturally grow this, but I’m excited about where I’m at!

Blogging ✔️

KILLED it in February in terms of writing posts (and I enjoyed writing them all, which is also a major win). I’m behind on blog hopping and responding to comments (I *promise* I will catch up soon!!), but blogging is one of my top passions right now and I am so happy that I’m just in love with blogging right now.

Self-Love ✖️✔️

Yeah, I still struggle with this so hard. Definitely still beat myself up a lot and hated on my body. BUT, I also recognized a toxic thought and pushed past it to be more neutral and still post a selfie on Instagram, despite being ashamed of my fatness, and I’m pretty proud of that growth.

Allyship and Activism ✔️

Started Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad, but still getting into it. Since this is more of a workbook type of read, I want to take my time with this and really be intentional about it and the work I am doing. I also bought So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo as my next read!

Other ✖️

HA, I read through the list again and wow, did I do absolutely none of these things in February (to be fair, my depression was pretty high and the cold weather put a damper on things like working on home projects, which requires building things in our garage, or exploring our nature spot). Not to mention that I redownloaded Twitter on my phone, since I was just opening a browser to browse through it anyway. And pay off debt? I added 1.2K in vet bills. *facepalm*

For March, I think I want to focus on three things:

• Take better care of my hair and try one new way to style it!
• Write letters
• Work on kitchen home projects

Posts I Enjoyed

Curious what blog posts I really enjoyed around the blogsophere this month? Check them out here:

⚔️ Em @ Em’s Bookish Musings hosts a monthly blog series called The Black Experience 2.0: Giving White Comfort the Backseat and I highly recommend you check out all of the posts from this series (in particular, some posts that really captivated me from the series were Writing from the Black Perspective, Black Joy and The Devaluation and Consumerism of Black Pain).

⚔️ CW, Skye and Joce @ The Quiet Pond kick off their 1st Black History Month Blog series, with amazing interviews and feature posts by Black authors and it’s incredible, check it out! They also featured 20 books by queer black authors AND books by Black SFF authors, both which I really enjoyed, even including Black-owned bookshops to buy these books from!

⚔️ Foz Meadows @ Shattersnipe: Malcontent and Rainbows shares a very important piece in response to the recent racist review from Locus Magazine that every reviewer should read and pay attention to.

⚔️K.S. Villoso shares a powerful short piece on the importance of loving your writing.

⚔️ Kacen Callender’s love letter to the perfectionist author will always live rent-free in my brain and by god, I hope it sticks.

⚔️ Marie @ Drizzle and Hurricane Books shares how to support book bloggers and MY GOSH, I wish everyone in the world would read this post.

⚔️ Min @ Min and Her Books write a really important post about blogging and productivity and wow, did I connect.

⚔️ Sabrina @ Wordy and Whimsical shares a really neat post of recommending books based of of their aesthetics, which I thought was really fun!

⚔️ Kate @ Your Tita Kate, alongside Shenwei, wrote and shared an INCREDIBLE post about white authors writing about POCs. It should be mandatory reading for any white writer, honestly.

Whelp, that’s it from me for February! March, my goal is to soak up as many good weather days as I can, learn to balance my (admittedly way too many) commitments better so I can spend more time with my partner and less time playing catch up, finish editing BLOOD PRICE (!!) and just try to stay positive.

I hope you all have a wonderful month! 🖤