A Writing Update

As I said in my post last week, the main reason for my lack of blog posts lately (besides moving house, starting a new job and having an adventurous and sleep-shy one-year-old) is that I have been spending all of my free time writing. 

I had just finished my first detailed read through of Amber & Ice when I got another story idea which I was so consumed by I had to start planning it out at once. And once I'd planned it, I couldn't not start writing it immediately. Three months later and I have the first (very rough) draft of a new fantasy novel. I don't want to go into too much detail in this post, but I will tell you that it's set in the same world as the Elements of Power series, but features different characters. And no, it won't be called Earth, although it doesn't have a title yet. I feel like my writing has improved so much since I wrote Fire and this new novel has given me the chance to try and do a world and idea that I'm still very proud of a bit more justice. I'm not sure what my long-term plans are for it yet, but I had a lot of fun writing it and it's been  great exercise in learning how to plot more effectively. I now need to read back through it to determine if it's worth sharing with anyone else. 

Before I do that though, I'm finally getting back to Amber & Ice and am determined to finish my initial edits, no matter how many other story ideas I have (currently at a total of three). I still feel like there is a lot of promise in this idea, even though my first draft was really weak. The good thing is I have loads of ideas on how to make it better and I'm really pleased with how editing is going. The major problem at the moment is that I think it reads like YA, but with NA aged characters... Do I change up the story completely so the characters are in school rather than uni, or do I work on my extreme avoidance of writing romance scenes? If you've read the first draft on Wattpad, I'd love to know your thoughts! It also desperately needs a better title, but inspiration for that is still eluding me at the moment. 

That's all from me for this week - I need to get back to editing!

Pop Sugar Reading Challenge

Hello! I'm sorry I haven't updated in ages. It's because I've been super busy writing, but there will be more on that in my next post. Today, I want to post an update on the Pop Sugar reading challenge I've been working on. 

A book with more than 500 pages {Casual Vacancy}
A classic romance {Mansfield Park}
A book that became a movie {Gone Girl}
A book published this year {The Red Queen}
A book with a number in the title (Fahrenheit 451}
A book written by someone under 30 {Queen of Shadows}
A book with nonhuman characters {Winter}
A funny book
A book by a female author {Gone Girl}
A mystery or thriller {The Cuckoo's Calling}
A book with a one-word title {Fangirl}
A book of short stories
A book set in a different country {100 Years of Solitude}
A nonfiction book {Bringing Up Bebe}
A popular author's first book
A book from an author you love that you haven't read yet {Paper Towns}
A book a friend recommended {The Secret History or One Hundred Years of Solitude}
A Pulitzer Prize-winning book
A book based on a true story
A book at the bottom of your tbr list.
A book your mum loves
A book that scares you {Asking For It}
A book more than 100 years old {Tess of the D'Urbervilles}
A book based entirely on its cover {We Were Liars}
A book you were supposed to read in school but didn't {An Inspector Calls - technically, I didn't have to read this when I was at school, but I did need to read it for work and managed to blag my way through a few lessons before I got round to it}
A memoir {The Guantanamo Diary}
A book you can finish in a day {7 Days}
A book with antonyms in the title {AWorld Without Princes - The School for Good and Evil #2}
A book set somewhere you've always wanted to visit {The Scorpio Races - I know it's not real, but I would love to visit Puck's island}
A book that came out the year you were born
A book with bad reviews
A trilogy
A book from your childhood {We're Going on a Bear Hunt}
A book with a love triangle {Half Wild}
A book set in the future {Only Ever Yours}
A book set in high school {To All the Boys I've Loved Before}
A book with a colour in the title {Red Rising}
A book that made you cry {Tess of the D'Urbervilles}
A book with magic {Half Bad}
A graphic novel
A book by an author you've never read before {The Winner's Curse}
A book you own but have never read
A book that takes place in your hometown {A Darker Shade of Magic - well, versions of it, anyway!}
A book that was originally written in a different language {One Hundred Years of Solitude}
A book set during Christmas
A book written by an author with your initials
A play {An Inspector Calls}
A banned book
A book based on or turned into a TV show
A book you started but never finished {Casual Vacancy}

There are quite a few categories I don't think I'm going to cross of this list and there are a few books I've read, but can't fit in anywhere. I've now read 38 out of the 40 books I set myself as a challenge on goodreads this year.