Ch-ch-ch-changes

So the Big Chimp and I have some pretty big changes coming up. Next month, we're moving. But not just to a new house or a new town. We're moving across the ocean, like this:

This won't be the first time I've done this, but that doesn't mean it isn't stressful and a little scary. I've lived in England for almost five years now, four of them with the Big Chimp. And if you include my junior year abroad during college, that adds up to about 60% of my adult life spent living in the UK. Even my accent has changed—I pronounce tomato to-mah-to and banana ba-nah-na. In short, I've pretty much forgotten how to be American.

And I'm excited, too. We're moving to my hometown, wherein resides the largest chunk of my family—my sisters, my aunt, my grandma and my unbelievably ancient cat, Timmy. I've got a niece and a nephew there, and childhood friends, and—stacked patiently in a cheap storage unit—all of my books. And there's sunshine there, and beaches, and Mexican food, and palm trees and avocados and the Pacific Ocean and all the other things that, in my mind, make up home.

It's a strange feeling, going back to a place that I left so long ago. But it's an adventure, too. When I came to England the second time, to do my MA, I only planned to stay a year. I arrived in Brighton knowing no one and now I have this whole British existence that I never could have imagined just a few years ago. Isn't life weird?

All experiences, big and little, contribute to creating and developing your personality. England is one experience that I'm so, so glad I've had, for so many reasons. But I'm ready for a new adventure now. And a little bit of sunshine.

June reads

I read a mix of things in June: a sprawling family saga, a Shakespeare play, a book on physics, a contemporary YA novel, and lots and lots of manga.

• Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese—I read this on the recommendation of my mother-in-law, and I wasn't disappointed. It's a long, complex story centering around a set of identical twins born in Ethiopia in the 1950s to an Indian nun and a British doctor, but raised by neither. In-depth characters and a wonderful sense of place, but a bit too graphically violent for me at times.
• Fruits Basket, Volume 14 by Natsuki Takaya—I think I'm falling out of love with this series, because I didn't like this volume or the one that precedes it. I still love the earlier volumes of the series, but the newer ones (in my opinion) focus too much on uninteresting characters, and certain plots—like the Sohma children being rejected by their parents—are being done to death.
• The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare—It's Shakespeare! Yay! And this is a weird one—seriously troubling stuff intermixed with the usual Shakespearean comedy routines: disguises, gender swaps, weddings and trickery. Gives some unsettling insight into the extent of anti-semitism in Europe in the 16th Century.
• An Abundance of Katherines by John Green—A novel about a former child prodigy who's just been dumped by a girl named Katherine for the 19th time, and his quest to find a formula to explain and predict romantic relationships while on a road trip with his best friend. I learn a lot of interesting facts reading John Green novels, which is always a plus. That being said, this novel didn't quite do it for me. I did like a lot of things about it, but at times I found the main characters just on the wrong side of the line between funny and annoying. That being said, at 27 I'm not exactly the book's target audience—ten years ago I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more.
• Doll, Volume 1 by Mitzukazu Mihara—A creepy manga series of short stories set in a future where people keep humanoid animatronic "dolls" as servants, companions, and sometimes something more sinister. Unsettling and well-written—I really enjoyed it.
• Cardcaptor Sakura: Master of the Clow, Volume 1 by CLAMP—A manga about an elementary school girl called Sakura who has magical powers. My local library accidentally ordered this in for me instead of the original Cardcaptor Sakura. Since it was there already, I read it. I liked the characters but felt I was really missing something by not having read the original first.
• Uzumaki by Junji Ito—Another creepy manga, recommended to me by a Scottish dude I work with at the library. This one is about a town that's haunted not by a ghost, but by a pattern—the spiral. Super scary and horrific, with a few scenes of pretty graphic violence. Unsettling yet un-put-downable.
• Relativity: A Very Short Introduction by Russell Stannard—A short nonfiction book about Einstein's special and general theories of relativity. Lots of neat but pretty confusing facts about gravity and space-time. A quick read and worth it if you're at all interested in physics.
• Cardcaptor Sakura, Volume 1 by CLAMP—A fun manga about Sakura, a school girl who has to capture escaped magical cards before they wreak havoc on her town. Loved the characters, especially Sakura—a confident ten-year-old who is great at sports—but I felt the card-capturing scenes were a bit repetitive.
• Bakuman, Volume 3: Debut and Ungeduld by Tsugumi Ohba & Takeshi Obata—I continue to enjoy this manga series about two young boys who are trying to make it in the manga business. Lots in here both about the creative process and the publishing process for manga, and in the course of the story I'm learning a lot about Japanese culture, too.
 

So, what have you been reading lately? Do you tend to stick with one genre or format, or are your tastes more eclectic? Let me know in the comments!

WIP 2: It's done!

Well, as of June 28th the first draft of Dyllan and Abigail is done!

To steal an idea from Sarah at Squidink, here is a word cloud representing a big chunk of my draft (it was too long to copy/paste the whole thing):

Apparently my characters look at stuff a lot?

Anyway, here are some statistics:

Genre: Young adult fantasy novel
Start date: November 1st, 2011
Time worked on: 7 months, 28 days
Word count: 120,556
Pages (printed): 899

I am so in love with this story right now. Yes, the draft is a bit all over the place, but it's also much cleaner and much more focused than the first draft of Water Magic was.  I'm putting it away for at least six weeks now, but I'm already excited for the drafting phase.

Now the question is: should I go back to drafting Water Magic, or write something new? I feel a dragon-centric novel begging to be channeled, and two or three children's stories that I put aside a while ago that want to be written.

Blog readers: what writing or reading milestones have you conquered lately, or what goals are you working toward? Let me know in the comments!