The Thursday Thrill!

Warning: this post will include a lot of celebratory gifs. Like, a lot.

I'm hyperactive and confused and exhausted and sore and hungry and just - I'm finished. The HSC. High school. I'm finished. As of 2 o'clock this afternoon. My final exam on Art Criticism and History was finished.

And so, I'm also back.

To commemorate this occasion, I thought I'd make a post of all the things that are absolutely thrilling me about YA and publishing and reading and even my own writing that I am now free to catch up on. (Ugh, free. I love that word.) Anyway, all the things to come!

Releases of very late 2012 and of 2013:

First and foremost: I just ordered Days of Blood and Starlight and omfgwhateven I have to wait three weeks until I can read it but it's worth it and aksf;akhjsfljasbfa.snf;     ...Basically.

In my catch up searching, I very quickly (and excitedly) came across Antigoddess on Goodreads, the upcoming offering from Kendare Blake (of Anna Dressed In Blood fame, which admittedly, I haven't read). But oh my goodness it looks scrumptious! It's a new Greek god trilogy slated for September 2013. Here be the omfg worthy synopsis:

Old Gods never die…

Or so Athena thought. But then the feathers started sprouting beneath her skin, invading her lungs like a strange cancer, and Hermes showed up with a fever eating away his flesh. So much for living a quiet eternity in perpetual health.

Desperately seeking the cause of their slow, miserable deaths, Athena and Hermes travel the world, gathering allies and discovering enemies both new and old. Their search leads them to Cassandra—an ordinary girl who was once an extraordinary prophetess, protected and loved by a god.

These days, Cassandra doesn’t involve herself in the business of gods—in fact, she doesn’t even know they exist. But she could be the key in a war that is only just beginning.

Because Hera, the queen of the gods, has aligned herself with other of the ancient Olympians, who are killing off rivals in an attempt to prolong their own lives. But these anti-gods have become corrupted in their desperation to survive, horrific caricatures of their former glory. Athena will need every advantage she can get, because immortals don’t just flicker out.

Every one of them dies in their own way. Some choke on feathers. Others become monsters. All of them rage against their last breath.

The Goddess War is about to begin.

Good, right? Ooph, my heart. September, y u so far away?

What else have I got? Well, have you heard of Victoria Schwab's The Archived? If you haven't, well, all I can do is 1) Goodreads, and 2) the first line of the synopsis is: Imagine a place where the dead rest on shelves like books.

Yeah, I know. Amazeballs.

And have you come across this debutante: April Genevieve Tucholke? Her YA debut Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea looks absolutely fantastic! Have a look on Goodreads and on April's site. It's all the devil personified in one of those droopy-eyed, swoon-worthy boys who doze in the sun and it's all gothic horror and my goodness! Could I be more excited?

Film/TV

D-Craig and Ben Whishaw in Skyfall alone is enough to make me go aksng;kasngajsbg.jkasnfnaklsnf (I know, this post isn't turning out to be particularly coherent, huh?) But I've already told my family I'll be living at the movie theatre. There's Red Dawn, Pitch Perfect, Rise of the Guardians, the Hobbit, Gangster Squad, Django Unchained, and Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters.

And please, someone tell me they're watching Arrow so I can gush with them. Stephen Amell, I want to rub my face on your face is fantastic as Ollie Queen. I'm loving this show, its acting, its writing - it is just generally very, very good. And besides, DC superheroes? You can't go wrong.

Writing

I can feel the rust on my writing folders, it's been so long since I was actually working on them. I'm undertaking Nanowrimo, as I usually do, and integrating aspects of my old work into a new one: The Girl in Jupiter's Tomb.

I feel like I've developed a fuller perspective over the last six months, which I hope will translate into my writing. The work I've done with short stories in particular has really made me appreciate the economy of language and lyricism of storytelling. Who knows? Maybe I'll craft a version of this story that I can fall in love with.

Now over to you.

What's been going on with you guys lately? Any good reads or views? How's your writing going?