Meet Dianna – Art by @nuggiedraws

We’re nearing the release date for Vermin and I’m so excited. I’ve been trying to think of how I’d like to celebrate the release date but I haven’t decided yet. Maybe I’ll just have cake?

I’ve been trying to think of what I want to post for today’s blog post, and thought that I would share another one of the pictures I had commissioned by @nuggiedraws.

Dianna by @nuggiedraws

This is Dianna, Peter’s younger cousin. They’re close and grew up together, but they also tend to get on one another’s nerves.

Dianna is an only child, and grew up on a small farm with her mother and father. They have a few apple trees along the property, and keep chickens. Her relationship with her parents is strained. Despite loving them, she still feels guilty about something that happened in the past.

One of my favourite things about her character is that when she sets her mind to do something, there is no stopping her. She’s also a very caring person, and puts a lot of thought into the decisions she makes, especially when those decisions concern those closest to her.

In this picture Dianna is wearing her hair out, but when she was younger she always had it braided into pigtails. She still braids it, usually when she’s doing work or before she goes to sleep. Other times she has it up, or pinned back. She also wears a lot of scarves and sweaters. She doesn’t have a favourite outfit, but she does have a favourite yellow purse.

Happy 1st Blogiversary!

Apparently it’s my blogs anniversary. I hadn’t even realized it until just now. Traditionally, with my older blogs I would make a long post highlighting the years…but I didn’t plan anything. This will also probably be posted a day late because its 11:30pm…

So for starters…

My blog is officially a year old. Happy 1st Birthday kiddo!

I’ve been catching up on my reading lately, and I have a bunch of new reviews planned out. My TBR was shrinking last week, but now it’s growing again! Hooray!

I also have a bunch of exciting news that I can’t wait to share. I hope you’ll all be as excited about it as I am. All I can say for now is that I’m doing a super cool project, that I am pumped about! I’ll talk more about it before the premiere!

Today I had my favourite ice cream and watched 90 Day Fiancée with my sister which my Dad absolutely hates but put up with because we rarely get TLC on our station unless its like a monthly promo thing…we also didn’t let him change the channel. I’m not a huge fan of reality TV but I find this show addicting. I don’t know why. I think I can recall a YouTuber who discussed TLC (The Learning Channel) as a modern day Freak Show. I agree with her. After thinking off the top of my head, most of what airs on that station reminds me of the old “COME SEE THE MAN WITH THE SEVEN EARS!” type thing…only its on television. I wish I could remember the name of the YouTuber, because that video is seriously worth watching if you have the time. I want to say her name was Ada?

Anyways, that’s enough about television.

I had ice cream, finished compiling and organizing my research results and now that I’m finished with that I’ll be rewarding myself with a few more books to add to my shrinking TBR.

I’ve been low-key participating in a co-workers read-athon. I like read-athons, but I sometimes have a hard time filling all the prompt categories. Sometimes I try to knock out two categories with one book. I’ve found this helps. I love that her prompt allows us to read diversely and explore different mediums and genres but also gives us the freedom and flexibility to read whatever we like at our own pace! I also got a very lovely list of series recommendations from her, which I am extremely grateful for! I was starting to worry that I’d run out of novels to read. She’s such a fun person to work with, we literally just gush over YA novels and the majority of what she recommends me is 100% up my alley!

Working in a bookstore is the best. I miss my co-workers so much during lock down but every once in a while people send out emails or our managers call to check on us. It’s extremely thoughtful and I just…I feel so happy and safe with everyone at our store.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t complete 5 books in four days last week. My managers even asked if I was really reading that much…and to be honest I don’t even know how I accomplished that. I haven’t read like that since I was in my first year of university. I guess it happened because I was multitask reading a bunch of different books around my birthday and then when we went into lock down I was just reading with my niece…because this little girl who used to hate reading now adores it! We pretended to have a book club. I think we should try to continue it via social distance because it was so much fun. I actually have a post planned involving some of our reads and reviews of certain Middle Grade books. She gives fantastic reviews, so I’d love to get quotes from her on her recent reads for that post. Who knows, maybe I’ll interview her.

She’s also been making her own comic series! It’s really creative and I love how her personality shines through it. She’s got a great sense of humour so seeing that in her stories always makes me happy.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed reading my blog over this past year, and have found new books to add to your reading list…or perhaps one of my writing related posts has helped you. If you have a blog, feel free to share your link in the comments, I love checking out other bloggers!

Heart is Now Available

Heart is available to listen to on Youtube and Instagram! The artwork for this project was created by my lovely sister @nuggiedraws. You can find her on Instagram!

There are three songs in total: Heart, Artist and Juliet’s Song.

I wrote Heart and Juliet’s Song back when I was in the 10th Grade.

I wrote Juliet’s Song for an animated project I made for my English class at the time. Initially it was played on the piano and yes, it is based on the play Romeo and Juliet. I re-recorded and used the song again in university for one of my Shakespeare course finals…and then decided to return to it again to create an acoustic version on the guitar.

Heart, the title track I wrote the same year. If I’m being honest, it isn’t the most emo song I’ve ever written. It’s pretty sad though. It was one of the first songs I wrote with my guitar. The song kept resurfacing over the years at different points in my life. At times I wish the song were longer, but at the same time I don’t think it needs to be. It always just felt right. It’s definitely the most personal song I’ve released. I actually shared the song when I entered the Zepeto Idol competition on Instagram a while back.

Artist I wrote initially as a poem this year and ended up putting music to it on a whim. I actually wrote the song while procrastinating a chapter edit for my debut. Whenever I get stuck on a scene, I try writing something else, like a poem to inspire me. In this case it worked but then I ended up with this recording hanging out on my laptop…and then, I decided that for once I’d actually share the music I’d written versus a cover song.

I hope you enjoy listening to Heart and that you’ll check out @nuggiedraws (I have her gif on my blogs homepage! Cute right?)

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A post shared by Vanessa Patterson | Art (@nuggiedraws)