In which I skipped a month again
But this time I have an excuse! I had my June opening post all ready to go, and ambitious plans to post every day of the month in a rainbow-fuelled celebration of all things Pride.
Then the murder of George Floyd catapulted the Black Lives Matter movement into the forefront of media and social attention, and posting gleefully about queerness and rainbows and books no longer seemed appropriate. And though I’m back on the posting train now, this seems a good point to remind you all that Black Lives Matter isn’t a single-issue movement to be jumped on and off from with each headline-grabbing atrocity. It needs to be something we’re aware of always.
I’ll be continuing the efforts I started in June to do my bit, however small it may be, and I hope you will too. Follow black creators and activists, challenge racism when you find it and in whatever form you find it, raise awareness, sign petitions and donate if you have the means. If you can afford a regular monthly donation, a lot of organisations find that particularly helpful, or look for Go-Fund-Me’s on Twitter to help a specific cause.
July’s reading plans

I’ve a few carry-over books from June to finish, of course. Including Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race, which the library very rudely insisted I return before I’d finished because there were another dozen or so people waiting for it. Hopefully I’ll get that back before the end of the month so I can finish!
July is also the month of the very first Transathon – a month-long readathon focusing on books by trans authors. I’ve put together a tentative TBR but I’m such a mood reader there’s every chance it will change by the end of the week, let alone the month.
And as for the non-readathon reads… I’m very, very, VERY far behind with my Beat the Backlist goals. I have a small but growing accumulation of eARCs from NetGalley (including Seven Devils which I got approved for this morning and promptly shrieked because it’s one of my most anticipated releases of the year). And despite the library having been close for the last three months I’ve made worryingly little progress on the stack of books I borrowed from it. As in, I’ve read 2 and a half out of 19. Oooops.
The words what I wrote

Hello July, and hello Camp NaNoWriMo. I refuse to give up on my NaNo participation streak. And I actually met my goal for the April Camp, so this could be the start of a winning streak as well. The fact I’d forgotten about it entirely until someone tweeted about it 4 days before July is entirely beside the point.
I’m already halfway through my first draft of the still-untitled Curse and Ghost book so choosing a project was simple enough. I’ve given myself a 25,000-word goal which should be doable, even if I’m currently on here writing an unrelated blog post instead of working on the book… Ooops again.
Anything else happening in July?
What, is that not enough? I mean, we’re still in semi-lockdown, 2 out of 3 kids are still off school, my exercise regime (if you can call it that) has been non-existent since my gym had to close for COVID and my garden is getting wildly out of control. So yeah, it’s looking like a busy month!
But I’m hoping that the words – read and written – will be my focus so all cross your fingers for me, OK?
Talk to me
There’s a comments box right down there. Let me know about your plans for July, bookish or otherwise. Are you taking part in Camp NaNo or Transathon? Are you still locked down, or starting to creep back towards some sort of normal? And how do you rate my chances of making inroads on that library pile?!