Breinthewild

February was a bit of a wash. I started the month sick, got better for approximately one week, and then immediately acquired a second, far more intense illness that I still haven’t fully healed from (all this wheezing is getting real old, y’all). Despite that (or, perhaps because of it) I managed to put a dent in my library reading list and get some writing done, though I was not nearly as productive as I was in January.

On the writing front, my goal this year has been to write more each month than I did last year. I used to be an annual participant in National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo (before the organization started huffing the “AI writing is real writing” crack pipe and then folded amid backlash). When the website closed down, I realized I hadn’t been enamored solely by the idea of pumping out a ton of words in one month, but also by the graphs. The NaNo website had a spot where you could update your word count throughout the month of November and it would populate those numbers onto fun graphs where you could see your progress. I am a simple person: I enjoy when line go up. It occurred to me I might be more motivated if I kept track of my projects in a way that visibly showed my progress.

I tried a variety of websites and spreadsheets before settling on the easiest (and cheapest) method: simply writing the damn numbers on a piece of paper. It worked. In 2025 I wrote more than the previous two years combined, carefully tracking each day’s progress in a journal. 2026 also got off to a great start. I wrote more than 9k words in January (compared to 5k in 2025). I was concerned my constant state of illness would derail my goals in February but luckily 2025 Bre was also a slacker and only put in about five hundred words that month, easily trumped by the 3.5k I managed this year. March has barely begun but promises stiffer competition. I’ll need to outdo 3.3k words to stay on track.

On the reading front, because I wasn’t doing much (other than wheezing and drinking soup) I read through four beefy books in February, all of which were at least a decent time, and two of which I enjoyed deeply. They were:

Maritime Power and Struggle for Freedom: Naval Campaigns that Shaped the Modern World 1788-1851 by Peter Padfield (yes, that is a mouthful. Yes, this was a husband-recommended book)

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab

Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson

This Inevitable Ruin by Matt Dinniman

Maritime Power is a look at the naval impacts primarily before, during, and after the French Revolution. It’s not a book I would ever pick to read for myself but it was a surprisingly good time. After struggling through approximately five hundred words of ship-specific vocabulary to start (there is a helpful glossary in the back) I was forced to admit (begrudgingly) that the sea battles were pretty awesome, as was Horatio Nelson. This is one of those book which, while difficult to get through, I am glad to have read. (My husband seems apt at picking out such works).

[I am, however, not too proud to admit my next suggested husband tome, a thousand-page doorstopper on the life of Ulysses S. Grant by Ron Chernow, strikes fear into my very soul. It’s coming for me. Soon.]

Bury Our Bones I wrote about briefly in this post when I had just started it. After finally getting all the way through, I can officially say, while beautifully written, it was one of those books that ultimately wasn’t for me. The writing is pretty and poetic and seems desperate to Say Important Things about the world and how women are forced to move through it; for me at least it did not quite succeed in saying it. Of the three main characters, I only found one (the villain) to be vivacious and engaging, the other two… also existed (though perhaps I just didn’t care for them). The ending also felt a little lackluster.

Gardens of the Moon was one of my most anticipated reads, as it’s the start of a fantasy series (Malazan Book of the Fallen) I haven’t read yet and have heard good things about. (Previous rumors like this helped me discover Wheel of Time and Dungeon Crawler Carl). I had a blast with this book. Somehow, every main character we’re introduced to is The Most Epic Person Alive (within their sphere) and it doesn’t get old. By the time I got to the guy who’s basically Batman but Cooler (and whose sword is also epic in its own right) I had fallen in love. I plan on continuing the series as soon as I can get the next one from the library.

This Inevitable Ruin I finished in a day and a half. I could not put it down. I’m going to have to write an entire post solely about the Dungeon Crawler Carl series. It’s in a genre I’d never heard of before I picked up the first book (LitRPG). If you had described the plot in any way to me (pantless man competes in intergalatic dungeon-themed game alongside a cat) I likely would have turned it down.

And yet.

This has been the most fun I’ve had reading a book series in ages. I believe The Princess Bride might be the only other book that has come close to provoking as many laughs from me with as much regularity. These books are simply a good time and with everything that’s happening in the world right now, it’s nice to have something fun to fall back on. I can’t wait for book eight to drop in May.

Some other fun stuff happened in February, including the start of a new craft project, and the acquisition of a kitten, both of which deserve their own post. In addition, my work schedule is changing this month and I’m not sure yet where it will land. For now, I’ll continue posting updates on Thursdays but that may change in the near future.