Dear Diary #1 - When September Ends + October TBR

Dear Diary, 

"Wake me up, when September ends"

Needless to say, September has been a pretty crazy month for me. 

Graduation on the 13th September was one of the most stressful moments of my life. I would have rather written another dissertation! The lead up to my graduation was filled with such extreme stress and anxiety that I honestly can't remember much of it, other than crying pretty much every day and feeling empty. Graduation ended positively though and after having a total meltdown about it all being over I managed to slowly regain a sense of self throughout the month. 

On the 14th I visited Twickenham for a stadium tour with my Dad, it was such a fun day and honestly was the perfect distraction from my overactive mind! I probably would have sat and moped if it weren't for that day out so I'm thrilled it worked out the way it did. Even if I was totally exhausted by the end of the day! 

After I had recovered I decided to pick myself up, dust myself off and get started. I had spent so many months in such a funk, I knew I needed to sort myself out. I reorganised my bedroom, decluttered, threw out loads of old shit and basically made my room feel like somewhere an adult could work, rather than the teenager's bedroom perfect for sleepovers - and coincidentally exactly the same as it has been for the past 6-7 years. 

Suddenly, I found my motivation had returned. Having a desk where I can write and feel like a sass queen is totally productive.... who'da thought. 

I've been totally into my writing again, and I feel like it's actually getting better. I've always found it difficult to judge how casual is too casual? Or whether my writing sounds more like an essay? It's really easy to get into a comfort zone with writing and when you've been predominately writing essays or review posts, it can get a lil' bit stale!

So, I'm back to writing every day (although you're seeing posts every other day) and I'm totally getting my shit together for once on the blog front. I've changed up my photography in the hopes to make it more cohesive with my Instagram and I'm actually loving it, like really really loving it so I hope that comes across more now! 

Another huge development this month has been actually making some really great blogger pals, who are some of the funniest people I've ever spoken to! After fangirling over the TOG series on twitter, Aisling suggested that we started a group chat to discuss the book with Emma and Amy who are also TOG fans. We started the chat and have spoken every day for almost two weeks (which is totally ridiculous, it seems like yesterday we started the chat!) but I love these girls, they are absolutely hilarious and some of the nicest people I've had the pleasure of speaking to! I also highly recommend you check out their blogs because they are fab. 

So that's been my month! Pretty tiring, exciting and emotional. But I feel like I'm going into the new month totally fresh, clear-headed and inspired. Which is all I can ask for really! 

October TBR

Septembers reading was a little disheartening for me as I totally got overwhelmed by all the emotions of EOS, so I'm hoping that October is a little more productive on the reading front! 

I'm carrying over my unread books from last month's TBR, and will be reading both Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton. 

But aside from those I will also be aiming to read:

The One by Kiera Cass

Mist & Whispers by C.M Lucus 

The Bone Season by Samatha Shannon

I may not manage to read all these in time but my goal is 5 books a month and I really want to get this done.

That's all for now though and normal service will resume on Monday! I hope you enjoyed this diary style post. I wanted to make my blog more personal to me and a bit more positive, so I really hope that came across today! If you made it to the end of this post congratulations and I really hope you're not bored rigid yet. 

I'm going to stop writing now.

Yeah.

Byeeeeeeeeeeeeee.