Bernadette Benda

*slides MS into drawer* *realizes that I forgot to edit a scene* *realizes that I forgot to say what happened to the beagle (very important* *fixes all that * *NOW puts MS in drawer*

I finished editing Lily this week (finished is a very relative term: It’s finished for now. I’m going to let it sit for a couple months (ahaha. Probably like till next year) and then decide if I need to keep working on it or if I want someone else to look at it).

I’m honestly…not sure how I feel about Lily? On one part I love it. I love the characters, and it’s sad, bittersweet, and has super powerful girls and scary monsters. On the other part I feel like it’s a monster hybrid of Thor: Ragnarok:

And Once Upon a Time:

It’s just a little bit crazy. Oh, and throw some Beowulf in there.

MEANWHILE I’M JUST THREE CHAPTER FROM BEING DONE WITH SILVER AND THEN OFF TO QUERYING *buries face in pillow and screams* (Oh gosh, it’s called Her Name was a Ghost now. It’s gonna take me forever to get out of this habit.)

My sister and I took a stroll down memory lane the other night (something about the pandemic has just made us watch all the childhood movies that we haven’t seen in years for some reason), and we watched Balto. Which, being older I now realized:

The goose (Uncle Boris) is Russian:

Steele is a lot scarier now that I’m older (I was just like – wow, the animator’s really ampped up the creep level on this dude) (also kudos to my sister for remebering his nme)

And Balto himself is voiced by the one and only – KEVIN BACON (I am not kidding)

(Which, so the other week we (mom, sister, me) went to see Footloose at a drive-in and at the end everyone started SCREAMING AND CHEERING and like it was Tuesday night but man people love Footloose) (Yes, we did join in on the screaming.)

(Ok wow that was a lot of gifs.)

(And parentheses.)

In other news I am still reading Indianapolis (have not even gotten to the sharks yet), am trying and kinda succeeding in finding time to write, and THERE’S FALL STUFF AT THE CRAFT STORES.

(I love, love, love fall. I love pumpkins and mushrooms and crows and owls and and….)

But a lot of my focus right now is been on trying time to write. And, that fact that I’m going to be querying soon kinda puts thing in a different light. I’m moving stage as a writer. So…yeah there’s that.

How has your writing been going? What are some of your favorite childhood movies?