Happy birthday to me! I’m gettin’ solidly middle-aged!
I looked back at my post from last year which was written shortly after returning from LTUE. I’m going to organize things a little more this update but cover similar topics.
Writing
I’ve finished the first draft (well, draft-outline) of Astronautica and moved on to draft 2. The world is more fleshed out, the characters’ goals are more realized, and I feel good about it so far. That being said, I’d hoped to be further. Alas.
Chasing Stars has made no progress but I intend to come back to it after this draft of Astronautica. Giving a book a chance to lie fallow between drafts is, I think, good for coming at it with a fresh mind.
I’ve written a number of other things, including polishing up or starting new short stories. See my Current Projects section for updates on those. Two are out for submission as of this writing and I have high hopes for Destiny’s Choice which has made it past the first stage of weeding out submissions twice.
Writing Trips
I haven’t been to any more conventions this year. This time last year I was unable to make it to the Lakefly Writing Convention where I’d won a poetry award. However, I did get to go to a writing retreat with my writing group in Chicago! In case you weren’t aware. I think I mentioned that in the last 3 posts. Hopefully we’ll be able to do that again. I’m not looking to return to a convention until one of my novels feels pitch-able, so next year if I’m really on task or two or three years down the road if life intervenes.
Career
As a section, this feels more broadly-spanning than just “what I’m doing with my website” which is all I have to report right now. Since August, I’ve made a goal to have at least 2 weeks of posts scheduled by Fridays, which I’ve kept to fairly well, and that’s all but eliminated late posts on my end. That way I know when to check and don’t run into another instance like my last late post. Right now, I’m actually further scheduled out than that, which is rather pleasant. I’ve also updated the website, created a logo, started a few sections that I hope to be recurring themes, like Cryptid-mas and Currently Reading. I’m also very pleased with the rating scale and content thermometers I made while making the Currently Reading section.
Where do I want to take it from here? Well, I’m not fully satisfied with the current theme on the blog; it does a lot of what I want it to do but doesn’t have easily editable things like the featured image or centering pictures mid-post. I need to take some time to look into that. (In fact, a time when I have about a month of posts scheduled already seems like a good time to do so…) I want to fill out more of the rest of the website, like an About Me section, but on the other hand, it doesn’t feel fully relevant if I’m not having a reason for people to come here. Then again, better to be prepared before hand, right?
I’ve also been able, this year, to donate from writing income to environmental projects. It feels good to do something, even if it’s small.
Goals for Next Year
-Finish draft 2 of Astronautica and be started on draft 5 of Chasing Stars.
-Learn more about WordPress and finesse the site
-Publish a short story or two
-Polish/finish some of my current short stories (namely, because I’ll forget in a year, Freely Given, Ghost of a Chance, Witch Hazel, and/or Errands to Run re-expansion)
-Also part of me wants to start making that choose-your-own adventure for the website. I just need to, you know, write it, illustrate some of it, and figure out how to program it.
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Thanks for coming with me on my journey, and hope to see you here next year!
As before, a chibi reward for reading this far:
Well fine, Nuisance, here you go, have a role.
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