Getting sick at the beginning of the month, and holiday celebrations at the end of the month, meant that I ended up with less time to write and edit than I planned. That being said, I still managed to accomplish all of the goals I set for myself for December! While Skull Daddy was in the hands of beta readers, I was busy working on a few other projects.
Despite the unexpected delays earlier in the month, I am almost done this round of edits on The Tunnel. In fact, I expect to have draft 2 finished by this afternoon. Given that I wrote the first draft in May of 2020 – before I started my self publishing career – draft 1 needed some serious re-working. My writing has improved, my voice and style have undergone subtle changes, and I have become much more familiar with the horror genre.
Although the edits I’ve been working on this past month have fixed a lot of the problems, this project will still require a few more rounds of editing before it’s ready to be passed on to beta readers. I’m hoping that will happen around April or May, so keep an eye on my newsletter and socials for updates if you want to do beta reading for that.
Since the holiday season can be quite overwhelming, and I’ve been chaotically busy since October, I honestly thought I would only have time to work on editing The Tunnel and that I wouldn’t have the chance to accomplish any writing goals. Turns out I was wrong!
Thanks to another AutoCrit writing challenge, I wrote a silly (but still dark) piece of micro fiction inspired by the song “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” I will not share that one with readers just yet, as I have big plans for it. In fact, I have big plans for any flash fiction and micro fiction I write in 2024. But more on that in a much later blog post.
But that’s not all! I finally sat down and forced myself to finish draft 1 of “From the Lake”! Shocking, I know. Although I already had a dark and depressing ending planned for the story, it ended up being even more nihilistic than I planned. That shift in tone made me much more proud of what I’ve written for that story so far, so the plan for draft two is to make the rest of the novella match the ending. I think that’s what the parts I’m unhappy with are missing.
And of course, one of my other writing projects for the month is to finish up the recurring segments on my blog. This blog has gone through many evolutions and facelifts, changing to suit my needs and career goals. It’s time for another shift now that I’m working as a full-time self-published author. The monthly writing updates will stay the same, but that’s about it. I’m reducing the number of posts to two per month, and the first post will feature writing tips, tricks, and excerpts of upcoming projects. I’ll only publish a third post in the month if there is a bonus topic I’d like to write about – such as an event I attend!
Below is a handy schedule of blog posts and newsletters. I can’t wait to embark on the next chapter of my writing journey and set up a blog that accurately reflects that. Enjoy, and happy reading!
