January 2022 Writing Update

 

What I’ve Accomplished in January 2022

This month has been a busy one for me, though not for the reasons that I had planned for at the end of 2021. I had planned to do a complete revision and edit for my murder mystery Marie/Elise, so that I can prepare it for publication, but instead I got caught up in a variety of other projects and tasks. All of them were great and important, so I don’t mind that my initial goals were delayed a bit!

For example, I created and released the 2022 Reflection & Productivity Journal, a fun little pink-themed diary, and did some in-depth historical research to help me out with worldbuilding for my fantasy series. The Qarran Tales. I then tried my hand at the A-Z challenge (big thanks to my friend and super talented writer Sumayyah for letting me know how it works). When I got started with it, I realized I wanted to make a glossary for my fantasy series instead, so I did! Now I have a glossary of over 200 terms (across all of my fantasy books)! Wild.

Because of this glossary activity, I’ve been able to not only scour my manuscripts and notes for all relevant terms, concepts, and characters, but also to create new worldbuilding elements that I have wanted to for a very long time but felt a bit overwhelmed by. Things like geographical/man-made landmarks, the “real” history of the fantasy world and the myths that civilizations have created, the dragons (!!) and what happened to them, new creatures that I’m super excited to introduce in later books, and I finally – finally – I got down to actually naming cities, towns, and villages in different empires and kingdoms. So, Grey’s hometown now has a name. Mila’s home city now has a name. A bunch of other places now have names. It’s going well!

You can read more about the worldbuilding I’ve been doing over here.

I also wrote a couple more chapters of The Beast of Ildenwood, which you can read right here on my blog or over here on RR if that’s more convenient. We’re getting into the full swing of the second arc, and I’m excited to keep things going! While I haven’t been regularly providing illustrations with each update, I’m hoping to get that started again soon.

Tapas is an up-and-coming place for online fiction, and while webcomics seem to be the main focus there, it seems like webnovels don’t do too bad, either. Because I want to reach new readers, I’ve decided to start publishing Murder in Heliopolis over on the platform, so I launched it early in January. While it hasn’t really brought in any significantly good results (probably because the platform sees most successes with romances, and especially fantasy romances), I figure it can’t hurt to keep it on there for now, so I’ll be updating Murder in Heliopolis there as well. I haven’t decided if I’ll do the same for The Beast of Ildenwood, but it’s certainly something I’m considering.

If you’re a Tapas reader and enjoy the platform, you can find Murder in Heliopolis there.

If you prefer RR, you can still find it there, too.

Here and there, whenever I have the urge and the time, I’ve been writing some snippets, too. Many of them are related to The Qarran Tales, and it’s helping me re-ignite my desire to write for those books. Some of them are for new projects, like a family drama piece that I’ve had rattling around in my mind for a bit (new genre for me to experiment with!) and a bizarre creepy piece written in second-person and has what I like to refer to as Apartment vibes. I’m very excited for it, and I might – if I finish it in time – submit it to a horror lit magazine/anthology, so that’s a cool goal to work towards!

To compliment the release of the 2022 Reflection & Productivity Journal, I also released a series of three blog posts dealing with healthy productivity and motivation over the course of the month. The first dealt with defining ‘productivity’; the second with how to be productive in a healthy and positive way, even when things don’t work out as you wanted them to; and the third with how to manage your personal cycle of motivation and its ups and downs. I’m working on a bonus post where I discuss how I personally dealt with my productivity and motivation, and the methods which resulted in the most efficiency for me while still keeping me healthy and grounded instead of making me feel like I needed to hustle and work myself until burnout.

That’s pretty much all I’ve accomplished this January, writing-wise! I’ve also been working on some personal and professional projects, and, as always, balancing daily life and whatever it decides to throw at me.

Moving Forward, I Would Like To

As I go into February 2022, I want to make sure that I’ve at least gotten started with the Marie/Elise revisions and edits, since it’s quite important to me to complete them within the next handful of weeks. I have a potential querying and publication schedule that I would ideally like to stick to.

I’m also hoping to get my podcast’s new season started soon! Whether that will take place in February or March, I’m not certain, but I’m hoping that it will be within that timeframe. In the meantime, I want to record as many episodes as I can and create a substantial buffer. That way, even if I do decide to take breaks here and there (which, if I’m being completely honest here, will inevitably happen), hopefully the podcast will go on uninterrupted.

There’s actually a lot more that I wish I could do moving forward, like also working on creating a buffer for my blog, or finishing a handful of unfinished short stories, but I need to space things out. I don’t want to overwhelm myself.

All things considered, I’m very excited to keep up the good work in February and beyond, and very grateful that I have the chance and the opportunity to dedicate so much time and energy to my writing and its related endeavours. 😊