S03EP09 - 2023 Year in Review - Transcript

Hello, and welcome to season 3 episode 9 of Hyba Is Writing. As you may know, the end of 2023 – slash – start of 2024 has been a very busy time for me. 

 

I released the latest issue of Scrittorio on December 31^st, and I’m extremely proud of myself for being able to push through and meet that deadline. I’ll leave it to my readers to tell me how they feel about the issue, but it’s 101 pages of articles, interviews, and worksheets, so if that sounds like something you’d be interested in, please don’t hesitate to stop by the Scrittorio Magazine website or my blog, where you can also find links to that. It’s free and always will be – and I don’t want to take up too much time here talking about Scrittorio because that will have its own dedicated episode coming up soon, but again if you’re interested in improving your fiction writing skills, that’s the thing to read, if I may be so bold.

In 2023, I also planned out Scareuary 2024, and again, this one has its own episode already out there, so if you want to learn more about Scareuary, which is a scary story and poetry writing challenge, please check out season 3 episode 6 or head on over to my blog to learn more. It runs the full length of January, there are no word count goals or requirements, except that you try to write at least one scary story in the month of January. So, as far as monthly writing challenges go, it’s one of the chiller ones.

But those two things, while they are the two events that I’ve been talking the most about on social media, are definitely not the only thing to have been achieved this past year.

Starting in April 2023, I wrote a range of scary short stories in first-person POV, which I then turned into these kinds of found-cassette pieces that I shared right here on my podcast. These include The Old Medina, Infested, The Witch in the Garden, and The Witch Downstairs, most of which you can find in season 3 of my podcast and enjoy listening to right away.

In May of 2023, I checked something off of my own personal writing bucket list, and I got two of my manuscripts printed. They’re not printed as books – so there’s still that that needs doing – but they are spiral bound and glorious. I absolutely love holding these two volumes in my hands, and I love knowing that I made this. I wrote every single word in these thick spiral-bound A4 volumes. I also began to use those manuscripts to revise my story, so now they’re filled with notes in the margins and entire plot re-writes and all that other good stuff. Highly recommend, for anyone who has a manuscript ready to be revised.

In June, I started working on what I hope will be a larger audio production project which deals with a beast with multiple heads and the global urban lore that begins to grow around sightings of this unusual and dangerous creature. The first part of that, Cerberus the Many-Headed Enigma, can be listened to in season 3 episode 3. I hit a bit of a snag, however, because I’ve got several characters, and I can’t do voices. This is the only voice I can do. So, I’m sort of hoping that I can enlist some volunteer voice actors who wouldn’t mind being part of this production. It’s not something big; and the characters are not recurring, because it’s essentially an audio vignette. We’ll see what happens.

It was in June that I moved out of my house and into a temporary apartment, and actually, believe it or not, from August to November, it was a particularly difficult time for me, so I didn’t get much writing done. For one thing, moving heavy suitcases and other items out of the house led to some major muscle fatigue. I had to stop tutoring my students – for those of you who don’t know, I tutored students of all ages in English – and I also had to stop my studies because I couldn’t use the computer or do much of anything with my hands. It was not the best of times, to say the least.

Thankfully, I still managed to write a short story in September and I submitted it to a literary magazine. It was later published in December as an Honorary Mention, I think, on BarBar’s website, so if you haven’t checked that out, please do. The short story is called “Knowing.” I still feel quite proud of myself for being able to do that in a time of great upheaval and stress in my life. I remember working through the pain in my arms in the middle of the night in order to complete that very short story. So, I call that a win.

In November 2023, I also submitted a scary flash fiction piece called The Double Goer to a fiction website, and it did get picked up, but I didn’t feel quite comfortable signing their standard agreement, so I didn’t go through with that one. That might have been a case of me overthinking things, but I’m someone who really likes things to be laid our clearly and expressed directly. So, that was an opportunity that didn’t quite pan out, and that’s okay. I may share this flash fiction piece myself at a later date.

And that brings us back to Scareuary and Scrittorio, which took up the rest of my year – especially Scrittorio, which was a pretty major undertaking for me. In November, I felt a lot better and my muscular fatigue was pretty much gone, so I was very happy to jump back onto the writing saddle, and of course, in my excitement, I chose to take on one last big project for 2023, and that was Scrittorio. I wanted to do it better than I did last time, so I sort of pulled out all the stops that I could and made that happen.

In the process of preparing Scrittorio’s second issue, I also started working on an interactive fiction project. Nothing serious – just me trying to learn the ropes and use Twine on a deeper level than just connecting passages. I learned to make inventories, to insert images and GIFs, and so much more – and I’m just getting started!

In summary, 2023 wasn’t a year with lots of writing for my books. In fact, I think I may not have even cracked 20,000 words when it comes to fiction writing. But I did manage to do a lot of non-fiction writing in the form of Scrittorio.

Looking back, it was certainly not what I had expected of myself this year. I recently looked at a New Year’s Resolutions post I made when 2023 started, and I almost laughed at how ridiculous it sounded to me now, knowing everything that I went through in 2023, some of which I haven’t shared on here because I’m not comfortable doing so. I also recently made a blog post with my writing goals for 2024, and I wonder if I will have the same reaction in December 2024 – if my goals will seem ridiculous to me, and if I’ll have done a range of completely different things instead.

I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

Thanks for tuning in! As always, you can find my social media details in the description, and any relevant links. 

 😌

If you're not already participating in Scareuary 2024, it's not too late! The only challenge is to write a spooky short story by the end of the month of January. 

You can also follow along with me as I go through Scareuary - I check in regularly on my blog and have weekly updates on my podcast.

And, if you haven't checked out Scrittorio Magazine's latest issue, grab it for free right now and take your writing craft to the next level!