April 2025 Writing Goals: Pixel Art & Fantasy Political Thrillers (Mmmm!)

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April 2025 Writing Goals: Pixel Art & Fantasy Political Thrillers (Mmmm!)

 
By the talented Pikura on Pixabay.

I spent March working extremely hard on my horror storytelling course, Zombie March. You could even say I worked... like a zombie. Long nights stretching into morning, step by step, inching towards my goal, until finally--!

And here's the obligotary link to the course. If you want to write horror, check it out. (And if you want a discount, my newsletter is that-a-way.)
 
Now that it's over, I'm taking a week off to enjoy that satisfying lull of a job well done. But my busy mind, which doesn't seem to understand the concept of taking a break, is already speeding down the Next Project Highway.

So, in an attempt to humor myself, I decided to make a post about my goals for this month. Will I stick to them? My track record says no, but my brain says Absolutely!  

(I would err on the side of my track record. My golden retriever brain gets too excited, and too carried away.)

So, this April, my goals are small, simple, and completely different from anything I've worked on for the past four months.

 

It's time to square up!

This April, I'll be working on my pixel art skills. Didn't see that coming, did you? 

What? It's in the title? ... Oh. Well. 

Roll with it. 

Pixel art, if you may recall, is something I started doing back in the summer of 2024. (Ah, those sweet summer days of yore, melting into the background like ice cream left in the sun, or something poetic like that.) 

I'm happy to report that I am still very much a beginner. Nevertheless, I've gotten it into my head that I could make pixel art - with animations, mind - for an educational project I started that same summer.

And so it begins.

I have to tread carefully, because I don't mean to make hundreds of pixel art masterpieces this month, or even this year. I really just want to finish a couple of pieces to help me refill my creative well - and if I can do that and get a little something done for another project? C'est parfait, les amis! (Will I check my spelling for that? No, I will not. I leave it in the hands of God, and I hope I didn't just embarrass myself.)

Of course, it's also a nice little excuse to step away from fiction writing for a week or two before coming back to work on my fantasy novel, The City of Light. 

Which leads me to my next goal this month.

 

A fantasy political thriller? I'll have two scoops, please!  

I've been wondering how to describe The City of Light. It's got a little smidge of everything. It's a high fantasy featuring a mysteriously deadly and unstoppable illness, an inexperienced princess stepping into queenhood - and, if you can believe it, two romantic sub-plots (technically three?), which I'm not completely despising. 

(Character development? In this house, we're all about author development.) 

So, I've decided to call it a fantasy political thriller, and hope that somewhere out there, someone is actually typing those key words into the search engine and will one day - through some miracle - by some minute, infinitesimal chance - find my book. 

It's nice to have dreams. 

Now, will I finish the manuscript in April? Once again, my track record says no, but my brain says, Please for the love of God you've been working on this thing for at least seven years!

It's hard to know which of these two sentiments will win. They're both equally powerful.

 

But that's about it for this update. 

I'll make sure to come back at the end of the month and let you know how it went. 

For now, what with all of the pointless ice-cream references, I'm going to hunt me down a nice triple-chocolate ice cream.


 

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