It’s that time of year again! Literally, the very beginning when goals are made and determination to achieve is high. However, it’s no secret that goals made at the new year are more often than not quickly abandoned. To help my writing goals stick, I’m going to share them. *Full disclosure, I am working in uncharted territory. While I’ve submitted and had two short stories published, this is the first time I’ve completed a first draft of a novel. And it was a long one. So yes, I plan on keeping my goals to the best of my ability, there’s going to be a lot of reevaluating as I discover my process. Here are my goals as they stand now: Cut 75k-95k words Finish the second draft by the end of March Final draft for book 1 done by the end of the year Start book 2 in September FinishRead More

I Did It!

Dramatic drumroll I did it! I did it with more than a day to spare! Ahead of my December 19th self-imposed deadline, I finished my first draft at 195K words (WAY over my 150k goal), hitting a new record of 4,202 words in a few hours. It is a huge relief to have this finally done (even at two in the morning), especially right before the holidays. The last thing I wanted was to have this hanging over my head the last week of December. Not only that, but I went back and looked at some original documents I started this story in. I’d forgotten how long I’ve been working on this idea. Back in October of 2015, I discovered the steampunk aesthetic and found a character nestled in the idea that quickly followed. I distinctly remember sitting in our tiny apartment living room, cluttered with costume making paraphernalia, andRead More

Whenever events concerning the writing community have been put on, I’ve always found myself on the attendee side, enjoying the panels and booths available. Last week, I got to experience the other side as a volunteer. A few weeks ago, I received an email from the League of Utah Writers asking for people to work at our table during the local FanX (our Comic-Con). This wasn’t the usual request for volunteers. Most of the time, there are leadership positions that need to be filled or presenters to showcase topics for conferences. However, sitting at a table talking about the League sounded like something I could handle. I had no idea what to expect. Luckily, everyone involved was super nice and had done this before. After a short wait outside of the venue, I was brought to the table and given a quick rundown of what to talk about to anyoneRead More

Summer has officially started! And with that comes all the fun and craziness that makes life the fantastic, chaotic ride it is. Luckily, I’ve made some progress in between everything going on. Intensity is building in my story, and I can’t wait to see how it all comes together on the page. Progress aside, I do have to make a confession. There was an unrelated creative itch that I had to scratch. I stole quite a few evenings this month to explore an unrelated project. Long story short, I have a character in another medium that was begging me to explore her memories. A handful of them came to me so strongly and suddenly that I was having a hard time focusing on other tasks. Finally, I gave in and wrote them out—by hand—oddly enough, even going back to my original method of pencil and paper. Through this entire “project,”Read More

It’s not often that something or lack of something in a book bothers me enough that I feel the need to respond to it. I even waited a while to give me some space between reading the last page and writing this post. Keep in mind that everything beyond this sentence is my opinion and my imperfect experiences as a person and a writer for many years. Books are subjective, I totally get that. What one reader will love can bore another. As a writer, I do notice when an author has been lazy or is choosing to not do the work their story deserves. There were a lot of things that weren’t working in this novel, but I am only going to write about the one element that tipped the scales against it. A bad case of the straw man is what brought me to it. No, this hasRead More

The past couple of months have been story worthy with the intense ups and downs going on. Between holidays and funerals, I have been doing my best to squeeze writing in whenever I can. I even managed to get some reading in during long drives and much needed decompressing time. Everything that has happened gave me a chance to think about the people in my life; the ones I have briefly encountered, the people that are dear to me, and those who have gone on. During my latest reading I was having a hard time discerning why I was struggling to get through the book. Eventually I discovered at that my trouble stemmed from the story portraying characters as only drops in a vast ocean of time and progress. It is a “lesson” these characters are taught by experiences that make them feel inconsequential. While I may return to thisRead More

This past week I finally feel like I’ve gotten a handle on things. Motivation to do more than work and sleep has broken through the fog my brain has been swimming in over the past month. I sincerely hope that I’m not alone in finding this new normal easier to traverse. What I want to share is an experience I had back in December, months before the insanity of 2020 ensued, that reminded of the costs of any level of fame and the impact actions can have on readers or potential readers. I was with a group of neighbors when they began talking about a fairly well-known author’s visit to the local elementary school. My interest quickly turned to dismay as one of my neighbors shared what she had been told about the encounter. Apparently, the visit wasn’t going as smoothly as the writer wanted. They became snippy and yelledRead More

The Character Drift

Years ago when I was a teen who read everything she could about the authors she liked, I came across an interview with one of these authors discussing the characters in his fantasy series. I don’t recall much about the interview, but I do remember the author saying that the main protagonist was himself. At the time, I didn’t realize how important character creation would become for me, but it has stuck with me nonetheless. When I was still a young writer, I listened to authors give their opinions about making characters. Some create characters from scratch; others base them off of people they know. Very few authors (like the one I mentioned above) said that they base characters off of themselves. Now, I know that there is a lot more to this conversation than what I’ve stated, but this is what my understanding boiled down to when I beganRead More

Writing in the Cracks

Recently graduated from college and currently looking for a (paying) job, I found myself with something that I haven’t had in a long time: time to write. I was excited by this prospect. Finally, I could write for hours and finally finish that novel I’ve been working on. Additional motivation was added when a fellow writer suggested we exchange weekly chapters. And yet, I found that I was struggling to get the words on the page. It was easier to become distracted and prioritize other tasks, some of which truly did need to be put first. These and other thoughts about my writing career were pinballing in my subconscious while I was listening to an episode of Writing Excuses from last year. The topic of the episode was deciding what kind of author you want to be, and making that decision early on. While I believed that I had alreadyRead More

The first book in The Baronessa Chronicles is just a bit closer to completion thanks to my novel writing class this semester and NaNoWriMo. As much as I hated that daily word count sometimes, I am grateful that I had motivation pushing me to keep working. Especially working through the throes of prepping for finals and graduation next month. And yes, I did win NaNoWriMo this year! I was only able to reach the goal of 50,000 words because I dug deep down and used every spare moment I could to write. For a while I’d not considered the train a place that I could write it, but with some strategic seat choosing, I found ways to make it work. Having time to write has been one of the few good things to come out of my four hour round trip commute. Reaching my goal also came about because ofRead More

As a new writer and author, I’m still learning a lot about the trade. Both on the creative and business side. Today, I learned more about an author’s rights to their published work. When I published “Monsters in the Woods” with Metaphor, I’d assumed that they held the rights to the story–either permanently or over a period of time. I only learned that this is not the case because I asked the new chief editor when I would get the rights back to my short story. I discovered that the rights reverted back to me as soon as the piece was published. All I have to do in the future is mention that my story is a reprint. This is exciting because I’ve been wanting to find a new home for “Monsters in the Woods,” so finding out that I didn’t have to go through any special rigmarole or waitingRead More

It feels like forever since I last posted. A month in blog time seems to be quite a bit longer than normal time, in my opinion. First, I’ll share some updates about the projects I’ve been working on. I’m sure it’s been obvious that I’ve not had the time to write as much. I know it’s been a few weeks since I’ve updated the progress bars. However, this has not been an entirely accurate representation of what has happened. My short story “Night Watch” went through another critique with my advanced fiction class last Wednesday. The feedback was good, but there were a few issues that everyone felt needed some work. I know that with the 5,000 word count limit I won’t be able to please everyone. The first step in my plan is to finish two separate rewrites since there were a lot of conflicting comments. I would likeRead More