So, by this point I should probably know better than to think I’m going to get back to regular updates without a specific plan for said updates. Whoops.
Anyway, hi! Happy 2025! I’m still here and still alive, and still very busy.
I did complete NaNo last year, marking my 15th attempt and my 14th success and providing even more proof that deadlines are my friend. Despite my best intentions, November 2024 kinda snuck up on me, and I completely pantsed the whole thing; considering that, I’m actually remarkably happy with what I wrote. Yay fantasy worldbuilding and a blatant refusal to set it on a spherical planet. I had fun.
Part of what’s kept me so busy the past year has been a return to working in EMS, with most of last year being spent working night shift. I love working night shift. It does make it harder (for me) to take time to go write, though. That being said, as of next week I’m returning to schedule that’s more compatible with a functional circadian rhythm– because I’m going back to school. Paramedic school, specifically. Yay! Somehow, though, I can’t imagine it’s going to add to my free time.
I am still writing, even if not as consistently as I have in the past, and as always, I don’t think that’s going to change. I’m also still reading (or listening to) books, and have been thoroughly enjoying the fact that between Spotify and Libby, I have access to a ridiculously huge number of fantastic audiobooks. Highlights definitely include the Earthsea Cycle, which I’m about halfway through. Le Guin is an incredible author.
So, yeah! Happy New Year! I hope yours is a good one!
I’ll just make this a quick update this time around, partly because there’s not a lot to talk about, partly because it’s late and I want to go to bed. (And now you know for sure, I absolutely do not have a buffer of posts written up for each week. If only.)
Last month saw me reading and writing as usual, though still more slowly than I’d like. Real life is busy, y’all. In fact, checking on Goodreads, it looks like I only finished one book. Fortunately, it was a very long book, and I’ve read varying amounts of at least four or five others, so, eh?
Writing… well, writing… I need to find a dedicated spot in my schedule to write, or I’m going to keep piddling along as I have been. Even so, it felt good to finish one story and to work on several others. Plus, I’ve started the process of structuring the Correspond stories I’ve been working on so that I can turn them into a novella for NaNoWriMo this year. Since the darn thing just kept expanding in my head and all.
Anyway. Seems like it’s just small victories for me this year, but I’ll take them. Happy halfway through 2023!
Here were are, skating in towards the halfway mark for the year. Wild.
Like I mentioned in my last post, my writing took a hit last month due to a number of unavoidable circumstances (and, admittedly, some avoidable ones too… but Tears of the Kingdom is amazing and I regret nothing) but I’m looking forward to making sure I carve out the time in my schedule to get back at it. I’ve got some fun ideas I want to play with for Tanner and Miranda, for one thing, and I’ve realized that the story I’ve been working on with Correspond is even bigger than I thought it was, so the plan is to put in the work to structure and outline it properly and use NaNo later this year to write the thing.
I did still manage to keep up with reading, which included the two newest Black Ocean stories out from J.S. Morin (space magic and time travel shenanigans!), the newest Country Club Murder by Julie Mulhern, as well as The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri and The Giver by Lois Lowry. Currently, I’m still working my way through The Priory of the Orange Tree, which I’m appreciating for the complicated worldbuilding and the author’s penchant for following along with all kinds of high fantasy tropes just to turn them on their heads when it suits her.
Hope all is well with everyone reading this, and, if you’re in the northern hemisphere, enjoy the starts to your summers!
Here in Colorado we’ve been having some truly gorgeous days, all sunny and in the 60s and 70s and it’s been wonderful (she says, thereby summoning a snowstorm in retribution). It’s been lighter in the mornings, too, which combined with the fact that I usually don’t have to scrape ice off my car before heading to work has been a very welcome change.
Kinda like last month, my writing continues to progress slowly but consistently as I figure out how to juggle it with other priorities and responsibilities. Like the need for sleep. And social interaction. My work schedule currently leaves me with a lovely opening of a few hours on Tuesday afternoons, which has been perfect for relocating to a local coffee shop to get some work done. Sadly, that will all be changing in a week or so, and I’m not yet sure what the new schedule will look like. Bidding for shifts every few months is rough, guys.
Reading this month went fairly well, though! I’m definitely enjoying the fact that I set myself a slower pace this year, if only because I don’t feel like I have to devour the words on the page or risk falling behind. Don’t get me wrong– I enjoy the chaotic drive of doing it that way, or else I wouldn’t do it. But having this year as something of a break is really nice and makes me feel like I can take the time to read things a little slower, or try out some slower reads.
One of those slower reads this past month was Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantel. I only made it through about a third of it before my loan was up at the library and I had to go back on the waiting list (alas), but my impression so far is that it is beautifully written with some very interesting prose. For those unfamiliar, the book is the first of a trilogy of historical fiction novels set during the reign of Henry VIII and following the character of Thomas Cromwell. Mantel uses a really interesting mix of direct and indirect dialog in her writing that took a while for me to get used to, but once I did, I found it engaging and immersive. I’m very much looking forward to getting back to it.
I also started A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra, a novel set during the Chechen conflict of the late ’90s and early 2000s, moving between various viewpoints and telling a very human story. Lots of lovely prose here as well and very real characters, and I’m looking forward to finishing this one too once the library gets another copy available.
As for books I actually finished, the one that was the most fun was the second of Brandon Sanderson’s secret projects. Since it’s still so new and I know there’s a lot of people (like myself) who have been enjoying the experience of going in blind when the new stories drop, I’ll just say this: it’s like no other Sanderson I’ve ever read, not to mention being a mix of genres and ideas that you wouldn’t think should work– and yet it does. It really, really does.
I also finished up Babel by R.F. Kuang, which is a fascinating combination of historical fiction/alternate universe fantasy (translation is magic!) that provides a biting commentary on colonialism (with a particular focus on 19th century British Empire) by tweaking the world just enough that you can look at the actual historical events with a slightly fresher eye. My one complaint is that it was almost too didactic at times, but given how many times I’ve caught myself thinking about it since finishing, it’s well worth the read.
Finally, I blitzed through The Way Home by Peter S. Beagle, in which he revisits the world of one of my favorite books, The Last Unicorn. Technically a pair of novellas, both following the character of Sooz, I really enjoyed dropping back into the gentle-yet-melancholy fairy-tale world that made me fall in love with Unicorn in the first place. The first (and shorter) of the pair is Two Hearts, which is my favorite of the two. With lots of characters fans will recognize, it felt the the most like the first book. The second, Sooz, I also liked, but the plot felt a little less carefully crafted, and some of the emotional and physical trauma our heroine suffers seemed somewhat gratuitous and over the top, though the writing was as beautiful as ever. Mostly, I just want to go re-read The Last Unicorn again.
Anyway! That was my April, more or less. Goals for May include more reading and setting myself back on a regular and more demanding writing schedule in the hopes of getting more finished– hopefully without burning myself out in the process. Onwards!
I’m quite certain I’m not the only one feeling a bit astounded that we’ve already chewed our way through the first month of 2023. It’s been fairly productive out here in my corner of the universe, both on the reading/writing side of things and just for life in general, though I’ve a sneaking suspicion that February might take a hit on that front, despite my best intentions. We’ll see!
It’s kinda fudging it to say that I read four books in January– though only just. Because while I finished reading Brandon Sanderson’s new book Tress of the Emerald Sea today, I read most of it last month. So I’m going to say that counts. For those of you who haven’t read it yet, I can say I thoroughly enjoyed it, from the vaguely fairy tale feel to the fantastic worldbuilding to the whimsical snarkiness throughout.
Other completed books were The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (Stuart Turton), Harrow the Ninth, and Nona the Ninth (books two and three of Tamsyn Muir’s Locked Tomb series). I already posted up a blog (rant) regarding my thoughts about The 7 1/2 Deaths, so I won’t rehash that here. As for Harrow and Nona, I’m thoroughly enjoying those and have joined the ranks of those waiting in eager anticipation for the upcoming release of book four. It’s probably the… weirdest series I’ve read in quite a while, and it’s definitely not going to be everyone’s cup of tea (bowl of soup?), but I’m well and truly hooked.
Writing, while going at a slower pace than reading, is still falling back into more of a rhythm than I’ve had in quite a while, which is really nice. So far it’s mostly been on smaller projects as I knock the rust off of the skills needed to actually structure a story, but writing is writing, and it’s happening more often. As evidenced in part by the short story that posted up yesterday! Ha!
Technically, The Path wasn’t the story I planned on posting up last month. But life went a little unexpected this last week, and the story I was diligently chipping away at… didn’t get finished. And was going well enough that it deserved far more than a rushed ending that couldn’t do it any kind of justice. So, the plan is to finish that and post it up for February. The plan is also to keep working at various Tanner and Miranda stories, but those will likely take longer to see on the blog.
Anyway! That’s it for updates from the last month. Check in next week for more rambling nonsense and writing related musings!
. I missed the snow. Maybe it’s because I grew up with four full seasons. Maybe it’s just because there’s something innately peaceful about the proverbial blanket of white. Maybe I’m just one of those people who thrives in winter weather, far preferring the cold to the heat. Whatever the reason, please enjoy these pictures from a recent walk. Or, if you’re more interested in a writing update, scroll down and read on below!
News from the Writer’s Den —
In typical fashion, I’m currently bouncing back and forth between three or four different writing projects (most of which are short stories, so there’s that). That being said, switching gears to smaller stories after being either bogged down in something novel length or just plain out of practice is really nice. If nothing else, being able to focus on the smaller medium makes it so much easier to see progress!
Yesterday’s writing session in particular went pretty well. Nothing super flashy, just slow and steady, but slow and steady means I got a couple hundred words on a new Tanner and Miranda story as well as about the same amount on a short story set in the same world as last November’s NaNo project. I’ve got a pretty good idea for where I’m going to have both stories go, and at least one of them is earmarked to go up on the blog either this month or next. Woo!
Slowly but surely, I’m settling in. This last week in particular has seen me neck deep in boxes, with the end result being a (mostly) unpacked room. After all the chaos of moving, it’s so nice to have a space that’s starting to feel more like my own.
I’ve also been managing more writing! It’s a slow slog back to where I want to be, but it’s definitely progress. So far, most of the words have been more a random scattering of ideas than anything connected to a specific project, but it’s proving to be a decent way to get myself back into the practice of regular writing, so I’m more than happy to go with it.
Also! Since deadlines and I seem to get along so well, and since September is starting tomorrow, it seems like the perfect time to give myself a wordcount goal for Tanner and Miranda. If all goes to plan, expect to see snippets from my work on their next adventure in the coming weeks. Until then, all the best!
Happy New Year! I hope everyone enjoyed their holidays, and that you’re all ready for the new year– as much as anyone ever can be!
Speaking of the new year, I’ve got a couple of announcements regarding my plans for this blog! First, weekly Wednesday posts are back on, so if you happen to be looking forward to those, you’re in luck! I’m also going to be playing around with actually writing posts ahead of time, in the hope that it means I actually update on time, and not at 11:55pm on Wednesday nights. Heh. With that in mind, if there happens to be a subject that you’d like to see written about by an unrepentantly nerdy amateur blogger, do let me know!
Second, it’s also high time for me to start posting regular stories to the blog, like I was when I first started this thing. They fell by the wayside for a number of reasons, but at this point, I have no good reason to not push myself to do them again, and a whole lot of good reasons to just go for it.
Honestly, it puts me in mind of one of my favorite Ray Bradbury quotes: “Write a short story every week. It’s not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.” I’m not going for the one-story-a-week goal, but two a month isn’t bad, and with any luck, it’ll pull me out of the panicky over-editing loop I’ve gotten myself stuck in. Again. Oof.
And finally, I will of course continue plugging away at Tanner and Miranda. Expect a full update on what’s going on with them in the next couple of weeks!
How about for all of you? Any exciting new writing related goals? Any exciting new non-writing related goals? Let me know in the comments below!
Just a quick update this week to let you all know that I’ll be taking the next couple of weeks off of blog posts due to the holiday season! Updates will resume as normal on January 1, 2020. (What?! 2020 already?) Until then, have a Merry Christmas and I hope all your holidays are absolutely wonderful.
As you may have gathered from the fact that a post didn’t go with me shouting my victory from the rooftops, I didn’t manage to finish the current Tanner and Miranda story this past weekend. That would be the bad news. The good news would be that I did almost double it in size, and I like where it’s going, particularly for a first run-through for this particular story, and I shouldn’t have any trouble actually finishing it this weekend, giving me a clear horizon to start on the rest of the stories going into the whole novel and hopefully keeping me on the path to finishing the darn thing this year, so definitely keep an eye out for more posted snippets.
Also! I was going through some old stories this past week and found one that I’d been proud of back in the day and was, wonder of wonders, still happy with now. It’s definitely not what I normally tend to write (read: sci-fi and/or fantasy), but I like it. I like it enough to post it here, so check back in this Wednesday for an actual piece of fiction!
F.A. Hakimian 