A Week Full of Words

Hi, how are you today? What did you get up to?

This week my husband and I went to get our annual blood tests. I also have to take an anti-inflammatory capsule for a week because I somehow hurt my right side/lat muscle. The weird thing is that I don't know how it happened. I mean, it could've been all the walking, or a particular exercise. Hell, maybe I hurt myself while sleeping. All I know is that I can't do the last bit of my daily walk for two weeks because the steep uphill incline triggers the pain plus pins and needles down my arm. Very, very strange. The doctor suspects it might be related to the nerves/muscle running across my lat and the back of my shoulder. 😫

Anyway. We'll see how it goes.

The other thing I did today was... I finally left Twitter. That's right. After 15 years, I deactivated my account. My husband deactivated his at the beginning of the week and to be honest, I was determined to stick around for a while. Even toyed with locking my account to private and only disconnecting temporarily. But the new AI bullshit was added, plus I'm over all the gross fascist crap that's going on over there.

Either way, I'm done. I deactivated and uninstalled the app from my phone. It's better this way because there's nothing left over there. Twitter died a long time ago and we were all holding onto a very thin memory of the place.

Besides, I'm still active on Bluesky (which I'm enjoy more and more), Threads and IG.

So, let's talk about writing.

Here's how I did:

• Monday: 21,550w (added 4,015) 
• Tuesday: 25,450w (added (3,900)
• Wednesday: no new words
• Thursday: 29,247w (added 3,797)
• Friday: 35,479w (added 6,232)

As you can see, even though I missed a day, this week's total word count was great. The numbers are good but what's even better is how the story keeps eating my brain so much that I'm constantly thinking about it. I keep dreaming about the characters, and can't stop images and snippets (about what's going to happen next) from popping into my head.

Yeah, I've been taking a lot of notes and looking for more inspirational pics. I also talk to my husband about it all the time. LOL.

This particular idea has been with me for MONTHS, so I'm not surprised that the words are flowing. Every time I sit down, the characters take over and I find myself getting lost in the story. I love when that happens!

Last week I mentioned that I wasn't sure if this was going to be a novella or a novel, but now that I've passed 35k and know what's to come, I'm pretty sure the total word count will surpass the novella length.

Well, asides from all this writing I also finished reading an excellent and very creepy book. You can read my review of DIAVOLA below. (Or hit the title for the direct link.)

That's it for this week, I think.

It's time to weekend. Have a good one!

The Tweets & The Threads

I'm one of those people who has enjoyed using Twitter for many years. Actually, I celebrated my 14th anniversary over there earlier this year. It was my one and only social media for the longest time. I met some great people there, posted updates about my writing, and even held myself accountable by listing my word/page targets. As well as my reading and blogging.

But something terrible happened this year. The person who bought it decided to destroy the platform. He slowly eliminated everything that made Twitter one of the most recognisable brands in the world. Started monetizing everything, filled the timelines with useless ads, encouraged the shittiest people in society to rejoin (after being banned) and put limits on just about everything.

This week, he even decided to change the name. I mean, you have to be seriously deficient in the intelligence department to do any of this. But the name change really got under my skin. I can't stand that X replacing the Twitter bird.

Anyway. All of this leads me to the reason why I’m writing, and sending, this post out.

Three weeks ago, when it became clear that it was only a matter of time before everything fell apart, I finally set myself up on IG. And also decided to sign up for Threads.

Surprisingly, IG fits my photo-posting habit, while Threads gives me the chance to post updates and help boost other authors. Actually, this week I didn't bother posting a single progress or walking update on Twitter. And now that Threads also has a Following tab, I hope to spend more time over there.

I'll still pop into Twitter to promo and RT about books, or add announcements and congratulate others. But I’m definitely taking a big step back. I’m tired of the instability of the place. He’s even somehow severed the Goodreads updates. It's just not fun anymore. I always enjoyed popping in, but this week I just couldn't find the enthusiasm.

So, if you’re on either one of the abovementioned places, this is where you can find me now:

On Threads, I’m HERE.

On Instagram, I’m HERE.

And of course, I’ll try to add a weekly post over here.

Thanks for reading, and keep in touch!

Multitasking Time & Stories

The other day I posted this tweet on Twitter:

Writing is hard work. But it's also exciting, fun, something I'm compelled to do, and yes... even cool. :)

I have a bunch of ideas cluttering my brain at any given time, but when I get stuck into a WIP I usually get so consumed by the story I'm working on that I hardly have time to devote to other projects.

This is EXACTLY what happened this month. I spent the last 4 weeks writing the first draft of my YA horror novel about a bunch of kids and the scary stories they tell each other. Every spare moment I had during the day was spent adding new words, or figuring out what was coming next.

But this time I decided to do things a little differently:

• Writing during the day
• Note-taking during the afternoon
• Researching other stories at night

It's amazing how much you can get done on your phone while sitting on the couch with hubby and watching Judge Judy on YouTube. LOL.

After a day full of words, the evenings are a good time to let my mind wander and lose myself in the possibility of other worlds and characters. So I collected heaps of inspirational pics, researched a bunch of concepts, named characters, made relevant graphics, and then sorted through all the files I created for easier (future) access.

Not only is this super productive, but I also had a lot of fun planning ahead. I now have about 6 ideas at different stages, and another I've just started to develop.

All of this has worked out very well, but there's one thing that suffered: reading. Working on stories fills my brain with so much I become obsessed with what's inside my head and don't have time for anyone else's stories. *cries*

Now that my current WIP is done, my new challenge will be to add reading time to the mix! I definitely want to keep developing these new ideas between projects and want to allocate more writing/revising time, but I need to include my reading habit back into the routine. I have TOO many books on my TBR pile not to.

Wish me luck!

Tomorrow is my 11th Wedding Anniversary

Yay. So...

Happy Anniversary to Hubby and me! Awesome. :) Looking forward to spending a nice day together. We'll be going out for lunch, too. Probably to Sizzler. :)

Well, today, I'm over at Su Halfwerk's--Vivid Sentiments--Blog. You can check out my interview here. She had a great selection of questions to choose from, and I really enjoyed picking them, as well as answering them. :)

Check this out: My review of MONSTER HIGH is listed on the Atom Books Australia Facebook page. Yay!

Um, I still haven't gone back to Twitter.

Still a little scared to go back. I know it's probably all clear now, but I think I'll stay away until Monday. And I have to admit that it feels weird, almost like something's missing from my daily routine. :( I read that some stupid seventeen-year-old kid was responsible for the virus. Don't people have something better to do with their time? Do they really need to invest time on being evil? Seriously, I hate that! I was wondering, though... if you had something like Tweetdeck set up, did the virus still getcha? Curious.

It's Friday. My daughter's last day of school for Term 3. Starting Monday, she's got two weeks off, and doesn't go back to school until mid-October. Yikes! Wonder how it's going to be having her home while expecting/working on edits. lol.

Oh, I'll work it out. ;)

Okay... have a great weekend, guys!

Tweet away!

OMG! It's so cold.

I swear, the winter chill just came out of nowhere and now it's here to stay. For at least another three months. Ugh! I don't like the cold weather. It makes me a little cranky... especially if the sun's not out. But today, it's finally breaking through, so yay!

Well, I've finally done it! I created an account over at Twitter. You can find me at:

http://twitter.com/yolandasfetsos

I have to say that I'm still a little fuzzy on how it all works, but I have been posting little messages about what I'm doing. There are also 8 wonderful people who have found me and decided to follow (friend) me, so I've been following back. I tried to search for people to follow but couldn't get the ones I was looking for. I'll try again later. It's probably going to be hit and miss for a while. I've been posting messages back, but I'm not sure if they're going through. Lol.

Still, it's a nifty tool. Don't you think?

Well, the to-do list is going quite well. I only have one thing left on it - my May/June newsletter. I'm hoping to get started on it after lunch. That way I can send it first thing tomorrow morning. I'm also going to update my website because I'll be offering two FREE READS as of tomorrow. Something that I'd love to add to later this year, too. Exciting!

I think these three days off from daughter/writing/revising are doing me some good. I'm feelin' relaxed, catching up on things, and I might even have to cast two new characters for a story idea that came to me on Monday night. :D

Have a great day!