Spring is in the air...

How are you today? I hope you all managed to have a nice week.

I know it's hard to stay positive when the world feels so freaking upside down at the moment, but you really have to find your happy place because if you don't, everything can get too overwhelming. Taking care of yourself and your mental health has never been more important. This timeline is infuriating and I hope everything rights itself soon.🤞

Anyway, let's talk about the better stuff. This week, I finished another short story. Yay.

Total word count: 3,277.

I had a lot of fun writing this one last week and completing the final draft really made the story a lot stronger. And of course, I also started a new tale. It's crossed 3k so far and I'm probably halfway through. Hoping to finish the first draft tomorrow.

So, the vampire world update is now: two novels, one novelette, and fifteen short stories. The short story collection has now crossed 54k. And I've still got more ideas...

That's fine with me. I love this world. 🦇

Asides from the above, I've been doing more spring cleaning. I'm still sorting through my stationery. Still moving things around, donating several things, putting other things in the bin. I just want to have things in accessible places, instead of forgetting what I have. LOL.

Well, that's about it. Just enjoying a lovely weekend with my husband. Oh, and speaking of hubby, he found/picked up a bunch of very cool Halloween goodies for me. 😍

Have a great weekend!!

Battery Problems...

Hello! How are you today?

Well, the last week of August is turning out to be a bit of a weird one. I mean, it's cool that the weather is mellowing out a bit. It's also nice that the sun doesn't fully set until just before six. And I'm glad the rain finally stopped, but something just felt... off. Of course, it could be the change in my husband's roster, or maybe because we didn't get enough sleep several times this week.

Either way, I'm not sure why winter is ending on such a shitty note, but I'm glad it's almost over. Can't wait for spring.

Oh, you know what else happened? My phone started acting weird. The battery decided to do percentage countdowns out of nowhere before clonking out completely. So I looked into it and according to several places, the Pixel is known for battery swelling. Um... WHAT? Since when?? And after more research, I thought: at least mine isn't doing that. Except, after taking the case off to make sure, it WAS SWOLLEN! The whole right side of the screen was popping up. 😳

And according to the internet, it wasn't safe to use it for more than a couple of days before facing the risk of your phone combusting. WTF?! Man, that scared the hell out of me. I mean, how did this happen? No one knows the exact reason, btw.

We've had our Pixel 6 (we both got one at the same time) for about three-and-a-half years. IMO, electronic devices die too quickly. No doubt, a feature that's purposely done to make us upgrade. Ugh.

So, I now have a new phone. Yay. A snazzy lilac Motorola Moto g86 Power. No more Pixels for me, thanks. I spent the majority of Friday night customising and adding stuff to it. I've had it for twenty-four hours and really like it.

What an unexpected ordeal! Yikes.

Luckily, before my phone died, I completed another short story. Another one that turned out longer than I expected, and a lot sadder too. Tragic, even.

Total word count: 3,104.

Here's the new vampire world update: two novels, one novelette, and fourteen short stories. At this stage, the total word count has passed 51k, so we're looking at an entire volume of stories from a variety of secondary characters. And that makes me very happy because I'm enjoying myself.

I LOVE telling stories. It's such a wonderful feeling.

Anyway, I started another shortie too. Now that my phone is ready to use, hopefully I'll get back to it. But first, I've got to finish tidying up my desk. That's my next spring cleaning project.

I guess that's about it for this week. Had to deal with some unexpected stuff, and we also went to the dentist for our six-moth cleaning/check up appointment.

Have an awesome weekend!!

Rainy Words & Books

Hey! How are you today?

Well, the weekend is here and the sun finally decided to make a comeback after FIVE DAYS of NON-STOP RAIN. 😱

Seriously, it was unbearable. Especially for someone who doesn't like rainy days at the best of times. It was so bad that it got in the way of my daily walks. Too much rain sucks and because I walk around the river, the puddles are huge. I really hope that it's done for a while.🤞

Asides from putting up with all this shitty weather, I've been really busy spring cleaning/reorganising. I have a lot of books and stationery so I'm determined to trim the fat while going through everything. The worst thing about doing this is finding books that I love (I'm a bibliophile, after all) that are riddled with foxing. 😫

It sucks and I just don't understand why this happens.

Anyway, I also completed the final read-thru of the short story I wrote last weekend. After the first draft, I suspected the word count would go up to 2k, but it ended up even longer.

Total word count: 3,159.

I was actually surprised that this tale turned out this long, but after some very handy feedback from my husband, I added and rewrote the ending. Very happy with how it turned out.

Here's the new vampire world update: two novels, one novelette, and thirteen short stories.

BUT! As expected, as soon as that story was finished, I started a new one. The words came to me in a rush after I woke up on Thursday morning and boy, it felt so good to get this one finally written because it's lived in my brain for a while now. 

I'm up to third draft and the word count has reached: 2,994. I'm looking forward to revising and completing this one.

Tonight we finished watching REVIVAL S1 and OMFG, this show is amazing!! I enjoyed the hell out of it and that ending was: 😳!!

Well, that's about it for now.

Hope you have an awesome weekend!!

Telling More Stories...

How are you today? I hope you had a great week!

I spent this week doing a bunch of things, while hoping that the rain would go away. We've been having too much rain lately and it's bugging the hell out of me because I like to bitch about shitty weather. 😫

I just want more than one sunny day during the week. Is that too much to ask? At least spring is around the corner. Two more weeks of winter left. Can't wait because I'm done with the cold.

So, my main goal was to get another short story (that I wrote last weekend) finished. This one turned out to be quite a sad tale, and a lot longer than I thought it would be. It broke my heart, though.
 

Total word count: 5,848.

And here's my vampire world update: two novels, one novelette, and twelve short stories. Very cool.

It's funny how this keeps happening. I finish a story, decide to take a break and figure that it'll take at least a few days before I get started on a new one, but then I go for a walk and start drafting the next one in my head. LOL. It's really amazing, but these characters are loud, and I can't ignore them.

Another awesome thing I'm enjoying is the way I'm toying with different styles and formats to tell these tales.

Anyway, the first draft of the next story is done at: 1,758. I suspect the next draft will probably push it over the 2k mark, but I'm glad I wrote another one to add to the collection. 😊

Well, aside from the writing and revision, I read another novella. I also got a bunch of spring cleaning done and reorganised my bookshelves. It was a lot of work and I felt sore the next day, but it was great.

One last thing, if you're interested in checking out my debut short story collection, MELANCHOLY DELUSIONS, you can grab a Kindle copy for 99c! Sale ends on Monday.

Okay. Hope you all have an awesome week!

It's August!

Hey! Can you believe how fast the year is going?! Yikes. 😳

So, how are you? I hope you're having a cool week. Here, in Sydney, the weather took a turn for the miserable on Wednesday. And it's been raining since. It's also freaking cold. I dislike being cold. At least it's the last month of winter.

After a week full of editing, I wanted to take a mental break. You know, a bit of reading and sorting. Maybe taking story notes. Instead, I started writing a new short story on Sunday night and kept adding words. A few days later, the first draft was done. Then, I did the second draft, and... To cut a long story short, I completed the final read-thru tonight.

Total word count: 5,781.

So much for a break, right? 😅 But if a story hounds me, I'm not going to ignore the words. Especially since everything about this tale was so vivid in my mind, and I couldn't wait to write it. Before you ask, yes, it's another story set in my vampire world. 

That's 2 novels, 1 novelette, and 10 short stories. So far. Because I'm not done yet. I'm very excited about all of these characters, their world, and I can't stop writing about them. Which is awesome. Writing these stories make me happy.

As for the reading side of things, it didn't start well. I got stuck into Rose Madder on Monday, but had to put it down the next day because I couldn't get into it. I found the beginning intriguing but lost interest fast. Here are my thoughts.

Instead, I started reading some Carniepunk short stories. I've read four so far and they're awesome. Very impressed with the quality of these dark tales. Looking forward to reading more. You can check out my reviews below.

Okay. That's about it. I'm excited about the weekend.

Hope you have an awesome time!

Watching, Revising & Reading

Hey, how's it going? I hope you're having a great day.

This week turned out to be great, as far as my writing goals and spending time with my husband, but it was the worst for dealing with people. I seriously hate that the general population doesn't seem to understand common courtesy anymore, or manners. Even customer service appears to be a forgotten thing. And I hate how most people don't understand the concept of criticism. Too many thin-skinned assholes out there who like to act like rotten bastards and don't want to be called out on it. And don't even get me started on companies who advertise about offering an easy way to transfer different currencies and then end up stealing all your money.

Like I said, it was the week of motherfuckers.

But onto other better things.

I finished watching the rest of DAISY JONES & THE SIX and really enjoyed it! The 70s aesthetics were as perfect as the music, and the ending hit as hard as the book. Overall, they did a great job at capturing the essence of the book and the characters. It was a trip to watch the band perform songs that could've easily fit into the 70s. Cool show! 😊🎶

Glad I finally watched it. 

The other great thing I did was complete the novelette I finished writing last week. I had a great time writing and revising this story, and everything that happened surprised me in many ways, but also made total sense.

Total word count: 13,001.

This is actually the tenth story I've written in this (vampire) world this year. And that doesn't include the two novels (90k each) that started all of this. Plus I still have a list of other characters waiting to tell their tale, LOL.

I also read a very cool novella, CRANBERRY COVE by Hailey Piper, and got started on the final proofing of my upcoming novel from Brigids Gate Press, FALLEN DESTINY, which I'll get stuck into on Monday.

Yeah, got lots of things to do. 😊

Have an awesome weekend!

The Revision is Done!

Hey! How are you today? I hope you all had a great week. Ours started with a long weekend (awesome) and the next four days turned out to be a blur of revision and rain.

Yeah, we've been having some shitty weather in NSW. I really hope the sun makes a comeback and sticks around for a while. Fingers crossed.

Well, as I mentioned above, I got stuck into the final read-thru of VampNovel2 this week. So, after listening to my Playlist during my daily afternoon walks (except for Thursday because it was pouring for most of the day), I grabbed my Paperwhite and some scrap paper. Then, I settled down to read the story, while taking note of any errors.

I cut a bunch of excess, but added quite a bit too. Something peculiar happened. Just before getting started on Tuesday, I decided to add a new subplot that fit the narrative and complicates things a little more. As well as changed a certain detail about a few characters. So that required a little extra work.

Anyway, after working really hard on this final draft, I finally reached The End! 

• New VampNovel1 final word count is: 90,348.

• New VampNovel2 final word count is: 90,746.

I'm SO excited! Not only did I finalise the second novel tonight, but because the two books are connected, I also had to update VampNovel1. Any changes/additions made to VampNovel2, directly affect VampNovel1. That meant a lot of extra tweaking. But I absolutely LOVED every single minute spent with these characters, so I didn't mind.

As I mentioned last month, the initial story idea came to me around this time last year. This 80s vampire story is a violent horrormance with plenty of complications.

I'm very happy because I set myself the personal goal of completing VampNovel1 in April, and VampNovel2 in May. As you can see, I did it. Yay!!

Oh, and one more thing. Do you watch Only Murders in the Building? We started watching it the other day and binged the whole first season very quickly. It's ADDICTIVE & I love it. Love cozy mysteries. They're very comfy and intriguing, with quite a bit of danger. Loving it.

We're also enjoying Murderbot and Duster.

That's about it for now. Have an awesome weekend! 

 

The Revision Continues...

Hey, how are you today? The weekend is finally here, and because my husband has an RDO on Monday, it's a three-day weekend. Awesome!

So, did you have a nice week? We slept in and hung out most mornings before hubby went to work, but today we had to get up early so our apartment intercom could be updated. Ugh. And because of that, I've been feeling wonky all day, especially since I slipped on the tiles in the laundry and hurt my left knee. 😫

Anyway, on Monday, I got stuck into the third draft of VampNovel2 and lost myself in this vampire world every afternoon/night. I love spending time with these characters, so I'm really enjoying the process.

This is how I went:

• Monday: 53/236pgs (90,621w)
• Tuesday: 102/234pgs (90,122w) 
• Wednesday: 158/237pgs (90,214w)
• Thursday: 212/237pgs (90,113w) 
• Friday: 240pgs / 91,125w

As you can see, the third draft is DONE. And I'm SO excited. I worked really hard on this draft because there were certain things I wanted to tweak and rewrite to deepen the characters and story. Nothing drastic, but additions/deleting that had to be made. And of course, any changes in this book, need to be reflected in VampNovel1.

It's challenging, but a lot of fun!

Oh, and did I mention that this 80s vampire world keeps throwing new short story ideas my way? Yeah, I started taking notes because a bunch of these characters refuse to shut up and their whispers are too hard to ignore.

Okay, time to sign out so I can enjoy a three-day mental break. Before hitting the final Paperwhite read-thru next week. 😁

Have a good one!

Reading, Writing & Revising

Hey! It's me again. How are you today? What did you get up to this week?

Personally, I got a bunch of stuff done. Initially, I planned to concentrate on reading, and to be honest, it did start that way. On Monday, I read and thoroughly enjoyed the novelisation of The Lost Boys. I finished it in one afternoon/night because it was SO much fun. LOVED IT! There's just something about 80s movie novelisations that really grab me. Of course, the fact this is based on the screenplay of one of my all-time favourite movies might have something to do with it. 😃

Then on Tuesday, I completed the final read-thru of the monster lovin' short story that I wrote on my phone over the long weekend. Yeah, it's a shortie but definitely a lot of cheeky fun. I even read it to my husband, and by Monday night, it was sitting on my Paperwhite for one last revision/read.

Final word count is: 1,698.

During Wednesday and Thursday night, I read Retreat by Krysten Ritter. It's such a great and totally twisty psychological thriller. Lots of glitzy rich lifestyle vibes, with a good dose of scandalous mystery and plenty of attitude.

Between reading this book, I also wrote and revised another short story. This one came to me on Sunday and I started writing it on my phone. But after the initial 200 words, I stalled. It wasn't until my afternoon walk on Monday that I realised a simple format change was just what this tale needed. And it worked! Because I finished writing it shortly after that.

Tonight, I completed the read-thru on my Paperwhite.

Final word count: 3,147.

This short story ended up a bit longer than I thought it would be, but I'm not surprised because it's set in the same world as VampNovel1 & VampNovel2. Man, the characters in this world are very chatty. Every time I finish one story, another idea drops into my brain. And these side/prequel tales are deepening the overall story. 😳

Speaking of these novels, I'm hoping to get started on the revision of VampNovel2 next week. Fingers crossed.

Anyway, this was the first full working week in three weeks, and it sure turned out to be productive. My muse has been buzzing and I'm having such a great time getting to know all of these secondary characters.

Now it's time to enjoy two days with my husband. Tomorrow it's Election Day in Australia, so we'll be popping in to the local school to vote. I really hope that the LNP (conservative assholes) don't win. They just want to fuck things up with cruelty and bullshit. Wish I could trust people to be smart enough to realise this is the case, but sadly, I don't have much faith in humanity nowadays.

Hope things turn out well, like they did in Canada. Wish us luck. 

Have a great one!

PS. So far, I've written and revised 8 short stories this year.

A Week Full of Stories!

Hey, how are you today? I hope you're having a great week.

As you know, I finished an extensive (3-week) novel revision last Thursday night and when I woke up on Good Friday, I was mentally exhausted. Seriously drained. So I really enjoyed the four-day break with my husband. Lots of relaxing, nice food, walking, a little shopping, and even some naps. It was awesome!

I felt recharged and ready to take a few weeks off between projects.

Yeah, that was the original plan. But then I decided it was time to complete the final read-thru of the short story I finished a few weeks ago. So I did that on Tuesday.

The final word count is: 3,173.

Very happy with this story now. I changed the ending during the second draft, but by the time the third draft was done, it ended up being more like a complete rewrite. Sometimes I do that. 😅

In the meantime, I wrote a new story on Sunday night. On my phone. See, after our nap on Saturday, I woke up with the first line of the story in my head, and when I typed it out so I wouldn't forget, I didn't stop until the whole first draft was done.

This violent little tale is actually a prequel to VampNovel1/VampNovel2. Yeah, this is the world that keeps on expanding. Just when I think I'm done, another story pops up. LOL.

Anyway, I worked on the second and third drafts on my phone, and read the final read-thru tonight. And now—after marking all the problems, deleting some excess, taking care of rep words, making the changes on Word, and doing a spell check—it's done.

The final word count is: 2,966.

I'm super excited about this story because it came out of nowhere. 

So, that means I've completed six short stories this year. That's 18,720 words worth of shorties. Not bad. 😊

What else did I do? I read the first Murderbot novella and the latest Grady Hendrix short story release. I also went for daily walks, even though it rained a few times. Oh, yeah. We watched and hated the second episode of The Last of Us. Decided we're not watching anymore. After wasting our time on 10 shitty Yellowjackets S3 episodes (this season was seriously bad), we're done watching mediocre shows.

Well, that's it for today. I'm going to enjoy another long weekend with my husband. Three days this time. Nice.

Have a good one!

The Revision Continues...

How are you today?

I hope this week turned out to be a good one for you! 

Here, in Sydney, the days got a lot shorter but I'm trying to stay positive. The fact I hung out with my husband every morning, that I went for my daily walks during the day (mostly sunny) and listened to my 80s Playlist (awesome) certainly helped. Not to mention that I spent every afternoon and night working on the third draft of my WIP, VampNovel1.

And I really lost myself in these words.

Seriously, I'm enjoying the hell out of this story and every time I sit down to work on it, I love it a little more. From the start, something about these characters and their world totally drew me in. Even when it was a small idea, slowly gaining momentum in my brain, I knew it would turn out to be a lot of wicked fun.

Vampires are just awesome. 😁

Anyway, this is my progress:

• Monday: 51/228pgs (90,436w)
• Tuesday: 103/230pgs (90,268w) 
• Wednesday: 154/234pgs (90,868w)
• Thursday: 196/235pgs (90,451w) 
• Friday: 236pgs / 90,042w

Yay! The third draft is DONE and I'm super excited. I worked really hard on this draft. 

As you can see, the word count went up and down every single day. I actually cut a lot of excess, but also added quite a few words. All things that strengthen the story and make sure everything ties up nicely.

Usually, after this stage, I'd do one final read-thru on my Paperwhite. But I'm doing things different this time.

And there are two reasons for that:

1. My husband is having three long weekends in a row this month (fantastic!)
2. I have VampNovel2 to consider...

So, I'm looking forward to spending some extra time with my husband during all these days off. And because there are two weeks when he'll work only three days, I've allocated those six days (ends up being two weeks) to work on VampNovel2.

Then I'll work on the third draft during the last week of April. So when that's all done, I can read one book after the other on my Paperwhite and make sure everything makes sense, pans out, and I can catch any last-minute typos, inconsistencies, etc.

Oh, and I also completed the third draft of the short story I mentioned last week. There were some plot issues I had to fix, several rep words that stood out, and have added it to my Paperwhite. Not sure when I'll do the read-thru, but the word count is now: 3,255.

It turned out to be quite a story-heavy week.

Okay, that's about it. I'm going to enjoy a nice mental break now

Have an awesome weekend!

Time to Revise!

Hey! How are you today? How's April treating you?

Daylight savings ends this weekend, which always bugs me because I prefer the longer daylight hours. Oh well, we're already in autumn and I've been dealing with it okay. I'm one of those people who's prone to seasonal mood swings during colder months, so I have to try and go with the flow.

I also wish the world was in a better state at the moment because there's just too much going on. Every single day there are about a thousand new shit things happening. Ugh.

Anyway, my goal this week was to complete the second draft of what I'm tentatively calling: VampNovel1. You know, because I wrote two and therefore have to revise both of them. LOL.

So, here's my progress:

• Monday: 46/230pgs (90,168w)
• Tuesday: 71/229pgs (89,888w) 
• Wednesday: 125/228pgs (89,840w)
• Thursday: 186/228pgs (90,225w) 
• Friday: 231pgs / 91,226w

I'm so happy that I managed to get to the end of the second draft tonight. The word count went up and down as much as my progress. That's not surprising since some areas always need more work than others.

Now that it's done, I'm mentally exhausted. That's why I'm glad that the weekend is finally here. I really need a break between drafts. That's right, next week I'll be working on the third draft because I want to have that done before our first long weekend. This month we have three! Yay. 😁

Before I got stuck into VampNovel1, I worked on the second draft of a short story I wrote in 2022 but put aside because I didn't like the ending. So, last weekend I read it, cleaned it up, and rewrote the end. I'm much happier now that I fixed all the problems.

The new word count is: 2,943. I'm not sure when I'll get the chance to work on the third draft, but that's cool. I'm taking my time with this project. 

Well, that's it for now. I'm going to veg out on the couch tonight while trying not to think (emphasis on try) about VampNovel1 until Monday.

Have an awesome weekend!

My latest WIP is done!

Hey! How are you? What's new? How's this unstable world treating you?

I have a lot of issues about the many things going on at the moment, and this week I decided to focus on one that's been bugging me lately. Although I'm just one person, I've decided to leave Threads and Instagram. I want to distance myself from Meta because I don't agree with all the bullshit/changes the disgusting owner is making. They're no longer going to do fact-checking, and are allowing users to call other people slurs with no consequences. Meta thinks misogyny, homophobia, transphobia and racism is okay. That's before you consider the Al bullshit, or how he's sucking up to Trump. It's disgusting and I don't agree with any of it, so I decided to do something about it.

I've already deactivated Threads and will delete Instagram this weekend. Sometimes you have to take a personal stand.

That means that Bluesky is now my only social media. I'm still on Goodreads and will keep blogging, but I refuse to stay in a place that is so invested in destroying others. Especially now that the Orange Turd is back.

Asides from making the above decision, I spent the week adding more words to my WIP.

Here's how it went:

• Monday: 84,164 (+4,941w)
• Tuesday: 90,554 (+6,390w)
• Wednesday: 92,542 (+1,988w)
• Thursday: 92,907 (+365w)

Well... the first draft is done! Yay. ☺️🎉

I'm super excited to have reached the end because in November I wrote a vampire horrormance first draft that sparked this book! It was a tale that I didn't plan or expected to write, but like the main character in that story, this one wouldn't leave me alone. So much that I ended up taking a one week break at the beginning of December and then got stuck into this one right away.

Not even public holidays stopped the momentum. I ended the year with this story and kept going into the new year. Something I don't usually do. But like my husband always says: if your muse is speaking, listen. ☺️

And I'm glad I did.

After spending most of last year revising and editing without writing a new story, I managed to write 182,016 words between November and mid-January. Very happy with that.

When I finished the last WIP, we watched the 4K Ultra HD version of The Lost Boys to celebrate, and had a blast. And will be doing the same this weekend!!

Anyway, that's it for now. Just wanted to post an update.

Have a great day!!

Word Count Update!

Well. It's Friday, and I thought I'd post an update.

No, wait a sec! It's past midnight here in Sydney, so I suppose it's technically Saturday. LMAO.

Either way, it's time to weekend. 😁

So, how are ya? What have you been doing this week? How's the new year treating you? I've been busy writing, but the world is such a fucking mess right now. Between people idolizing loser billionaires who have no fucking clue, greedy haters who can't mind their own business, and intense climate change events... I just don't know where the fuck we're going. Or WTF we're doing.

I really wish we paid more attention to history, instead of repeating the shitty parts over and over. Ugh.

Let me get back to the writing. I'm working on my current WIP and still having a blast.

Here's my progress:

• Monday: 58,120 (+4,521w)
• Tuesday: 62,584 (+4,464w)
• Wednesday: 69,251 (+6,667w)
• Thursday: 73,961 (+4,710w)
• Friday: 79,223 (+5,262w) 

Not bad, right? This was actually the first full week of writing I've had for a while after so many cool public holidays. And because I'm so caught up in what's happening, during every session this week I churned out high word count additions.

I stopped at a good spot tonight. The downward spiral to the end is going to be intense and very bloody. I can't wait to write it, but won't go back until Monday.

Also, if you follow me on social media, you might have noticed that this week I started posting graphics & small quotes from my upcoming short story collection. I'm having a great time sharing bits and pieces about each individual tale. There are 17 of them, and I've already shared five.

Oh! The first Goodreads review for MELANCHOLY DELUSIONS has been posted and it's fantastic! Check it out HERE! I absolutely LOVE it! Thank you, Rose Devours Books. 

One last thing, since a lot of crap has been going on with Meta—ranging from AI bullshit, removal of fact checking, allowing hate speech—I'm seriously thinking about signing out of the two social media accounts I have with them. I haven't decided yet, but I'm certainly getting sick and tired of fucking asshole tech-bros.

In the past two years I deactivated accounts at NaNoWriMo (gross behaviour with minors), Substack (gave nazis a platform), Twitter (destroyed by a dickhead) and Discord (nothing related to the actual app, more a bad association because of assholes). 

No matter what, you can find me on Bluesky, which is where I post the most. ☺️

Okay, that's it for today. Have a great weekend!!

More words added...

Hey! How are you today? I hope you're all having an awesome and safe festive season.

We're now in the middle of that liminal time between Christmas and New Year's, which always feels a little strange. Something about this particular time of the year seems... unreal. But unlike every other year, when I usually wander around aimlessly, I'm actually still writing a story.

So, this week was pretty cool. My husband worked two days, had two days off, went to work on Friday, and now the weekend is here again. Yay!! 😁

As a result of the above, I didn't actually write every day this week but I did make some great progress on my WIP.

Here's how it went:

• Monday: 26,359 (+5050w)
• Tuesday: 31,555 (+5196w)
• Friday: 36,856 (+5,301w)

Not bad, I reckon! I honestly didn't plan to spend the rest of the year writing a novel first draft, but here we are.

As I've already mentioned, this character is just SO loud and pushy that I have no choice but to keep writing. Keep telling the story, from the other side. And the coolest thing is that while so much of this intersects with the book I wrote last month, plus a lot of what's happening has been inside my head for ages, new things keep popping up!

I'm having such a GREAT TIME writing this story, and after not writing anything new for MONTHS because of excessive editing and shit that was out of my control, it feels so freaking good to get totally lost in a world that's serving up many enjoyable hours of entertainment.

You know how they say you should write the stories you want to read? Well, these two WIPs are exactly that. They're fun, cathartic and downright exciting. Plus both feature vampires, which I absolutely love. 🦇

I'm going to keep writing until I reach the end of this one, which I predict will be sometime in January. And that's fine. This year has served a lot of changes, and that includes a shift in my attitude to not be so rigid with self-imposed plans and goals.

Sometimes you just have to go with the flow.

I didn't get a chance to read anything this week, but that's cool because I spent most of my time either writing or taking notes. And creating individual graphics for the short stories in my upcoming short story collection, MELANCHOLY DELUSIONS.

BTW, did I mention that I read the first review for my collection on IG the other day? Well, I did. Here it is! I want to thank jen_reads_horror for taking the time to read it and share her thoughts, too. 😍

Okay. That's about it. I'm going to enjoy the next few days with my husband and take a short mental break before going back to my WIP.

Have an awesome weekend!!

Thinking & Adding

Hey, how's it going? 

December is here and for us, that means that the temperature is heating up. That's right, our festive season is in the middle of summer, so we've been having some super hot days this week. And that leads to a bunch of storms. It's actually raining today and when we went to bed, a thunderstorm was raging outside.

I don't mind thunderstorms and rainstorms. Unless I get caught in the downpour, which happened to me last Friday. 😖

Well, this week turned out to be a bit wobbly, which always happens when I finish writing a first draft. I mean, it's also a thing during revision, but after a first draft the story is still so fresh in my mind, and it's all I've been thinking about all month, that there's bound to be some leftover thoughts.

A hangover, really.

Last (long) weekend I started a Revision List that ended up including a lot of extra stuff. So, I decided to tackle some of the more involved changes/additions on Tuesday. I even updated my research/inspirational pic folders, and reshuffled my Playlist. There are 31 songs from the 80s on this awesome Playlist that I've been listening to all week.

Anyway, after that, I thought I was done with the story until the second draft. So I spent a few days hanging out with hubby before work, going for walks, daydreaming about other stories, and I read the latest Stephanie Plum book.

Then Friday hit and I woke up from a dream about my characters, and several songs from the Playlist were actually playing in these dreams like a soundtrack. So, I opened up the doc again and spent last night making a few more changes/additions.

This is the new word count: 87,148.

I have no doubt that part of the reason why so many thoughts were circling my brain had something to do with watching THE LOST BOYS last weekend. I mean, I've seen this movie a thousand times but never get sick of it. Actually, I love it more each time. And the fact that it's one of the inspirations for my WIP, well... it was bound to affect me.

BTW, both THE LOST BOYS and NOW OR NEVER were my rewards for finishing the draft. 😁

Now that I've made these changes I need to take a break from the story. I usually like to take one or two months away to get some distance. Either way, I won't be revising until next year.

Writing this novel has been a LOT of fun, and that means a lot to me. In many ways, this year hasn't been kind in regards to publishing and I didn't get a chance to write anything new. Until now. And that makes me very happy.

That's it for now. Just wanted to spill some of my muddled thoughts.

Hope you all have an awesome weekend!

My WIP is done!

Hi! How are you? I'm pretty good. Even if I got caught in a downpour and got drenched during my walk.

So, my right side/lat muscle prob is still there but it feels like it might be getting a bit better. It's hard to tell because every day is different. But I've got my fingers crossed and hope that being patient helps. We did a yoga workout the other day that seemed to help, so that's cool.

Anyway, enough about that. Let's talk about writing.

At he beginning of the week I decided that getting to the end of the first draft I've been working on this month would be great. For several reasons: I wanted to finish by the end of this month, and my husband has an RDO on Monday so we have a long weekend together. Awesome!

So, how did I do? Here's how it went:

• Monday: 65,135 (+6,612w)
• Tuesday: 70.543 (+5,408w)
• Wednesday: 77,843 (+7,300w)
• Thursday: 83,063 (+5,220w)
• Friday: 85,411 (+2,348w)

The first draft is done & I'm SO excited! ☺️🎉

As you can see from the daily word count numbers, it really wasn't that hard to write the rest of this novel because this story has been eating my brain. All week, it's been waking me up. I've also been dreaming about the characters. And taking lots of notes as everything came to me while sleeping, walking, or just talking about it with my husband.

I've really talked his ear off during the writing of this book. He's also been very helpful. Sometimes just knowing that he was listening to my endless chatter about everything helped me. A lot.

Yeah, he's awesome. 😍

The idea for this story hit me back in April while listening to one of my favourite songs ever, Boys of Summer by Don Henley, and thinking about my fave movie ever, The Lost Boys. So yeah, it's been scratching at my brain for months, which might explain why it pretty much poured out of me.

Funny thing is, that as much as I knew about the story and what would happen, what I ended up writing was full of surprises. Of things I hadn't expected. Twists and turns that actually made everything even darker and better.

I love this vampire tale. It's dark. It's sexy. It's got some twisty stuff going on. And every moment I spent in this world with these characters made me happy. 🦇

Like I've said many times, writing is magical and I love every minute of it. And this story in particular is special to me because it's the first full-length draft I've written after a year full of publishing disappointments. And like Only Darkness, this book helped me deal with everything and find my way back to what really matters to me the most: telling stories.

Well, that's about it. I'm going to take a mental break and to celebrate, we're going to watch the 4K Ultra HD version of The Lost Boys. Can't wait.

Have a good one!! 😃

The Writing Continues...

Hey, how are you today? I hope you all had a great week. What did you get up to? Can you believe we're halfway through November?! OMG. How? 😳

Last week I mentioned that we got routine blood tests done, and we got the results, which were good. So I'm glad about that. I also finished taking the capsules the doctor prescribed and I don't actually know if it made much of a difference. My right side/lat muscle still hurts when I go uphill and sit a certain way, but it might be getting a bit duller. I don't know. I need to keep avoiding really steep inclines and keep an eye on it. I know that muscle/nerve strains take a while to heal, so I think I just need to be patient.

Hopefully it will clear away soon.🤞

So, I've been writing up a storm.

Here's my WIP progress:

• Monday: 41,064 (+5,585w) 
• Tuesday: 45,422 (+4,458w)
• Wednesday: 50,372 (+4,850w)
• Thursday: 54,215 (+3,843w)
• Friday: 58,523 (+4,308w)

Not bad, right? ☺️

When I first started writing this story, I wasn't sure if it was going to be a novella or a novel, but since I crossed the 50k mark... I guess that means I've entered novel-length territory. Yay.

Progress this week has been pretty constant because every time I sat down with my laptop, the words poured out of me in such a rush that I had to backtrack the next time because I had to add things that got lost in the whirlwind. LOL.

The coolest thing happened the other night, too. I reached that part of the story where the rest of the novel revealed itself and the road to the end is starting to become clearer. Now it's time to make my way to the end, which is going to be fun. 

Well, for me. Not necessarily for all the characters.

This story is really eating my brain. So much that it keeps waking me up at night. Or too early. I even dream about it because the characters won't STFU, which is actually awesome.

Anyway, that's about it for now. I'm going to take a two-day mental break away from the novel and spend some time with my husband.

There'll probably be some note-taking and brainstorming, but that's it.

Have a great weekend!!

Short Stories, Volume 2

Hey! How are you? What's new? This turned out to be quite a week! Yikes.

I spent all week proofreading my second short story collection. 😳

If you remember, last week I completed the first volume, so it was time to get stuck into the next one!

This actually took a bit longer to complete than the first one because it contains several longer (3k+) stories. Still, I managed to finish the Paperwhite read and made all the changes on the Word doc before the weekend. Cool.

That's 17 stories of varying lengths. All featuring a whole bunch of characters who get caught up in a lot of weird/dangerous/bizarre situations. 😈

This collection once again features a combination of brand new stories and pubbed ones. But every single tale has been revised, and in a lot of cases, totally rewritten.

This time, I especially wanted to make sure everything was finalised tonight because we've got a long weekend coming up and I want to take a nice break with my husband. Plus, I really need a mental break after spending two weeks with all those psychos and monsters. 😅

The final word count is: 50,965.

Now I have to find a home. For both...

Anyway, after putting them aside for a few months to get a bunch of editing done, I'm SO happy that I've finally finished both of them. Phew.

Have an awesome weekend! 😁

Short Stories, Volume 1

Hey! How are you today? I can't believe it's the first day of June. Yikes. 😳

What have you been up to? I've been proofreading all week.

Back in March, I spoke about revising my two short story collections. I actually got as far as reaching the proofreading stage, but then got stuck into a bunch of editing and had to put them aside for a bit.

This week, I grabbed my Paperwhite and started reading. Made all the changes. Checked the changes. Made more changes to the Word doc. Until I got to the end on Friday night. Yay!

That's 17 stories of varying lengths. All creepy and bleak horror stories featuring different characters leading strange and dark lives. But all of them find themselves in weird/bizarre situations. 😈

I really enjoyed revisiting these tales. Some are new. A few are old stories that I completely rewrote. Several have been published. But every single one has been revised/rewritten! All of them.

The final word count is: 50,928.

Now I have to find a home for the collection...

I'm taking the next two days off. Then next week, I'll get stuck into the second volume.

Have an awesome weekend! ☺️