I hate to admit this but we all go through it. I let life get in the way of what I so desperately want out of this one life I get to have.

But you know what? That’s okay. I’m a firm believer that life happens exactly the way it’s supposed to and I needed an awakening of sorts. I needed a reminder of how far I’ve come, a reminder of how far I still have to go, and a reminder of who the hell I am.

And who I am is a desperately passionate soon-to-be author who finally realized how much work she had put in to create habits that would sustain her for the writing career she would absolutely go on to have.

So what have I been up to?

Well, I sent my children’s book off to an agent and I’m due back to hear from her any day now. Crossing my fingers so tightly I’ve lost blood circulation.

I’ve been making a habit of sending short stories and poems off to magazines. I currently have 3 short stories in circulation right now that I likely won’t know the answer to until the summer, as well as a poem that I’m just so proud of that I’ll also likely have to wait until summer to know if it’s going to be published.

I finished an outline (an actual outline?!? Who is she? An outliner? Who would have thought!) for my comedy/fantasy, Chuck the Chosen, shortly after finishing the first draft of Mortals in Flesh. This idea came to me after doing a writing contest with writing battle. The short story was titled “The Story of Chuck: The Chosen that was Unchosen”. A comment on my story, mixed with my deep love of the character Chuck, made me keep going with the idea. Now I’m 35k into what’s shaping up to be a 100k word novel and I’m not hating every single thing I write! So that is a serious win.

I’m honestly really excited for people to read this. It’s funny, and silly, and I’ve given myself unwavering permission to be as absurd and frankly idiotic with the creation of all these characters. Bit of a spoiler, but there’s a chapter dedicated to erotic fiction, a chapter that required me to google what assless chaps look like from the front (my FBI agent is SO confused), and AI will be defeated in the chapter titled “The Necessary Fight Scene for This Genre.”

If none of that sells you on it then I fear you may not be my target audience. No hard feelings muchacho, I’ll likely swing left field and write something completely different at some point… just for you!

Now what do I mean by I’m no longer afraid. Well…going in the direction of self-publishing is like a business. It requires dedication, sacrifice, mental stamina, and possibly a stash of snacks. And I feel ready to really and truly push on this. So I’m going to either go one of two routes. Once I’ve finished the first (second, third, maybe even fourth) draft of Chuck the Chosen, I’m either going to post to Royal Road, or go straight to patreon. I want to get people’s feedback as I go, build an audience that gets the opportunity to watch this story really come to life before I publish it for real (like you can hold it in your own two hands!). Am I going to have to pretend like I know what I’m actually doing for the first bit of this new area of inexperience, absolutely! But I’m ready to branch out and try something a little scary that could be a great move for this story.

And hey, it worked for Matt Dinniman and if I’m being completely honest…Dungeon Crawler Carl TOTALLY influenced me.

Cheers to a new year but not a new me! You don’t need a new you when you’ve already done the work to build yourself into who you’re meant to be.

As always, stay writing, because it’s who you are gosh darnit!

Oh! And if you’re feeling social, you can follow me on IG & Threads <3