Here's to 2026!

It certainly has been a while! But it's a new year, and we're leaving negative things in the past and looking optimistically to the future! Here's a short wrap-up of my reading and writing for the last twelve months and goals for the next twelve.

 

Reading

In 2025, my reading goal was 45 books. I exceeded that and read 55, including some single-issue comics. Here are five of my favorites: 

A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon
Supergirl: Being Super by Mariko Tamaki and Joëlle Jones 
Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
A Long Time Dead by Samara Breger
A Dark and Drowning Tide by Allison Saft 

I also embarked on a loose project of reading all the Supergirl comics I can get my hands on, starting with the current run by Sophie Campbell and working my way backwards. I finished the Rebirth (2016) run and started the New 52 (2011) run. So far, my favorite graphic novel is the standalone Being Super, pictured above. I thought it did a great job capturing Kara's emotional journey. 

Next year, I'm hoping to read 52 books. That's one a week if I can do it! I'll also be continuing my Supergirl project.

 

Writing

I didn't do so hot on the writing side of things last year! That's due to a number of factors, including mental health, focusing on trying to move back home, and concern that releasing the last book in a series will be more of a whimper than a bang.

However, I did manage to make progress on Book 3 of The Heartfriends. I can confidently say it's looking better than it was! I also did a little bit of work on my next fantasy series, set in a land called Vesarrna, by doing some worldbuilding and planning out a novella.

What's next: Finishing Book 3! I'm planning to publish it later this year, so stay tuned! My Vesarrna plans include revising Book 1 in the series and drafting a novella.

 

I hope you all met your reading goals! Drop some book recommendations if you've got 'em. Good luck on your goals for this year. Let's keep our chins up and do the hard work so we can reap the rewards at the end of the year. 🫶

 

 

Writing Update: Spring 2023

 

It's been a while since I gave a proper writing update! So, here it is. In case you missed it, I released an epic fantasy novella back in February called IN THE ARMS OF THE RESTLESS SEA. It's set in The Heartfriends universe, and it follows Nessa, Aurelia's childhood best friend, as she navigates life after the temple. Check out the synopsis:

Sometimes, only when we’re lost can we discover who we truly are.

When Nessa and her fellow priestesses are abducted from their temple by bounty hunters, Nessa is the only one to escape. Unable to return to the sole home she’s ever known, she is forced into the great wide world, where she will either forge her own path or leave her life up to chance. Along the way, she just might find a family, find herself, and find out what “home” truly means.

Add it to your to-read list on Goodreads and buy it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Bookshop.

I also participated in an anthology that recently came out called TALES OF MONSTROSITY, which includes 19 stories of the monsters we think we know. Check it out today!

NEW RELEASE: In the Arms of the Restless Sea

It's here! In the Arms of the Restless Sea is now available on Kindle e-book and in paperback. Click the cover photo above to go to Amazon. 

 

The e-book will stay exclusive to Kindle for a while, but the paperback should be available at Barnes & Noble online and other online stores.

NEWS: Upcoming Heartfriends Novella

I have news! After working starting this project a long time ago, taking a break, and finally picking it up again last fall, I've made a ton of progress on In the Arms of the Sea, a novella set in The Heartfriends universe and revolving around Aurelia's old friend Nessa. 

I've been working hard to put this out in the world soon, so you can expect it in the next month or so. I'll be releasing more information as I have it.

For now, check out below for a glimpse of what the cover will look like!

NEWS: Anthology Kickstarter

 

Tales of Monstrosity: Monsters, Myths, and Miscreants

An anthology of urban fantasy and horror stories about lesser known monsters of lore told with a creative twist.

I have a story in this upcoming anthology from Cabbit Crossing Publishing, and the Kickstarter is now LIVE! Check it out! There's even a reward where I'll edit one of your short stories (up to 5,000 words). 

The Kickstarter will be live until November 23rd. Help us reach our goal and get this book out into the world!

 

 

NEW PROJECT: A Matter of Perspective, a D&D Adventure

I did something new in July! I took an online class about writing an RPG adventure through the Storytelling Collective and then took a stab at actually writing an adventure. The fruits of my labor (which took a little longer than a month thanks to a planned vacation and an unplanned bout of illness) is a one-shot adventure called A Matter of Perspective. 

In a sleepy countryside village, a commoner asks an adventuring party for help in finding his son, who’s been taken by “the witch on the hill," a dragonborn sorceress who keeps to herself. As your adventurers brave the obstacles put in place by the sorceress both on the way to her house and inside, the story--and the supposed rescue mission--grow more complicated.

A one-shot adventure for a party of level 5-6.

If you're interested in my process or want to hear more about the adventure I wrote, get in touch! I'm happy to discuss it. Since I started playing tabletop role-playing games a few years ago, I've noticed they've opened up my creativity and rejuvenated my love for the fantasy genre. I'm hoping to branch out from novels and short stories into games more, starting with small projects like this adventure, and one of my long-term goals is to write my own campaign setting.

 Find A Matter of Perspective on DM's Guild by clicking the button below.

A Walk in the Woods + A Brief Writing Update

It's March, and Spring is finally showing its face once more. I enjoy winter, but usually by this time of the year, I'm also happy to see warmer weather and the sun for more hours of the day. Yesterday, I was able to get out for a 2.3-mile hike, and it was a really good decision! It was great to get out into the fresh air and get some exercise and sunshine even if it was only about 45 degrees. 

The stream was cold! But there's something about sticking my hand in running water that grounds me and calms me. And in this case, the shock of the cold woke me up a bit as well.

This hike was also the first time I tried out bird-watching. I got myself some binoculars and was able to see a handful of birds. A few were definitely robins. I know that much at least. Some were, I think, red-bellied woodpeckers. And there were at least two other types that I can't yet identify, but I hope to gain more bird knowledge and be able to identify more on the fly during my future walks.

My binoculars came with an attachment I can use to set my phone up and take pictures through the binoculars. I haven't quite figured that one out yet! But maybe soon I will. In the meantime, the picture on the right (from Wikipedia) is of a red-bellied woodpecker of the sort I saw.

credit: wikipedia

As for a writing update, I'm hard at work on two projects concurrently. One is the first draft of a mystery novel.You can keep up with my progress on the right side of the page under the Word Counts widget. So far, I have about 35,000 words out of an anticipated 85,000. Mystery is definitely a different beast than fantasy, but I enjoy reading mysteries and I'm enjoying writing this one. 

The other project is, of course, Book 3 of The Heartfriends trilogy. I'm revising the first draft into something with more detail and bones and cohesion. As usual, I have no idea how long that process will take! So far, each book of the trilogy has been a completely different experience. But I'm aiming for it to look more like an actual book than just words on pages by the summer, so we'll see how much trouble it gives me!

Recent Short Story Releases

Two short stories of mine have been recently released in anthologies. Read more about them below, and click the cover pictures to buy!  

 

Eighteen award-winning, veteran, and emerging authors bring you seventeen unique dragon tales that defy tradition. Winged serpents as large as continents, as well as those tiny enough to perch on the fingertip of a young girl. Dragons who inhabit the Wild West, Victorian London, Brooklyn, and a post-apocalyptic Earth. Scaly beasts who fight in the boxing ring, celebrate Christmas, and conquer the vast void of outer space. There are rockstars who meddle with dragon magic, clever and conniving shapeshifters, and powerfully exotic hybrids. Science fiction, urban fantasy, mystery, western, epic fantasy, YA fantasy...no matter the setting or the genre--here be dragons!

My story is called "Witherwillow." In a city divided between humans and dragonfolk, P.I. Iris Kane takes a simple case and ends up with more than she bargained for. 

Available in e-book or paperback.

 

They executed Alvard Lestrange for treason.

A necromancer.

A wielder of Death Magic.

This is the story of his victims, trapped in mundane objects for three centuries.

This is the story of the lives they will, unwittingly or maliciously, destroy.

12 authors. 12 stories. 12 souls, all caught in Lestrange's web.

My story is called "The Lengths We Go" and follows a warrior-for-hire whose latest job tests her very integrity.

Available in e-book or paperback.

REREAD: The Dying of the Golden Day, Chapter 6-10

Writing life got busy, but I'm finally back with annotations for chapters 6-10 of The Dying of the Golden Day!

REREAD: The Dying of the Golden Day, Chapters 1-5

If you read my post about finishing the first draft of The Heartfriends Book 3, then you know I'm embarking on a reread of Books 1 and 2! Which I was a little bit intimidated by, to be honest. I started writing The Dying of the Golden Day in 2013 and published it in 2016, so it's been a minute since I looked closely at it.

Now that I've started to reread it, I thought it would be fun to do a short blog series with annotations on the story, like what inspired certain choices, how I drew from my experience in Kazakhstan, and notes about my writing process. I'll do about five chapters at a time, so let's begin!

The Road to Book Three--Part 1

 

It's the first update on the Heartfriends Book 3! I started writing this book over a weekend way back in October 2019 at the Broadkill Writers Resort (thanks, Jen and John of RDSP!). Then the pandemic hit early in 2020, and it took me a long time to find my footing in terms of balancing work, job searching, and writing. But a year and a half after I first began this manuscript, I'm here to say that I have a first draft! 

That said, it's the messiest draft I've ever written, and it has more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese. However, in the words of a friend, I now have "a whole skeleton of a thing," and that's the important thing! It's much easier to fix a story when you've got words on paper. Terry Pratchett said, “The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.” I've definitely accomplished this because there were a lot of elements I needed to figure out. Now I get to flesh those elements out.

The next step is to set the manuscript aside for a few months. I have two short stories I'm working on for anthologies, and those are due by the end of May and the end of June. I also want to dive back into a couple longer projects, including a mystery novel, and play around with those over the summer. Then I'm going to reread Books 1 and 2 and take notes so I can make sure I'm wrapping up all the loose threads into a (hopefully) satisfying ending. Stay tuned for more updates!

Upcoming Short Story

I have an story called "The Tower of Ithadir" in the upcoming anthology Reign of Queens from Dragon Soul Press. The anthology will be released on May 30th. 

If you haven't already, you can pre-order the Kindle version.

Creativity and Burnout

I want to be this cat.

At the end of March, I released the second book in the Heartfriends series. 127 thousand words are a lot of words no matter what genre they're in, and I put in a lot of work to get them. The smart thing to do after all that writing, editing, and proofreading would be to take a break, wouldn't it?

But I didn't. As soon as the book came out, I was on to the next project, looking into next steps for the press, and planning a way to release multiple books this coming calendar year. For my current work in progress, I signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo with a goal of 30K words. At first, the writing went fine--until it didn't, until nothing I was putting to paper was living up to my own expectations. I realized I didn't have a strong sense of my characters, which is how I like to build stories, and I realized it was because I never gave myself the time to brainstorm. I finally decided that I needed to take a break, a small one to start with. I had a few days off from work recently, so I took those days off from writing, too, in an effort to clear my head a little.

Turns out it's hard to take a break, and even after just four days, I'm chomping at the bit to get writing again when I know I'm not ready to dive in. Taking a break is especially hard in a community that often gives advice, though well-meaning, like, "You have to write every day." Because then when I don't, I start to feel like a loser. And I feel like that even when I make myself try to write because I end up just staring at the screen. If I do manage to get some words down, I know they won't be good. People might say that having something down, even if it's bad, is better than nothing, but sometimes that's just not the case.

The reason those forced words won't be good enough to even revise is because I'm burned out. Maybe creative people are especially prone to burnout anyway, but for indie authors, the pressure to produce is incredibly high and constant. All the advice says the more books we put out, the better they'll sell. The longer our backlist, the better our frontlist does. It's no wonder I want to just go, go, go even when it's clear I'm going nowhere.

This feeling is extra frustrating because I used to have good instincts for where a story should or might go. Now, often, I flounder when it comes to the plot. I don't know how to regain those instincts or what my particular answer to burnout is. But, as with everything in life, we love talking about the good aspects of the job and hiding away the bad. I figure the best way to start finding a solution is to start talking about it. So, fellow writers, do you have preferred methods for dealing with burnout? 

The Road to Book Two--Part 3

It's certainly been a while since I've talked at length about Book Two! That's partly because I've had other projects to work on, and I want to give the Sky Forest Press projects proper attention. But it's also because I get embarrassed to talk about my slow writing pace. Though it sounds so silly when I write it down, it seems like other people churn out multiple books a year while it takes me at least two years to write one epic fantasy. That sometimes makes me feel like I'm less of a writer, which I know I'm not! As Baymax said, "I am not fast." That's all there is to it.

Now for the news: Book Two is almost done! Getting close to the end means it's easier to see the end result, and I'm happy to report that I'm proud of this book. I hope readers will enjoy reading it!

Check under the cut for a look at the cover, designed by me and my friend Erica Hogan. She also created a map of the world, which is incredible and something I've been asked about often. I'm excited for you guys to see it. If you're interested in connecting with her for her map-making skillz, you can find her on Twitter.

Writing Update, NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo is one of my favorite times of the year. That's partly because it's fall, and I love the excuse to wear soft sweatshirts and drink steaming cups of tea while I write. And partly because it's a challenge. In a small way (a very small way!), I miss the deadlines of grad school, and NaNo is kind of a supersized deadline.

As much as I love it, this year, I won't be participating--at least not in the traditional sense. Instead of 50,000 words, my personal goal is to finish the current draft of book two of my epic fantasy trilogy. To get into the spirit of NaNo, though, I made myself a revision calendar. This is the rough draft. It's very messy.

I'll probably still be logging a few words on the NaNo website, so if you want to friend me, feel free. I could always use more writing buddies! My name there is pancakes16.

If, like me, you enjoy instrumental music while you write and are looking for something new, I made a writing playlist on Spotify.

Happy NaNoing!

Writing Update, June

Toward the beginning of June, I "finished" a draft of book two in my epic fantasy series. It's not quite done because there are some missing pieces and still some details I haven't decided on, like if I should add certain characters to certain scenes. But it's getting there! I was able to send it to a couple beta readers, and hopefully, they'll have some productive feedback for me relatively soon.

I have a few projects that I need to pick up again--a science fiction novel about sisters, a YA apocalypse novel, and some manuscripts that are in the very beginning stages. But I decided to go in a different direction. I took a screenwriting class in college, and every once in a while, I try to stretch those muscles. So, to do that and to cleanse my writing palate, I'm working on a screenplay for a fantasy movie. I have no idea if I'll finish it or even if it'll be any good, but I'm having fun doing it, and I might even be able to turn it into a novel one day.

I also finished and submitted a short story to an anthology. We'll see what happens with it.

Writing Update, April

I've been feeling a little burned-out recently, which is part of the reason I didn't reach my goal of 20,000 words for April's Camp Nano and instead wrote only 10,000. That's okay, though, and it takes the sci-fi manuscript up to 8,500. Plus, this time, I'm happy with those words. I think it's best to work on it without a timeline in mind for getting it finished.

The other 1,500 words belong to a short story that is currently not going anywhere. Maybe I'll pick it up again in the near future.

Better news is I'm currently revising Book II in my epic fantasy series. I'm over halfway through the manuscript as I make notes on what needs to be changed or fixed. Then I'll tackle writing the actual revisions. I'm planning on finishing that up by the end of May. After that, it goes to another beta reader, which means it'll be one step closer to publication.

So, still plodding away. The going may be slow, but it's forward going. Can't be upset with that.

Writing Update, February

February's been . . . interesting. Every once in a while, I hit a wall creatively. I think it's because I don't like to take breaks. So, I finished the draft of book two in mid-December, and by the middle of January, I'd added 30,000 words to a romance manuscript to finish it. Even though I did a lot of reading at the beginning of February to help cleanse my palate, I tried to jump straight into other projects instead of giving myself a breather, and it didn't work out that well.

My main goal was to write four short stories to submit to anthologies before March 1st. I wrote and submitted two. 50% isn't bad, but I'm a little disappointed. I also had the goal of increasing my science-fiction manuscript from 9,000 words to 30,000. I increased it to 10,000 words. At least that's some forward momentum, even if it's slow.

One thing I'm going to try to do is outline the sci-fi novel more deeply. Right now, the outline is a page long and just major story beats. It'll help to flesh that out, figure out more about the characters, and do some world-building before I really dive into the manuscript.

I've also decided to indulge myself in my pet project, which is an epic fantasy with a cast that's almost entirely female just 'cause that's what I wanna write. From the outline, it's going to be a long, long book, so the number-one rule is that I can't get consumed in it. I'm only going to write a bit here and there when I need help getting into the flow. And I'm giving myself permission for the first draft to be terrible. Because it will be, and I don't want to scare myself away from writing it because I want it to come out perfectly the first time.

So, there are my new goals! Stay tuned for whatever progress I end up making. And an extra bit of good news: I sold a short story today. It's supposed to come out tomorrow, so I'll keep you updated!

Writing Update, January

You might have noticed that I added another manuscript progress bar to the right side of the page (and yes, I'm keeping the YA post-apocalyptic one even though I haven't worked on it in a while). The first draft of book two is currently with readers, so I find myself mostly twiddling my thumbs while I wait for their comments. To keep myself productive, my main focus over the next few months is (hopefully) going to be this manuscript, tentatively titled To the Edge of the Galaxy.

While I've written sci-fi short stories, this is the first sci-fi novel I'm embarking upon. I'm more familiar with SF movies and television than I am with SF novels (and the other way around for fantasy), so I'm also going to try to prioritize reading SF over fantasy in the foreseeable future. If you have any books you think I should read, feel free to suggest them.

My goal is to finish the first draft by the end of April. I'm shooting for 70,000 words. I have almost 9,000 right now, which means approximately 20,000 words per month. That's certainly doable, providing I don't let myself get distracted by shiny new ideas. I'm posting here to keep myself accountable.

Although I have some words already, I'm very much still feeling this project out. I originally envisioned one point of view, but now I think two might serve the story better. I'm dealing with all the exciting and scary questions that come with starting a new novel. I'm excited to see where this journey will take me!

The Road to Book Two--Part 2

I'm back with an update on Book Two, tentatively titled The Shadow of the Endless Night! If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen that I posted a picture of the complete first draft. Here it is in all its glory, which isn't very much, to be honest! Right now, it stands at about 96,000 words, which is on par with what the first draft of Book One looked like. For reference, the final version of Book One is around 129,000 words.