The Summons: Part 1

Jay was not having the best day, trudging god knew where with their hands bound behind their back. They’d given up struggling – that only resulted in exhaustion and pain. Between the bag on their head and the binder on their chest—which should have come off hours ago—breath was short. Jay didn’t know for certain why they were here but they could certainly guess. Their talent, unusual as it was, must have been discovered. Jay knew this because it wouldn’t work on their kidnappers.

As they were roughly pushed into an icy cold room, something stirred. Fear crushed the last breath of air from them. There was something in the room. Something inhuman. Jay could hear its ragged breath, hear the soft scraping of claw on stone and, most frighteningly, Jay could hear the creature’s mind.

Finally feeding time, is it? the thing wondered, thoughts oozing with gleeful malice.

“At last,” came a cool, feminine voice from directly in front of Jay. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

The mental image of white lights, electrodes and scalpels crossed their mind, as had happened many times on the journey here. Along with the image of the bus. Jay shuddered, red flashing before their eyes. How many people had been on that bus?

“Mmmph umph,” they replied, as good an expletive as they could muster through the gag.

“The subject has been… uncooperative,” said a voice to Jay’s side. One of the kidnappers from the bus—a chunky, block—headed man if they recalled right.

“As has ours,” said the feminine one. “It’s about time they met.”

“Are you sure we should be rushing into this, Caine?” the man asked.

“Why don’t you leave the thinking to someone who’s a little more than a paid grunt? I know what I’m doing.”

Jay was forced deeper into the room as the man grumbled something foul under his breath and shoved down onto a chill metal chair. Rope was threaded between their still bound hands and used to secure them tightly to the seat. What sounded like high-heeled shoes clicked across the floor towards them.

“Now, I’m sure you’re wondering why you’re here,” Caine said. “There are many people out there who’d kill to get their hands on you, to study your gift. You aren’t here as an artefact though – you’re here as a tool.”

The bag was pulled from Jay’s head, their eyes filling with dull red light. The room was long and sparse. Close to one side was a sharply dressed woman in a skirt suit—Caine, presumably—and to the other was the squarish kidnapper they expected. Both wore a band of metal around their heads, glinting in the crimson glow. Some kind of blocker? Jay wondered. In front of them, the lengthy room tapered into darkness. From the shadows, that soft scrape could be heard pacing back and forth.

“You’re going to communicate with the beast,” Caine continued. “Ask it our questions, give us its answers.”

Enough with your pomp, the creature thought, just give me the meat. Its impatience was palpable, emanating from the end of the room.

The man to Jay’s side stepped up to them, jerking their head to the side as he cut the gag free. Jay gasped for breath, still fighting their constricted chest, and flexed their aching jaw.

“What is it?” Jay asked.

“That’s none of your concern,” Caine said, pacing slowly to close the distance between them both. In a sudden movement, she grabbed a handful of Jay’s short hair and yanked their head back. The woman glared down, eyes cold and empty. “Your only concern is self-preservation. Believe me when I say it will be a difficult task that will require all of your concentration. Understand?”

Jay did their best to nod with their hair still in Caine’s bear-like grip, and they were released, head falling forward jarringly. The woman ambled to a low desk by the wall, the echoing of her heels filling the room again, and leant against it.

“Now,” she said, reaching onto the desk and clicking on a recorder. “Ask the beast its price.”

They screwed their face up. “What?”

Caine flicked a hand dismissively. “Harris.”

The man to Jay’s side balled a fist and took a step toward them.

“Okay, okay, I’m doing it!” Jay quickly added. They turned their attention from Caine to the shadows. It wasn’t really an improvement.

Scraaaape. Scraaaape. Scraaaape.

Jay pushed their fears away as best they could, focusing. It was always easier if they could see the person—or thing—but they were skilled enough that it didn’t matter much. They inhaled slowly and began to project.

What are you? Jay thought at the creature.

The pacing stopped abruptly and Jay felt eyes on them.

It speaks the infernal? the creature mused. A moment passed then the realisation struck, that Jay was in its head. Jay didn’t need to see its face to know, they could feel the change on the air – and so could their captors. Both of them straightened, becoming more alert.

Jay sensed the thing throwing itself towards them and screamed just as a deafening thunderclap rang through the room. Everything that followed sounded muffled and far away. More thunder rang out, each strike bringing a flash of light. Jay saw the thing in brief glimpses, watching as it hurled itself against an invisible barrier. In one flash Jay saw a torso, frigid blue in colour. Another revealed an arm. Despite the hue, both looked human but it was a boar-like wail that came from the darkness.

Caine calmly reached behind herself, flicking a switch on the wall. Pain seared Jay’s eyes as brilliant white light flooded the room. Their eyelids were promptly jammed shut but even then it still hurt. The creature’s wailing intensified and they could narrowly hear it scrambling about. A last single thunderclap sounded before calm descended. As their ears began to recover, Jay heard sobbing.

First my body, invaded and violated, and now my mind, came wretched thoughts. They would take from me everything and leave me a husk.

“Tell that beast the light will stay on until it has answered our questions,” Caine said. Her voice was utterly unchanged. Unfeeling.

Jay peeled their eyes open, adjusting to the blazing, clinical glare. The room was properly visible now, a long, grey rectangle of smooth concrete. At Jay’s end were a few desks with paperwork, computers, the recorder and other equipment that they didn’t recognise. The other end was devoid of any furnishings but was covered in a web of black painted runes. The symbols were not like anything Jay had seen before, sharp angled and complex. Right at the far end, huddled in the corner, was the creature.

Human in shape, its skin was vibrant azure. Its only attire was a pair of ragged black trousers, a long, slim tail protruding from the back and wrapped close to it defensively. It faced away, giving the room a good view of the ridges that ran down its back and along its arms. Its hands and feet had long, black claws. Pointed ears rose up far above its head, quivering.

“Tell it!” Caine barked, and Jay flinched.

“All right, I’m doing it,” they replied, voice cracking. They returned focus to the miserable creature.

I’m sorry, Jay thought at it. I didn’t mean to hurt you. They reached out with their mind but with the stress and anxiety they could not concentrate enough to find purchase there. They clenched their teeth, exhaling sharply.

I am a prisoner here, came the deflated reply. You experiment on me. Burn at my flesh with your light, and you do not mean to hurt me?

Look at me, Jay urged, I’m as much a prisoner as you. They kidnapped me to talk to you.

Tell them to return the darkness.

They won’t, Jay told the creature, a little of their courage seeping back. Not until you answer.

It released a long, slow whine.

“Is it cooperating?” the woman asked.

“Slowly,” Jay said.

“Ask it its price.”

Jay took a deep breath. Who are you?

They care? the thing thought bitterly.

I do.

I was Gelethil, it replied. He was strong. Fearless. Now I am a worm, caged and broken.

That makes them the pricks, not you, Jay thought to it- to him. One of his long, sweeping ears twitched. How can I get you out of here?

That ear flicked again. You would help me? I would have gladly eaten you.

A cold prickle ran over their flesh, but they forced a calm demeanour. Eat them instead.

Finally, Gelethil turned his head from the cradle of his arms. Greasy black hair framed his face and his eyes were slits, braced against the light. His thin-lipped mouth burst into a wide, menacing grin, baring pointed teeth.

I like you, he thought.


Part 2 coming soon!

Little Goals

Clipboard with a sheet of paper. Written on it is "To Do:"

It’s been a well established part of my writing life to set goals for each year to try and keep me focused, otherwise I would end up flitting from project to project and tweaking things here and there, and in the end never actually get anything done. Having goals gives me motivation to keep all the hamsters in my brain going close enough to one direction to get some things done. 

However, a year is a long time. There’s a good chance of growing stagnant, of thinking “oh, I’ll just play around with this other thing for a bit, I’ve got all year,” of just being lazy with writing altogether. Sometimes a bit of playing with other projects or spending evenings with games is all fine and good, often encouraged, however it’s pretty easy to do it more often than intended. Before you know it, it’s August and you suddenly realise you’ve made no progress at all on the things you were supposed to be working on. 

Let’s just say I’ve been guilty of that a few times… and considering that October, November, and December are taken up by NaNoWriMo plotting, writing, and recovering, it’s less than ideal. So this year to help combat that, I’ve revived a habit that I used in 2017 which was very, very helpful. Basically, it’s a bastardised version of bullet journalling, but the part of it that I’m specifically talking about here is setting monthly goals. 

It sounds obvious, but setting small monthly goals which break down the big yearly ones keeps them attainable. By ensuring that I chip away a little each month instead of in intense bursts a few times throughout the year, I get steady progress, which in turn means I’m more likely to actually achieve my big year goals. 

There are a few criteria I have for these monthly targets. Setting too many or making them too difficult to do in a month means that I’m not going to achieve those either. Small but achievable goals make me not only work on my projects, but often do more work on them than I’d planned, and without burning out. 

I nailed my January goals and did more work on my target projects that I have planned for. For February, I’ve already made a good dent in them. I’m going to work hard to keep this up because with my sights set on self publishing in the future, getting things finished has become even more important – though more on that in the future! To keep myself double accountable, I’ve decided to add these goals on to my progress board.

Do you have any methods to make your goals attainable?

Character Profile: Pippa

Digitally painted portrait of Pippa Banks, a stern looking blonde woman with short hair wearing a military uniform with a plethora of medals on her chest.

Story: The Maggie Celeste

Protagonist or Antagonist?: Protagonist (unless you ask Ethan)

Name: Hippolyta “Pippa” Banks

Age: 47

Country of Origin: Sweden

Occupation: Warship Captain

Loyalties: United Nations of Earth

Goal: Originally to take down a pirate captain, then to survive.

Morals: Always do the right thing, unless a superior orders you to do otherwise.

In unknown space and in the middle of a war, military hero Pippa “The Angel of Death” Banks finds herself the second-in-command aboard the very pirate ship she was sent to destroy. With no clue where they are or what’s going on, she must navigate life aboard the Maggie Celeste without being killed by the vengeful outlaws or losing any more of her already decimated crew.

However, as they spend more time in this new region of space, the hostility from both sides of this war has her questioning if they are truly as foreign there as they originally thought, and just how they ended up there in the first place. She finds herself in the middle of a grim plot and she needs the help of her sworn enemy, the Pirate Captain Ethan Doe, to uncover it.

That is, if she doesn’t strangle him first.

Book Review: Pacts Arcane and Otherwise by Joanna Maciejewska

It’s funny, for someone who both loves reading and loves writing, I sure am terrible at writing book reviews. I still leave something on the book’s Goodreads and Amazon pages to help the authors, but it’s never much more useful than “this is dead good, peeps”. That said, it’s something I’ve been meaning to get on for a good while and, with Joanna Maciejewska’s Pacts Arcane and Otherwise series coming to a close last week, it seemed like a good time to go for it. 

Spoiler alert: I’m not going to write reviews for books I don’t like because I don’t want to trash someone’s baby and I also don’t want to lie. Maybe I should call them book recommendations instead? Anyway-

To celebrate the release of the final book in the series, Demon Siege, I thought I would talk about where it all started and the series so far. It all starts with By The Pact, a high fantasy epic adventure starring quick witted but seemingly mediocre magic user Kamira and her good friend and professional muscle Veelk. Together they stumble across a powerful demon, imprisoned in the ancient ruins they are searching, who traps Kamira into a bargain which will either see him freed or her causing a huge disaster. Fortunately, both Kamira and Veelk are both more than they seem, and each step they take leads them closer and closer to the dark truth of their world. What ensues is a colourful and complex adventure of magic and demons and swords and snark. 

Image of the cover of novel "By the Pact" by Joanna Maciejewska, featuring two human figures looking towards a large crystal with a demon encased inside.

This is a great one for people who enjoy your classic sword and sorcery, but also those who like cutthroat political fantasy tales without crossing over into the grimdark genre. What are some of the major highlights for me, personally?

Pacts Arcane and Otherwise has a great cast of complex characters starting right with Book 1. Kamira, introduced as a low grade arcanist, grows and grows throughout and shows us what she’s made of. Her past and her future are ever expanding and fascinating, and her family history shows its influence so profoundly – despite how much she runs from it! The supporting cast hosts a great mix of altruistic princes, evil royalty, secretive societies, mysterious outcasts, and on and on. It’s a great series for people who love to debate characters – get all your friends to read and then battle to the death over who is Team Ryell and who is Team Put Ryell In The Sea! 

Also, I can’t neglect to mention the world building! Maciejewska has crafted a vibrant and real feeling world, with intricacies and details that reminded me of why I loved Patrick Rothfuss’ Kingkiller Chronicle in spite of a certain redheaded bard/wizard/etc. Kaighal is a living and breathing city with layers upon layers, and it doesn’t feel like an island. The world around it and the links are interconnected so well that it’s easy to become immersed in this magical place. 

As with most high fantasy series, the stakes rise exponentially as we move from one book to the next, but Maciejewska has crafted a story which flows without leaps or suspension of belief (y’know, apart from all the demons and magic and stuff). Every plot point has its place and every wall in the story has its foundation, which just keeps me hugely invested in what on earth is going to happen next. 

And now, the series is complete, so I get to find out! Time for me to go and keep reading, biting my nails as I wish for everyone to make it safely out the other side!

(Except you, Ryell. Get in the sea.)

The 2023 Goal Post

Two tall, slim glasses of champagne surrounded by shiny gold confetti.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Another year, another list of goals. I knew at the start of last year that I wasn’t getting much done. This year though I am hoping to be able to get a bit more done because I should have less big life events going on. So, what are my goals for this year? 

Writing Goals:

  1. The Halfway House first draft completed – This one is quite close to being done to be honest but, with other stuff going on, I need to make sure I don’t lose momentum and stop when I’m so close to the end. I have a track record of doing this if I don’t intentionally set myself goals (see Goal 2).
  2. The Fairy Godfather with betas – Now that I’ve finally admitted to myself that traditional publishing isn’t for me, my original beloved trilogy The Twyned Earth is back on the rails. Book 2 was so close to being beta ready but I became disillusioned and stopped working on it. It’s time I fixed that! 
  3. Self publishing fund – Self publishing can be as cheap or expensive as you decide for it to be. My books are a complete labour of love and I want them to go out into the world in the best possible state they can be, which unfortunately can be pretty expensive! Thanks to the current cost of living crisis, I’m not giving myself a specific numerical goal but instead committing to setting aside at least a little bit every single month. 
  4. Website overhaul – I want to go over and refresh every page on the site and, in addition to that, I want to delete or unpublish old posts that I either don’t feel are necessary anymore or that I would like to rewrite and republish to be better. I’d also like to update the appearance if I can find a layout that I like!
  5. Turn my Twyned Earth encyclopaedia digital – This was a really fun project I started ages ago. Basically a world building bible for Twyned Earth to help me keep consistency throughout the books and series, and keep track of all the fun world details that either never made it into books or had to get cut. It’s currently on paper in a binder and I want to get it typed up so that it’s both easier to change and add things to and also so I have a copy if something happens to it.

General Life Goals:

  1. Consistent Duolingo – I don’t want to say “keep a streak for the whole year” because, while that would be great, if I failed at any point I’d be demotivated to keep going. Instead I’m going to aim to get the 1000 xp badge for every month. That way at least if I fail one then I can redeem myself the next month. 
  2. Health targets – There’s a few things that I want to get back on track with that help my physical and (especially) mental health.
  3. Talk on Discord again (again) – Last time I set voice therapy with the end goal of talking on Discord to my online friends, I actually managed it. I want to get back into doing that and be more consistent this time!

That’s me for this year! All in, I think it’s a realistic amount of stuff to do while also giving me a few solid things to show at the end, which are both good for motivation. As I mentioned in my last post, I’m done with “hoping next year will be better” and instead just aiming to get more stuff done. 

I hope everyone had a lovely new year and that you’re all looking forward to whatever challenges you have set yourselves (if any)!

The 2022 Round Up

It should come as no surprise that this year has not been good for the goals I set out earlier in the year. However, while I’ve missed the mark on almost all of them, I’ve been very successful on some other stuff which was arguably quite a bit more important. For example, I no longer live in a country I hate and I own a home. I also have a lovely little cat and have passed my probation to make my new job permanent. All very successful! We’ve also had a few additional disasters this year which, while sorted now, certainly set me back. Still, let’s have a look at those goals.

A white and grey cat, curled up asleep on a keyboard, with two angry looking plushie octopus on her.
  1. The Halfway House – The goal was to get this to beta ready and we never made it to the finish line, however, I am pretty happy with the progress I did get. On the printed out line edits stage so not too far from being done. 
  2. NaNoWriMo – This was the big one for me this year and fortunately I delivered! Ten years and ten wins. Huzzah!
  3. Reading – I didn’t get through as many books as I would have liked but I did get through a fair number and I’m pleased with how diverse my selection of authors was. Not technically a win as I didn’t hit my arbitrary number but still happy with how I did and hoping to keep it up into the new year.
  4. Health stuff – Very early into October this changed to “just keep yourself together” because even that was a tall order thanks to some illegal work being done outside my home and completely knackering our water and boiler. I did keep myself together just about, even if I went backwards on a lot of the progress I’d made. Hugely disappointing but sometimes life is like that.

I think only one win out of my yearly goal list is a new personal low for me but I’m trying to look on the bright side. I got a lot of very tiring, time consuming, and essential things out of the way this year and while I’ve thoroughly had the “next year will be better” attitude beaten out of me slowly but surely since 2016, I am hopeful that next year I will at least be able to focus on writing a little more.

Future Goal: Self Publishing

I’ve been thinking a lot this last year or so about my writing and what it means to me, and even more so what my goals for it are. Writing has always been a pursuit of passion, of fun, and I didn’t even think about trying to get published when I was a kid or even when I got “serious” again after university. Somewhere along the way though I realised that I wanted to put my work out there. If I was putting all of this time and effort into it, I wanted something tangible that I could hold in my hands and be proud of. For a while, I thought traditional publishing was what I wanted and even spent a good chunk of time querying. It was during that time though that I realised something.

I had lost a lot of my passion. I wasn’t writing what I wanted to and was worrying about what an audience would want to see in my books. My themes had changed and my characters flattened. I was thinking too hard on what an agent might want and not what I might want. This was all very subconscious, so subconscious that I would only much later realise that I was losing my love of writing and of my stories. 

Some of you may recall around the end of 2020, I decided to spend NaNoWriMo writing a story that was just for me, with no intention of ever sharing it with anyone. One with every trope and trash that I loved without worry. 

That was the easiest NaNoWriMo I ever won, and only the second time I had ever actually COMPLETED the story within the month (the only other time was my very first year). This was when I started realising that I was making a mistake. Yes, I wanted my novel to become something more than a private file on my computer, but I didn’t want to think of it like a business. I didn’t want to worry about markets and trends or anyone else even liking it.  

Now this may sound like a strange conclusion, given the title of this post, as self publishing surely means you have to be even MORE business minded, right? Not necessarily. The beauty of self publishing is that you can pursue it in line with what your actual goals are.

It can be for the most hard-core of career writers, who put in their hearts and souls, and who create amazing and fruitful writing careers from it. But it can also be for the ones like me, the ones who just want the joy of sharing their story even with a handful of people. 

There are a number of benefits to self publishing that have made me realise that it is right for me, specifically.

  • I can write what I like without worrying about the market
  • Complete creative control
  • No querying to stoke my anxiety
  • I can set all of my own deadlines
  • I just want to share my work with those few who might be interested

All of these things have made me realise that self publishing is the way forward for me. It aligns with both my end goals and with the way I want to enjoy writing. It gives me control over my work and also the process. And that is why I’m really pleased to finally say out loud, even though I know that there’s a lot of work ahead, that I’m going to do it.

I am going to self publish my work.

Long width-wise image of two stacked bookshelves filled with books.

NaNoWriMo – Ten Years, Ten Wins

This post is a few days early considering it’s not quite the end of November yet, but I have the exciting news already so let’s go! As we approach the end of the yearly madness, let’s have a look at how I did.

First up – I won! Woo hoo! Ten years in a row doing NaNoWriMo and ten wins. I’m very happy with that! Feels weird to think that I’ve done this every year for almost a third of my life but I also couldn’t imagine my year without it. I look forward to it every year and always appreciate the challenge and inspiration that it brings me. Even in the hardest years (2021 being a prime example), I’ve still managed to get myself writing thanks to this event. So, to the NaNoWriMo team, thank you.

Yellow banner with drawn floral designs with the text: "Spoonwood for perseverence. WINNER. NaNoWriMo2022"

I anticipated this being a tough year but it actually went very smoothly, despite petering out a bit towards the end of the 50k. I was writing a story, The Maggie Celeste, that I had thought about a lot for several years and I was very hyped for my ten-year anniversary. Things slowed down around the middle of the month, partly because my ridiculous October meant that I didn’t have time to plan more than the first third of the book properly and partly because of Game Freak’s notorious habit of releasing new Pokemon games in the middle of November. That said, I made my way to the 50k mark fairly comfortably, which is nice since after That October I really didn’t want to burn myself out all through November.

A graph showing the date from the start of November to the end of November on the x axis, and word count on the y axis. A grey line shows the linear "on track" word count per day and a blue wiggly line shows my actual progress. The blue starts high above the grey and rising, until around mid November when it gets very close to 50k and becomes almost flat.

As for the story, I’m pretty happy with the start but as soon as I ran out of my plan it all started coming off the rails a bit. Still, I have a good thirty thousand words of it that I’m happy with and now I have the time to sit and plot out the rest. At the very least, I got some nice scenes and character development out of the latter half as well so even if I scrap a lot of it, it shouldn’t feel like time wasted.

What comes next?

Well after my last couple of years which have been rough, I’ve made some big decisions which I’ll talk about later but for now my priorities are as follows:

  • Finish getting The Halfway House beta ready. Pretty close to this one, just on the line edit stage for it.
  • Get The Fairy Godfather beta ready. Again, this one got close to done but I got disillusioned with the series a while back thanks to where my head was at. I’m in a better place now and I refuse to let this trilogy disappear into the depths of draft hell.
  • Do some Through the Black touch ups. Speaking of the Twyned Earth trilogy, there are a couple of things I want to tweak in this manuscript that I’ve noticed which I’d like to get sorted.

There’s a few things I’m working on that aren’t novel related too that I’ll be tinkering with in the background, the main one being giving my website a nice overhaul! It’s been quite stagnant around here since I set up shop in 2012 (oh my god, really?) and a lot of the pages need a refresh. This includes adding in some art galleries! I was originally planning on using InkBlot for this, which I still will, but I didn’t realise that unlike some other art hosting sites you need to have an account to view. Now that I’ve figured out how to make a gallery here without it looking terrible, I think it will be nice to be able to have everything all together.

And that’s it from me! I hope you’ve all had an excellent November. 

Anyone else out there doing NaNoWriMo? How did you do? Remember – any words at all is more than you had, and that’s a win.

Halfway There, NaNoWriMo 2022

Wooooaaahhh, we’re half way there!

Uh, I mean, here we are at the halfway mark for NaNoWriMo 2022! How’s it going you ask? Well, on paper, very good so far. It’s exactly halfway through and I am at 38,814 words out of the end goal of 50,000. Nice. I even got around to setting up my project’s page, though it needs some love when the month is done. However, there are two major challenges up ahead.

Challenge number one: I’ve run out of plan. Yup, not a good one for me. I’m not so good without a plan but thanks to how awful my October was I never got further than section two, which means a few days ago I ran out. Now all I’ve got is three sentences describing what happens in the last three sections of the book. It’s going to be rough from here. Oh boy, it is going to be rough.

So what’s the other issue? GameFreak, my old friend, is back at its usual tricks of releasing a new Pokemon game right in the middle of November. They really do make a habit of this though. It seems almost malicious at this point.

Still, I have set myself in good stead for the rest of the month. I’m at the point where I need less than 800 words per day to finish. This is certainly doable, provided I don’t run into too many problems with the story. The problem is that if I can do, it could really stall me out. This is year ten though, I am determined to make it and this head start has just got me even more encouraged.

I hope all my fellow NaNoWriMo-ers out there are having a good month! And the regular reminder that, even though I am determined to hit this goal, it’s not the end of the world if you don’t. It’s just about getting yourself kickstarted. 

Got some words done this month? That’s a success right there.

Happy writing, everyone! 

(P.S. I’m going for the fire starter…)

The Ten Year Streak

This year marks my 10th year doing NaNoWriMo and, if I do well, it will end with a 10 year win streak. While exciting, I’m coming into it with challenges. October 2022 was unbelievably difficult for a multitude of reasons. It was just one of those months where EVERYTHING went wrong and there was no rest from the disasters. I’m really, really hoping that November eases up on me. God knows I need it.

Not only that, but this will be my first ever year without Twitter. As a platform, I could leave it any moment. The issue is I’ve made some great writing friends on there from the very first year, people who I’ve met in real life now, people who I’ve stuck with for 10 years. It’s going to be strange doing NaNoWriMo without those who were there at the start, cheering on my progress and sharing theirs with me. Of course I have other ways of contact but it’s not quite the same as having a live feed of everyone sharing their highs and lows, their WIPLines and their story teases. 

Still, I’m determined that nothing will stop me. This year, I’m working on a sci-fi for the first time in a long time! I’m also off to a strong start, which will hopefully give me the momentum to keep pushing through if things do get tough. I’ll make a proper page for my story at some point but, for now, you can follow my progress and read a (very hastily written blurb) here: https://nanowrimo.org/participants/celuth/projects/the-maggie-celeste

For anyone who’s on there, I’ve also joined Mastodon to try and fill the void of similarly afflicted writers shrieking about their novels! You can find me at @CMSchofield@writing.exchange

Good writing, everyone!