Sneak Peek Week: January 2023

Photo by Joakim Honkasalo on Unsplash

Hello, Family, Friends, and Fans!

As a part of my goals for 2023, I decided I would do weekly posts on the 3rd, 10th, 17th, 24th, and, if applicable, the 31st of the month.

Here’s the catch: instead of making every post a “Writing Quest Update,” I have decided to make each week a different theme.

• 3rd of the month: Writing Quest Update. Features updates on my personal life, my writing life, and my professional life.
• 10th of the month: Sneek Peek Week. You will receive an excerpt or snippet from something I am working on, and I will talk about some struggles I face while writing.
• 17th of the month: Reading Fling. This will include a list of things I am reading and book recommendations.
• 24th of the month: Accountability and Productivity Proclivity. This will feature my goals and progress toward them as well as productivity methods and resources.
• 31st of the month (when applicable): Frivolous Fun. I will post a fun poll, meme, or question just for laughs.

Snippet from Poseidon’s Pearl:

Leading up to this quote, the merman Prince River has been away on a trip and has returned in need of help. He saved a human from a riptide and needs help keeping her safe. So he goes to his best friend since childhood, Harvey, who agrees to help River.

This excerpt shows a little about River and Harvey’s dynamic.

*** Subject to change when published

River’s Point of View:

I breathed out a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Harvey.”

“Anything for his Royal Highness,” he called from deep inside his room. He preferred not to have bioluminescent jellyfish, just the algae.

“I thought I told you not to call me that, sarcastic or otherwise,” I said, a smile stretching my face. It felt good to be back home.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Royal-pain-in-my-ass.”

Writing Troubles:

I started the draft of Poseidon’s Pearl back in 2017. I went on to start and stop a couple drafts before buckling down and writing the 62k manuscript in 31 writing days. These days were not consecutive, and it took me three months to pen the first draft. This manuscript was the first novel-length project I had outlined and written to completion. But I had no idea how to edit.

For years I tried a bunch of different editing methods, interspersed with some life events that left me with long stretches of time that I didn’t write.

But then, once I figured out a method that worked for me, I dove head first. I went from the third draft to the fifth draft in about a year. But I neglected drafting other projects in favor of focusing on schoolwork, Write of Passion, and dealing with the dung bomb that was my life.

This means that my creative writing muscle was atrophed. That is, I could no longer write for hours on end, churning out 1,000-2,000 words per day. Now, getting 500 words of fiction is a challenge.

Lesson learned: I need balance between drafting and editing works so I don’t have to start from the beginning in terms of my creative writing muscles.

Thanks for supporting me! Until next time, F3’s!