Photo by Syd Wachs on Unsplash

Hello Again, Family, Friends, and Fans!

How is it December 3^rd already? Time has flown by. But that means I’ve been keeping busy!

As always, here is an update on what has happened this past month.

Write of Passion

As an inexperienced technology person, I have accidentally deleted all of the past issues of the Write of Passion Literary Journal. I am genuinely sorry for those whose work is no longer available. I don’t have the energy to try and restore it, and I am closing shop as a small press. Fractured Realities and Shadows Redefined will both stay available for purchase.

But this is not the end of Write of Passion. For now, it will lie dormant as I focus on school. However, it will get a reboot. It may not stay a small press, but it might pivot to something new and exciting. Stay tuned.

Writing Journey

I have been editing or writing something down almost every day and have been tracking my word count. For November, I wrote more than 30k words. That’s a lot when I was also doing schoolwork, dealing with many appointments and social gatherings, and not participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). However, this is a huge difference between the month before (12k words) and the month before (around 5k words).

I want to get this book to you as soon as possible, so I have to start taking my writing just as seriously as my education. I’m doing overhaul edits with it right now, and the trilogy for the same couple turned back into a standalone with the secondary characters’ stories as the second book in the series. I’ve never set deadlines for myself, but I think I need to start if I ever want to get this book to you.

I’m also dealing with some pretty serious burnout and some major changes in my life, such as finding a new living situation. So taking care of myself is my first priority, followed by school, then writing.

Do you have any pointers or tips to make setting deadlines easier or how to calculate deadlines? Are your deadlines flexible or solid? Do you use milestones? I would love to hear how you set your goals!

Thanks for taking the time to read this! I’ll be back on January 3rd, 2023, with another update! Stay tuned!

P.S. 2023?! Just twenty years ago, it was the eighties! I also don’t know why I think the eighties were twenty years ago when my parents hadn’t even met. I certainly do have an “old soul.”

Hello Family, Friends, and Fans!

I chose this image intentionally, because the month of October was all about scrapping ideas and making new ones. Topics this article will discuss are the course I am taking in Entrepreneurship, Write of Passion, new schedules, and, of course, my writing journey.

Entrepreneurship Class and Write of Passion

I was excited to take this class because I felt like it would help me figure out how to fix my problems with Write of Passion, and help me figure out how to get it up and publishing again.

What actually happened is it showed me that the Write of Passion literary journal and anthologies were a lot of work for very little gain. If someone dropped the ball, there would be a ton of work that someone else needed to deal with. I was honest with myself and realized that it would not be possible for me to keep running it as is.

I have some plans in the works for the future of Write of Passion, but I am not quite ready to share them yet, as I must inform some of the team of the changes, before I announce it to the public.

In short, Write of Passion will be pivoting in a new direction.

New Schedules

The month of October was an experiment where I attempted three different schedules.

The first had me working from 9 to 5 with two fifteens and a thirty-minute lunch break. As I am not a morning person and am super lucky, I do not have to keep to this schedule.

The second was adjusting the other way and being a night time person, starting work at 3:30 in the afternoon and ending around 10:30 at night. In order to keep this schedule, however, I had to drink a scary amount of caffeine a day and I was not comfortable in doing so.

The third one, like Goldilocks, was a happy medium and the perfect solution. At 11:30 in the morning, I practice my Spanish. From noon to 1:30 in the afternoon I read for fun. I then have three blocks of time separated by thirty-minute breaks that end at 8 at night and then I watch my favorite TV shows and head to bed at 10 at night.

Writing Journey

I learned that I get in the mood to write by reading a chapter or two in a writing reference book. I also figured out that I am best at writing in the evenings.

One of the writing reference books that helped me was called Paused to Prolific by K. Webster. She suggested having several projects going at once, and I have found that immensely helpful for the way my brain works. I do not get paid to recommend her book. It helped me, and I want that for others.

Now I am working through three projects and counting school writing as my last project, with school being the priority and then rewarding myself for doing schoolwork with writing on a fiction project.

I tripled the word count output I had for September this past month. And I am celebrating by, you guessed it, spending more time writing my fiction works.

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Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Merry writing, F3s!