#my writing goals 2023
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2023 writing goals :’)
i was tagged by @beardyboyzx & @lunarheslwt to share some of my writing goals for this upcoming year so here are five writing goals of mine:
1) finish half of my wips! at the moment, this includes my cinderella au, my girl direction sequel & my christmas fic sequel. trying to get all the sequels done asap so i can really start on fics that i’ve either only done outlines for or have begun the first draft for.
2) beta more fics! not sure if this counts as a writing goal specifically, but since i started writing more, i’ve ended up betaing less -- guess that’s kinda how it goes lol. but i do want to beta more again this year! i love helping people brainstorm, bouncing ideas off of each other, being a cheerleader for someone, being a thorough beta/editor, etc.
3) i want to write fics that are different than what i normally write. i’ve always wanted to write fics that require a bit more world building and/or slow burn, or like historical AUs. i just have never done so because i’m too impatient to write slow burns & i can never tell if i’m rambling or world building LMAO. but i want to try!!
4. write for more fic fests. i’ve always thought it would be really cool to only write for fic fests, but obviously i’ve written fics that weren’t just for fests last year as well so that thought kinda went out the door lol so i want to write for more fests this year. in 2022, i wrote for 4 fests. this year, i want to match that again -- or at least try to.
5. i said this in my self evaluation, but i want to get better at writing smut. hopefully the participating in writing in some fests will help assist with that lol. if anyone has any advice for me, i’d love to hear it!
in other news for 2023, the first round of the @notjustsmutficfest will be posting this year & although there’s no longer a deadline to sign up or post to the collection, hopefully we’ll get some works for the @harryislouisbabyficfest this year as well!
lastly, i made a google form for people to submit tips, hacks, reminders, etc that they’ve learned to help others navigate ao3! these can be niche tricks you’ve learned over the years, tips for newbies, reminders for writers and/or readers. you can submit things regarding fests, tagging, fics, how to link peoples’ socials (example: for betas or arists), etc. there’s no deadline to submit these, but i’ll create a tumblr post once i have a few submissions & will continuously add onto it whenever i get new submissions! i’ve just never seen anyone do something like this before & i thought it could be helpful to everyone, so if anyone would like to contribute, i’d love for you to! :)
people who’s writing goals i’d love to see: @allwaswell16 @fallinglikethis @kingsofeverything @lululawrence @loveislarryislove @infinitelymint @ireallysawanangel @thedevilinmybrain @momrryrights @daggerandrose @zanniscaramouche @justanothershadeofblue @neondiamond @indiaalphawhiskey @twopoppies @homosociallyyours @gaycousinlarry @so-why-let-your-voice-be-tamed @panye @chloehl10 & anyone else who wants to post theirs as well !!
#my writing#tags and challenges#excited to see what everyone puts out this year !!#excited to get my fics finished too lol#my writing goals 2023
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Have I been doing NaNoWriMo? Yeah. But I haven't actually been logging in there. Because it's confusing from my phone and idk how to update for past days. So I've been tracking my progress in Excel instead and I can have as many fun charts as I want!!
#nanowrimo#nano#nano 2023#nanowrimo 2023#writers things#national novel writing month#I use Reedsy as my writing program and it tracks word counts for individual days and goals
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life update! my name is on tv again but i cannot enjoy it because my bones are turning into jelly and i have dislocated ribs from sleeping funny. but now i have a funny joke about going to the hospital to put my baby back baby back baby back ribs back into place 😎 👍🏾 jester’s privilege!
#walkie talkie.#see you in 2025 internet 🫡#*actually i will be back in a month to do my 2023 writing/life goal round up#but then after that: goodbye internet
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Dreamling Week Day 2 - Dragons
Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to finish out the fic I wanted for today's prompt, but I do have a snippet I'm happy to share! Hope y'all enjoy it while I kick my butt into gear for the rest of the week!
There are trespassers in his mountains. Dream can smell their foul odor from miles away.
He shifts quickly into his dragon form, then lets out a bellowing roar, hoping that this warning will scare them off. When he smells them getting closer, he holds his fire in his mouth, manifesting smoke to release through his nostrils and waft through the trees. Still, the wretched things persist with making their way through the pathway up his mountain.
Dream would find himself impressed with their tenacity if he did not hold so much distaste for human life.
It has not always been this way. Once dragons and humans easily coexisted amongst one another. Dream himself had settled within a village teeming with creative humans who spent their time weaving songs and stories. They were often delighted by his ability to shift from dragon to human form, and the children in particular would beg and plead to ride on his back. It was a period when humanity had been at its best, he remembers, but it was not a time meant to last.
As humans propagated themselves across the lands, like any other creature, they began to fight for territory rights. Soon the landscape was torn apart by war and famine, and many of Dream’s kind had been caught unwillingly in the fray, killed or captured by humans wishing to use them to serve their own violent needs.
Dream has not seen another one of his kind in over a millennia. He is unsure if he ever will again.
#dreamling#dreamling week 2023#dreamling week#dream x hob#seiya writes#very excited to contribute to the growing pile of dragon aus#gonna make it my goal to finally read flatter the mountain tops for today! and hopefully any other dragon aus out there#this is an invite to send me recs!#seiya writes dreamling
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wrote 1352 words today, feeling like nano might be possible. i write when i don't want to and eventually i have a good idea or two and manage to make some words up.
#writing#writeblr#nanowrimo 2023#we'll see how nano goes#my goal is 50k but my minimum happy goal is 30k
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Vinny's 2023 fics!!
I'm so proud of all the writing I did in 2023!! I learned so much that I'm so excited to apply to my projects for 2024 <3
Not Whole, Not Holy
Rating: Explicit
Word count: 2,752
Moody, quiet, and introspective, this piece explores endverse!Cas and endverse!Dean find a little bit of solace in each other among their crumbling world. Best described by the tag: Not hurt/comfort, not hurt/no comfort, but some secret third thing.
A Midsummer Night's Dean
Rating: Teen+
Word count: 16,948
A wild ride of a casefic loosely based on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Featuring love potions, Dean having chronic foot-in-mouth-disease, Cas being SO down bad it's dangerous, and Sam wanting to be literally anywhere else but here. I've been told this fic has made people laugh so hard, it has awoken children and brought concerned family members a'knocking on doors.
Innervate
A series currently containing two fics, with a few more additions planned! This series follows Cas' developing relationship to his body and how he navigates through the world with it. It's full of fun science and anatomy, alternate angel lore, and LOTS of UST between Dean and Cas (don't worry, it will get resolved... eventually lol. This is a series-long slow burn)
Check out Prelude as a sampler for vibes
(full disclosure-- this was a WIP for a LOOOOOONG time so while this fic was uploaded in 2023 the writing is far older than that)
Then for a more cohesive story (and tbqh way stronger writing), pop on over to Ask Me Why My Heart's Inside My Throat
Spellbound
Rating: Explicit
Word count: 4,764
A one-shot exploring the Master/Apprentice relationship of Sam and Rowena. Let's be real here. They have insane magic sex and I feel like not enough ppl talk about it. EYE barely even scratched the surface with this one. The quickest summary I got for this one: Sam's cardinal virtue is that one a hot woman speaks, he listens.
Long Black Cloud Coming Down
Rating: Gen
Word Count: 3,540
Taking place prior to s1, teen!Dean has to act quick and think fast when Sammy suddenly comes down with a fever. He can't let his thoughts race too far though, or he just might start believing that whatever's going on is more than just a fever and a snow storm.
#vinny types#vinny writes#spn fic#hilarious to me how i'm p sure the only fic i actually wrote AND published in 2023 is Black Cloud. actually AMND too#everything else had been a WIP for FIVEVER#tbf tho i put a lot of stuff on pause to work on Cell Service#and it was a goal of mine to get more of my WIPs complete before working on other big projects#which i did! save for AMND tho lmao#the idea for AMND hit me like a TRUCK and i just had to roll with it#i love it so much tho. i know we're not supposed to have favorites buuuuuuuuuut if you were going to read any one from this list#actually i'd say go read Black Cloud bc the writing is strongest#but if you want to have a silly goofy time go read AMND#but tbh im also really proud of getting Heart uploaded bc that one ooooooooh that one was a toughie#so. many. rewrites#i'll probably work on the next part of innervate when i'm stuck on Ganked#Spellbound and Black Cloud were both 'im motivated to write but having writers block on Ganked' uploads lol#im uh. HOPING to get Ganked uploaded within the year#but who knows. I want to be thorough with this one so it's taking me a while
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My friends: how’s it going?
me: *sobbing* it’s done. It’s finally DONE. I can REST.
November is my favorite month of the year I’m about to go into a coma for the first few days of December, happy NaNoWriMo everybody 🫡
#nanowrimo#nano 2023#writing#writers on tumblr#national novel writing month#my personal goal was 80k#But the darn book was longer#Nearly cried finishing the last chapter#Not because it was good just because I was so ready to be DONE#Hallelujah merry Christmas everybody
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nanowrimo day twenty eight: wrote a very silly scene and I'm not sure if I'm proud of it
#it's better to write it down than to lose it forever though#or is it ?#my silly gays#I don't even know if I'm going to use that scene#I don't know which scenes I'm using there's just.#so much happening#and nothing is happening at the same time#I just like thinking about them being silly and then fighting and then being silly again okay#nanowrimo#nanowrimo 2023#i might have 10k by the end of this month#that's my goal#i don't talk about numbers but yeah#i fucking hate numbers#unless it's 8675309#jeeeeenny i've got your number#iiiiii need to make you miiiiine#jeeeeeenny don't change your number
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December 24: Miller/Bryan, Boyfriends
This is literally the least Christmas-y thing I could write on Christmas Eve but I just had the urge to write some angsty Miller/Bryan stuff instead of trying to do fluff. I'm just not in the fluff mood.
This is in the same universe as this scene, is extremely self-indulgent, and may or may not be good, but it was fun.
Canon-divergent, S3-era, ~760 words, some sexual content
Written in 22 minutes
*
When they were dating on the Ark, they would fantasize often about domesticity. They'd find quarters together as soon as they turned eighteen, either on Alpha or on Farm, or anywhere else that would take them; they'd sleep together in a bed big enough for two. They'd develop some sort of morning routine. Their clothes would get mixed up. They'd kiss at every threshold, before parting, upon meeting.
Miller was a damned romantic in those days too: trading stolen goods for extra ration points and extra ration points for private time in the mess and a dinner for two; memorizing love sonnets; handing Bryan sprigs of plants from the fields on Farm as if they were bouquets. Some of the gestures made Bryan laugh. But always with such fondness. And after Miller was arrested, they promised to stay faithful—Bryan promised to visit and promised to wait—and so everyone in the Sky Box said they were married. That was the word for couples who believed in a future like that. Miller never told anyone that he proposed for real, with a bit of junk metal fashioned into a ring, as earnest and as quiet and as serious as he'd ever been in his life, never told a single soul that Bryan said yes. Yes Miller would live and as soon as he got out, they'd be married in Miller's father's quarters and afterwards, never separated ever again.
Later, when Bellamy asks, he says he has a boyfriend. Fiancé seems too heavy somehow, like maybe Bellamy will read it as kids playing dress up, or only frown as he does at Sky Box slang he never got the hang of.
It's easier to live with himself, too, when he's got a boyfriend up there or out there or possibly dead, than to let himself go on spinning fantasies about the love of his life.
It's not domestic now and it's not sweet either, or soft, or easy, when they don't know what to say to each other, so every time they meet, they just fuck. Bryan hangs out with Farm mostly, without saying they're family in so many words. Miller’s got his dropship survivors. Thy almost never talk about that now. The scar on his shoulder aches when it's about to rain, and when he puts on the Guard jacket, it feels heavy on his shoulders.
Bryan's assigned quarters in some of the new outbuildings, where they've stuck the rest of the station because all the rooms in Alpha have already been divided up. But it's not hard to sneak over, hardly more of a challenge to sneak Bryan over to his. Bellamy practically lives at Gina's now. Their bed is a double, and it's easy to shove Bryan down on it.
They never get fully undressed and they lie to themselves and say it's because it takes too long, and they need something hot and hard and now, they miss each other so goddamn much. It doesn't hurt the way that sex always hurt in crowded spaces up on the Ark: banged elbow in the supply closet, ache in his back from trying to twist around too much in his single bed, and then he couldn't even catch his breath after, because soon his father would be home. He might say it hurts in a worse way now, like poking an old bruise. Old man, Bryan says, half-smiling, when his heart starts beating too fast and his lungs burn but he's thinking about Bellamy giving him a hand job in this same bed and then about how many people have fucked in it over the last 100 years, and how little it matters, sentimentality like that.
He can feel Bryan's palm pressed close against him, that moment of pressure before his fingers start scrambling for Miller's zip, and he thinks that if he's breathing in the air from Bryan's lungs right now, open mouth to open mouth and the darting slick press of tongues, maybe he's also hearing Bryan's heart in his ears. Maybe they are one person. Maybe that's the rhythm he can feel coming of its own accord into his hips, as Bryan straddles on top of him, and they move as if they were fucking, and everything else drowns out and is still.
They haven't mentioned the word marriage since their reunion at the settlement gates. Not even once. No words like boyfriends or domesticity or even home, but again and again he huffs you into Bryan's mouth: you and want and need. You, you, you.
#the 100#nathan miller#bryan the 100#bryan#miller x bryan#briller#briller fanfiction#mine#my writing#the year 2023#2023: free write#the first fic is probably better but the goal here wasn't good it was fun for me#can't emphasize that enough
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I try to not define myself by this but it looks so depressing.
I decided that I'll consider NaNoWriMo a success even if I only write one sentence but this is hard to look at. At the same time I am glad I've even written this much.
Anyone else struggling with this, I hope you know you're not alone and it's okay to go at your own pace! NaNo is not achiavable for some and it's fine if you're one of them. It's also totally fine if you succeeded last year and not this year. You are great!
#nanowrimo#nano 2023#national novel writing month#nanowrimo 2023#nano#nano word count#word count#uplifting#its also difficult for me cuz my language uses fewer words#so the english 50k goal is more like 40k for me
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I crave the feeling that comes with the pain of pushing your limits, a religious penance. For who? I don’t know, I don’t think any God cares if I did yoga today or not.
Lola James
#substack#my writing#lola james#poetry#writer#writing#new years resolution#new years reflections#new years resolutions#goals#2023 goals#writerblr#essay#patti smith#orion vanessa#orion carloto#joan didion#jane birkin#Eve Babitz#maggie nelson#Anais Nïn#words#kind words#be kind to yourself#be kind to your mind#kindness#poets on tumblr#writers on tumblr
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NaNoWriMo day 8 complete!!
1,700/1,667 words done
32% of the way though Nano
16,327 in Nano so far
57,818 words done in my total manuscript
Feeling so good about this you guys!!!
#im thinking in terms of 'when' instead of 'if' i finish!!#my original goal was draft 1 done by Christmas#im probably gonna finish by then end of November instead!!!#i am loving nano#nanowrimo 2023#nanowrimo#writers#writers on tumblr#writers things#writing#national novel writing month#nano 2023
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my personal and deranged version of nanowrimo (fanowrimo) begins tomorrow! I am going to finish tcba by the end of the year!
#I'm not holding myself to 50k bc that's *actually* deranged#I literally cannot write that fast#I'm seriously such a slow writer#1.6k a day would kill me#but I can hold to my goal of end-of-year completion I think#rozisms#tcba#fanowrimo 2023
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normally i never make resolutions because im of the opinion that you can change your life whenever you want and technically speaking any day of the year can be the start of a new year. that being said. my past year was kind of garbage.
so! i have decided to be more keen on new years resolutions, especially making ones that will hopefully make me feel better if something i can't control affects me negatively. i actually made a huge list of resolutions, more than i put here, that all kind of boil down to trying out ways to make my life more comfortable and fulfilling for myself and the people around me.
happy new year everybody i hope this year treats us all kindly :)
#new year's resolutions#new year's resolutions 2023#my art#peach stuff#also i know it's a scientific fact that if you write your goals down you're more likely to achieve them#have i ever written my goals down if i wasn't forced to before? no. and maybe that's why ive been so shit at reaching my goals<3#also about the goal that's about finding a hobby that uses my hands: ive realized recently that both of my main hobbies#(reading and writing) are both very brain-heavy things to do. like those are both two things that require a lot Being Inside My Head#and you know! maybe ive realized that it's Not Good to be in my head so much!#so i want to find a more tactile hobby that won't require so much brain time and can connect me more with the physical world#also i drew this all in ms paint with my new laptop and laptop pen and maybe i just don't understand ms paint enough#but this was kind of a bitch to draw. where is the layer function. why was my laptop screen still registering my skin when i was using pen#but still i like how it looks. especially the peach and my hair. the peach just because it looks cute and peach-like#and i think this is the first time ive drawn/colored my hair since i died it this past summer so it was fun to experiment with#how to make it accurate but still cohesive with the colors i already had down#my hair is actually variations on an auburn sort of shade since its faded from a really shitty (self-done) red dye job#but the pink here is fun :)#anyway. that's all
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[image description: a photograph of a wave crashing against the ocean. to the right, in a bold serif font, reads “2023 writing update” /end id]
dallon’s 2022 year in review + 2023 plans 🧍
Hehe so. I went back and forth on whether or not I’d make a “year in review” writing update because whilst I’m proud of what I achieved, this year SUCKED for my personal life and I had to sacrifice a lot of writing goals because of that (which also like, doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. But it still bummed me out lol). Writing did help me cope though. It’s funny because on paper this would be one of my more “successful” writing years, but really all my writing had to do this year was help keep me going lol, the rest feels like a bonus. I did want to honour what I did achieve though, because writing is one of the few positives of this year and I’m trying to be positive!
Learnt to prioritise my personal projects. Finding joy in WIPs that I write that nobody will see, or WIPs that I’ll never publish but find joy in sharing my journey with it, has really been the most valuable part of this year. Made dealing with submissions and rejections and self doubt much easier and reminded me why I write in the first place
Got my first publication! I had two short stories and one flash piece published. Getting to walk into a store and pick up a magazine that had my work in was so surreal and cool. I also got my first writing grant (love The White Pube x) and my first award nomination (the Pushcart??), two things I did not expect to happen in my first year of submitting lol! And, more importantly, I put myself out there in the first place, and let myself be rejected
I won NaNoWriMo, something I thought was totally inaccessible to me before. I’ll probably never write 50k in a month again, but it was a super fun experience and I learnt a lot from it!
I think 2020-21 was my “growing pains era” with writing and in 2022 I finally solidified what I want to write, figured out how to fix WIPs I was struggling with.
If you’re curious about the projects I’m working on in 2023, there’s a very long ramble about all of them under the cut!
[image description: a shot of two hands against a dull purple background, reaching for one another from either ends of the image. their index fingers are almost touching. in the top left corner, in a bold serif font, reads “revelations, revelations” /end id]
SHE’S BACKKKKKKK
Love of my life, bane of my existence for so long, I spent basically all of 2021 fighting with this project. In 2022 all I did was brainstorm and oh, oh I brainstormed.
The most important parts of saving this project was realising that 1) I will never publish any RR novel (That being said I did publish two short stories inspired by the RR verse LOL. But that’s all the world is getting unless I write a secret Beaulix or Dorothy/Jolie short story) and 2) This is not one novel, this is just a whole universe that lives in my head rent free and sometimes I feel less like the author and more like I am merely observing it like a medieval scribe. I call it the RR Verse because RR is still what started it all, but I’ve had so much fun writing stories beyond this novel. I have like, five novel ideas within this universe LOL! Help! This is intentional because, for now, I can’t imagine ever being done with this world
I really do think that RR and the RR verse is like My Special Project. It’s my baby even though it caused me so, so much trouble for so long lol. I just can’t let go of it and whilst I love all my projects, I have a special love for this one. Like it just enamours me in a certain way and the characters and world feel so real to me. Love having your own work be part of your special interest! I can hyperfixate on all my projects and feel that deep, probably-autism-fuelled loved for them, but I need have projects that purely exist to indulge in that, which for me is the RR Verse and Winter’s Slaughter. This is not a project I’m trying to finish any time quickly or get “perfect”. In fact, I’d happily start the novel over and over again, I love Felix and Dorothy LOL
I also think writing The Rabbit Knows How To Bury Itself, a short story about Felix and Dorothy, helped with RR because that short story is very much the darker pushed-to-their-limits imagining of both of them. Felix at his lowest, doing drugs in the bathtub, and Dorothy wanting to be the only one capable of hurting him but only hurting herself when she realises she can’t not love him. I almost feel like that short story is like, Dorothy’s worst nightmare scenario of what would happen to her brother so writing it was like a psychoanalysis project which I seriously recommend! I don’t think you have to push a character to their deepest, darkest limits for their arc to be compelling, but knowing how far you could push a character, how dark their story could get and what it could look like, imo informs how you write them in their actual story.
2023 plan for RR the novel is to just. Write it! See what I get out of it! I’m in my RR hyperfixation era so this is what I’ll start the year with, especially since my priority right now is writing short fiction to submit, so it’d be nice to have a fun little hyperfixation moment on the side. And I’ll definitely share a lot about it! It’s so fun now! Dorothy and Felix are more weird and off-putting than ever! Dorothy likes to break into rich people’s houses just to look around! Felix ruins her vibe by actually stealing shit! Normal sibling behaviour. NGL I still don’t know how to explain what this story is “about” plot wise, but this is part of a basic summary I wrote:
About trying to process and heal from trauma but being terrified of it because you don’t know who you are without your trauma and coping mechanisms. About realising that you can’t truly detach yourself from those things. About being terrified of the theoretical violence you perceive yourself to be capable of. About re-understanding what love can look like. Also about the moon, space travel, cold coffee, parties, blue hour, piano music, blurry film photos and birthday cake.
I love these two. Their love for each other endures everything, even the times they want to kill one another. Nobody is doing it like them. Also their birthday is on Jan 11th so happy early birthday <3
[image description: a cropped image of two arcade machines. in the top right corner, in a bold serif font, reads “lover boy” /end id]
AND WE ARE NOT DONE TALKING ABOUT THE RR VERSE! Lover Boy is technically Book #2 if you consider Revelations, Revelations Book #1. It’s set just under a year later and is technically the Beaulix Novel (who break up at the end of RR, surprise! But it’s because they both are like “I’ve realised I love you and that is terrifying me because I don’t think I’m in a place where I can love like this”), but sometimes it just feels like the Beau Novel! Beau is like a best friend to me and I love him so much, I had so much fun writing in his POV in Winter’s Slaughter that it just solidified my need to let him have His Moment. He’s sweet, funny, stubborn, emotional, confused, anxious, sleepy, he’s everything to me. I’m so obsessed with his narrative that I have barely figured out how he and Felix actually get back together LOL. We do get Felix’s POV too, but I won’t know exactly how that’ll look like until I’ve written more of RR. All I can say is he’s a bit more Normal in this one lol! He’s experienced growth <3 He finds himself <3
A big part of Beau’s narrative is reconciling with his need and yearning for romantic love. That yes, he doesn’t need romance, he can find love and fulfilment in other parts of his life, and he does! But that doesn’t take away from his yearning for this specific type of love. And it’s important to remember that Beau is a character who grew up gay in the 60s-80s. For him to yearn for, to reach out for romantic love in spite of everything is super important! He’s the type of person whose biggest dream as a kid was being prom king and his first heartbreak was realising that he couldn’t be prom king in the way he truly wants to be. Personally I think he deserves the world and more. He also has a little brother with a 15 year age gap, and their relationship warms my heart and tears it in two at the same time.
Revelations, Revelations feels like a night time novel and Lover Boy feels like a daytime novel. This novel feels like a hug, but like a hug after crying. Part of the summary:
1987-1988. Follows Beau and Felix when they decide to rekindle their friendship after time away, and the ways they’re too scared to rekindle the relationship part. Also follows Beau as he tries to navigate moving away from home, tries understand why sometimes colours are too loud and sounds are too bright, tries to get some sleep and get better at breathing techniques, tries to spend as much time with his little brother, and tries to maintain his Donkey Kong high score. Also Felix has a “mild” gender crisis. About healing but we jump right into the middle of it. About how it feels to reach out for romantic love when it’s almost always felt unreachable. Also about karaoke, arcade games, bowling alleys, home videos, golden hour, glitter, the ocean and blue raspberry slushies.
My 2023 plan for this one is that I am not waiting to finish Revelations, Revelations to start Lover Boy. I wanna work both on them at the same time depending on which one compels me the most in that moment. Will I finish either of them? No! Am I gonna have fun? Hell yeah
[image description: shot of a clear, starry night sky, with silhouettes of trees on either side. on the left hand side, in a bold serif font, reads “winter’s slaughter” /end id]
AND WE ARE NOT DONE TALKING ABOUT THE RR CHARACTERS, JUST IN A DIFFERENT UNIVERSE THIS TIME!
Not gonna lie I still haven’t read most of the 50k I wrote in November and I’m undecided on if I want to return to it via editing first or just pushing through with the draft. I’m conflicted! But I have lots of fun plot ideas and oh, this book is gonna be a giant and there’ll probably be a book #2 oops! The 2023 plan for this one is just “whenever the apocalypse hyperfixation hits”. Which I don’t know when that’ll happen, but it more than likely will! Once I actually look at the manuscript again I’ll do a proper update because oh there is plot to update on! Mainly using this section to highlight what is one of my favourite passages I wrote not just in Nano, but the whole year?
When Valentine found the collection of half-empty perfume bottles he had to take them. He likes to look at the empty space in the glass and wonder what stories could fill it up, maybe dinner dates or graduations or weddings or funerals or high-effort grocery store trips. What drew him to the train station were the ticket stubs scattered under the benches, on the ground of the decayed platform. He tried to explain this to Klaus, once, who looked at him, that glint of childhood wonder in his eye. Well, he’d said, nobody got rid of dinosaur bones just because there were no dinosaurs left to grieve them. And for Valentine, exploring the skeleton buildings that dot the world, specifically for what was left behind, is an act of deviance against the Devouring. This is how he remembers people, even if he never knew them. He once found the rib cage of a girl in the violet roller skates she left under her bed. Found the lungs of her mother in the attic, the box of forgotten goggles and swim meet trophies from 1986. So many people want to forget what the Devouring left behind; too many people want to forget the parts of themselves they let be devoured.
Also going to take the chance to soft launch one of my favourite characters I created this year: Cal, my emotionally volatile, traumatised, slutty transmasc king. He is everything to me to the point where I had planned for him to die and now I don’t know if I can bring myself to do it. He also has a ~messy emotionally intimate friends with benefits thing~ with Felix (this does not conflict Beaulix at all. We are not about that over here!), which is unsurprising considering their first meeting is literally them fighting in a Church but then it gets kinda homoerotic? And then kinda tender? Like look at this shit
“Felix.”
“Sorry about the cheek, Felix.” It doesn’t sound genuine. Cal says sorry like it’s a stalemate. But they also reach out, wipe the blood off with their thumb. And the scariest part is how gentle it feels, against all his sharpness.
[image description: a photo of ocean waves against a cliffside. in the bottom left corner, in a bold serif font, reads “ammonites for eyes” /end id]
OKAY WE ARE DONE TALKING ABOUT RR!
Ammonites For Eyes is a novel I introduced on here earlier in the year under the title I Am Made Of Indigo, about a trans man who moves back to his coastal hometown and has to reckon with his closeted identity when he becomes a new maternal figure for his younger sister. I actually started it in the summer and was super excited by it! But you see, this is where all we can do is laugh, because this novel is about the protagonists grief after the death of his mother, and guess what happened to me three months after starting this book! I had planned my whole second half of the year around writing this and had to immediately stop because, oh my god is this novel Apollo’s curse of prophecy?? I considered shelving it for a while which was a massive bummer because I am enamoured with the story, the world, the characters, and want this to be my debut. But I’ve gotten to a point where writing this feels like a necessity and I can’t see anything else being my debut. This is absolutely going to be the one project where I let myself claw out the deepest parts of grief and yeah, absolutely wish I wasn’t able to do that but I know that the final project that comes from it is gonna be something special. This will probably be my main project for most of the year, but also the one I talk least about because 1) planning to publish it and 2) those writing updates would not be fun to read lmaooooo. But super excited to write this! Definitely won’t be able to write it for long periods of time, but I hope to get a good chunk of it drafted, and if I end up doing my MA this year I’d like to work on this for it.
I don’t have a lot to say about the story itself, but my favourite little detail is that the protagonist works at a fossil shop that has a T-Rex skull displayed in the window who ends up becoming? A whole character? The protagonist talks to the skull and low key treats it like his therapist. So maybe this book IS about the horrors, but it’s also about the T-Rex skull. There’s a balance here
[image description: a close up image of the top of a persons back, with their hand holding their left shoulder. the image is tinted blue and green. in the left corner, in a bold serif font, reads “eulogy for the burnings” /end id]
What’s this!! I’ve only talked about this novel once, on my old blog, at the end of a writing update, but this is an idea that’s been slowly marinating in my brain for a while and in 2023 I’d like for it to marinate more, maybe even write some of it. This follows a man who tracks down his distant half-brother and becomes obsessed with him, whilst said brother is a pyromaniac who “hires” him to photograph the buildings and things he burns. Messy! Definitely one of my darker projects. It’s compelling me.
Other projects that I have less to say about but hope to work on in some way:
I have a novel reimagining of my short story How Does An Orca Pray, which I’m obsessed with conceptually but have no idea what to actually do with it as a narrative. I call it a reimagining because it’s conceptually the same but the details are different, like the characters are much older in the novel than they are in the short story. But fun fact! The novel is in the RR Verse! The religious commune in HDAOP is the same on in RR and in the RR Verse, the narrator and Josiah running away is a massive #scandal in Felix and Dorothy’s childhood. So I think it’d be fun to write that scandal from their POV and have it be like a little prequel. It’s fun! It has summer road trip vibes with dark undertones and the playlist is full of 70s bangers
I really would like my novel Life Cycle of Massive Stars to have a similar reboot to RR. I love that novel and it’s like a love letter to transness, autism, and my University city. Also a contender for what I write during my MA, so I’d like to start both this and Ammonites For Eyes and if I do my MA, I can present both of them and be like “help”
Also continuously going to be working on short stories. I’d like to grow my collection since I have a title that I love now, Swimming Pool Prayers, but also I don’t want to force myself to only write stories I think could fit into the collection. I struggle with collections because the minute I write a story I don’t think fits the collection or develops the collection, I’m like oh well that was a waste! So trying to unlearn that. Also want to write more flash fiction and more poetry. I don’t consider myself a great poet, but I’m attracted to the abstractness I find in it atm. Also I keep impulse submitting messy first drafts of poems to litmags OOPS!
#when i said my 2023 goal was self serving long update posts that i enjoy writing this is what i mean!#im gonna be honest besties i wrote this post mainly to ramble about my wips without making wip intros#writing update
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ok. nano in one week and i have two (2) options:
drafting the post-chosen one wip. obviously this is the choice is should do with it as it is already started, i just kind of dropped off the last couple weeks. unfortunately, i have one glaring problem, which is that the most recent chapter went off the rails and i also reached the stopping point in my plot and now idk how to move forward. i know what's theoretically going to happen later on, but i need to seriously sit down and outline to smoothly draft. will i actually do that in a week? who knows.
start my pirate wip. the option i want because it's my current obsession, but i'm also very much in the creation stages and fleshing out worldbuilding details. so it's all bare bones, and i know starting it might be fun, but i don't have a firm enough grasp on the story itself yet unless i plan like crazy over this week. again, do i have time to do that? who knows.
#.txt#nano 2023#don't think i did nano last year?? i literally cannnnnot remember#but it would be so fun to do it again even though it is so hard with 25 hour work weeks and 15 credit semesters.#also i have two papers to write throughout the month at least...#BUT!!! i need to focus on writing so i might make a smaller goal of say 15k#500/day or something#the problem with my post-chosen one wip is that there is just so many plot threads and i need to visually plot it out#like there's the whole doomsday prophecy and then the rot returning#but also alice chasing the magician and her & kel and then alora all alone and then belen waking up & rani#and also the political layer of the white wraiths vs the govt which i need to flesh out#also alice is supposed to break some guy out of prison. that's a thing that's going to happen#then on the other hand the pirate story is sooo fun! even though i've only had it for like two weeks#i love to create worlds...actually drew a little map shockingly#and the characters are already half formed in my head i just keep adding more#but it'll probably be option one since i have been working on that story in various ways for at least three months
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