October Wrap-up

Hello,

Thanks for the likes and follows—I hope we’re all doing well!

October is almost over, and many writers are gearing up for November writing challenges. Unfortunately, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) has fallen from grace, and other writing communities are stepping up to fill the void.

Sarra Cannon and the HeartBreathings community are hosting the Rough Draft Challenge, while ProWritingAid has created Novel November. I used to be a member of ProWritingAid and really enjoyed using the service, though I couldn’t afford to renew this year. I’m confident Novel November will be run well by them.

I’ve participated in the Rough Draft Challenge before and haven’t won yet, but I’m staying positive and looking forward to trying again.

A brief format switch-up: first, the media recap. I’ve completed season 1 of Vampire Academy, streaming on Peacock. Unfortunately, it wasn’t renewed. My interest was piqued again, so I started listening to the series on Audible.

Richelle Mead is a great storyteller, and I can easily get back into the series, even though I’m well past the target demographic—I was 30 years old when I first read Vampire Academy. Interestingly, Richelle Mead and I are about the same age, so she was also writing it in her 30s. The TV show updated some of the more problematic elements from the books for modern audiences, which I appreciated.

I also watched the animated series Supernatural Academy on Peacock, which is another book adaptation that only got one season. Interestingly, the show features main characters (Jessa and Mischa) who aren’t even from the Supernatural Academy books by Jaymin Eve—they’re from her Supernatural Prison series. The animation also aged the characters down, which I think affected its audience. In the West, animation is often seen as content for younger viewers, even though Jaymin Eve writes primarily for New Adult audiences. I did hunt down the audiobooks—Supernatural Academy Year One, Dragon Marked (book 1), and Broken Compass (book 4) from the Supernatural Prison series—to compare.

With both Vampire Academy and Supernatural Academy being one-hit wonders, I got curious: why did Shadowhunters manage to get three seasons? That question led me to watch the first four episodes on Hulu and listen to City of Bones to see what made the difference. The best answer from the evaluation is timing and platform. Shadowhunters came out on Freeform, the former ABC Family channel, which offered a lot of YA content—much of which was based on popular books. Peacock was a new streaming service that had to attract an audience and build ratings. They weren’t able to do either. That’s an intriguing topic for another blog. Shadowhunters was released years before the other two shows, and by then, audiences had likely grown up and become fatigued. I believe I was one of them. It has taken me years to look back at them without bias.

Moving on to the writing updates: One of my goals was to write 500 new words daily, but I haven’t found an effective way to track the numbers. I’ve decided to use the gamified writing app/service 4TheWords, where progress is counted by defeating creatures with your word count. I also let my nearly two-year streak go, and my fire wings are gone as well.

Dead Girl Tale 2 will be on hold until November. Next week, I’ll be going through all the DGT2 notes I’ve accumulated since the beginning of the year. In the meantime, I’ve been writing Fayte/Maghnus Monogatari, a collection of connected short stories. Maghnus is a medium, and Fayte is a psychopomp with the mantle of Charon, the ferryman. Together, they navigate a bunch of paranormal hijinks.

My third writing project is an outline for a vampire romance. In this story, a Vampire Prince candidate finds his ex-human wife and demands she give him an heir—little does he know she already had the heir about five years ago. It’s a simple cookie-cutter trope: fated mates and a hidden baby legacy. At first, I wasn’t going to explore it because it didn’t feel like a challenge. Then I realized I’m not a literary gladiator. I like predictable romances, and there’s nothing wrong with writing them when you’re planning for a happily-ever-after (or happy-for-now) ending.

So that’s my October wrap-up—a mix of abandoned streaks, rediscovered stories, and embracing the tropes I actually enjoy. November is right around the corner, and I’m looking forward to diving back into Dead Girl Tale 2 with fresh eyes and seeing where these other projects take me. Here’s to staying flexible with our goals, being kind to ourselves, and others. Stay open to new opportunities—all while finding joy in the process, even when things don’t go according to plan. Thanks for following along, and happy writing (or reading, or watching) to you all!

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September Wrap-Up

Hello,

Thanks for the likes and follows. I may have mentioned this before, but I’m not sure, the flowers for September are asters and morning glories. The sapphire is the birthstone. These are some of the useless facts. I like to keep in circulation. It has been a rough month for many, and I hope we are all doing better.

Quick writing update: I was having issues with chapters, so I broke everything down into scenes. Now I’m unsatisfied with word counts. I’m aware of how messed up this is. In Dead Girl Tale 2: Nox. I created pages of notes, character profiles, and world-building materials, among other things. It almost felt like it was spiralling out of control. When these feelings arise, they may lead to a loss of motivation to work on the story. My current solution is to examine the same story from a different perspective. Nox is the main character of this story. However, there is another character, Wade, who is vital to the story. His backstory is complicated and tragic, equal to Nox’s. It seems to be working. I was able to identify the direction in the scene that I hadn’t noticed before. I am also considering setting word count goals for myself. Cross your fingers.

Media update: I was able to watch The Superman movie from the comfort of my own home. I like it. I don’t know what the haters are talking about. But I understand they don’t want to be happy with anything. The C-dramas that I’m watching are called Blossom 2024 and The Blossoming Love 2025. I’m adding the years because C-drama creators really like the concept of blossoming. There is also a show called Blossoming in Adversity 2023. It looks like a year thing. Blossom and Blossoming Love both possess a supernatural aspect. However, their series are 30-40 episodes long. It is a lot to binge. I have to take them in 2-3 ep pieces. After writing about what I’m reading, I also paused on that. Real life interfered, and there are only so many hours in the day.

That is all for now. The last week of the month will be busy preparing for October and real life. Most of the plans will be revealed next week. Part of the reason for these posts and blog/website is accountability. I am hoping that for the rest of the week, you all do well. Be aware of the best opportunities and remember to be kind.

End.

Wednesday’s post

As stated in the update, the move has happened and but the hard part of putting everything where they are supposed to have just started. It is equally frustrating. Extended by the days I am not home.

But this is not the purpose of this post. Wednesdays were for reviews, despite my reading or listening to audiobooks. I haven’t been able to write any reviews. I apologize because, in previously written posts, I imply that reviews will be coming very soon. But real life inserts itself in my plans and some things are abandoned. My only escape was urban fantasy and contemporary romance.

The upside is that I will not give up on this endeavor. To keep in line with what I planned. I can briefly talk about the books I have read in the last three weeks. I am doing this without notes, so it won’t have all the information and there won’t be a lot of detail. I have mentioned before that I have been listening to and reading the Ordinary Magic series by Devon Monk. The story is about the quaint “normal” Northwest town of Ordinary Oregon, policed by Delaney Reed and her sister Myra and Jean. The Reeds are special, they maintain the peace between vacationing gods, supernatural creatures of every kind and oblivious humans, and few that know. The series is quirky, funny, and thrilling at times. All nine books were narrated by Khristine Hvam. However, many authors have been persuaded to make their stories graphic audiobooks. Instead of listening to one person use their voice for various characters, there is a cast of characters, and the story is narrated like a radio play. I started to listen to the series when the one narrator was available. I bought a book every other week. Audible is owned by Amazon. If you buy the book on Kindle for the price you get a somewhat discount on the audible book. I was able to get the first 3 audiobooks in the series, Death and Relaxation, Devil and Details, and Gods and Ends for less than $10 on audio, it equals out because I spent about $15.00 for all three Kindle books. For about two weeks, the recordings done by Kristine Hvam and the graphic audio were up side by side. The original audiobook was longer and on sale, the graphic audio implied that it might be abridged it was a no-brainer that one would be bought. Kristine Hvam is a great narrator. I have been listening to her for years. She is a veteran up, on the pedestal with Robin Miles and Renee Raudman. There were purchased every other week, then the recordings by Kristine Hvam were pulled. I could not find them anywhere. The graphic audios are also sold on Spotify. I was slightly annoyed since it was messing with my set. It also kind of worked out in a way. The first three books were narrated by Khristine Hvam, reading in the first person point of view of Delaney, the Chief of Police in Ordinary. The fourth book was an anthology, Rock Paper, Scissors. Each story was told by a sister, Jean, Delaney, and Myra. The fifth book, Dime a Demon, was narrated by Myra Reed.

My thoughts on the graphic audio version vs the single narrator need to be developed more before I say what I’m going to about it. There are pros and cons.

I was trying to not burn out on the series, so between each book, I listened to or read something else. Most of my readings were manhwas on the Tapas app. I would blast through a couple of newly released romance manhwas just to get the ink promised. Two of the series I like are on hiatus.

I also started to listen to A Blade So Black by L. L. McKinney. It is an interesting story. But it is also a YA story and I have to listen in doses. I have written about my issue with Young Adult books before.

I am waiting for Rogue Familiar and Beastly Kingdom to bring out their audiobooks. It may not happen, and I find that annoying. I am sure some fans are pestering the authors. But there might not be enough of us wanting an audiobook for the publisher or independent author to make one. I have faith that one or both will come eventually, I was able to listen to Fused by Lindsay Buroker and now waiting to see when Wanted the 7th book in the Legacy of Magic will be recorded. It may come out a few weeks before the next book in the series is released.

And finally, after waiting a year, Piper Rayne has put out The Problem with Second Chances: Lake Starlight Book 1. This is the Bailey Family series second generation, some of the children born in the first series are all grown up. The Problem with Second Chances is the much anticipated, heavily hinted romance between Calista Bailey and Rylan Greene. This book came out earlier this year, I don’t know how I missed it. However, this kind of works out book 2 will be available in a week. I won’t gush about it until book three comes out. Piper Rayne markets their romance series in 3’s. I don’t know the correct term, but they space them two months apart and insert short catch-up stories. They are also fun to read or listen to.

I didn’t expect to type so much. But those were my reads/listens. I did enjoy some craft books on writing and that is the topic of next week’s post. I hope you all are doing well.

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Updates April 24-28

Hello,

Thanks for the likes and follows.

I am stuck in moving hell. It wasn’t planned properly due to the new job and other outside issues. This will be the shortest update to date.

Writing has become a bit of a struggle. It is possible my creative well is dry. This week I am taking a break from writing. The move has to take priority and after the move, there is the setting up of everything and getting used to the area. Again.

Reading news, if not mentioned in previous entries. I completed listening to Dragon Blood. This was an omnibus written by Lindsay Buroker. Dragon Blood consisted of three novellas- Balanced on the Blade’s Edge, Death Maker, and Blood Charged. However, the series is about 7 or 8 books long. I acquired the 4th book, Patterns in the Dark. The plan is to get the rest in due time. The much anticipated Rogue Witch by Jeffe Kennedy is out but not in the correct account. I have many book accounts. I meant to have all the digital books in one account and audiobooks in another. Nothing is going the way I want. Will some smart computer person create an app, where all digital books, despite the platforms can be gathered for use. I would pay for it.

The week before I binged watch a C-drama called Till the End of Moon. It is an interesting xianxia romance. It is reported to have 40 episodes and I paused watching at episodes 16 or 17. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have gotten anything done. I later learned that the drama was trended on Viki Rakuten, where I am watching, and on Youku, another streaming services that put out Chinese media exclusively I think.

That is all for today. I apologize for putting up a pretty boring post. The point is that it is on time. I am hoping every reading this does well. Remember to be kind.

End.

Updates September 19-23

Hello,

Thank you for the likes and follows.

Last week, I was good. Outside of the writing, life went more left than was expected. I may elaborate on that later. But the writing went well. The current scene I am working on has not been completed yet, but I got clarity about it that I haven’t had in a long time. What really helped was the read-aloud feature in Microsoft Word. In previous entries, I was promoting the virtues of the Speechify app. For the time being, I am still using it on other online articles. But didn’t see how to attach it to Word. No worries, Microsoft has done it for me. It is not Speechify, but it is good enough. The strange thing is that I have a Read Aloud app, already but I haven’t used it in a while. It was used most of the time during NaNoWriMo. There is no reason why I stopped using it except for getting tired of uploading files. Microsoft Word read-aloud feature has convenience built in. If I need to make a correction, I can do it quickly and have the voice read the revised sentence again.

Also, the Medium app on the phone has a read-aloud feature. I didn’t notice it before. I have been traveling a lot this week and that feature came in handy. I get nauseous attempting to read on the bus or train. It is odd because it didn’t start until I was 27 years old. This was also the reason I started to invest so much in audiobooks.

In writing news, as stated above, there is a new sense of direction. Along with that clearness, research was added. My main character’s life is on the line and will be irrevocably changed afterward. She is tasked with finding three artifacts lost to the supernatural world. These McGuffins are the catalyst of the story, a cup, a dagger, and a pendant. Very small items are lost in a vault buried with other things for millennia. Possession of one artifact can give a being near cosmic phenomenal power. Or at least that was the original plan. The uses of these items are subject to change. The key thing is that they are wanted by the powerful. But difficult for them to find. They need special eyes, hence my main character. This scene is supposed to convey this and establish the relationship with the characters. Wish me luck.

In reading news, there is not much to report. As stated before, catching up on Medium articles. Many of the articles are about how people of color navigate their lives in hostile environments. They were put on my reading list, and I am going through them. Other articles are on how to make money, freelance writing, or writing on Medium and other platforms. There is poetry, short stories in every genre, and reviews of everything. There are even articles written in other languages. I am listening to them because I am looking for my niche. Once a month for the last two months I post an essay on Medium. It is like this update, but with a monthly perspective at least that is the goal. At the end of the year, there will be an evaluation of this endeavor. Medium offers notoriety and money and I can’t say no to those things. It is time to put up or shut up.

The live-action Little Mermaid trailer came out, featuring Halle Bailey as Ariel. The haters came out in droves, I am annoyed to see some of them were Black People. I was 14 years old when Little Mermaid debuted in 1989. I was a child of Caribbean heritage; I was happy that Sebastian the crab had a West Indian accent. It was a bad accent but at the time I didn’t care and none of the children in my family did either. We sang under the sea and kiss the girl with relish. The recent trailer was reminiscent of the animated trailer, and I am very good with that too. Halle Bailey is a beautiful woman, and she has a great voice. There should be no complaints.

It would be great if there was an original mermaid story featuring Black people. Quiet as it is kept, there are several stories in bookstores and on library shelves right now. Black creators have been writing fantasy for years.

I am writing this to state that Disney live-action movies don’t do as well as their animated counterparts. The only one I think did exceptionally well was Alice in Wonderland. It garnered a sequel. If this movie does not perform well at the box office, is this going to give haters license to puff up their chests and blame the Black actress? I refuse to use the ‘w’ word. I have been that way my whole life. I am tired of diluted words that have lost their meaning in my community. But those are thoughts for another essay. This paragraph ends with me standing with live-action Ariel.

That is all for now. I hope these words find you all doing well. Remember to be kind to all, even when they don’t deserve it.

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