So, how has this year been?

#1 – Expansion

I have written lots of new stories this year! Some long, some short–all incredibly fun. I’ve also had the opportunity to edit some old stories, including one of my first stories from university. Revisiting previous work really puts into perspective how much my writing has grown over time.

My bank of stories has expanded and so have my skills!

#2 – Confidence

Over the course of this year, I have noticed myself gaining confidence in my more outrageous and creative ideas. As the months have gone on, I’ve become more comfortable with creating stories that delve a little deeper into myself and tackling these feelings and thoughts with some strange horror ideas. I’ve written about a hungry talking dumpster. a violent psychic incubator, and the relationship between dead bodies and flies.

#3 – Published!

My first ever paid story, Bloodthirsty, was published by Eerie River Publishing this year! Working on it was very exciting and it was great to see it in print.

Necrobiome Love Affair also got accepted and published in this year’s Aberystwyth MA Anthology! I love being apart of these anthologies and I was over the moon to see a more experimental piece find acceptance from other people. It was very cool to see the latest Aber team working with Broken Sleep Books, and the final product was full of brilliant stories, poems, and art.

#4 – Novella

One of my goals this year was to work on a novella, which I definitely did. Unfortunately, I did run out of steam and set it aside with six chapters left to draft, but it actually went a lot better than I expected. I got the furthest I’ve ever got into a story before, and I still really like the idea. I hope to pick it back up in the future. I’ve had time to think about an issue that was sort of knocking the wind out of my sails, but I think I’ve got a solution.

I also did a few plans for some other novella ideas, so I would say I did pretty decent for this resolution. Plenty to be getting on with!

#5- Poetry and Comic Scripts

I’ve got to be honest–these goals I totally and utterly failed. I read two poetry books and sort of began one poem, but I really did not give it a go at all. Meanwhile, the comic script resolution was even more of a failure, I did nothing towards this goal.

Maybe next year?

#6 Editing

I have absolutely loved helping Divinations Magazine as a fiction editor this year. I’m so grateful to my friend Aline for encouraging me to apply to volunteer there, because it is such a fun opportunity and I really enjoyed helping pick and edit stories for Issues 3 and 4. I would love to help them for as long as they’ll have me!

Excited for the future…

I have really liked some of the pieces I’ve created this year and I’m really proud of the things I’ve accomplished. I hope this positive trend continues into next year and that some more of my stories find their audience.