What’s improved over the last year?

I have been really trying to write more this year. I have been building my confidence and expanding my skills. Here are the things that I think have gone well this year:

#1 – Submissions

In the last few years since finishing university, I only really found time to write stories for the occasional short story competition, but this year I really upped the output and submitted to a bunch of places!

Finding Horror Tree–a site full of horror anthology open calls–was a major factor in increasing my writing. I picked out a bunch of subjects that sounded up my street and began to write…and write…and write. The fact that many have themes to stick to really helped provide a basis for planning and a direction to aim for that made thinking of stories a lot easier.

I am someone who really needs a deadline if I want to get anything done, so finding these calls and having a specific date to work towards has really helpful in encouraging me to just sit down and write. Even though I enjoy writing so much, I always have trouble transitioning from one task to another–I might be sitting there thinking ‘wow, I really want to write right now’ but somehow still can’t put down my phone–but the deadlines gave me enough external pressure to get me to put away the distractions and focus on my stories.

#2 – Writing Quality

I ended up writing a bunch of short stories–all but one were turned down. Nevertheless, I am super proud that I’ve been putting my work out there and allowing myself to be open to rejection.

All this writing wasn’t for nothing!

Even from the earliest submissions, I can see the growth in my prose. It has been invaluable practice that will only help me in the long run. For example, I’ve found myself working on my descriptions of settings and I adore some of my more recent stories because I’ve managed to conjure what I (and my mum, haha) consider to be some really vivid scenes.

I’ve even began to dabble more in metaphors and similes. I know it sounds silly but I will be the first to admit that I tend to describe things in a very basic way, rarely comparing things to others a way to paint a more thorough picture. But the more I wrote this year, the more I felt comfortable dipping my toe into that sort of description, especially as a way to create imagery that further emphasised the themes of whatever story I was writing at the time.

Writing all these stories also means now I have plenty to edit and send off in the future, to more anthologies with similar or broader themes. At first, it was stressful having to write a new story for every call, but now I have a backlog that can be used when I don’t have the energy to write a whole new tale.

#3 – Accepted!

I got accepted into this year’s Aberystwyth MA Anthology! This is the third year in a row and it’s always nice to know that strangers think something I wrote is good enough to include. It’s not a paid gig, but I’m still really happy that someone out there enjoyed my writing.

They held a launch party in The Bookshop by the Sea and I met some of the other contributors and some of the team who put together the anthology, which was really nice. I went alone, which is another thing I’m proud of–it’s not writing related, but I’ve been trying to do to more things by myself. Going to a place where I knew nobody and chatting to strangers was a bit awkward but I ended up enjoying myself! I am so happy I went–especially because if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have met the person who told me I was their favourite submission. That was a nice little ego boost!

(Pro-tip: Just admit that you feel nervous. I walked into the bookshop and some of the first words out my mouth were “I walked past three times before coming in because I was building up courage”, and later I asked for a cup of water because I need something to hold in my hands when I’m anxious. Honesty!)

#4 – Reading

I got lucky this year–I moved house in February and we didn’t have WiFi for almost an entire month. Without the distraction of endless phone scrolling, I got time to do a lot of crosswords and a lot of reading.

During university, despite both my BA and MA being in Creative Writing, I could hardly bring myself to read. I used to love reading, but being told what to read and when to read it was horrible and it really sucked the joy out of it–so much so that I ended up essentially not reading anything at all, neither assigned reading or stuff I wanted to read. I felt too guilty about not reading what I was supposed to that I couldn’t bring myself to read the books I wanted to.

(NB. The exception here was comics, which I got into during my second year thanks to a wonderful local comic shop–more about that in a future post maybe?)

This year I challenged myself to read twenty-five books, which was five more than I (only just) managed to read last year. In February this year alone, I managed to read ten, and then another eight in March. The rest of the year went pretty good, with at least one book read a month–except for August, not sure what happened there? But still, overall, my love of reading is making a comeback!

Reading is so helpful to my writing and also very inspiring. For example, I discovered Splatterpunk this year and now I’m very intrigued by the genre–not brave enough to write it yet, but hopefully one day. I didn’t just read horror either–I read some more non-fiction this year, including a great writing book co-authored by one of my amazing lecturers at university! That was a super fun read and a really helpful dive into speculative fiction.

Not too shabby…

I think I’ve done pretty well this year and I’m proud of the progress I’ve made. Being rejected can be disheartening, but I know that I have to keep trying. All this writing is good practice and I think I’m getting better every story!