Good Morning Everyone!

How are you doing? Can you believe it’s April already? Man, this year is just chugging along, huh?

Naturally, I’m stopping by to share my month of writing, reading, and personal things. It’s been quite a busy month, so buckle your seatbelts!

A special little note, this is a condensed version of my newsletter. If you’d like to see the full thing, you can subscribe to my mailing list and get a free copy of Conscience in the process.

Also, if you’d rather watch me make funny faces and talk about everything in this post instead, scroll down to the video highlights section near the bottom of this post. Don’t forget to subscribe if you enjoy my circus act, haha!

Alright, on to everything March!

Personal Stuff

I had a surgery mid-month (the same one I had late last year) and was nervous about recovery time, but everything went fine and I had so much energy the next day (I’m talking squirrel energy!). I even got back to my morning workouts the following week! How’s that for recovery time?

Also, I submitted another application for grad school. Fingers crossed I get in for fall 2021! I’m hesitant to put in any more applications to places because 1.Other school tuition rates are absurd, and 2.Applications tend to be $50-$70 a pop, and I’m not made of money.

That’s pretty much it for personal stuff. I have a birthday coming up in May, so I’m happy to be taking a VERY long break around that weekend. I do this every year and it’s kinda my thing. Who knows, maybe I’ll take a little weekend getaway.

Writing Conquests

This is the part of the month that was crazy with a capital C! There have a bunch of developments relating to writing and this website in the past two weeks, enough that I had to make a list. *Big inhale*

•  Upping my presence and discoverability on all distributors
• Creating automations for BookFunnel and Website subscribers
• Completely my subscription graphics, pages, and creating some ad graphics thanks in large part to Tammie Painter.
• Adding small sections to my newsletter in hopes of increasing engagement
• Begin creating forms for a prospective street team and future alpha/beta readers
• Start prepping for my first ad and multitiered ad in April
• Begin updating my published works’ blurbs for extra kick.

There are additional things I’ve been working on besides these, but I can’t recall at the moment because it’s been such a huge whirlwind.

All of these stemmed from a nonfiction read on marketing this month, so while I’m very grateful to be putting things on the right track, I’m also terribly mentally exhausted.

Special, SPECIAL shout out goes to Tammie Painter, whose sage advice has been guiding me in the right direction. She has the patience of a saint. No seriously, I was incessantly nagging her for a full on week at least. Thank you dear friend, and I hope to repay the favor sometime soon!

All of this being said, let’s get into the actual writing for the month, shall we?

The Tug of War is Over! 

So from my last monthly update I was working on both The Ruins of Ayar Kachi (horror) and The Gifted Chronicles (urban fantasy). Tackling two projects head on is a bit much for me with the limited time I get to write, and I made a decision to primarily focus on The Ruins.

I’ve already been writing horror for the past few years and it’s something I know pretty intimately (or at least that’s what I personally believe), so I’m going to stick with that. So for the most part I’ll be focused on The Ruins. If I get burnout I can always switch to The Gifted Chronicles for a change of scenery, but for now it’s on the back burner.

While we’re talking about it, The Ruins is going really well! I’ve been going over my plotting notes and updating it, taking out bits that don’t make sense, and doing research here and there, mainly finding pictures to draw inspiration from. I’m right at Chapter Four, and the scary stuff is starting to happen, so I’m really excited about that!

The length of the book is still something of a mystery to me. My basic notes are around 20k words, so I think it would be easy to say I could make this at least 40k words in length, a full novel (I hope)! I also don’t really have an idea for when this thing will get published, but once I have a fully-realized plot developed I’ll be able to hone in on that. Fingers crossed for sometime this year!

Other Writing Developments

There are some big potential developments on the horizon. I got some vague ideas for some stories, but it’s a bit soon to talk in much detail about them since I haven’t had much time to myself. Still, I’ll be gabbing in the video below, so you can check that out if you want to hear what I do have to say about it.

Alright, that’s about it for writing developments. Stay tuned for further updates!

Bookish Conquests

Holy moly was I on FIRE this month! I read _ books this month. I’m easily outpacing my yearly goal to read 50 books, so I could actually slow down a little bit, and I actually plan to at some point. Keeping myself in check is really difficult when there’s so many great books to read.

Feel free to check out all the book reviews for the month below if you missed out on any of them!

Book Review: Sorcery of Thorns

Book Review: Bridge of Souls

Book Review: The Darkest Minds

Book Review: One If: A Virago Fantasy

Book Review: A Properly Unhaunted Place

Graphic Novel Review: Locke & Key, Vol 1: Welcome to Lovecraft

Book Review: How to Market a Book: Overperform in a Crowded Market

Book Review: Never Fade

Video Highlights

It’s my second video recap, hooray!

This time I didn’t have the self-facing camera, so I didn’t have to stare at my own face the whole time. I think that helped me relax quite a bit more.

Hope you enjoy!

That’s a Wrap!

All right, there goes the month of March. How was your month? Did you read something in my conquests or have some updates on your writing or reading you’d like to share? As always, feel free to comment!

Happy Reading, everyone!

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