I’ve mentioned this several times by now, but that Crisis Manager thing that my Chinese horoscope predicted is very annoying. I rewatched the video, and at one point, she says that if I’ve gone half the year without encountering any crises, I should go seek them out, since it’s a good opportunity to network and make money and whatnot.

Basically, I was always on. I was always in “remember” mode. Even at Hobbiton, even at the Weta Workshop tours, even at dinner when I was chilling with a glass of New Zealand chardonnay and a book of local poetry I’d picked up. There was relaxing in the sense that I wasn’t doing dishes or cooking or cleaning litter or answering emails, but I was definitely doing other labor that required other parts of my brain and body.

This year’s Chinese horoscope was…not great. Apparently, the main theme of 2023 is that I’m what they call a “Crisis Manager” and hoo boy is that accurate so far. I’ll be a problem-solver, and good at it because I have access to resources, which is nice, but I don’t want to be a Crisis Manager! I have things I want to do! I’m glad I can handle whatever problems come my way, but I don’t want the problems to come my way in the first place.

A quick update, since we started work on my sleeve the other day and my wrist and fingers are still sore. Lots of rejections for book 1! Book 2 is off with beta readers. I have notes on both I need to work on, but again, voluntary injury must get better first. Work on book 3 is stalled, though I already have the two main tropes (second-chance romance and road trip) and several scene ideas jotted down. I have to get out of the house for the day, to a cafe or the library or somewhere else that isn’t my house and needy cats, and just sit there and brainstorm that story.

I’m currently working on 43 notes for book 2, down from 52 the other day. One said “this paragraph is bad” and I ended up being able to replace that entire paragraph with the word “but.” But there are several upcoming notes that say “cut this scene and half then combine it with this brand new scene that you have to write that should be three pages or so,” and that’ll take more time.

Next is querying agents for book 1, and I’m ready for it. I also wanted to get book 2 into a shape resembling a first draft, so I can send it to my beta readers before the end of the year. We’ll see how that goes. Yesterday, I opened it to make a PDF and ended up reading the first eight chapters unexpectedly, so either I wrote something pretty compelling already or I will procrastinate for anything.

I finished, reviewed, edited, and published my first complete novel-length work, which is also my first complete fanfic. I hit writer’s bingo in the first two weeks (made a stranger stay up past their bedtime to finish it, made someone cry, and someone said it’s their new favorite fic) and got enough praise to seriously consider devoting all my time to writing, which led to…

Book 1 is off to the editor, and I’m just a few thousand words away from finishing the base draft of Book 2. Book 3 is a nebulous thing I can’t think about yet unless I want to damage my tender brain for good. I think I discovered that my writing process is to immerse myself in the writing in such a way that I must completely abandon absolutely everything else in my life for several weeks, followed by mental recovery and playing catch-up on my many non-writing tasks.

The novella-length fanfic sequel to my novel-length fanfic is…on pause until I finish the base draft of Book 2. People are harassing me about when it will be available (my loved ones, to be clear, strangers aren’t harassing me), but it’s a Christmas story so finishing that one closer to the holidays would be more appropriate, DON’T YOU THINK SO, MOTHER?

Popping in quickly for a little update: I’m deep into edits on book 1, planning travel to book 1’s location since it’s been over a decade since I was last there, still jotting down notes for book 2, have a good idea what book 3 will be about, and playing with a new fanfiction. In addition to taking my cats to the vet, my spouse to the doctor, and my self to the tattoo studio. It all continues apace.

This past week’s word count goal for book two was 10,000, and I reached that yesterday, bringing the total word count for it up to over 20,000. I wasn’t expecting to get this far this quickly, but I gave book one a little more time to marinate than I had planned. I celebrated with a little treat, which was sitting down and finally reading the 500-page sci-fi book I’ve been trying to read for a month. Physical books are always harder for me to finish because I have to find the time to sit down and be still and hold it. I usually read on my e-reader, which I can take on the elliptical, so I finish books faster that way.

The first was only five seconds long. I stood in front of a massive round door, deep in a mountain or cavern, I’m talking easily 80, maybe 100ft tall. It was made of brown and gray stone and carved into five or six rings, like a bullseye or a cinnamon roll. Within each ring were symbols, over and over again, all the same: a shut eye. As I approached, I felt like it was more of a seal, something not meant to open, something not meant to be known at all, until a big enough problem or certain conditions awoke it.

Everyone has their own way of describing the different stages of writing a manuscript. I really like Elizabeth May’s idea of a “trash draft,” and that phrase helped me get over my ridiculous belief that my very first draft had to be presentable.

Now that I’ve written more, I think I’ve found a better (for me, obviously) way to describe my different drafts.

I took an accidental week off for my birthday, between the actual days off when my family was visiting and the three days beforehand when I had to deep clean and tidy my entire house to make it presentable for guests for the first time in over two years. Then I had to deep clean and tidy my self to make it presentable. It was a whole thing.

Two weeks ago, I fell. Which is pretty normal for me. Even though I’m short, my center of gravity low, I somehow always end up on the floor. I think it’s a combination of clumsy feet, cats, and a general not paying attention. Like how most accidents occur within two miles of home. I get familiar with my surroundings and just go on autopilot.

So I’m especially proud of myself for the over 60,000 words I’ve collected in my manuscript, and the nearly-1000 hits my fanfiction has on AO3. I opened tarot commissions through Ko-Fi (link in the bottom left-hand corner of this page!), did a bunch of research, wrote some poems, had a bunch of dreams. It’s only been a few days, but I’ve also played a lot of Horizon Forbidden West, which—like its predecessor—got its teeth in me like a snapmaw.

Six poems (including one sonnet), daily tarot readings, a ten-card tarot reading, this blog, several dreams, and 11,500 words in my novel. I have more words in me, but I’d rather use them in my book than here. You understand.

My major accomplishment this week was joining AO3 and publishing my novel-length fanfiction I’ve been working on since last July. The first comment on it arrived seven hours later, the reader saying they stayed up past their bedtime to finish it. That’s one for Writer’s Bingo. A few more nice comments came through, and a few days later, someone said that it’s now their “favorite fic,” so, that’s another one for Writer’s Bingo.

The idea that total strangers can read what I wrote and love it as much as I do is…a little overwhelming. Like, maybe I’m actually good at this?

Besides writing several thousand words in my next novel, and slightly more than a poem a day, I let the problem I was having with my next poetry collection roll around in my head, playing in the dirt and doing whatever it wanted, until a very fun and elegant solution showed itself. I researched publishers that might be interested in my book series and followed some agents and editors on social media. I came up with the title of the second book in this series, and I love it. And a few days later, I figured out what’ll be happening at the chaotic climax of this novel. Now all I need is a series title. Judging by my jump-started imagination this past week, I’m foolishly confident that it’ll come to me by next blog post.

So I quit my day job.

There were…many, many reasons why it was the best and only decision I could have made. Do I have another job lined up? No. Do I have enough money saved to justify it? Also no. But am I confident things will work out just fine? No. Listen.

I wrote a whole-ass novel last year. An entire novel! And I still think it’s really good! And I’m in the middle of another one, which will be the first in a trilogy, which is also really good!