Updates!

While I keep a pretty active Progress Journal on a website within a writing community, I've been letting this one slip. Actually, I haven't been doing a really good job of updating my writing progress on here from the beginning. So here we go, my first real update: 

TL;DR:

• Began querying my New Adult/Adult novel, The Plan, back in August
• Been working on revisions to my Science/Fantasy novel, The Path of the Cave Stars (or Children of the Goddess— still undecided on the title!)
• Been taking Photoshop/Gimp lessons and designing book covers
• Became a chapter leader for a national organization that I admire

I’ll try to be brief with each point (no guarantees)!

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The Plan

This novel had been in the works since 2020 when I learning of the passing of my childhood friend. We'd met in kindergarten while going to school on a military base overseas. Even though we went our separate ways  after the 1st grade, we remained pen-pals, and eventually, reconnected as teens through Facebook. Eventually, he joined the Army, and I went away to college, but every year on our birthday (which we shared), we'd reach out.
I regard him as my first best friend and talked about him often. ​

Our friendship was the basis for The Plan: two inseparable childhood friends that find themselves losing touch with each other over the years when they take different paths in life. What was only supposed to be written as a collection of memories to help me grieve, morphed into a short story with nameless characters, which then morphed into a novella with a small cast of fictional characters and events.
After 3 years and many layers, became a novel of two friends, so dependent on each other for survival, realizing after graduating high school that maybe they’d had feelings for each other all along. They try to be the family and support they wished they’d had, and try to begin the rest of their lives together.
(Aside from little details of our childhood friendship sprinkled in there, the characters, their families, and story are completely fictional.)

Since querying, I’ve had a partial manuscript request as well as a Full manuscript request.
​Fingers crossed!
​

The Path of the Cave Stars
​(or  Children of the Goddess)

My first baby and the one that started it all.

I kid you not, this novel has been almost 8 years in the making!
I’d created this mars-like planet with its “alien” people back in college, writing about their city and culture and human colonization disrupting 

What happens when your family tells you that, in order to save the rest of your clan, they will be sacrificing you to the Goddess of Death? 

their civilization. It was also a very much Romeo & Juliet-esque type of novel (I was taking both Shakespeare and Writing Popular Fiction in school, ha!). I wrote over 100k words on it before the thought occurred to me to write a prequel. This one would focus on the world pre-colonization, and delve into the mysticism of their lore.
But, my issue was that I bounced around to so many different ideas and projects that I never finished anything, including the ideas above. I joined a writing community back on 2018, though, and started a Progress Journal. I gave myself the goal of finishing this "prequel" novel and tracking its progress. 
I finished the first draft in 2021.

​​What if, as you lay dying at the alter, you are rescued by a far away clan and made their priestess? ​

​It has gone through dozens of iterations since then.
At first Olun was supposed to be a bride in an arranged marriage, not a sacrifice to a deity. The “romance” was supposed to be “enemies-to-lovers” as she falls- ​

 in love with the man she’s been forced into marrying. The man, Didan, was supposed to be the “preist” of the village and someone of high esteem. 
​I realized that Olun was a very passive character who let things happen to her. She was not a very strong character at all. I won't bore you with the details (I could devote a whole blog post to the process of how this novel is what it is). After much stress, many flipped-desk gifs, critique, feedback, and support from my beloved writing community, I am quite happy with Cave Stars’s trajectory of my current revisions. 
My characters have come a long way since its first draft. Olun is a more active character and giving her more agency. She is not an observer and does not play second fiddle to Didan (she learns to make her own decisions, rebels against authority, questioning the Gods).
I changed her love interest as well. I wanted them to be together because she chooses him, not because she was forced into choosing him. I also wanted her to be his savior and protector. This isn't to say Didan has become the passive character. He's becomes an outsider, one who is not entirely accepted in his community and one who harbors immense fear, anger, and hatred for the Gods and village tradition. It's with him that Olun can be rebellious, and in their secret rendezvous is where we see the pair grow closer. 

Olun must contend with curses, vengeful spirits, love, and duty to a misunderstood Goddess in this science fantasy novel that I'm super excited to finish!

Photoshop/Gimp

As my sort of “stick it” to AI, I decided to explore my public library’s eLearning services and found a couple of photoshop courses on Linkedin. Since I’m the type of learner who learns by doing, the “homework” I gave myself was to create a book cover for Cave Stars applying the skills and techniques learned in the course.
I’ve learned a couple of things:

1. I could lose myself for hours doing this!
2. I need better equipment (my hand isn't steady enough to use a mouse)
3. If I decided to self publish, I have the skills to make MY OWN covers

​Honestly, the hard part was trying to find the right images and then the right concept.
​

Chapter Leader

As you know from my previous blog post, I am a stutterer, and I have struggled with lingering negative feelings regarding it. I have never looked at my speech with love, but loathing and embarrassment over the years. It was something I wanted to hide and hide from. However, in recent years, I’ve learned to be ok with my speech. I’m not at the point where I “love” it, but I am well passed “loath” and “embarrassment.” I'm at a place of acceptance and peace. 

For these reasons, I have applied to become a chapter leader for the National Stuttering Association and have attended virtual meetings each month. There is no NSA chapter in my area. Stuttering can feel like a lonely and isolating thing and its easy to hide when you feel like you are alone. That is why I wanted to start a chapter, and have been approved to start one! My first meeting is the end of the month!

Also, if you haven't already, I recommend reading Paperboy by Vince Vawter. I’d known about the book since it first came out, but did not have the courage (or peace of mind) to read it. I did recently and OH MY GOD, the feelings! I feel seen and I feel heard for the first time. I recommend the audiobook; the narrator does a great job portraying the character. Also, the author, Vince Vawter, a stutterer himself, reads the afterword.

I needed that positivity and encouragement, and I recommend this book to those who stutter and for those who want to know more about the mental and emotional toll that stuttering has on a child.