2024 seems to be flying by! And so far, this year is vastly different from how things were around this time 2023.
In these past few months, I started at a new job that I love, launched Plot Bunny Hollow, and made some new writer friends that have inspired me and kept me motivated. I'm also in significantly better health now that the majority of my lingering long Covid symptoms have at last subsided.
On the whole, things really feel like they're starting to look up. That means there's only one thing left to do...
Ever since my first year of blogging, I've made it a point to not only set new goals for myself at the start of the year but to check in midway through. It's a way for me to hold myself accountable but to reassess my plans and adapt them to any changes that have taken place so I can finish strong in the back half.
With June winding down, it's time to touch base with my intentions.
The Blog
I'm starting this post off with a positive.
So far in 2024, the blog feels like the only thing I've been able to keep up with consistently. Part of that has to do with the status of the fiction projects I'll be delving more into in a bit, but also shifts in my life outside of writing.
For much of these past few weeks, I've been gradually adjusting to my new work schedule and finding my groove again. It's always been easier for me to work on blog content during lunch breaks or in the bit of time between getting home and going to bed for the night because I can work on them in smaller chunks. One segment here, another there. Fiction, however, requires a greater deal of concentration for longer periods of time; when you've only got thirty minutes for your break and your surroundings aren't exactly distraction-free, it's difficult to get immersed in the story or reach a good stopping point where you can wrap up your thoughts for the time being.
I'm also someone who prefers to be a tad ahead of schedule when it comes to blog posts, just in case something happens.
Even though I did decide to take a semi-hiatus during these summer months and scaled back in anticipation of extended hours at work (and needing to be more fiction-focused, TBH), I'm in a decent place with the blog. I have some fun posts scheduled for the rest of the summer and have a mostly-pinned-down outline for the rest of 2024.
A Tided Love
As far as fiction goes, the find I wanted to focus on the most back in January was A Tided Love, and that still stands. However, the plan has shifted a bit.
A Tided Love was my project for NaNoWriMo 2023 and after the sheer chaos that challenge hit me with and the holiday season just being a rough time of year for me in general, I ended up taking a hiatus with the intention of picking things up again in the new year.
While I was going through everything I had written during NaNoWriMo to get a sense of where I left off, I started to realize that I wasn't in love with it. Something felt a little off, mostly in terms of pacing. I sent off the first two chapters to my writing group for some much-needed feedback. My friends not only confirmed my feelings towards what I had written up to that point but also helped identify other areas that needed some tweaking.
Between their insight and my own sentiments, I decided that the best approach would be to go in, replot A Tided Love from the ground up, and do a total rewrite. It took a bit longer than anticipated, but I can now say I feel the story is thankfully on the right course again.
A Tided Love remains my focal point for 2024, but instead of hoping to have a completed first draft by the end of the summer, I'm aiming to have it finished by the end of the year.
Bound To The Heart
A Tided Love wasn't the only fiction project that I hoped to be working on during 2024. The original plan was to wrap up the first draft of A Tided Love and then resume edits on Bound to the Heart, which I put on the back burner for NaNoWriMo 2023.
With the change in plans for A Tided Love, there is naturally also a change in plans for Bound to the Heart. While I would love to get back to Zach and Eve's story in 2024, I'm not making it an objective as I was back in January. For now, it's more of an "if there's time" kind of goal. I plan to return to Bound to the Heart once the first draft of A Tided Love is finished. That could be in 2024, it may not be until 2025. Either way, it's okay with me.
Getting Out Of My Reading Slump
This wasn't exactly a writing goal but something I still included in my post, and its simplicity means there isn't much of a change to be had.
I'm a slow reader by nature, which is one reason I didn't quantify this goal by saying I wanted to read something like thirty books this year. That's not doable for me at this time.
The main thing is that I am reading more than I did in 2023 and, so far, I have been. It primarily happens on my lunch breaks at work or right before bed, but even only getting a little reading every so often is better than none at all.
The Super Exciting Secret Project - AKA Plot Bunny Hollow
At the end of January's post, I hinted at a secret project that I had in the works that was writing-adjacent and needed to be kept under wraps for a smidge longer.
The secret project in question? My Etsy and Redbubble pages called Plot Bunny Hollow!
Plot Bunny Hollow made its debut in March and has been a bit of a learning curve thus far, but I'm having so much fun experimenting with these designs. It's nice to have a new creative outlet that is still tied to writing in some way.
In the coming months, I'm hoping to add a few new printables to the Etsy shop and some new designs to Redbubble.
So far, 2024 feels like a year where so much has happened but also like not a lot has happened at all. I think the latter point is in part related to rewriting A Tided Love. Even if starting over like this isn't starting from scratch, per se, it still feels like backtracking to a certain extent, as if most of what I wrote during NaNoWriMo 2023 was for naught.
Outside of writing, meanwhile, there have been some changes and new beginnings that excite me. I am at last feeling like I've found my equilibrium among these shifts and hope that the next six months are teeming with as much excitement on the writing side of my life.
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