Into 2019

So, the hiatus went on a little longer than expected but as part of my pledge to write 200,000 words in 2019, I’m back. More on that pledge later.

2018 hasn’t been a great year. Between work and my mental health, it’s been rough. We had big plans at the beginning of the year and few have come to fruition for various reasons. We found and lost a donor, had some attempts at getting pregnant that came to nothing and now we have to start to process over again. That was a rough couple of months and not something I’ve talked about much.

Bethend has found the year particulary hard too, with disapointments, mental health, dealing with me, my work issues and being a mum has meant it’s a taxing year. Through in some health problems at the end and well, we’re all a little run down.

2018

Some good things did happen in 2018

Snappy has had a great year. He’s speaking in full demands sentences, recognising letters, counting to ten. He has almost all of his teeth and the last four – his canines – are coming through finally. His potty training is coming along and he’s really social now when he goes to playgroup.

He also figured out how to put the television on, a dvd into the PS4 and that if he presses enough buttons on the controller it will play too. This is less of a milestone and more of ‘oh boy are we in trouble’.

He’s also discovered the word “why”.

My in-laws visited for two weeks for Thanksgiving. They got to experience the full toddler experience. Several viewings of the Music Man, operas, Cinderella ballet and Snappy riding around and around on his bike in the nude screaming. I had to work most of the time they were here but we did manage to go to Chester so the Zoo and see the light festival there which was fantastic.

My current job is fantastic but still leaves me a little up in the air. Hopefully, I’ll get a contract until March and then after that it depends on the budget. This is what happens when you work for a charity. I’m hopeful though, I get on well with my boss, it’s good work, I’m home by six every evening and I don’t work weekends.

It’s left me a lot of time to spend working on my mental health, my relationship with my son and my writing. All of these things have improved. I’ve changed my medication over – though the week I spent between them was bad. I cried every single day. My boss was very understand and as soon as I started the new meds I felt better. In generally my mental health is getting back to normal (my normal).

Writing in 2019

In July I started writing again. Dragon Age fanfiction again, and just that at first and then I started branching back out into original fiction again. Other than the blog, I hadn’t written any fiction since July 2017 (I checked). By December 31st I’d written 103,887 words in six months.

I redid my writing website and I also built up my Patreon a little, so now I have six patrons. My focus is fantasy, science-fiction and fanfiction, with wlw (women who love women) and non-binary characters. I hope to grow it even more in 2019. In December I did a Trope Advent Calendar and posted something every day, the smallest fic around 500 words the largest around 5000. I hope to do similar things in the coming year. Feel free to check it out and sign up for $1 a month.

I also discovered a website called Get Your Words Out. It’s a word count and habit pledge site. I put together a spreadsheet of all the fiction I wrote in 2018 and as I mentioned I wrote 103,887 words. That doesn’t even count the blog posts I wrote last year. So I’ve pledged to write 200,000 words in 2019. That will include all my fiction and blog posts, Apparently, I can count poetry as well but we’ll see.

I plan to write and finish a novel this year and I think the pledge will, help with that. It works out at 548 words a day, and well, this blog posts is already 716 words long. It will also get me writing in the blog again.

QLF in 2019

I’m going to make a conscious effort to update the blog regulary once more. What I won’t be doing is promoting it as heavily. It taks time away from writing and I don’t always see benefit from it. Emotionally at least. I just want to write and get back to the roots of blogging.

So I will write, and take part in things like KCACOLS because there is some real benefit in communicating and supporting other blogs but threads and promotion and guest posts I probably won’t be bothering with as much.If you want to keep up with the blog it’s easy to do – you can like us on facebook , or follow us twitter or instagram account.

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