Life + Writing Update + Happy New Year!!

Why, hullo, friends! How is it already 2021?? It feels like just yesterday it was August. I took yet another unintentional hiatus, and I feel like I owe you guys an update on where I’m at right now with writing and such! I’m pretty sure 2020 was a crazy year for all of us.

Life

• I started grad school in August! I’m currently getting my Master’s degree in English. Grad school wasn’t a journey that I was planning on taking, but God very clearly pointed me in that direction. It’s been a huge adjustment, especially since my undergraduate degree isn’t in English and I’m at a different university, but it’s been an exciting new challenge.
• I haven’t really considered myself an athletic person, but about two years ago, I started rock climbing, and now… well, I’m a little obsessed. I love both the physical and mental challenge of it, and it’s just a ton of fun. Don’t be surprised if some random post or short story comes up that has something to do with rock climbing. 😀
• As for reading, most of the reading I’ve done this year has been for school, with two major exceptions: Agatha Christie mysteries and Brandon Sanderson’s books. I read my first Agatha Christie book as part of a summer book club, and I absolutely loved it. Since then, I’ve read two more, and I have several others saved on my Kindle. I’ve read pretty much every Brandon Sanderson book I could get my hands on this year, and if you’re a fantasy fan, you should definitely check his books out! If you’ve already read his books, tell me which is your favorite in the comments!

Writing

• Over the past several months, I’ve made quite a bit of progress on Forcefield (IDIA #3). At this point, I’m about halfway done! My goal is to finish the book and publish it sometime in 2021, hopefully in the summer. So far, it’s shaping up well, and I’m really excited about how it’s going!
• I started a new project for Nanowrimo, which unfortunately I did not complete, but so far it’s been a lot of fun to write. Basically, I’m taking one of my short stories, The Villain and the Hero, and turning it into a full-length novel. I love the characters in it, and it’s turning into more of a mystery-slash-heist-slash-superhero book, with a little romance thrown in. Currently, it’s on the back burner until I finish Forcefield, but I’m excited to get back to work on it soon.
• Due to grad school, I’ve been writing a lot more academic papers, but last spring, I wrote a thesis about writing blind characters in fiction. I loved working on that project, and it’s something I’ve been looking into publishing academically. At the moment, that process is certainly slow, but I also wrote two short stories featuring blind characters as a part of that thesis. I’m looking into publishing those in creative journals–which, again, is slow going–but depending on how that search goes, I may share those here on my blog. They were so much fun to write, and I absolutely want to share them with you at some point… it just might be a while!
• Overall, I’ve been a little burned out on writing due to the huge increase in writing from grad school (and becoming an English major), which is part of the reason my blogging dropped off during the semester… but that was also due to poor planning on my part. My plan for this year/semester is to put out a blog post every Monday, but at least once a month.

Overall, this has been a crazy year, and not nearly as productive as I wish it had been, but we’ve made it through! I hope you are all doing well, and that we can all look back and find some good in 2020. Don’t forget to drop down in the comments and say hi! Happy New Year, friends!

Have you read any Agatha Christie or Brandon Sanderson books? What are your favorite books you’ve read this year? What’s something good that happened for you in 2020?