An Update on My Projects

April has been quite an unusual month for me, but it's been one full of writing progress so I thought it would be a good time to update you on all my projects.

The Short Story Collection

I have spent three solid weeks trying to get the first draft of the whole collection finished so that I can go back to my other projects. Before the start of this month I had three of the stories completely written, edited, and submission ready so that I could send them to some open anthologies and competitions. The rest of the collection had a few stories that had been started but nothing completed to a first draft.

Since leaving my last corporate job I've been grinding to get these stories written so I can send it off to the professor I've been in contact with, obviously explaining to her that it is at a first draft standard, and some of the stories need more work than others. I have fallen into the trap of trying to get it perfect before submitting it to her and I know it's silly of me because it literally is a first draft.

With the anthology, however, comes a bit of good news: I submitted one of my short stories for publication back in March and I found out recently that it's been accepted into an anthology which will be published at the end of May. I'll let you know more when I am able.

The New Poetry Project

A fairly new undertaking, and possibly a form of procrastination from working on the short story collection, I have begun a new poetry project. To start with I have collected all the poems I have sporadically written over the last four years in order to edit them, and hopefully integrate them with the collection I wrote back in 2019 which was submitted to (and rejected by) publishers.

While that is going on, I will also be writing a poem a day - a task that was inspired by musician and friend Solo Project who created the '30 Days' series, where he writes and shares music or poetry for a month. I won't be sharing mine online, but I do think it will be a good way to experiment with deeper themes than my previous work, take more risks with it if the only person who is likely to read them all is me. Having said that, I will take the best ones and develop them.

Both of these avenues of poetry will be used to create a new collection. Although, this won't have a deadline, I've found it has already motivated me to seek out some events (such as the Lyra Poetry Festival), and some open mics. I expected Bristol to have a huge creative community and so far I haven't sought it out, but things are changing now.

The Green Skull

I have a confession to make: I've not really done much with this novel for a while. Mostly because the short stories have taken up so much of my time, but also because I got to 12,000-ish words and got stuck one something small but enough to push it down the priority list of things I need to do. Once the short stories are submitted I will be developing the plot in more detail, in the hopes that going back to the drawing board will help me get a first draft done by August.

One of the key things I'll be doing is coming up with a weekly routine so that I can focus on giving ample time to each project, as well as a few non-writing things I've got going on at the moment. May is going to be an exciting, jam packed month and then my calendar will calm down, so I will be able to prioritise the novel over summer.

Final Thoughts

One of the most surprising things this year is having all this time to write and be creative, and actually being able to do it. I struggled for so long with a lack of inspiration that even when I had periods where I had to develop projects, and a motivation to do it, I had absolutely nothing in my brain to put onto paper. I also struggled with the crippling fear I had lost my talent or forgotten my skills, when the truth is quite the opposite, I'm better now for having had a long break from writing. Although it wasn't a clean break, I still went to a poetry stand up fairly regularly, and I honed my craft through research and the occasional attempt at something. But mostly, I needed to step away from the page to come back stronger. Rest is productive and all that.

Let me know what you're working on in the comments, and as always:

Don't tread on the flowers,

F x