Wednesday, June 26, 2019

Upstream Updates: June 2019 Edition!



It's JUUUUUNNNNEEE!!!

Actually, I'm more like "It's Summer!" because if I measure my year by individual months, I've found it goes by way too quickly.
But summer is HERE. Summer is NOW. And SO HELP ME I AM GOING TO WRITE AND GET ALL THE THINGS DONE before I return to work again!

Life Stuff


First of all, there's a bit of "life stuff" going on, even in the period of time when I'm not working. Namely, it's the impending remodel of one of the bedrooms in our house--one that I'm going to move into, so I've got the responsibility of decorating and setting it up for myself! It's got a little reading nook, plenty of wall space for MORE BOOKSHELVES (because goodness knows I need that!) and I'm just really excited to have a space that's so entirely my own! (I have lots of siblings... you have no idea...) So that's taking up a lot of time.

Which brings me to my next point of order: Word Count Updates.
The last two months have been less-than-stellar. It's officially been a year since I started using WordKeeper Alpha and I must say, it's been GREAT to be able to see progress, no matter how small! That being said... Well, I'll let the graph speak for itself.

For reference... the 25K line is supposed to be my goal every month... haven't hit it since January...

Dismal, right? But I am going to do my almighty best to get in more of a groove! It still boggles me how I'm going to set up a writing habit that I can also maintain while working full-time, but I am fully confident that I'll reach that goal eventually! I have told myself that if I can just make it to 20K for this month, I will count that as a success. (Just a few thousand words away!)

RELEASES!

This month held plenty of excitement, as not only did Forest of the Fearless officially release (making the fourth anthology to contain a story I wrote!) but also a fellow writer and very dear friend released her book just this week, which I am beyond excited to recommend to all of you, my readers! 
It's the first book in a series called The Time Tree Chronicles, and this particular book is called The Emergence by Lisa Rae Morris and if you like time travel, quiet forests, Scottish countrysides, and funny old people in nursing homes, then I would highly advise you to take a closer look! I still remember when she first brought it up, she was all "I have this idea and you're probably going to think it's weird and it totally doesn't make sense to me and I'm wondering if I should even be writing it..." and the moment I heard it, I responded, "DEAR HEAVENS PLEASE WRITE IT I NEED THIS IN MY LIFE!!" and now it's a wish come true!

What's next? How about another release? That's right! Dangerous Damsels and Fatal Femmes is coming to you soon, from the Dreamtime Fantasy Authors, the same group who brought you Dreamtime Dragons back in 2017! I'll be sure and update when I've got an official date, so you don't miss it!

CURRENT EVENTS: Blog Hop & Author Takeover


So the more astute followers might know that The Upstream Writer is currently almost finished with the Bookish Summer Blog Hop of 2019. Only a few days more to go, so if you haven't gotten on it yet, then scurry on over to the >Intro Post< where I've linked all the posts from the last month! We've had some pretty unique questions that I've had a lot of fun answering!



ALSO, if you want to actually be able to interact with me LIVE (as in, I'm going to read your
comment and respond immediately) then you'll want to click the following hyperlinked text to Access Facebook And Join The Fantasy And Sci-Fi Reader's Lounge, because on Friday morning I'm going to be giving background information and running games based on my story from the Forest of the Fearless Anthology, "Serenity's Light." It has some pretty unique origins, and you'll definitely want to be a part of it! Of course, I'll still get notified of any interaction with the posts after that short amount of time, but showing up the morning of will be worth it, if I can get some of the other anthology submitters to show up and give info about their stories! So you'll want to be there! My time slot is 8:30AM-10AM Pacific Time, if you can make it!

Now to get down to the more serious, accountability side of business...

Writing


The Last Inkweaver

How can a project be both "closer than ever" and "farther away" from an actual freaking ending??? Not even kidding, it probably took me these last two months to get through that whole conversation with Jacqueline, in which I thought at first that I was going to be able to reveal a bunch of stuff, but that required a lot of thinking and rethinking (and overthinking) to ensure that revealing all of it at this point would still make sense and seem like a logical progression for the conversation... only to realize, when I finally arrived at said point in the conversation, that it was really too much information to dump all at once, and that I could actually move it to a later point... Which then makes the scenes-to-come longer than I originally anticipated... Chapter 31, as it stands, is a beast. My beta readers are definitely going to hate me (if I don't burn them out in the first 30 chapters, that is...) But with that done, I can finally bring Matthias onto the scene, send them into "Oblivion" (in more ways than one!), and get on with it, at last! Here's hoping it doesn't take me the next two months to finish this!!

Red, The Wolf: The Series

It's official! Red, The Wolf is coming to The Upstream Writer's Serial Saturday lineup, at last! Unfortunately, that teaser I posted a few months ago is now obsolete, since I decided to scrap that and go with another one. BUT this also meant that I went ahead and continued it--and now that I'm officially posting it, this means that I'm going to carry it through all the way to the end! I can't wait for you to meet this awesome character! I hope you all enjoy the series as much as I have in my own head!
Full of intense action, a shapeshifter who isn't really accustomed to being vulnerable and helpless, a swindling peddler who is used to pulling the wool over everyone's eyes, and a fortune teller who can see past the surface, to the true nature of everyone she meets... It's "Red Riding Hood" like you haven't seen it yet!

A Writer's Tale, Book 3: The Sheriff's Showdown

Excuse me? Do you really think I'm so shameless that I would plunk out a grand total of half a scene on this project after not touching it for months, just so I could give an update on it today?

Yeah. I'm totally that shameless. (It was almost a thousand words in a single go, how could I resist?)

While I am pressuring myself to get The Last Inkweaver done, I also find that I really kind of want to finish this one, too... just so I can get onto the next one, really. (That's kind of been the case for pretty much every single book in this series... go figure...) Honestly, the true motivator would probably be Wattpad, and the fact that I've only got one active story that I'm updating anymore, and not really any feedback as to what else people want to see me posting. Meanwhile, my old stuff is still getting votes and adds and whatnot so it's not all terrible... I just feel like I don't have a "Wattpad Wednesday" when I'm not really updating on there!

Wattpad

Speaking of which, let me bring you all up to speed with what I have on here:

My current in-progress work that I'm updating regularly still is the FLASHES OF INSPIRATION. Mostly I'm just copying from what I have already posted on here, which you can find under "Flash Fictions"... but I will have you know, I just finished a brand-new flash-fic that I won't be posting here on the blog, but I will add to the Wattpad version... so you might want to keep your eye over there (or keep an eye out on the Flash Fictions page on here, because I'll be adding the link) for when I post it!

There is still the SOUND OF AN ECHO, a Percy Jackson fanfic that I started, that I probably really should finish eventually someday... I got Percy and Annabeth and a few other campers to leave Camp Half-Blood on their quest, after a whole bunch of prophecies, and there's no telling (because I haven't gotten any feedback at all) whether or not my clues and hints were obvious or not. I still do have all the notes and stuff, so I do know how all the prophecies play out, and most of all, how it ends. It's just that "middle" part, the part where they're supposed to "meet up with allies" or "encounter opposition" where I am a little fuzzy on the details... Maybe if I really wanted to challenge myself, I could sit down and see how much of it I can pound out... So that's another WIP to add to my docket! Will I have time to write all of these? Who even knows anymore?

Reading


Hoo boy...

So May was a dismal failure, as far as reading goes. I was so exhausted by work every single week and so busy on the weekends trying to get caught up on everything that I barely had time to read at all, and I didn't end up finishing a single book for the whole month!

Finally, here at the end of June, I've had enough time to finish Angel Tormented, the third book in the LouisiAngel series by C. L. Coffey. It was everything I hoped it would be, and so much that I was totally not expecting! I also brought along You Left Me No Choice by Kelly Blanchard (Book 5 in her Chronicles of Lorrek series!) on a car trip yesterday, and got from "halfway through" to "nearly finished" so that's another review coming possibly next week! Other than that... I still have a few more "bought" books that I must finish before I allow myself to return to the library--it hurts so bad! Feels almost like a punishment... But now that I'm on summer break, I keep telling myself I have more time for reading, so no more excuses!

And that's where I'm at with everything! How about you? What are you writing or reading? Feel free to comment with a little update! Do you have any questions for me about anything I've mentioned here? Ask them, and I'll answer to the best of my ability! As always...

Catch You Further Upstream!



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