The Upstream Writer Birthday Update 2024: A Look Back, And A Look Ahead

Wow! It's been a while since I've given an update... Pretty much all of 2023 was pretty hectic, so let me get you caught up!
 

Life Stuff

First of all, this year hasn’t quite gone as expected, in good ways and bad.

It started in February, during a family vacation in Hawaii. With seven people (Mom, Dad, Me, Sister, Brother-in-law, and their two kids) in a 2-bedroom condo, I ended up sleeping in the main area on an air mattress. Hence, everybody could hear me snore. That had never really bothered me before, since I sleep alone. I had always struggled with fatigue, thinking that it was just a byproduct of my hypothyroidism when that was diagnosed, but even with the proper medication to bring my thyroid levels into balance, the snoring habit and the fatigue were still there. I had long accepted it as just “my normal”, and thought that it was just something I would always have to deal with. I could be “rested” without experiencing actual “deep sleep.” Or so I thought.
Who am I kidding? I’m not normal. 
Well, finally one day on the vacation my Mom informs me that she’d heard me snoring very loudly the night before, and even a couple times it sounded like I stopped breathing very briefly! I of course had no idea that my body was even doing that. This prompted me to start seriously considering consulting with a sleep doctor, something I didn’t want to do until school was out for the summer, just in case there was a barrage of tests or something. I had no idea what to expect. I managed to survive the end of the school year (nodding off if I was sitting inactive for more than ten minutes, struggling to get enough rest at night, and still snoring, in spite of trying things like the mouth-taping method and a silicone nose insert to hold my nostrils open at night; I’d usually end up taking the tape off or pulling the insert out of my nose in my sleep, and then waking up in the middle of the night with the tape around my fingers and whatnot) and scheduled an appointment at a nearby sleep center. 
Even during that appointment, after weeks of summer and not having to get up early for work, I was struggling to stay awake and alert for my consultation. The doctor set me up for an at-home sleep test, just a silicone ring that I would wear, equipped with a microchip that would transmit data wirelessly to track my oxygen saturation, my respiratory levels, and track movement or activity while I slept.
The results scared me badly.
For perspective, someone with mild sleep apnea will experience up to five “sleep disruptions” per hour. Ten to fifteen disruptions is considered average sleep apnea, and 30 or more disruptions would be severe apnea.

Folks, yours truly clocked in almost one hundred disruptions per hour in a single night. The oxygen saturation graph registered as low as 70% oxygen saturation, and I bottomed that right out multiple times over the course of the night. The diagnosis was severe obstructive sleep apnea. The way one technician described it was that as my muscles relaxed in sleep, some part of my respiratory system would relax too much and close off, prompting my brain to think that I’m drowning, and so my brain would “wake up” my body to breathe, disrupting my sleep and flooding my system with cortisol. I was basically in “fight or flight” mode all night, every night. No wonder I wasn’t ever getting good rest, no matter how long I slept! I wasn’t truly resting at all!

Luckily, the diagnosis opened up the potential for a CPAP machine. I’d seen my mom use one, and my late brother whose multiple health crises and a partially-paralyzed diaphragm necessitated the use of a Bi-PAP machine, but I never imagined having to use one myself. The doctor administered an in-lab sleep test where they could hook me up to a bunch of sensors and put me on a CPAP machine to see if that resolved the issue. I had to report to the sleep center at night, and the test would last until early the next morning.

It took a bit of finessing to get the mask to fit right, and I admit, I was a bit paranoid at being closely monitored while sleeping… but it was the best sleep I’d had in my life to that point.
The administering tech roused me after about seven and a half hours–during which time I’d experienced all 4 stages of sleep, including two and a half hours of REM sleep, and twenty whole minutes’ worth of deep sleep! It was early in the morning, which I usually hated those early hours, but I felt amazing! 
The euphoria of a great night’s sleep lasted for about two days, and then the fatigue started to set in again, but I felt that relief was in my grasp! Wearing a mask while sleeping wasn’t nearly as disruptive as I thought it was going to be, and I liked how I felt afterwards, too! I had to wait about a month to get my own machine, but as soon as I started using it, I felt the difference.

I stopped feeling “in a fog” and I no longer struggled against nodding off so much. I felt residual energy even after a full day of work, enough that I could engage and participate in things instead of just withdrawing to doze and drowse alone. Nowadays, I’m getting anywhere from half an hour to an hour of deep sleep on average nights, and on “short” nights (when I’m getting six hours or less of sleep) I’m still averaging ten to thirty minutes of deep sleep. That’s going from never getting deep sleep to deep sleep every night, and what a difference it’s made!
I’m especially glad to get this sleep thing figured out because this school year, the administration has shifted elementary start times back half an hour, so instead of needing to get to the school before 8 AM in the morning, which meant I had to get up at 6 AM to be able to get everything ready and go, now I have to be there at 7:30 AM, which means I have to get up at 5:30 every morning! I dislike it very much, but at least I can still get decent sleep, using my CPAP at night! 

Going into 2024, I resolved to channel the newfound energy toward more accountability and productivity. I have attempted to utilize a planner every year since like 2018, and I’ll generally do okay for a couple months and then something happens and I get distracted and fall out of place, and the planner ends up blank for several months. 
This year, I kind of looked back over the previous year and saw myself being overly ambitious, setting goals for myself without any sort of habits in place to back them up. In light of that, I chose targets for myself that I know I could accomplish, and am looking more into breaking those targets down into achievable parts that contribute to the overall goals. The first week of 2024, while not completely according to plan, didn’t end up too badly, so I’m optimistic that ensuing weeks will enable me to build up the habits I need to reach my goals!

WRITING

The last picture I have of
him, on his 29th birthday
a month before he passed

Anyway, writing has not been going as well as I’d hoped over the last year. I’d been dealing gently with myself since my brother’s passing in summer of 2022 (which was a large part of the reason I haven't really given an update since about that time, honestly...), and I’d started the year with more of a resolve, wanting to get the series finished up at long last, so that I could actually call it a series and not just one book. But then the whole thing with the sleeping habits happened and I didn’t get much writing done over the spring… or summer… I will say, I was able to get "over the hump" as it were during NaNoWriMo, and do much better than I had been the year before, so that’s a plus!

Fugitive Of Crossway

Ta-daa!! Story map--
the whole thing contained
on about 30 cards!

Speaking of Fugitive, I’d hoped to perhaps finish it, or at least get close to finishing it before November, but that didn’t happen. During NaNoWriMo this year, though, I managed to get past the really difficult part, the part of the story where a lot of things were happening simultaneously and I had gotten stymied for at least a month the first time around… This time I managed to get beyond it in just over a week, so I’ve got that going for me! This was due in part to a new strategy I’ve been implementing since starting this new draft, a story map! Getting all the moving parts visually synched up and organized has really helped me discern where things could be moved around so I’m (hopefully) not spending too much time on one character over another, and keeping things chronologically in order so it flows a lot better. I must inform you all that I’ve abandoned making it as short as Princess of Undersea, it’s definitely going to be a longer book, I just hope I don’t have to make it too long!

My goal for 2024 is to be able to finish Fugitive of Crossway before springtime, so that I can get the marketing launched for it to release in early springtime. The time is finally here, folks! Only three and a half years later… but I’m hoping that giving myself a deadline will encourage me to press through to the end!

UPCOMING OPPORTUNITIES

Well, the motivation to finish Fugitive as soon as possible is very high, because at this point I’ve had some new anthology opportunities coming up in 2024! 

The theme for the first anthology is “Genie In A Bottle”, and that happens to coincide with Book 3, Fury of Outwest, which is going to be a Steampunk/Western retelling of Aladdin, anyway! I already have the 3 “Tales from Outwest” that I’m going to include in the book itself, but I came up with a brand new idea that not only fits in with the narrative, but also does not spoil anything that I’ve already planned to happen in the book! I’m almost finished with it at this point, and then I’ll have a few months to edit it and polish it up before I submit it in April. The anthology will be released in June.

Imagine my surprise, when scrolling through the Facebook group posts to find the submission form for the Genie anthology, and finding two others that could fit with other stories I’ve already written! 

One is “Cracked Fairy Tales”, which of course reminded me of Cracks in The Tapestry–but since Tapestry is still in circulation I can’t necessarily use “Heartsong”... but what I do have is a certain “Cinderella” retelling with, I don’t know, DRAGONS, and set in 1920’s Italy, so I’d say that’s pretty “cracked”, wouldn’t you say? At any rate, I have till July to polish that one up for a September release. It’s a little over the word count limit, but hopefully I can get it down below, or the editor can allow me to stretch the limit a bit!

The other is called “Roses of Disgrace” and the guidelines specify that “a rose must be central to a conflict or resolution”, reminiscent of “Beauty and The Beast” and whatnot… which I’ve already cooked up a retelling with “The Prince and The Rose”, serialized on this blog. And bonus, I’m pretty sure it’s within the word count limit! I’m really excited to be able to share that story with a reader base I haven’t reached yet. That one is due in October for a December release.

So if I get everything together for all three anthologies, I’ll have short stories coming out in June, September, and December! Bring it on! Even better, if you’re curious at all and looking for a new batch of stories from authors you maybe haven’t read before, all three anthologies are already up for pre-order, so you can reserve your copy ahead of time and get it right when it releases!

BLOG SERIALS

To revive, or not to revive,
that is the question...

Meanwhile, in addition to the short story madness and the WIP deadlines, I haven’t forgotten about my beloved Serial Saturday tradition! I know there is always Fairies Under Glass I could return to, when I’m not running directly up against deadlines that are perilously close due to poor time management that I am trying to rectify… Also it might help if I knew if people were interested in seeing how that story resolves? I’m pretty proud of the way I reformed an old story in the first place, just with what I’ve written so far, anyway… but there was just something about it (and also some personal stuff I was dealing with at the time) that just drew me away from it. What do you all think? Let me know in the comments!

If something new is in order, then let me reassure you I have a fresh project waiting in the wings. I actually came up with it earlier last year, but I just had no way of breaking the idea down into actionable “episodes” for a serial… until pretty much the last bit of 2023. I have the first few episodes planned out by now, but just haven’t gotten around to turning those plans into an actual draft. That will come later, I assume, along with the rest of the plot! I figure once I have a few episodes written, in between the more serious writing projects, I can recommence the serial Saturdays, and then you’ll have something regular to look forward to on this blog!

Speaking of “something regular”, you can expect more blog tags out of me in the future. I’ve sourced a few from a couple other book bloggers, and I’m on the lookout for more. My plan is to be able to post at least twice per month, if not more, so I’m hoping to at least have enough blog tags to do one a month! I tried to start that last year, and it didn’t work out so much–here’s hoping I’ll do better this year!

So that’s it, that’s all the updates on my life and writing projects from 2023, and what to look forward to in 2024. Coming up on Monday, I made a post ranking all 17 books I read in 2023. Stay tuned for that! 

How about you? What are your goals for 2024? Share them in the comments, and let’s encourage one another to achieve success this year! As always...

Catch You Further Upstream!