Some Kind of Goals

HAPPY NEW YEAR! ☺️🎉

I hope that 2025 is an awesome year for all of us.

For me, January usually feels like a clean slate, but this year I'm carrying forward a project.

In the past, by the time December hits, I'm mentally exhausted and stop working on new stuff. But this past December, I started writing a new novel even though I knew there was no way I'd get it finished by December 31st. 😅

Either way, I'm still going to add a list of personal plans and goals right here. I don't like to make New Year resolutions because I never stick to them. But I do put together a goals list because it's a lot easier to accomplish.

So, here are my 2025 Goals:

• Continue to go for long daily walks
• Try to get back into (at least one weekly) yoga workout
• Finish writing my current first draft WIP 
• Celebrate the release of my first short story collection: MELANCHOLY DELUSIONS 
• Write between 100-200k words
• Read 52 books
• Revise/finalise the two vampire first drafts
• Work on edits when they hit my Inbox
• Write a novel (or two)
• Write a novella (or two)
• Write a few short stories
• Keep playing Animal Crossing daily
• Get into other cozy, cute puzzle games

Well, that's it! ☺️

Are you making a list this year?

Books Read in 2024

THE LOVER:

Silvia Moreno-Garcia

THE TIGER CAME TO THE MOUNTAINS:

Silvia Moreno-Garcia

HER HEART BEATS FOR ANCIENT BEASTS:

Calvin Demmer

OPEN HOUSE:

Nico Bell

BLACK VAULT:

Alma Katsu

MANDY:

Stephanie Sparks

THROUGH THE BLUR:

Yolanda Sfetsos

HELENA:

Claire L. Smith

TRUE CRIME:

Samantha Kolesnik

BLEEDING INTO NEW WORLDS:

Sarah Jane Huntington

PIRANESI (DNF):

Susanna Clarke

BARREN COVE:

Ariel S. Winter

THE CRANE HUSBAND:

Kelly Barnhill

IN EXCESS OF DARK:

Red Lagoe

WINGS OF SORROW:

Yolanda Sfetsos

GOBLIN MONDAY

(Goosebumps House of Shivers #2):

R.L. Stine

THE FIRST EVIL

(Fear Street Cheerleaders #1):

R.L. Stine

THE PROM QUEEN

(Fear Street #15):

R.L. Stine

BLUEBEARD'S CASTLE:

Anna Biller

CHOPPING SPREE:

Angela Sylvaine

BURY THE CHILD:

L.C. Marino

DAISY JONES & THE SIX:

Taylor Jenkins Reid

WOMAN, EATING:

Claire Kohda

THE IDEA OF YOU:

Robinne Lee

THE WICKED UNSEEN:

Gigi Griffis

MY ROOMMATE IS A VAMPIRE:

Jenna Levine

THE FIRST HORROR

(99 Fear Street: The House of Evil Trilogy #1):

R.L. Stine

SHORT SCARES

Two Sentence Horrors Anthology:

edited by Lauren Carter

YOU LIKE IT DARKER:

Stephen King

EARTHLINGS:

Sayaka Murata

NIGHTBITCH (DNF):

Rachel Yoder

COUNTDOWN TO OBLIVION:

Brian Bowyer

VERITY:

Colleen Hoover

A CERTAIN HUNGER (DNF):

Chelsea G. Summers

RED:

Daniel Lorn

INSOMNIA:

Sarah Pinborough

THREADS OF ASH: SOUTH

(The Frayed Kingdom #1):

S.H. Cooper

POOR UNFORTUNATE SOUL (DNF):

(Disney Villains #3):

Serena Valentino

MISTRESS OF ALL EVIL

(Disney Villains #4):

Serena Valentino

BEAUTY & THE BEAST

(Usborne Peek Inside a Fairy Tale):

Anna Milbourne

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD

(Usborne Peek Inside a Fairy Tale):

Anna Milbourne

SLEEPING BEAUTY

(Usborne Peek Inside a Fairy Tale):

Anna Milbourne

NUMB:

Yolanda Sfetsos

THE RACK

Stories Inspired by Vintage Horror Paperbacks:

edited by Tom Deady

ONLY DARKNESS:

Yolanda Sfetsos

BLACKOUT

Micropoetry:

Brian Bowyer

NANA:

Mark Towse

STATIC:

Stacey L. Pierson

LADY MACBETH:

Ava Reid

SWEETPEA:

C.J. Skuse

SOXORCIST II:

Jamie Kort

REALITY BUT MORE FUN:

Madeleine Swann

CASTLE OF THE CURSED:

Romina Garber

SALLY'S LAMENT:

Mari Mancusi l

DIAVOLA:

Jennifer Marie Thorne

NOW OR NEVER

(Stephanie Plum #31):

Janet Evanovich

TROG:

Zachary Ashford

MELANCHOLY DELUSIONS:

Yolanda Sfetsos

REAP, SOW:

S.H. Cooper

Books Read in 2024: 55/52

(DNF books: 4)

________________________

Number of series/duology/trilogy books read: 13

1. GOBLIN MONDAY (Goosebumps House of Shivers #2)
2. THE FIRST EVIL (Fear Street Cheerleaders #1)
3. THE PROM QUEEN (Fear Street #15)
4. THE FIRST HORROR (99 Fear Street: The House of Evil Trilogy #1)
5. THREADS OF ASH: SOUTH (The Frayed Kingdom #1)
6. POOR UNFORTUNATE SOUL (Disney Villains #3)
7. MISTRESS OF ALL EVIL (Disney Villains #4)
8. BEAUTY & THE BEAST (Usborne Peek Inside a Fairy Tale):
9. LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD (Usborne Peek Inside a Fairy Tale)
10. SLEEPING BEAUTY (Usborne Peek Inside a Fairy Tale)
11. SWEETPEA (Sweetpea #1)
12. SOXORCIST II
13. NOW OR NEVER (Stephanie Plum #31)

My 2024 Reading Goal: 52 books

2024 Goals

Well, it's time to grab the goals list I put together/posted back in January, to see how I went.

This year turned out to be a very strange one. Lots of cool stuff happened, and some not-very cool stuff happened as well. Some shitty people revealed themselves and some disappointing crap went down, but I'm not going to concentrate on that mess because as a result, my first self-published book is now available and I'm SO PROUD of it. Yay! 🥳

Anyway, here's how this year turned out:

• Go for long daily walks: THIS IS SOMETHING I CONTINUED TO DO ALL YEAR. (FROM MONDAY TO FRIDAY, I WALK FOR ALMOST TWO HOURS. ON WEEKENDS WE GO FOR LONG SUBURBAN WALKS.)

• Really get back into yoga and schedule maybe two workouts a week: THIS WAS A TOTAL FAIL. WE SQUEEZED IN SEVERAL YOGA WORKOUTS, BUT THEY WERE SPORADIC. 😬

• Brainstorming a bunch of ideas: YES! I BRAINSTORMED 4 NEW IDEAS & I CAN'T WAIT TO WRITE THEM. (WELL, I ACTUALLY ALREADY WROTE ONE.)

• Celebrate the book/s coming out this year: I CELEBRATED THE RELEASE OF THREE NOVELS (ONLY DARKNESS, NUMB, THROUGH THE BLUR) + HAD A TWO-SENTENCE SHORTIE INCLUDED IN THE VERY COOL SHORT SCARES ANTHOLOGY.

• Write between 100-200k words: I WROTE 196,816 WORDS. 

• Read 52 books: I READ 59 (DNFd 4).

• Revise/finalise the first draft (unhinged women/girls novel) I wrote during November: I REVISED & FINALISED THIS BOOK BACK IN JANUARY.

• Work on edits as they hit my Inbox: I DID THIS AS WELL.

• Write a novel or two: BECAUSE I SPENT SO MUCH OF THIS YEAR EDITING & REVISING, I DIDN'T ACTUALLY WRITE ANYTHING NEW UNTIL NOVEMBER. THEN STARTED WRITING ANOTHER NOVEL THIS MONTH! 😳 YEP. (AND I WON'T BE FINISHING THIS ONE BY THE END OF THE YEAR.)

• Write a novella or two: I DIDN'T WRITE ANY NOVELLAS THIS YEAR.

• Write some new short stories: WHILE I DID START WRITING A FEW SHORT STORIES, I DIDN'T ACTUALLY FINISH ANY OF THEM. 😖

• Finally put together/finalise my first short story collection & find a place to sub it to: I DEFINITELY DID THIS! ACTUALLY, I COLLATED SO MANY STORIES THAT I PUT TOGETHER TWO SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS! I REWROTE/REVISED EVERY SINGLE STORY. THAT'S 34 SHORT STORIES! THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT MY DEBUT COLLECTION, MELANCHOLY DELUSIONS, WILL BE RELEASED BY CEMETERY GATES MEDIA ON JANUARY 28!

• Continue to submit stories: I DID THIS TOO! AND ASIDES FROM THE ABOVE ACCEPTANCE, I ALSO HAD TWO NOVEL ACCEPTANCES: THESE STAINED WALLS (Horrorsmith Publishing) + FALLEN DESTINY (Brigids Gate Press).

• Keep playing Animal Crossing and get into some other cozy, cute puzzle games (ie. Fae Farm): STILL PLAYING ANIMAL CROSSING: NEW HORIZONS. OF COURSE I AM. 😁 BUT I DIDN'T HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO START ANY NEW GAMES. 🫤

As I mentioned above, I had three novels published this year and one shortie included in an anthology:

ONLY DARKNESS is my first self-published book. NUMB and THROUGH THE BLUR were published by Anuci Press.

Another thing that I did this year was deactivate my Twitter account. Yep. After 15 years, I had no choice but to leave. I had enough of the right-wing bullshit, the pathetic non-stop ads, the AI crap, and the disgusting owner. And I haven't looked back.

Instead, you can find me on Bluesky. 😁

Oh, and another thing I've managed to do is to keep posting on my blog. Yes, right here!

That's it for now. Guess I should put together a 2025 list soon...

More words added...

Hey! How are you today? I hope you're all having an awesome and safe festive season.

We're now in the middle of that liminal time between Christmas and New Year's, which always feels a little strange. Something about this particular time of the year seems... unreal. But unlike every other year, when I usually wander around aimlessly, I'm actually still writing a story.

So, this week was pretty cool. My husband worked two days, had two days off, went to work on Friday, and now the weekend is here again. Yay!! 😁

As a result of the above, I didn't actually write every day this week but I did make some great progress on my WIP.

Here's how it went:

• Monday: 26,359 (+5050w)
• Tuesday: 31,555 (+5196w)
• Friday: 36,856 (+5,301w)

Not bad, I reckon! I honestly didn't plan to spend the rest of the year writing a novel first draft, but here we are.

As I've already mentioned, this character is just SO loud and pushy that I have no choice but to keep writing. Keep telling the story, from the other side. And the coolest thing is that while so much of this intersects with the book I wrote last month, plus a lot of what's happening has been inside my head for ages, new things keep popping up!

I'm having such a GREAT TIME writing this story, and after not writing anything new for MONTHS because of excessive editing and shit that was out of my control, it feels so freaking good to get totally lost in a world that's serving up many enjoyable hours of entertainment.

You know how they say you should write the stories you want to read? Well, these two WIPs are exactly that. They're fun, cathartic and downright exciting. Plus both feature vampires, which I absolutely love. 🦇

I'm going to keep writing until I reach the end of this one, which I predict will be sometime in January. And that's fine. This year has served a lot of changes, and that includes a shift in my attitude to not be so rigid with self-imposed plans and goals.

Sometimes you just have to go with the flow.

I didn't get a chance to read anything this week, but that's cool because I spent most of my time either writing or taking notes. And creating individual graphics for the short stories in my upcoming short story collection, MELANCHOLY DELUSIONS.

BTW, did I mention that I read the first review for my collection on IG the other day? Well, I did. Here it is! I want to thank jen_reads_horror for taking the time to read it and share her thoughts, too. 😍

Okay. That's about it. I'm going to enjoy the next few days with my husband and take a short mental break before going back to my WIP.

Have an awesome weekend!!

Busy, busy...

Hey there! How are you today? As I mentioned in the title, this week was a busy one.

Last Saturday we got the latest Covid booster (finally available in Oz) and had to take it easy over the weekend because of the usual side effects: headache, sore arm, tired, sleepy. We had plenty of snacks, stayed hydrated, and took several naps. Almost a week later, I think that the hardest parts are over. Well, I did wake up with a killer headache this morning that eventually subsided, but sucked a lot of energy out of me. 🫤

Anyway, onto what I got up to this week.

The other day, Cemetery Gates Media revealed the fantastic cover for my upcoming debut short story collection! And it's beautiful. Hit the link if you'd like to see it, or scroll down a bit. Seriously, it's stunning and totally fits the dark vibes. Luke Spooner/Carrion House nailed it. I absolutely love it!

So, that means that I spent most of the week working on the final proofread of 17 short stories. Yikes. I'm SO excited, and very proud of this book. I can't wait to share it with the world. Actually, I've already seen a few ARCs in the wild, which is SO freaking cool!!

Not long to go now. The release date is: January 28!

Since I've been working on something else and my husband had an RDO on Thursday, I put my WIP aside for most of the week. But I still got a chance to add some words and have been taking a bunch of notes on my phone.

So, here's my progress for this week:

• Monday:  17,037 (+2,661w)
• Friday: 21,309 (+4,272w)

Not bad! I managed to cross the 20k mark, and that makes me happy. I'm having such a great time writing this story. The images, situations, dialogue and words are coming as fast and clear as the draft I finished writing last month. This character has a LOT to say and this POV is revealing heaps of stuff I didn't expect. Things that will affect both stories.

It's exciting. ☺️

To be honest, I don't think I'll finish the first draft of this story by the end of the year, but that's fine. I'm just going to keep going until I reach the end because I'm loving every minute of it.

I also had the pleasure of reading an amazing ARC. An upcoming novelette called Reap, Sow by S.H. Cooper that I thought was dark and awesome. Here's my review.

Well, that's it for today. Just thought I'd post an update because blogging again is something I'm really enjoying.

Have an awesome weekend!!