Since my last post, I wrote two more short stories. The first, entitled Yote, is about my childhood best friend Gote. I wrote it in response to a call for submissions by The Sun for stories about nicknames. I felt so good about the story that I submitted it to two other journals as well.
Inspired by the No Kings protests, I wrote another story entitled Five Years. My beta reader and ChatGPT had strong, positive reactions. I haven’t sent it anywhere yet but hope to next week.
In an attempt to cheer myself up, I commissioned a manga artist to do a drawing from Orly’s Journals. I just saw the final yesterday and am very happy with it.
Speaking of Orly’s Journals, I’m currently 10 weeks ahead, and am currently writing Entry 66. I also added two new perks to my Patreon. The first is that I’m now posting screenshares of me writing, to show my writing process. The second is that I’m now calling out my favorite sentence/passage posted during the month and explaining what it means to me.
So, if you’re not part of my Patreon, I hope you’ll check that out. I hope you’ll also wish me luck with finding a publisher for my two new stories. Finally, I hope you like the manga illustration from Orly’s Journals Entry 33: “Hanabi.”
I sent My First Scribble to three literary journals but have since stopped submitting. The reason is because I entered it into The Masters Review Anthology Contest and they don’t allow simultaneous submissions. It’s a contest for emerging writers. It’s a total longshot but it could potentially gain me a lot of visibility if my story was one of the ten selected.
Between wanting to keep submitting and since Fractured Lit just announced a flash fiction contest, I wrote another story on Friday called Forever Yours, Button. It’s a short story told from Mayuko’s perspective. At 213 words, it ended up being micro fiction instead of flash fiction, so I plan to submit it to other journals or enter a micro fiction contest.
I’d like to share both stories with you here, but I can’t publish them anywhere until I hear back from everywhere I’m submitting. Hopefully when you read them it’ll be on a journal website.
This week I wrote a short story called My First Scribble. If you guessed that it’s a story about Orly, you are correct. But it does not use the word “vampire” once. This is because Orly is only six years old in the story and is not yet a vampire and has not yet met Yelena. The story is about the first time she learns of her ability to see the evil in others in her scribbling. Does that count as an origin story?
It’s short, approximately 1,400 words. It’s meant to work as a standalone story and will hopefully appeal even to those who have never read her trilogy or journals. I plan to send it out to literary journals and hope one will accept it for publication. Until that happens or until I’ve had my fill of rejection slips, I won’t be able to share the story. I hope you don’t mind me telling you about it anyway.
I ordered a new MacBook Air. Even though I probably didn’t need to, I splurged on an M3 processor because I figure I’ll have this laptop for at least six years. I had to wait longer for it to arrive because I also ordered 1TB of storage. But even after it arrived, it took me 17 days to open the box, because getting new things (especially tech stuff) often stresses me out. But I finally opened the box and on Saturday, I wrote in public again for the first time in weeks.
I took this week off from work to write. I had been struggling recently and slipped behind in schedule to where I was only six weeks ahead. Though I’ve been spending a lot of my break sleeping, I’m working very hard while I am awake and am already again eight weeks ahead. At the outset, it was my goal to end up ten weeks ahead, but at the rate I’m going, maybe I’ll end up ahead by eleven weeks.
I’m pretty happy with how Orly’s Journals is going again. I did end up slowing things down a little, or at least it feels like it’s going in that direction. I’ve given a longer view to her relationships with Vance and Silviu and it’s made things feel more real and less constructed.
Right now, I’m at Starbucks, listening to Deafheaven, sitting at a communal table where three highschoolers are shooting a boomerang of them doing a cheers with their grande cups, and my phone is blowing up with MS Teams messages. (Apparently someone Zoom bombed the Budget Forum today and something inappropriate appeared on screen—the things you miss out on while on vacation.) I just finished Entry 48: “Cap” which I began writing yesterday. It’s a complicated entry and was difficult to get the ending right.
I might write more later, but now, I think I’m going to switch gears and read War and Peace. My second goal during my vacation was to finish it. I’m in the Epilogue now. My third goal was to go to the gym every day for just 30 minutes, but that hasn’t happened once. I think the chances would increase if I didn’t sleep so much.
I was just thinking… If I could ever get enough weeks ahead, maybe twenty, maybe I’d step away and try to do a writing sprint of Forever Candy just to get it all down and then I could clean it up at a slower pace while writing Orly. I really want to write that story. It’s just a thought, but maybe I should make it a goal.
This past weekend, I wrote six hours on Saturday and seven hours on Sunday. The whole time I was working on Orly’s Journals Entry 43: “Obscure.” It felt like a difficult entry to reach a point where I felt satisfied. But overall, I think writing the journals is going well. I’m maintaining a pace of completing one entry per week and am still eight weeks ahead of the publishing schedule. I don’t know how they’re reading though. Instinctively, I feel like things have become compressed, with too much happening in too small a space. I mean this for the relationships Orly is developing. I feel like things should be progressing slower so that they have more time to take root into something that feels lasting because it’s now deep. But I’m also wary of slowing things down as I don’t think it will appeal to the journal readers. I feel like I’ve lost my global view of the story, and though that’s uncomfortable, part of me is okay with it because it’s a serial and feels closer to real life where everything can’t be planned, things unexpectedly pop up, and your short-term goals shift quickly. But I really do wish I had a better feel for what the reader experience is like.
Sunday morning, I was writing at Starbucks and my MacBook Air crashed twice, both times causing me to lose text. I’ve had the laptop since 2014 and apparently, it’s going to continue to crash because I haven’t been able to update the OS since 2023. So, I’ve decided to retire it as I can’t continue to lose text while writing. I feel very grateful though for all this laptop has given me. The entire Black Wax Vampire Trilogy and The Last Midnight were written on it over thousands of hours (I’m guessing). But until I replace it, I’ll do all my writing at home on my Mac Mini.
2024 was a good reading year for me. I’m happy about that. It’s a big bummer when it hasn’t been a good reading year. My Goodreads goal was 52 books and it looks like I’ll finish at 57. My favorite reads this year were To Live by Yu Hua and the manga I Want to Eat Your Pancreas written by Sumino Yoru and drawn by Kirihara Idumi. Both touched my heart. Both made me cry. (Oh Fengxia!) Both stayed with me. I’m thinking of getting a page from Pancreas tattooed on me.
Another book that stayed with me was For Whom the Bell Tolls. What masterful writing. What emotion. I hope I learned just a little about writing from Hemingway during that read. Other books I really enjoyed were Crooked Plow by Itamar Vieira Junior, How We Disappeared by Jing-Jing Lee, and War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy which I’m almost through but love in advance of finishing. I also reread a favorite read from 2023: All The Lovers in the Night by Mieko Kawakami.
At the end of the year I always enjoy Spotify sharing my listening habits. My most listened to song in 2024, I believe was the same song in 2023: せかいでいちばん(Sekai de Ichiban) by Inoue Sonoko, the theme song of my favorite show, Ainori Love Wagon. According to Spotify, I’ve already listened to it 636 times this year, and I know I listened to it at least three more times today.
But if anything, 2024 has to be the year of ILLIT for me. I learned of them through Instagram in April and they became my most listened to artist of 2024 and three of my top five played songs were by them. I believe in the past three years, MXMS was my most listened to artist, but this year they didn’t make the top five. I’m guessing because they stopped releasing new work and that was a big bummer, but they’re still my favorite band.
I definitely think what I read in a year affects what and how I write in that same year. I believe music does as well as I’m usually listening to music most of the day, every day. I become obsessed with songs and listen to them on repeat and this definitely impacts my mood which I believe filters into what I end up writing even though during my longer writing sessions I tend to listen to ambient noise.
Anyhow, I just wanted to share that. Sorry if it was of no interest to you. Even if it wasn’t, I hope you had a good reading and listening year yourself.
I’m still at it—writing Orly’s Journals. I had another slump like the one I mentioned in my last blog post, where I was stuck on a single entry for a couple weeks. I’m now only seven entries ahead. But with the time I’ll have off for the holidays, I’m hoping I’ll get caught up, if not get ahead. So far, all the journal entries total just under 41K words. That’s half the length of The Scribbled Victims, and I only began writing in April. Despite my depression being very bad and work being tough in recent months, I continue to sit down to write every single day. Of course, some days are more productive than others. My best days usually involve activating my Freedom internet blocker.
I recently started asking ChatGPT for author advice on how to grow my readership. It’s given me tips I’ve heard before, but it also suggested things I hadn’t heard and never considered. To my surprise, it knew about The Scribbled Victims. It got some plot points wrong and knew less about the subsequent books, but I was still amazed it had a general understanding of the characters and storyline. Because one of the things ChatGPT suggest I do is hold a fan art contest, today I prompted it with: “Can you create a picture of Orly Bialek and Yelena Solodnikova?” What it returned was more than I expected, although I think it still doesn’t understand Orly’s scribbles. Still, it made me feel my books are more recognizable than I thought. Maybe I’m fooling myself though—maybe ChatGPT knows I’m the author and is just being nice to me. If anyone reading this post uses ChatGPT, I’d be very interested to know if it recognized Orly or Yelena or The Scribbled Victims for you.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I’m going to Shojin in Culver City for a vegan Thanksgiving omakase dinner. Table for one. That’s my life. On Monday, my shrink and I talked about loneliness, and how, because of wanting to write, I often make choices that result in being alone even though I feel lonely. What to do?
On Patreon last week, I asked readers which characters they’d like to see more of in Orly’s Journals. To my surprise, the most votes went to Ji’Indushul. Because of this, my next “Scribble Secret” post on Friday will be about that character.
So that’s basically all that’s going on with me. With so much nothing going on, it must be no surprise that this is only my fifth blog post for 2024. LOL.
Orly’s Journals, my serialized online novel through Patreon is going quite well. I have eleven subscribers already and am hoping for more. I want more subscribers to increase discussion among the readers regarding Orly’s new ongoing story. I’ve been posting a journal entry each Thursday. This Thursday will be the be the sixteenth post. To keep up with the demands of serialization, I’m nine entries ahead in writing and am currently working on Entry 25.
In addition to the journal entries, I’ve been posting image-based previews, solicitations from readers for character names and plot points, and my favorite—what I’m calling Scribbled Secrets where I post trivial information about Orly’s universe, inside and outside her trilogy, that the reader is likely unaware of. It’s fun to tell mine and Orly’s secrets.
As an independent author, I do have a small budget for marketing and promotion. But because that budget is small, I must be very selective when choosing what to throw my money at. Should I spend it on Amazon book ads? Instagram sponsored posts? Book review services? I’ve tried various approaches with limited success. But I feel like I should be more active in my attempt to increase awareness about Orly’s online journal and her book series. If anyone has any suggestions, my ears are open.
Other than that, I recently went through a minor writing slump where I was just spinning my wheels on the same entries. I think, at one point, I was only five entries ahead of what had already posted. I’m sure some, if not most, was due to depression. But I feel like I’ve gotten back up and am enjoying the substance and pace of what I’m writing again. If you’re one of the eleven people subscribed, I hope you’re enjoying reading the current work as much as I am enjoying writing it.
So, way back when I last posted in March, I talked about writing two stories at once, because one was good for providing the regularity I need for maintaining my mood and the other because it excited me. Well guess what happened? I put both of them down. I know that sounds bad but let me continue because it’s actually good.
When I woke on April 5, I was thinking about Patreon and had the idea of writing there in serial form, a new novel made of journal entries penned by my character Orly Bialek, picking up where The Black Wax Vampire Trilogy ended. This concept excited me more than anything I’ve felt in years. I kicked around the idea for a few days and then decided to go for it, and it was then that I put down the other two books.
So, for the past two months, this is what I’ve been working on every single day. I’ve been writing as Orly again and building the Patreon page which launched a few days ago. I plan to release a journal entry there every Thursday evening.
Today is Thursday. Her first journal entry drops tonight.
I have no regrets putting the other two books on hold as writing Orly again makes me feel happy. I do have fears though. I’ve never written in serial form, and her POV is slightly different because of the nature of journaling. But more than that, I feel like some series continue long past what is beneficial to the thrust of the story and the universe created. Though I love what I’m doing now and look forward to releasing the installments, I hope I recognize when to stop.
So, if you enjoyed her trilogy or are new to Orly and want to read a new vampire story, I hope you’ll check out Orly’s Journals.
I’m still working on turning Exhume into a novel. I’ve been at it for seventy days straight. I’m making incremental progress, averaging 130 new words a day. The more I work on it though, the less sure I feel I want to show it to anyone. To be honest, the more I work on it, the less excited I feel about it. This might be because I’m struggling to develop the characters beyond the screenplay version. It might also be because I’m writing in third person, present tense, which I’ve never done before. I chose this as it felt closest to the way a screenplay is written.
Recently, I had this thought of writing Forever Candy from a different point-of-view. The last time I tried writing it, I was writing from Candy’s POV, in first person. But now I’m thinking of writing it from Burrows’ POV. I’ve tried that before, but only in third person. For some reason it never occurred to me to write him from first person. I wrote a little, just to try it out, and I got really excited about it.
I talked to my shrink about this quandary of mine—which story to pursue now. Even though I’m struggling with the Exhume story, she and I both belief that the regularity in which I’ve been writing it has really improved my mood and helped pull me out of my last depression. We’re wary of me walking away from that. On the other hand, I’m so excited to write this other story right now, that I feel like I should seize the opportunity of inspiration.
My shrink suggested I work on both, simultaneously. I can keep making my little daily progress on Exhume, while also embracing the excitement I feel with writing a different book. When she said it, it baffled me because I’ve never written two books at once. When I wrote The Last Midnight, feeling inspired, I had to put Scribbles of the Empress down completely, even though I was already 40,000 words into it, and I only picked it back up after I had finished.
So, I guess I’m going to give it a go, writing two books at once. Wish me luck.
I’ve been going to the gym regularly and counting calories on MyFitnessPal because my doctor told me I really need to lose weight. In twelve weeks, I’ve lost 18 lbs. While on the treadmill last week, I listened to Yellowface by R.F. Kuang. A friend from Silent Book Club told me she had read it. She mentioned what a despicable character the POV characters is, but I really enjoyed the character and found myself relating to her. This wasn’t because I want to or ever would plagiarize another author (but if I did, it would be Kwon Yeo-sun and her book Lemon, LOL), but because, as a mediocre writer, I know all too well what it feels like to be jealous of writers who have more talent than I’ll ever have. While listening to Yellowface, I was really impressed with and jealous of the author with how smart and sharp her writing is. She’s super gifted.
I don’t know if it was that book or other books I’ve read recently (For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Road, All the Lovers in the Night), but I’ve glimpsed the dawning of me giving up as a writer, feeling like I’m just not talented enough to write something worthy of the readership I daydream of having. Mediocrity is a dreadful thing to feel.
I know it’s not over just yet though. I’m going to try to keep going, fueled by my hopes that Forever Candy will be a good book. Again, wish me luck.