Since my last blog post, I slipped from being eleven weeks ahead of my publishing schedule to ten weeks. I don’t want to make excuses, but at the beginning of August I had Covid. It was the third time I’ve had it, and the symptoms were comparatively the most severe. The worst part is that I was extremely tired for weeks and was sleeping thirteen hours each night. I did still write every day, mostly to uphold my streak which is currently 654 days in a row, but my overall word count was low.

But Covid isn’t the only reason for my reduced productivity. I’ve been struggling a bit to write lately because I love Orly and I’m at a point where things are going to happen that are going to hurt her, and it hurts me to hurt her. I ran into this problem especially while writing Scribbles of the Empress, because Orly was grieving so hard and for most of the writing, I didn’t know if she was going to survive the book.

In other news, the short story I wrote titled My First Scribble, which is sort of an Orly origin story has been rejected by a few journals so far, including Electric Literature, but I received a note from the editor telling me it was close to being selected for publication and she gave me some encouragement. Even though it was a rejection, her words boosted my confidence.

I’m well now and will keep writing. My Darling Tragedy is nearing 100K words and I may try to daydream up another short story.