Randomness

March, 2022 Update

Lightly edited.

I haven't done one of these in a while, so I figured I would talk about my plans on here. Part of this will also be posted to Golden Pen Reviews, but most will just be here for my lurkers and casual readers to catch up on.

So, I had planned to have my reviews finished, and reopen my requests, by the end of January. That didn't happen.

Toward the end of January, my whole family got COVID. It was awful. My dad was high risk, so it was really crushing to take every measure for two years, and then see him get it anyway. The rest of us got it from him. After that, things off this site took center stage for a while.

Dad ended up passing away in mid February, and I couldn't really focus on being online. The people I'm closest to were updated, but I was mainly away from all my socials for a bit. Something like that, even when you know it's coming someday, is hard to get through. It's still hard to get through, but the initial scramble of getting affairs in order is over, and I have the mental capacity to come back to a few things.

That being said, my reviews aren't going to be done for a while. I have some other projects that I want to focus on, that I think could be more therapeutic for me right now.

In the past, I've cleared my review queue when things have popped up in life. I'm not going to do that this time, but I am going to ask that, wherever you're reading this from, you send me a message if you'd like yours taken off the list.

I will eventually get to them all, but I do mean eventually. It might be May, or it might be the end of summer before I come back to them. With that in mind, when I do go through them, it'll be as full of a read as I can manage. So, if I can, I'll read the entire book instead of just ten or fifteen chapters. Depending on length, some may be easier than others. But, I think that if I'm knowingly going to put it on hold for so many months, I should do the most I can when I do get back into reviewing my queue.

If you follow me for my other books, you'll be glad to know that I'm planning to start writing some more stories for this site. I'm going to be focused on realistic fiction for a while, which is a bit of a change.

I always used to find a spot for superpowers or something similar in everything I wrote; superpowers are one of the things I can obsess over and research nonstop.

But, when it comes to Wattpad, I feel like I was using that constant trope in a way that put me into a certain box. It didn't challenge me to incorporate something new. I didn't like writing what I knew, especially in high school and early college when I wasn't as confident about sharing personal things.

Now, I'm planning out a couple of stories that I've had in mind for a long time. Both aren't my exact experience, but they're grounded by several memories that are a part of my child and teen years. While I'm changing those in a way to fit the plotlines, it still feels like a strange leap to be sharing that type of experience in a story for others to read.

One of these books, which doesn't have its title yet, will hopefully be coming here this year. The other one, Becoming Ava-Grey, will follow when the outlining process is over, and probably won't be here until at least this time next year.

I never really saw myself in books when I was growing up, and that's why I've finally decided to take a crack at writing what I know. Maybe folks will find it interesting to see a character with some of those experiences. Maybe somebody will see some part of themselves or someone else. Plus, I think it'll be helpful to me to move past and look back at some of the memories I'm including.

I'm also going to try and get back to posting more things in Randomness. I have one on languages, and one on balancing my writing with other life commitments. Those will probably be the next two things to get posted here.

Off Wattpad, I'm trying to figure out my graduate school situation. I'm getting ready to, hopefully, apply for a spot in a program I'm really excited about. I've already heard back, good and bad news, from some other departments. When I make a final choice, I'll explain what that was like. Right now, it's confusing to try and sort out the logistics of different issues. Some programs offer full funding, some ask that you apply to be considered for funding, and some programs say that you're on your own with paying for the classes.

I'm hoping that I'll be able to make a decision by April, or early May. That way, I have plenty of time to line everything up before the term starts in either August or September.