This past Friday was the last day of co-op where I teach creative writing. This was my second year teaching and several of my students from the year prior decided that they wanted to attempt a novel writing class. So this year that’s just what we did. In total I had nine students, including four from the year before, and they each tried their hand at writing a fifty-thousand word manuscript. Many of them succeed but all proved they had the dedication to learn what it would take to get past the dreaded blank page and put words down that others would eventually read.

I’ve taken quite a bit of time off lately and my recent posts were actually from a bit ago on my old site. This is the first real new post in a while. Every time I try to expand myself and do all the things I’ve been told a soon-to-publish writer should be doing, I become more uncertain if this side the of writing world is for me. Book reviews, blogging, social media posts… it all just gets to be a bit much. Sometimes I think that maybe if my posts and interests weren’t all over the place but… you know what… this is me and this is what you get.

“Hi, I’m Amanda. I’m addicted to books and video games. I can be an absolute couch potato for TV and my fandoms span the multiverse. Over the past few years, I’ve  become a D&D nerd who loves books, running, football, and firearms. My soul runs on Jesus, coffee, and writing, even if I can’t do the latter with much talent or confidence.”

Over the past year since I’ve started a website, I’ve gotten busy with school, holidays, and sickness within the family. In February, I lost my mom who was instrumental in fostering my love for reading. Her favorites were always ghost stories and mysteries, and we both probably read every book in my middle and high school library. Through the years, she has talked with me a lot about books and my writing. But as I sit here and type this, I’m not sure she had read any of my work since I was a child. She would have, but I’m always very hesitant to share with anyone. It’s just another thing I wish I had done before our time was cut short.
​
At any rate, I’m back at my computer with my manuscript hovering in the background, a thesaurus, endless notes, and a room temp cup of coffee beside me. I’m working on getting up before everyone in the house again, and I’ve even reacquainted myself with my book up to chapter twenty. I’m beta reading for two others, reworking my creative writing curriculum, and trying hard to slip back into the world I checked out of for so long. It would be awesome to be published this year, but my goal is to at least get my book out to some beta readers. This scares me beyond belief, so we shall see.

​So, in case you haven’t seen my other blog, I’ll fill you in. Sometime back around the first of the year, I had finished another draft of my work in progress. I took a quick break before what I hoped would be my last draft before sending it off to beta readers. During the process, I had gotten stuck pretty badly and after a lot of thought; I ended up cutting about twelve thousand words or so. The character arcs and the setup for the second book are necessary, but I’m going to have to be more clever about how they end up in the story.
As a way to reignite the fire in me that was dwindling, I had started two new projects. One was simply a mash up of many ideas gathered from various other mediums over the years and the other is a TTRPG adventure. I have since added a third, but I digress. Since May, I was able to power through and finish the draft, but have decided to do some cleanup to the manuscript since removing words made a few foreshadowings null and void.