I know it's a really bad habit of mine to make an update and then disappear for weeks, but I have another update.

I know there's still 5 days of February left, but I'm comfortable saying I failed my goal to write a whole book in January and February. This is because I started writing one story and then changed over to another.

I've gone back to the Essance series, and now I'm determined to finish the last book in the trilogy and finally get all of my 2016 ideas detailed onto those pages. I finished chapter 3 today, 40 pages out of a planned 300ish. Small victories.

If I put half as much effort into my writing as I put into video games, I'd have a whole bookshelf full of my books by now. Oh well, I'll get there one day.

It took a week of doing absolutely nothing for me to make a decision, but I've decided to write the first draft of These Broken Lights. Mainly because I've got 7 days of isolation while my family has tested positive for COVID-19, so I need to do something to prevent me going insane.

I've written one page so far, but the week is young I promise. I won't reach my goal of finishing the first draft by the end of January, but I know can finish it by the end of February.

I just need to get back into the writing rhythm - I'm a bit rusty right now.

I'm having some internal writing conflict, between my desire to write the first draft of These Broken Lights this month as per my original self-inflicted writing challenge, and the desire to do a full, proper rewrite of the second book in the Essance series.

To expand on that, allow me to give you a brief overview of the kinds of WIPs they are:

I play a lot of video games with lighter tones and I aim to channel that in These Broken Lights. It's definitely more light and fun than most things I've written in the past, and way less bloody. However, writing lighthearted stuff isn't a strength of mine, so I'm not sure if I could write this whole book as planned without instinctively striving to make it darker, which I don't want to do.

The Essance series, as you'll understand well if you follow my posts, is the opposite. A fight-to-the-death tournament is naturally going to be bloody and gruesome, and have overall darker tones. These are my personal fields of expertise, but I've spent 5 years working on this series and I don't want to grow bored of it to the point where I don't want to finish it.

In saying that, my brain won't allow me to work on both at one time without wanting to throw in the towel altogether, so I'm not sure what to do yet.

It'll be fine. I got this.

I said in my last post that I wouldn't be doing much of anything writing-wise this month, but I've decided on a writing plan for January.

To get back into the swing of things, I've made the decision to try and write a whole book within the month of January.

Yes, NaNoWriMo has already passed and yes, I technically didn't participate - I reached an editing goal, sure, but I didn't write much at all.

The focus for my personal January writing challenge is my current WIP These Broken Lights. Because it's planned as a standalone book and will very likely have a much lower word count than that of my finished novel Essance: The Liar, I think it should be a reasonable challenge.

Will I do it? Will I fail? Who knows, but I'm excited to find out!

I'll post updates as I go!

End Of Nano Update

Today is November 30th, the last day of NaNoWriMo. I figured I'd do a quick update while my needy cat sits in my lap and headbutts my hands as I try to type.

As we know, I finally finished writing, rewriting and editing my first ever full-length novel Essance: The Liar. I'll likely make a post regarding beta readers soon.

I decided to take a small break from the Essance series and move onto something a bit more light-hearted. Thus, I started planning my video game story currently titled These Broken Lights. As of today, I have about half of it roughly outlined (via sticky notes that, ironically enough, don't stick), and most of the first chapter written.

I've never outlined anything in my life, so it's a new experience, but I'm hoping it'll make the writing process a lot smoother.

So yeah, that's the current update. I'm going to be crazy busy over the Christmas period, and I'm going to accept that I'm not going to make a lot of progress on any of my WIPs. But 2022 is going to be my year - I can feel it.

Exciting NaNoWriMo Progress!!

So, my goal for Nano was to finish rewriting my first novel Essance: The Liar, and I'm so happy to say I did it. With 9 Australian days to go, I reached my Nano goal.

E:TL is finally finished baby!

We've got some new scenes with our favourite (or least favourite) characters, some jazzy new elements, and just as much blood and guts as before--with a little bit of romance somewhere along the way.

And I'm really proud of it.

Now what do I do?

Considering I go back to work tomorrow so I won't really have time to edit nor do a proper NanoWrimo update, I'm going to do it now.

It's November 14th in Australia and I'd say that in the past 4-5 days since my last update, I've made some solid progress.

Compared to the 3 chapters I'd barely edited before, I'm now halfway through rewriting chapter 9. I plan to finish chapters 9, 10 and 11 today.

But who cares about that when I can tell you that I finally feel amazing about my story! I've spent the past 5 years trying to figure out how to make Essance: The Liar into the exact story I want to tell, and I think I've finally achieved that. There was always something missing, something wrong, but as I'm rewriting I'm working through all those kinks, taking the time to properly think about what I want to achieve in every scene as opposed to just writing it with no feeling.

And I think that's a greater accomplishment than any of my physical progress thus far.

Believe it or not, the boy in the last photo is now in the doorway. Within 5 minutes his twin has taken his place.

So yeah, nanowrimo is going well so far.

If anyone asks, this is why my whole writing process takes so long. My baby boy needs the spotlight 24/7.

In case anyone remembers my acid dilemma, I thought I'd throw this here for you.

A while back I was asking how long it would take to dissolve a body in acid. For writing purposes. Not psycho killer purposes. My conclusion was that it depends on the type of acid used, but typically could take at least 24 hours to fully dissolve both flesh and bones.

But I've made a new discovery! Thanks TikTok.

There's an acid solution referred to as piranha solution - a mix of sulfuric acid and hydrogen peroxide. I just witnessed this same solution absolutely demolish a hot dog in just under a minute. Not a single shred of hot dog left. The acid turned black and volatile when the hot dog went in, and returned to clear, normal acid when it was gone.

Naturally this solution would take longer to dissolve harder substances like bones, but I thought it was fascinating and figured my Tumblr account is half known for acid talk, so take that for what you will.

(I am a writer, not a psychopath, I promise)

I barely think it's worth posting an update but I promised I would, so here I am.

Nano progress? Very little.

It's been 10 days in Australia and I've successfully managed to go back and edit 3 chapters, for what I hope will be the last time.

It's taken longer than anticipated because of some new aspects I've added, and the fact that I've changed one of the main characters' appearance twice and have to find and change any descriptors I've thrown in.

I also worked three 12 hour dayshifts and two 12 hour nightshifts, and in about an hour I'll be on my way home from work and straight to sleep. Safe to say I haven't really had the energy to do much of anything this past week.

But in saying that, I've got a few days off and I'm hoping to be more active, both on here and in editing and rewriting this book.

So we'll see how I go.