After 59,000 Words… I’m Back!

I know, I know… No blogs, no short stories, no social media. A complete black out since the end of 2023. Without a word, without posting about it?

What happened? Did I give up? Stop writing? Take an extended break to refresh my creativity?

Pfft! No.

I was doing what writers need to do, write!

Between the short stories, blogs, social media and writing competitions, I just wasn’t putting enough time into finishing Revision F of my novel length story, The Monster You Wake. After finishing Revision E, I decided to give the story to some of my friends to read. Additionally, I submitted the story to some literally agents looking for fantasy stories to represent.

Between the agent rejections and the feedback from friends, I received enough critique to edit the story.

The only problem was, I received this feedback between 2021 and 2022. Over 2 years ago…

When the end of 2023 hit, and I still hadn’t finished Revision F, I made a commitment to myself. No more blogs, no more short stories, no more social media.

Get. It. Done!

And so I did. Removing over 34,000 words from my story, replacing them with better characterisation, better plot, better dialogue. As well as writing an additional 25,000 words on top of this to finally finish Revision F.

And while the bones of the original plot is there, and the characters I first dreamed of and wrote down are still there; the story is undoubtedly more refined, more cohesive. And no matter where this story ends up, whether it gets published or stays just a word document on my computer.

I feel a sense of accomplishment.

So yes, I’m back. You’ll see me posting short stories and blogs again. And I think I’m going to need your support now more than ever. Because I’ve made an important decision…

I’m going to self publish.

I don’t know what that means yet, but I know part of the journey is figuring it out. So if you want to follow me as I progress towards publishing my first novel, I’d recommend becoming part of The Story Time Posse.

Because I know this isn’t going to be easy, but having you there, cheering me on will help me through the tough times ahead.

xo A.R.Willow