2020 Recap

What happened in 2020.

  • Okay, it’s been a weird year and we all know it.
  • We went absolutely nowhere and saw no one.
  • I took this bizarre opportunity to let my hair grow out and see what my natural color is, hence the lack of photos of me this year since it was silver/gray. I haven’t seen my natural hair since I was 12 so this is exciting.
  • I had two horror novellas published, Hellbound in a Hurry and The Midnight Lullaby.
  • And I perfected my peanut butter cookie baking.

As far as my yearly recaps go, this one is pretty slim. I have really struggled with staying on top of my writing projects this year. I’ve written at least 100k but spread out over 5 different projects. I’m really hoping to get back on track for 2021 and finish some of these stories.

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Tokyo!

While it’s still snowy out here in Kiruna and we’re looking at a year of staying home, I’ve been going through pictures from our 2019 Tokyo trip.

After both wanting to go for years, we finally did it and we had an amazing time! It was our first trip someplace where we didn’t know anyone and we timed it so we could meet up with some friends from the States on their own trip to Japan.

We had such a good time that we’ve pretty much abandoned all ideas of going anywhere else on vacation and can’t wait to be in Tokyo again.

Tips! You can preorder your wifi! We picked it up at a Lawsons in the airport, this handy little gadget you stick in your bag for your own traveling hot spot. Google maps was amazing for getting around and navigating the trains, I would not want to find myself without internet. And then before we went home, we just put it in the included package and stuck it in the mailbox at the airport.

Tips! Don’t go in the summer. I grew up in California but this was a different level of hot. I had to give up wearing makeup because it was just melting off of me. Phong and I are not warm weather people, we prefer light jacket weather and no direct sunlight. That being said, we STILL loved our trip. That’s how great Tokyo was.

We went a little bit of everywhere. I absolutely loved the subway system. It was so easy to get around. Harajuku, Shibuya, and Akihabara were Phong’s favorite areas for the shopping. I liked Asakusa and Odaiba. The train to Odaiba was my favorite. It goes above ground and has beautiful views.

Tips! Travel with Phong. He doesn’t handle directions or any of the business side of traveling, but he’s a delight and he carries your luggage! And he’s so photogenic!

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2019 Recap

What happened in 2019.

  • I stopped being lactose intolerant! I don’t have any answers for you. I don’t know what happened or why but I’m not going to ask either because now I can eat cheese again.
  • We finally went to Japan! Phong and I have been wanting to visit Japan forever and we were saving up for the last couple years. It was amazing! We can’t wait to go again.
  • I finished a couple more manuscripts and started querying agents for one and publishers for the other.
  • My mom’s husband, Pat, passed away. This hit us really hard. Pat was one of the kindest, warmest people I have ever known. I got to spend the start of the year with Pat and my mom here in Sweden and made some incredible memories. I am so happy to have had that time with him.
  • I took an impromptu trip to the states to be with my mom for 7 weeks. It was my first time in Oregon! Having grown up in California and then lived my adult life in Sweden, I was not prepared for that level of moisture. Or the spiders. One managed to get into the car with us on the dashboard. I, of course, noticed it while we were driving and yelled “Holy shit!” scaring my mom who thought we were going to get hit by a car. When she saw the spider she grabbed a water bottle (never losing her focus on the road) and whack-a-moled that bitch.
  • Oh! And I prepared a novella to self-publish this upcoming year. It’ll be my first go at self-publishing!

It’s been an eventful year. Not one of my more productive ones though. But I got to see a lot of family and friends and do some traveling. Really hoping to get a couple books published this next year. Fingers-crossed!

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Writing The Wicker Witch

I have a couple projects in the works this year and among them are a few horror novellas/novels I’m writing and editing. I usually set aside a few weeks to write my first drafts. They’re sloppy but I get them done and then work on edits later on.

Last month I wrote my first draft of a work I’m currently calling The Wicker Witch. The first week went super smooth, the second got a little bumpy.

I dedicated a couple weeks to it and wrote five thousand words a day. My goal for the project was 50k but that was really just a guess. I wasn’t sure if it would come out longer or shorter.

I swear, I sent my dad a text first. He replied and that led to me calling him up at his 1:15am to talk about bridges for my book.

So the second week didn’t go quite as smooth as the first but I managed to stay on target for my word count. It went over the estimated 50k and into a third week. But it’s done!

And this is pretty much what it looks like! I write all my first drafts on Scrivener because you can have the outline in the same screen as well as a sidebar with character cards and this pretty little project target thingy!

Now, I should be on to editing this or one of the other finished first drafts on my desk BUT I jumped on another novella outline I had ready while I was still on a writing kick.

So, wish me luck! Because now I’m writing a novella about a demon and a mobster on a joyride!

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Burn Out

Burn out is something I’ve heard many artists and creators talk about and thought, naively, that I had been excused from it. I thought I’d been blessed and simply never burned out–never hit that unseen wall where all our plans and schedules and inspiration went smashing to bits.

I was wrong. And, in hindsight, I’ve had bouts of burn out plenty of times before and just didn’t recognize it. Mine sneaks up on me. It’s like the gas runs out but for a while, the wheels keep rolling and I think I’m fine. I’ve got no energy, no lust to work on my projects, no oomph to get shit done. What’s worse, I forget why I even want to do any of my projects. When I look back on the weeks of burn out, it seems like sinking but I know that when I was living it, I didn’t realize I was going down. I didn’t realize what it was at all, until I woke up from that haze of procrastination.

But, this time, I steered into it. I tried not to panic or question it. I blew February watching Netflix, listening to podcasts, reading books, and writing fanfiction. (And I went to the day job, so I wasn’t literally pajamas 24/7–but mentally I was.) My lists of to-do’s piled up and I was a ghost on social media.

Every time I’ve burned out, this time included, I’ve reached the point where I think, “Oh shit, I am never going to get anything done again. This is it. This is all I’ll ever want to do.” And it’s never been true. There comes a day, when I wake from the burn out like a storm has passed and suddenly I don’t want to watch TV or write fanfics anymore. Suddenly I have energy again and ideas for my stories and a desire to tackle social media and get out there and interact with people.

It’s taken me years to figure out, but I always come back. So, I try not to panic when I don’t have it in me to do everything–or anything. Instead, I try to listen to my body and what it needs, whether that’s a nap, or to binge watch soap operas, or write fanfics, or eat pancakes. I can’t do everything all the time. Sometimes my to-do’s pile up. And that’s okay, because I can do it later. I think the trick, for me, is recognizing and respecting my own limits and not making myself feel bad for them.

This picture below is one I took the day after I woke up from my hazy February. I think I got more done on the 1st of March than I did the whole two months before and this week I’m tackling the editing of a ghost story I wrote last October and it’s going great!  So, I’m going to leave this here for Future Me, in her next burn out, to look at and remember that she’s great at this! …But she doesn’t have to be great at it every damn day.

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