So I did it again and didn’t update this blog for six months. That’s my bad. I’m not gonna make crazy claims like I can be consistent, or I won’t go silent for long periods of time again. At this stage this is meant to be more of a journal for me and a reference for other people so it doesn’t matter so much if I can’t stay consistent. But I do want to make an effort.

First part of making an effort is an honest assessment of what’s kept me from updating, and primarily that’s fear. I have been paralyzed by the fear that people will see what I write and judge it, and regardless of whether that judgment is positive or negative I get myself all anxious about not being able to handle it. So, instead of taking a risk, I just don’t do anything, and I feel anxious anyway. It’s a real unwinnable scenario.

It hasn’t been wholly unproductive though. As we’re approaching the one year anniversary of me publishing my book He Who Sinks The Sun, I’ve been considering what my next move is re: publishing. I want to publish another book, if I can, this year. Theoretically I should probably get some hype going or something first, but I’m not sure I have the energy.

I did finish a novel. It’s the first in a duology. It’s about 75k words, it’s an adventure fantasy romance, it’s told in a non-linear style. First person present tense, the POV character is a man who is a professional mercenary and ex-bandit. It’s fun, I like it, I’m proud of it. I have a lot of character art. I’m working on the sequel, which is told from the perspective of the FMC/love interest.

I’ve also been taking the time to try to socialize more regularly. I play three regular D&D games with my friends, one of which I run. I also do storytime evenings where I read aloud to my friends. We’re going through the Thomas Harris Hannibal books right now, watching the movies after we finish each book. It’s a good time, the books are better than I remember but worse than I want them to be and that’s mostly a function of the time period in which they’re set (and how much more I like the TV version).

I have also been writing a, uh… fanfiction? Sort of? Dating game style, with 12 male characters from stories I’ve written, and the FMC from the above mentioned story. The idea was to get to practice writing her and figure out more about who she is as a person. So that’s been a thing, and it’s been sort of fun. I might post that, since it’s just character work and it shows part of my process. Specifically it shows a very weird part of my process.

I think I still need to work on analyzing my old work, but I’m also going to try to start posting reviews of fantasy books I read. My friend is reading ACOTAR right now and said, “I’m on the fourth book and there have been multiple times I was like, ‘Damn, this is so close to being good, it has such a good idea but it’s just not getting there, I wish Felix wrote this instead,‘” which is very flattering but I haven’t read it so I don’t know if she’s being nice to me or really hard on ACOTAR.

Anyway. Ideally I’ll be posting more content. Maybe some character art. Maybe some profiles. Maybe some reviews, maybe some terrible writing exercises that are basically fanfics of my own work. Who knows? I could also just go silent for six months. But I’m going to try to make a habit. I’m not gonna claim what that habit will look like just yet because I don’t want to freak myself out and jinx it. Just expect to see me again sometime.