Discussion Post
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NEWSLETTER SNIPPETS; Issue #6
The last newsletter of 2025 went out a couple of weeks ago. I can’t believe I’ve sent out six of these already and also started sending out short stories with alternate ones. It’s something I enjoy doing now though, and I hope you all get some enjoyment from it too. You can sign up here! If you’ve been receiving the newsletters, you know I lost a few family members in the first half of the year. There have also been losses in the extended family, of an old friend I lost touch with, and some friends and family of friends as well. That’s not to say it’s only been a…
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How I Keep To My Posting Schedule
It’s been a few years of consistently having a few platforms. They’ve changed in appearance, in name – this year’s username change was a long time in the making! – but I have been managing to keep at it. It took me a while to get into a groove with keeping to a schedule, and I struggled at first, taking on more than I could manage – does anyone else remember the attempt to post on YouTube and Instagram weekly? It burnt me out pretty quickly – but now I like to think I’ve settled on something I can handle. The key to being able to keep afloat instead of…
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OHHOW And The Joys Of Writing Streams
Last weekend, I took part in a writing event on Twitch after almost a year. OHHOW, or One Hundred Hours Of Writing, is a streaming event aiming to connect writers all over the world and encourage them to work on their projects – or anything, really – with the online community cheering them on. They track words, minutes, and turn what can be an isolating hobby or career into something fun and even competitive at times. I’ve streamed with them before, but last year I was locked out of my account and could not. I recently got access back and so was very excited to stream for the event again.…
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Cosy Season
I’ve been reading for almost 30 years now – god, I feel old – and growing up, when I realised I wanted to write, I always thought the first novel I’d ever finish would be a fantasy one. It was my favourite genre, it was an escape, it was just fun in so many ways. And yeah, over the years I grew more aware of internal biases and representation and the lack of it. I grew more aware of all of that in my own writing (and reframing some of that made something click in my writing that it hadn’t before), and I still thought I’d write a fantasy novel…
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NEWSLETTER SNIPPETS; Issue #5
Three quarters into the year and writing blog post intros can still trip me up. I suppose because I don’t want to just rehash the newsletter snippets that will come after this? Ah well, I’ll let them do the talking. You can sign up here! There’s something about the second half of the year that’s just – busy and quick in so many ways. These past few months have seen some travel – I finally went to visit my parents! I also came down with such bad food poisoning two days in that I was hospitalised, but that’s not important. Then there were TWO weddings within the span of a…
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NEWSLETTER SNIPPETS; Issue #4
I’ve written four of these now and it doesn’t seem to be getting any easier. These blog intros, not the newsletters. Those are surprisingly easy, even if I don’t always remember how the entire quarter of the year has passed. This last issue went out with a free short story download and I hope that readers enjoy it. It’s one of my favourite things I’ve written. You can sign up here! My husband and I took our first long childfree vacation in April too. We went to Japan – largely because this year’s Star Wars Celebration was held there and I really wanted to go, but also because his grandmother…
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Why I’ll Be Reviewing Less Books On The Blog
It’s been a while since I’ve posted a book review on here. A number of months, really, and that’s not been because I haven’t been reading. I have! More than I have in a long while, even. I’ve hit 10 books this year already, and 10 was my aim when I set up my GR Challenge. But the thing is, I set out a few years ago to have my blog posts on a schedule. A slow one – once every two weeks – and the initial plan was for reviews to go up whenever. Plans have a way of not working out, and now I’ve switched things up on…
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NEWSLETTER SNIPPETS; Issue #3
The 31st of March saw the third issue of the newsletter – and the first issue of this year – go out. I’ll let the snippets speak for themselves. You can sign up here! These few months have been filled with very high highs – some weddings, a trip we decided to go on last minute with extended family to Cairo and Dubai – and a couple of very low lows – my mother’s oldest brother passed away pretty unexpectedly in early March and barely a week later, our community’s spiritual godmother also unexpectedly passed. The grief comes in ebbs and flows, and it hasn’t really hit, you know? My emotions have therefore…
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NEWSLETTER SNIPPETS; Issue #2
The second issue of the newsletter went out on New Year’s Eve – yes, over a month ago! – and, well, looking back at not just the last quarter of 2024 but the whole of it makes me pretty happy, really. On a creative level, I think I was pretty consistently productive. 208,081 new words last year, not counting blog posts, reviews and newsletters, which as a whole? Pretty good, if I say so myself. You can sign up here! I read more in November and December than I have in the rest of the year combined! I fell deeply into the cozy fantasy side of things in November after…
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NEWSLETTER SNIPPETS; Issue #1
To paraphrase Jane Austen, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a writer in want of engagement must put herself on multiple platforms. Or at least, that’s what I’m telling myself. My first newsletter went out at the end of September. I’m still figuring out what I’ll be putting on there, what the layout will look like – I’ve already made some changes since the first issue went out – but a few things I know for sure: You can sign up here! Reading is one thing I talk about here, so you’re mostly up to date with what I’ve finished this year. I also found an audiobook of Howl’s Moving…