Welcome to the Monthly Roundup: February 2025 edition!
Where I provide an up-to-date summary of all my current projects 😊
It's been a couple of months since my last Monthly Roundup due to unforeseen circumstances. Things are back on track now though, so look out for these regular updates once again.
Creative Project(s):
Since January 30th 2025, I have been working on preparation tasks ready for the first round of character edits for my novel, Sanctuary-on-Severn.
My preparation tasks are compromised of the following 4 parts:
- Carrying out a hands-off read through of my last edited draft. This means reading the draft without making any changes - not even a single typo, which, as you might image, can be difficult😅 If I find any edits I want to make, I jot them in a separate space (whether that's a notebook, comments on a document, etc.)
- Reading through all of the notes my wonderful book coach, Rachel Giffin, made during my sessions with her in 2024 💖
- Analysing my document against the story-level edit notes I made from Jessica Brody's Writing Mastery Complete Novel Editing Course
- Puttting all of these notes in a complete and comprehensive revision plan
This may seem like an unnecessarily in-depth preparation, and its perfectly okay if your process looks completely different to mine, but it seems to work for me. Right now, Sanctuary-on-Severn, is the first novel I've ever edited so I'm learning the ropes. While I continue to gain experience, my process will change and adapt as it becomes more refined.
I may work on other creative projects as and when they come to me, but my main focus this year will be on completing edits for Sanctuary-on-Severn. For full realistic disclosure, I am not sure how much editing I will be able to get done this year between working my full time job and getting things ready for my wedding (October 2025), but I am hoping to at least finish my first round of character edits 🤞Anything after that will be a welcomed bonus 😂
To see my previous and future progress on this project, you can follow my My Week as a Writer posts on Instagram as well as my Monthly Roundup posts on this blog!
Current Read:
A lot of my recent reading has not been works of fiction. I am currently reading a number of non-fiction books and articles, including some for my new obsession of Positive Psychology. This is such a fascinating subject that looks at celebrating our strengths and working on healing to live a more meaningful, happy, and confident life.
I have also been reading up on increasing my attention span and how to get back into flow states. Increasing stress and use of social media over the past 10 years or so has left me often struggling to write for 5 minutes at a time compared to the average 5+ hours I used to be able to do in one setting (from when I was a child until several years ago). Knowing that there are reasons why this happened and that it is reversible rejuvenated me and I'm excited about getting back to where I used to be.
Other projects:
My free time, outside of my full time job, is now split between:
- Editing Sanctuary-on-Severn
- Therapy sessions
- Organising my wedding
- Starting a new set of sessions with my book coach
- Learning more about Positive Psychology, improving my attention span, and getting back into flow states
- Watching webinars from ProWritingAid (on YouTube and their community), Rachel Giffin, and Brandon Sanderson
- Making sure to stay in touch with friends and family
- And training/walking Skif, the puppy
This doesn't leave me with room for much else right now 😅 I will continue to provide updates on these things throughout the year and am still planing to release a newsletter, though this might have to wait a few months.
Keep your eyes peeled for news on this here and on my Instagram in the new year!
... so, there you have it, an up-to-date roundup of all my current projects 🙂
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