Chapter 17 of One More Year is Out!

Chapter 17 is out HERE (Nifty) and HERE (Literotica)

I'm kind of kicking ass this week!

I got a lot of things done quite quickly, so I'm in a really great mood. I even managed to set out for a day with a very limited workload, get it done first thing and had time to relax afterwards. BIZARRE, right?

I'm kind of glad this week went so well, because NaNoWriMo is coming up on Monday. For the uninitiated, that is National Novel Writing Month. I'm assuming the nation is America - because why wouldn't it be? - but oh well. Apparently I'm allowed to participate anyway. Although, I suppose since the core of it is just sitting down to write a novel, I could do it without permission.

Regardless, I'm pleased to announce (to anyone who actually reads this) that I will be spending this coming month working on my next novel. The working title, Perfection is Overrated, is from the original version and may not change.)It will be the rewrite of the other story I started over 10 years ago. I'll be writing it alongside finishing some of the editing for One More Year, as well as the last two chapters for that. (Which are Outlined, but still mostly empty.)

Is this a good idea? Who could say? I might be overloading my schedule with unreasonable demands, causing me to crash and burn and not finish One More Year... Don't worry, I will! 😁 Or at least I hope I will. I'm determined, at any rate, and I will absolutely budge on the writing of PIO if it gets in the way of OMY.

Honestly, part of the history of these two stories is that I got a bit bored/stuck with Another Day (Which is what became One More Year) and got an idea in my head for another story. I'll attribute that to the fact that I was nearing the end of high school, and that meant I'd stopped yearning for that to be better, and started yearning for a better place altogether - University.

That kind of worked out for me, personally, but the upshot is I abandoned Another Day in favour of Perfection is Overrated, and then I abandoned that in favour of... Well, living a life that was a lot more exciting than anything I could write about at the time.

So, with that in mind, not only has finishing these two stories become a priority for me - I also want to convince myself that I can work on them simultaneously, if only slightly. So we'll see how that goes. 

One More Year has drawn heavily from my life. All my fiction does, one way or another, but OMY is full of actual interactions and people that I've known - even if I've amalgamated, overdramatised and streamlined to give it a narrative that my real life has lacked. 

But Perfection is Overrated is less likely to draw so directly, so it might end up being a bit of a challenge. I think I'm up for it though, and not feeling the need (as I did with OMY) to coalesce my early romantic experiences into some sort of coherent tale might even be very freeing. I can just set up my characters and let them loose. Which sounds fun.

I won't ramble on too much about this (well, too much more) but that's what I'm facing down this coming month. One More Year remains the priority, and we'll be approaching the end soon, so hopefully everyone's excited for that. (And ready to get excited about my next one, and the one after that and so on and so on.)

Beta Readers:

Instead of tacking a lengthy appeal on the end of each blog post, I've actually made a page for this, so if you want to Beta Read, check it out HERE.

Thanks to my current Beta Readers. Especially Dora, who continues to continue to persevere with me, like a goddamn hero. And thanks to everyone who's dipped in and out - even helping me for a chapter or two was great. It's just so nice to know they've passed before the eyes of some readers and nothing is obviously wrong with them.

Thanks so much for reading! NaNoWriMo - off we go go! Can I do this? I think I can! Let's DO THIS! 😅 Feel free to say hi in the comments!