My journey over the last six months have been that of personal adventure. While different from the adventures last year, no less interesing.
Most exciting, at least on a personal note, is that I got married to my long time boyfriend/common-law partner. We were very fortunate to celebrate it with family and friends in more than one location. Our hearts were full to bursting with love. For each other, and for those who love us.
I also continue to remain busy at the Word Mine – as my husband calls it – following the promotion. We released a product to our clients and have watched the usership grow. I’m also continually surprised at how storytelling makes me a stronger Product Manager. The two worlds work very well together. What I learn in one, I often can find ways to apply it the other.
In the Personal Word Mine – also my husband’s loving term – I unexpectedly found the time to submit a short story to my writing community’s second anthology – “this time it’s vampires!” The publication will be released in October 2026. Whether or not I make the cut, I will share the link when it is available.
For those that don’t remember, I had my very first publication in the first annual of the anthology, last year. You can find this on: MJ, have you been published?
Writing another flash fiction, in a genre that I am not accustomed to, was a wonderful adventure. Again! While I found a quirky character in a small world early on, I struggled to find a story to tell about this distinguished gentleman. Flash fiction has to tell a complete story in 500 words or less. Seems easy enough but is more challenging than it sounds. Finding a story with real conflict and a twist eluded me.
What worked in the end was putting my fingers on a keyboard and start typing to see what comes out.
MJ’s Hot Tip: Writing the first draft of the story is the best way to find the story.
Where’s the Picard facepalm gif when you need it…
I found the parts that were good – the real conflict – and how to add in an awesome twist.
I also took the chance to have my story beta read by a couple of peers in the community. I was surprised to find that felt more scary than sending the story in for submission. I loved the constructive feedback I received, along with genuine positive comments and reactions. I agreed with the issue pointed out and made some small updates, ending with a stronger story for it.
What is amazing about this, it gave me a little more confidence to chime in on another peer’s back-of-the-book summary that they were working through. I was able to provide my own thoughtful comment. I had never done that before.
Which lead to another amazing adventure. I was asked to beta read that novel! I am so delighted I get to, too. It’s fantastic. I cannot speak to it at all (not mine to share), but when they release it, I will share a link to their novel. It’s entertaining, thoughtful and captured me in the first chapter.
Those are the adventures I’ve been on. Not bad for an amateur writer, learning her craft. All the while, making slow steady progress on Book 1 & 2 of The Celestine Chronicles. I’m working through Book 2’s new outline now. Still working through each lesson on each book, until it makes sense to pause on Book 2 and come back to it later.
And I continue to work on the schedule that I set at the beginning of the year. July was a little rough with the travels and family, but generally I have kept to it and found it works well.
And on that note, time to get to writing again!