Wow. Did I neglect my blog for an entire year?
Yep. Yes. I did that thing.
2021 was a year of radical change for me while seemingly nothing happened. I’m fairly confident the world ended at the beginning of the pandemic, and now we’re all in some strange purgatory. Time is more wibbly-wobbly than normal, and everything is extreme yet nothing matters.
Anyways.
Hi hello. If you’ve forgotten me, I’m Abby. I did continuously consider things last year, despite not writing about them. Although, I was writing. I finished an astrology book in 2020 and a fiction novel in 2021, and I am currently finalizing the former for publication later this year and writing the sequel to the latter. So I hope you’re all buckled up and ready for me to be posting about my books constantly, because it’s happening.
Which leads us to what I’m considering today: achievement.
You see, I was four when I decided I wanted to write books. My first book was written in crayon on red construction paper, and it was the story of my mother and I going to the beach. Truly, a work of memorizing prose. I’m sure it would’ve been a best-seller if it hadn’t been a limited edition single publication.
While other dreams of career paths came and went throughout childhood and adolescence, the desire to write stories stayed with me. My brain tells stories all the time anyways, why not write them down and share them? Well, as it turns out, that’s a lot harder to do than say. Seriously, the ability to get the words out of the brain space and into a coherent sentence to share with someone else is a talent which takes a fuckton of work to maintain. See again the fact that I neglected my blog for a year.
Then, of course, I went to college for English, and I learned a lot. Some of it is even useful! But the biggie that no professor could teach is how to convince yourself to keep working. Which is the most important part of writing. Keep doing it. Just keep writing.
If you’re one of those people who can actually complete projects, I am so incredibly amazed by and a little pissed off at you. I, however, am really good at starting things and not so great at the follow-through. Have I started books in the past? So many. A couple might even be good ideas, probably not, but ya know.
So how in all the holy and unholy places did I manage to actually do it this time?
I’m not sure, but I have three pretty solid guesses.
First, and this is really shocking honestly, I started writing with only myself in mind. I was writing what I wanted to write, rather than what I thought I should or what other people would like. Radical.
I was putting so much pressure on myself to write a certain type of book a certain way, to be shelved next to the greats, to be a revolutionary high fantasy novelist. Then last year, I realized that’s not even the type of books I read. Do you know what my favorite genre of book is? Smutty vampire fiction. Give me sexy vamps or sexy death god or a sexy demon guy. Just make it sexy and morally gray and fictional—bonus points if it’s gay.
And do you know what else? The bar for smutty fantasy is really, really low. There is some really hot garbage out there, emphasis on the hot part, and like, I can write sexy trash? So that’s what I did.
At least, that’s how it started. The only idea when I started writing the book was “hot vampire stuff,” and I went from there. It went really far from there. I mean, it’s just hot vampire stuff. But the original plan was a single stand-alone novel with romance as the major theme, and now it’s a trilogy, with two companion series planned in the same universe, and the major themes are romance, generational trauma, religion, personal freedom, and familial dynamics and pressure—and it’s a post-apocalyptic world that’s facing another type of apocalypse!
But don’t worry, there’s still a lot of smut.
Second is something that I learned in school but wasn’t able to implement until recently: a writing group. AKA friends. Having a group of people to encourage me along the way has been so important. Not just am I writing for me, but I’ve got a couple of the best bitches ever asking what’s next and helping me fix plot holes. Or, most frequently in my case, helping me add a little more emotional depth or sensitivity. I guess that’s what happens when your writing group includes a Cancer and a Scorpio—they both just keep telling me to feel more.
Side note: one of my writing buddies wrote a book and just published it! Between Wrath & Mercy by Jess Wisecup is an epic adult fantasy romance, with an actual adult protagonist, fantastic world-building, and one of the best love stories of our generation.
Jess, Emily, and I writing our books together has been so helpful to me. To know these women and their stories, to be known and encouraged by these women, to have their help has been so, well, helpful. Babes, if you read this, please know that I will continue to demand your help and enthusiasm. Probably forever.
Third big change is a prescription for dopamine. It’s a very small dosage, honestly, but after a lifetime of living with ADHD without any medication—this is a miracle. I can focus on my writing like never before. Makes me mad I didn’t have it in college. I was mostly a B student, but I bet I would’ve been straight A if my brain had some goddamn dopamine. The addition of serotonin was life-changing enough. Now my brain has both neurotransmitters!
Pre-medication Abby had never gotten a writing project over 20k words, but now, I have an astrology book at 33k and a fantasy series which is currently around 300k. Yeah, you read that correctly—300,000 words, and I am nowhere near done. I always knew I was a wordy bitch, but I’ve never gotten the proof like I have with this project.
Are all my problems gone? Absolutely not. I still have a list, which I will not share here, but just know it’s long. But I am getting better, and honestly that’s the goal, isn’t it? To just keep improving?
I’m going to keep writing too, because five years after graduating with a BA in English with a focus on Creative Writing, I have finally figured out how to keep writing:
You have to like it.