Storytime with Rachel F Hundred

…and I’m celebrating progress

What a difference two weeks makes.

There is definitely a lot to celebrate in my life at the moment.

The big thing is that I got the second draft of the novel done. I sent it to a friend who is experienced in copy editing and he’s going to do that. I now need to sort out a book cover and do a marketing plan. It feels like the novel has taken a huge leap forward towards becoming an actual published reality. It’s exciting and scary and I’m thrilled at where I am.

The second celebration is that my business website is live! I finally have it up and running. It is not perfect and there are improvements to be made, but it exists and is out in the world as a source of free information about change. As is my business Substack. I’m going to see which gets the most traction over the next year, and I’ll be writing at least two articles a week on topics related to change management and business. So far, the website is in the lead with subscribers (all 3 of them!) and traffic, but we’ll see. I’m planning to get YouTube started over the next couple of weeks so by the time I exit February, all my planned channels will be up and running.

The third celebration is that I have been able to post up some writing here too. I did not place in the story competition with End of the Line, but I got some nice feedback, and I made it to the finalist list which makes me happy. It has also received some nice reaction here. I’ve also been posting up a Harry Potter short story serial over the last three weeks which continues the story from my fanfic The Promise and the stories have received some good feedback.

I’ve been writing both fanfiction and fiction in my spare time. I’ve got the next Aftershocks story done, and another original short story. I’m getting inspired to write poetry when I do my business ‘thought of the day’ posts.

I’ve also planned out the upcoming Evil Author Day/International Fandom Day fics. I’ll be posting the trailer, probably on Wednesday when I have a clear idea of which fics will be completely complete (IF Day) and which will not (EA Day).

I’ll definitely be posting up the Aftershocks (IF Day) and the first chapter of Another Dimension (EA Day – sneak peek at the teaser trailer poster for that below) so both celebrations have at least one entry. But I am hoping to post up another two – one in each space.  I’m still debating.

In looking through my WIP files, I managed to find a 40k fic which I had done for a Rough Trade challenge but had not completed. I had completely forgotten all about it. Luckily the last page still had my outline plot for the final part and in reading back through it, I reminded myself of (a) the original plot and (b) where the plot had ended up during writing because my characters would not do what I wanted them to do. I’m deciding whether to try and finish it or whether to post it as my second EA offering.

I am spending time tomorrow to replan. Now that everything is up, I can see more clearly what my weekly workload will constitute and what content I need to produce every week. I can estimate much more accurately how much time feeding my business channels is going to take up.

I have my Big Moxie fanfic to work out for Q1. There is the follow-up to A Framed Investigation which I’d planned to write in December but did not. Indeed, there are another couple of sequels which I would love to write. I definitely want to write the third story I had planned in my original Iolaire Bay series.  

I also want to start on a second novel, so I plan to plot over the next couple of weeks ahead of diving into it. There are a dozen ideas I have and I definitely need to spend time working through the plots of some of these ideas and seeing which one I’m drawn to writing the most.

I feel energised and motivated which is great. Add to that the reality of my looking for a short term contract to pay the bills and start to refill my savings and I know I need to make hay while the sun shines so to speak – write as much as I can now while I have time and energy.

Unfortunately that energy is still a little shaky. This weekend has not been as productive as I’d hoped because my body decided that it was time to give me a migraine. I’ve managed to do some writing but not as much as I had planned. So, I also have to keep in mind that I need to look after my health and ensure I don’t throw burn myself out doing what I love.

Still, I’m utterly delighted with what I’ve achieved in the last two weeks and looking forward to what the next two weeks will bring.

End Note: Please like, comment or share if you enjoyed this writer’s log! If you would like to buy me a coffee in support of my original writing, check out my Ko-fi or my subscription/donation page.