As the final Sunday in July, it’s time for another writing update! Last month I was struggling to get my writing muscle back into shape after needing to take a break to look after my mental health. And now, nearing the end of this month, I’m happy to report that things are pretty much back to where they were!
That is also a good signal to you, dear reader, that if you are struggling to improve your writing stamina, just keep persevering and you’ll get there.
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I am still waiting to hear back about my writing mentorship. They said 21 days from the 1st July, but I’m guessing that’s 21 business days, so I’m giving them until the end of the month before I write a very strongly worded email complaining about the wait times! This isn’t to the people running the mentorship (they have already approved me), it’s just the people who are paying for it that are dragging their feet. But maybe that means that my next monthly update will have something to tell you on that regard.
I have finished going back over book 1 of Legacy of Ash and Smoke to add in all the items on my To Do list (yay!) and am now back to working on book 3, having finally moved passed the scene that I felt like I was stuck on for forever! I have been handwriting it a lot in between moments in life — when work is quiet, on the train, on the bus, etc — which helps keep the project alive even when I’m busy.
I have also been playing around with transforming my serial fiction Corporate Shadows into a visual novel (you can read the incomplete story here if you’re interested in it). I write the sudocode for it, then tell AI to turn that into python for ren’py and presto! Working game! It does help that I have some programming experience so I can easily read the code and know what it all means. I could probably write it myself as well, but I absolutely hate troubleshooting things and I usually end up stuffing something up or have some kind of logic error, so easier for me to just write what I want to happen and have claude code it properly. I then read over it to check, tweak it where required, and punch it in. This is another cheat project that I only do after my writing work is done.
July has also seen me end my long running Write Better Characters with Enneagram series! This has been so much fun to write, and been really helpful in my own writing as well since I really like to lean into the enneagram when creating characters and find it useful for when I’m stuck with a character. Next month I’m starting a new series, still about characters, but this time focusing on the archetypal roles characters can play. These used to be my premium articles, but I’ve since decided that I don’t want to lock any of my writing behind a paywall, so now they are all free!
I’ve also been using Deckle for a full month now, long enough to decide that I don’t need to request a refund. I really like this program and my next stand alone article will have a full breakdown of it, as well as a discount code to get you 10% off your own purchase!
I am considering using AI to voice an audio book version for Salt and Ice. The voices are getting better and unfortunately it doesn’t earn any where near enough for me to hire a human narrator, so it’s either AI or nothing. But I’m not sure if that would be a good move for my career or not. Does anyone have any thoughts? Would knowing AI voiced an audio book make you immediately hate the author or assume the writing was also AI? Or would you just be happy to be able to listen to a book so long as the voice was well done, even knowing it’s AI?
Hmm, what else…
Oh yes! I guess I should share here about my biggest news since I don’t think my Notes are really seen by, well, anyone. I decided to celebrate my author life in the most permanent way possible:
My very first tattoo! It’s not quite finished. After seven hours working on this baby, it needs another two to three hours, which is booked in for next month. But I am still so so happy with it!
That’s about it for me this month. How’s your writing going? Let me know in the comments!
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