Here we are at the turn of the year! Are you looking forward to anything this year? Are you a planning/resolution type, or more casual? Though January is often a time of reflection and setting goals, I’m noticing many folks have discarded this, along with the pressure that comes from expectations. This month I’m mostly looking back at 2025 and adjusting the sails of my psyche. I’m not thinking about anything past April, just doing sketches of my first aspirational plantings in the herb garden and writing my first thousand words of the year. So, here’s my writing year in review: I set a monthly goal of writing 4k words in any project, with an 8k stretch goal. There were only two months where I didn't hit that 8k, which were the months with the hottest temps and my longest day-job days. I closed out the year with a total of 138K words written for the year (plus ~40K words in unpublished AO3 fics that we won't discuss.)
I focused on THE PASSING OF EIR LAHREN revisions and querying, and made some good headway on other projects, including my new dark science romantasy and various shorts, two of which I published. Harbingers is set in the world of my Nel Bently Books, and is from Lin's perspective of the events of the fifth book. The other short was "The Curse of Seewiif Strand," which was published in Pride With A Bite's queer horror anthology, We Bite Back. “Curse” follows a trans man whose village is attacked when his former love interest hauls an otherworldly creature from the sea, and it's is set in the world of EIR LAHREN.
I’m more a bite-sized goals person, taking something new as a learning experience at best, and a funny story at worst. Let’s maybe not eat cake every night. Let’s try to only smoke one cigarette a day. Let’s aim for just a few thousand words a month. I’m learning to divorce myself from shame when I fail, because most of us fail at most of our goals a few times, especially at first. (If we didn’t fail, they wouldn’t be called goals, after all.) To that end, I’ll talk about the projects I’m focusing on in 2026 next month, but for now I’ll share that I’m trying something new writing wise this year. One of those aforementioned learning experiences. Wish me luck.
I hope some of you have set goals to help out your communities this year. As things escalate we’ll need each other now, more than ever. There’s a place for everyone in revolution. I’ll continue to share organizations and mutual aid requests here. If you know of any other let me know and I can add them to the list!
BOOKSHELF
To kick off the new year, earlier this month I shared a sapphic short was originally published in Love and Bubbles, an underwater themed anthology.
Familiar Waters
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Jan 7
Each year the catfish goddess Bia escorts her people to the ocean, leaving her river spirit lover, Iguazú, with a promise to return when the weather changes. But climate change wreaks havoc on their home and the rains that bring her lover home are later every year.
I’m also reading Ingrid Moon’s The Biohunter, an action-packed apocalyptic novel. As his last mission, Mercer is sent to recover a specimen that could bring eternal life to the corporate elites. But then he learns this organism is not a monster, but a teen girl—a wasteland fighter hardened by a life of survival. Be sure to check that out as well as this month’s sale, Out of This World Sci Fi Romance.
Until next time, happy reading and take good care.
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