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Post by belorehalla on Jan 1, 2024 10:06:14 GMT -5
Starting with an introduction of myself — I'm Jonah (it/its or she/her pronouns) and I'm an autistic, disabled, mixed race, intersex writer aspiring to someday be a published author. I write character-driven stories that are primarily meant to explore morals, ethics, politics, and/or social ills. I also love writing fanfiction.
It's only a few hours into 2024, but I'm already very excited for it! The year is off to a wonderful start and I spent the second half of December figuring out what I want to try to accomplish this year. Fresh starts! I'm even kicking off my year by moving back to the same area I lived in as a child. The weather is abysmal and I'd rather not still be bound to this place, but as far as southern Arizona goes, that area is as good as it gets (which is not at all my bias speaking). Plenty of places within walking distance and even more within biking distance. As far as writing goes, this will also be the year I quit shying away from putting my religious identity into my writing; I'm Sikh, I love being Sikh, I won't keep avoid writing openly, unapologetically Sikh characters.
I'm also really excited to see others' progress as well! I always find it really interesting to see what other people are working on, where their priorities are, and the sort of things they like to focus on. That said, I never remember to like posts that I read and I'm far too shy to comment most of the time — which I say because I want everyone reading this to know that if you're posting, I'm definitely reading it!
2024 goals:
- Write 225,000 words. [112,141/225,000]
- Draft two novels. [0/2]
- Write 18 single-part fanfic &/or multi-part fanfic chapters. [12/18]
- Edit & post 18 fanfic &/or multi-part fanfic chapters. [8/18]
- Read 100 books. [23/100]
January goals:
- Write 20,000 words.
- Rewrite ch1 of current project.
- Write ch13 of Into the Depths [fanfic].
- Edit & post ch6 of Into the Depths.
- Edit & post single-part fanfic.
- Finish reading The Long Valley.
- Read Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects.
- Read Jaina Proudmoore: Tides of War.
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Slaying dragons
Years Old
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Post by galactic-pirates on Jan 1, 2024 12:21:33 GMT -5
Wow that’s a really detailed set of tasks for January. Good luck with all your goals. I hope 2024 is wonderful to you *cheers*
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I can. Therefore, I will.
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Female
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358 POSTS & 172 LIKES
Short Story
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Post by AuthorAsh on Jan 1, 2024 21:11:11 GMT -5
Good luck with your goals! Lot's to do, but you can do it!!!
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Easily Distracted
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Epic
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Post by Kandybar on Jan 2, 2024 10:21:43 GMT -5
What an uplifting attitude you have! I hope everything goes amazing this year (and month)!
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Years Old
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Post by belorehalla on Jan 15, 2024 15:57:37 GMT -5
I've decided this year to post updates twice a month, rather than only at the beginning of each month. The first and the fifteenth seems good.
Anyway, I really appreciate the kind and positive responses to my initial post! The support is very nice to read. I don't know if I'll actually be able to stay on top of everything and complete all that I hope to, but that's all right. What matters is having ambitions and doing my best—success is just a bonus, you know? That kind of approach might make some people a little complacent and start slacking on what they want, but for me I find that it helps my ability to be productive and to meet my goals astronomically. My health is too unpredictable to guarantee that I'll always be able to do what I'd like to. No reason to stress over things that are supposed to be fun.
All that said, I am still unemployed at the moment (genuinely so frustrating; I like people too much to be content having little to do but sit at home), which is deeply unfortunate and unpleasant but it's given me the ability to have met most of what I'd like to do this month already. Usually it takes me until the 25th of any month to get quite this far, at least for the most part. It's really nice in that regard! Silver linings.
There's this little church near my house, though it's a fast-dying sect that feels... a bit like a cult to me. Denying the existence of science, illness, and pain, strongly opposing medical care of any kind, suggesting that people are basically God in most ways, that having a good idea isn't real because you can't have good ideas without God directly giving them to you no matter how minor or major the idea is—it all just raises huge red flags to me. And this is definitely not me suggesting religion is a bad thing or suspicious, I'm really religious myself, but there's just something really off about this one. I say all this because I'm utterly fascinated by it, and I think a lot of my reading this year is going to be books given to me from the church's library to learn more. I don't think the founder meant to establish a cult nearly 200 years ago, but I fear she might've. The beliefs make sense for when she was alive. These days... they go against very basic and easily observable realities. Not "I think this is silly and doesn't make sense"; rather, "disease and pain are scientifically measurable and understandable, and believers deny the existence of these." It's fascinating! Utterly fascinating. God bless the founder. She could not have foreseen this.
I didn't mean to say so much about the cult I found but I've just been so fascinated by it for the last week, and will be for the foreseeable future. But I also want to say that I found a really fun site! The StoryGraph, which is like Goodreads but with a nicer layout and an easier reading tracking system, and is just a generally much better site. (And if you want to be friends there, my username is hailhex.)
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Years Old
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Post by belorehalla on Feb 1, 2024 18:15:39 GMT -5
February is here! January was honestly excellent. I'm still looking for work and worried about being able to have rent at the end of this month—but it's fine, actually. Life seems to be perfectly fine. It's been a surprisingly productive month and my mood has consistently pretty decent. It's a great way to start off the year. I have very little to say about the latter half of January, aside from the fact that I made a couple of friends, one of which who lives pretty close to where I do.
Also, yes, I redacted one of the names of the books I've read. It's because it's very much related to that neighborhood cult that caught my interest. Sure, I'm logging it in what I've read on Goodreads and on StoryGraph, but I don't need to advertise it, lol.
January progress:
- Wrote 37,274 words.
- All writing & reading goals.
- Rewrote ch2 of current project.
- Wrote 2 single-part fanfics.
- Wrote ch14 of Intro the Depths.
- Read [redacted].
February goals:
- Write 20,000 words.
- Rewrite ch3 & write ch4 of current project.
- Write ch15 of Into the Depths.
- Edit & post ch7 of Into the Depths.
- Edit & post single-part fanfic.
- Read Dawn of the Aspects.
- Read Vol'jin: Shadows of the Horde.
- Read vol1-4 of Dungeon Meshi.
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Years Old
Female
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406 POSTS & 239 LIKES
Short Story
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Post by auroralynneskye on Feb 1, 2024 21:35:44 GMT -5
Wow! I would love to read some of your story, if you need someone to read for, like, continuity or something like that. Into the Depths sounds like it is either under water or underground, just from the title. Or possibly in space, maybe. Whichever it may be, it sounds interesting!
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Slaying dragons
Years Old
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959 POSTS & 1,004 LIKES
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Post by galactic-pirates on Feb 2, 2024 3:34:16 GMT -5
Well done in January whoo *cheers* and good luck for February *waves pom-poms*. Wait, wait, are those Warcraft books??? Cool!! Do you play?
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Years Old
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Post by belorehalla on Feb 3, 2024 9:18:07 GMT -5
Wow! I would love to read some of your story, if you need someone to read for, like, continuity or something like that. Into the Depths sounds like it is either under water or underground, just from the title. Or possibly in space, maybe. Whichever it may be, it sounds interesting! Into the Depths is actually the behemoth of a fanfic I'm working on. The actual novel I'm working on is just "current project" because I haven't titled it yet; it's a fantasy that takes place largely in spiritual realm adjacent to the modern world, inspired by the Sikhi view of spirituality, reincarnation, ultimate enlightenment, etc. A woman learns that her estranged father has been found mysteriously deceased in his apartment with no discernible cause of death, and from there she has to learn of his involvement in a spiritual realm beyond the physical, living world and ends up being forced to fill in a gap that was left behind by his death and ultimately play a part in saving the world. It's more a study of character, grieving losses that you don't feel should be/deserve to be grieved, spirituality, and morals/ethics than anything else.Well done in January whoo *cheers* and good luck for February *waves pom-poms*. Wait, wait, are those Warcraft books??? Cool!! Do you play? Thank you!! This month is already going really well for me so I'm optimistic. And yes!! A year ago I decided I was going to reread all the Warcraft books in what I've discerned to be the best reading order and I... oh man. It's been fun but it is so grueling at times. I love Christie Golden but most of the other authors are pretty mediocre (not because they lack talent, but because I don't think Blizzard has very high standards for what they're willing to publish, lol). And the lore contradictions get pretty glaring when reading one after another. I definitely do play, though! I've been playing pretty much since launch, which does mean I've been playing WoW since before I even started kindergarten.
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Years Old
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Post by auroralynneskye on Feb 5, 2024 2:48:45 GMT -5
Well, it still sounds interesting, and I hope I would learn more about the Sikh faith by reading it, from your description.
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Years Old
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Post by belorehalla on Feb 16, 2024 1:26:53 GMT -5
My February has been excellent! I was alone for Valentine's Day for the first time in years but it was really nice regardless. It was mostly hot tea, chocolate, and World of Warcraft, and I think it was good for me. I'm also still looking for work, but only sort of; I just had an interview for a place that really needs more employees, and I have another interview coming up. It's exciting!! Even after only a month and a half, I desperately miss having a job, not just for the money but for the overall experience of it all. Responsibilities, structure for 6-8 hours that I can have fun with, in-person human interaction. I miss it. I can't wait to have it back.
I'm also looking forward to feeling out my limitations while working full-time. I know what I had been capable of doing the last time I was working full-time, but I was also living with someone really controlling and awful, which was bad for my health and left me pretty emotionally drained. I'm hoping that, with how much better everything is for me now, I'll be able to achieve more than I had last month. I'm certainly finding far more success in completing my goals than I'd have thought I would.
So far this month, I've nearly met my word count goal, completed by other writing goals (and started on ch5 of my novel!), started reading Dungeon Meshi, read Dawn of the Aspects, and read a biography on the woman who started the cult I've previously mentioned. I also started reading Shadows of the Horde, but I might end up only skimming it. I don't want to, I want to commit to reading every single Warcraft novel, but this one's testing me. I'm used to these books being poorly written (except those by Christie Golden, I love her), but none have been consistently outright unpleasant to get through. This one's not just poorly written, it's grammatically wonky, badly executed, profoundly dull, and really racist. I would do literally anything at all for an opportunity to grill this man on his opinions of Chinese people and of Black people.
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Slaying dragons
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Post by galactic-pirates on Feb 18, 2024 6:11:36 GMT -5
Ugh that Warcraft novel sounds awful and disappointing. I know what you mean about trying to wade through a franchise. I'm sort of doing that with Star Wars and yeah... Anyway good luck with your interviews! Everything sounds so positive, you have been really busy *waves pom-poms*
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Post by belorehalla on Feb 27, 2024 20:30:59 GMT -5
Ugh that Warcraft novel sounds awful and disappointing. I know what you mean about trying to wade through a franchise. I'm sort of doing that with Star Wars and yeah... Anyway good luck with your interviews! Everything sounds so positive, you have been really busy *waves pom-poms* It's pretty bad, I thought I got through the worst this franchise had to offer but... unfortunately not. But fortunately, it literally cannot get any worse than this. I almost tried to take on this kind of endeavor with Star Wars and the only reason I didn't bother is because my dad did that once and made it sound miserable at certain points LOL. Good luck getting through all of it.
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Years Old
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Post by belorehalla on Mar 1, 2024 21:29:00 GMT -5
February is now over! It was a good month. I'm still without a job but I'm only waiting on a consent form for a background check. It sounds like the manager is pretty busy so I just need to be patient, and she's told me to keep calling every day she works until I receive the form. I had to borrow a bit of money from a friend for rent, though, and I really do not like being at home all day, so hopefully I don't have to wait too much longer. But the situation could be worse.
I'm looking forward to March. I don't know why, I just get the impression it'll be good. I think I'll dial back my goals for this month just based on the fact that I anticipate I'll be starting a new job at some point within the next couple of weeks, and I don't want to have too many expectations for myself while I'm still settling down in a new position. I'll also take a break this month from reading any Warcraft novels. I'm so tired. I only have five left but I need a break so bad. I'm so exhausted by all of this.
I've been considering making a reading and writing blog as well recently. Maybe this will be the month when I do that, but who knows! I've always liked reading others' blogs pertaining to reading and/or writing. If nothing else, I think it would be a nice log to keep, you know? I'm really considering it.
February progress:
- Completed all goals for the month.
- Wrote 29,815 words.
- Wrote single-part fic.
- Read [redacted]. (More reading related to that weird cult in my neighborhood, lol.)
March goals:
- Write 15,000.
- Write ch5-6 of current project.
- Write ch16 of Into the Depths.
- Edit & post ch8 of Into the Depths.
- Read Winter Moon.
- Read vol5-14 of Dungeon Meshi.
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Slaying dragons
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Post by galactic-pirates on Mar 2, 2024 11:02:39 GMT -5
Whooo completed all goals that's amazing *cheers* I hope your new job comes through and good luck in march!!
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