My next story

~ stephaniehaggarty ~ Leave a comment

I have decided what my next writing project is. I’ve currently titled it Garden City Variety or GCV for short. It was an idea I came up with in mid-2020, but I did nothing with it because it was only in its embryo stage. In the years since I’ve occasionally added to it and somewhere along the way I started writing it. Originally it was going to have one main POV but now I’ve expanded it into three main characters.

The story is from three sisters who are stuck in a city that is stifled by a pandemic. I know right. How original. I drew inspiration from my surroundings. Well, anyway, the pandemic isn’t the focus but the background. The focus is on how the sisters deal with a crazed ex who’s been altered by a rare side effect of the virus.

I think it’ll be a novella, but with three separate storylines, it might end up as a short novel. We’ll see. I’m making this my project of the moment and will work on it until completion. Or at least I intend to. In the last month or so I’ve noticed my memory and attention span get quite shitty. Or what I think is shitty compared to what I think it should be.

Anyway, GCV will be what gets me back into writing and self-publishing after about a year plus of nothing. I’ve already created the ebook cover.

Goals Revisited

~ stephaniehaggarty ~ 1 Comment

Before I turned 30, I had the goal of 10 stories published. While I didn’t achieve it, I still hit that number before my 31st birthday.

So what was next?

As I write this, I can’t remember. And I’m too lazy to go back and check what I wrote about it. However, in the last month, I have been making myself think and decide on a goal for the rest of the year. There are five months left in 2022 and I’m going to make it count.

So I think my end-of-year goals will be;

  1. Self-publish one story.
  2. Have a completed first draft of a second story.
  3. Have the plan for a third story (mostly completed).

I’ve got a few ideas from back in 2020 that I still need to get around to. So maybe they can be the other stories. But I also have this one little gem from the beginning of this year that I’ve started.

Wellness in progress

~ stephaniehaggarty ~ Leave a comment

The first half of 2022 has been better for me than the three years. Even despite not writing since January. As the year dawned, I had a thought that turned into action.

This year is going to be my year of wellness.

Everything I didn’t like about myself, I was going to change. And I’m going to give myself lots of time to do so. No pressure. No specific timelines. Nothing like that. To start my year of wellness, I made a list of all the things I didn’t like about my situation.

  • I wasn’t writing, editing, or publishing.
  • I was fat.
  • I had depression.
  • I was not enjoying life.

I began the year with a new job, which felt like a mistake (though there was nothing to indicate it). I was having constant bad thoughts. I was not writing, and I half hated myself for it and half didn’t care. But I wasn’t alone. I was with my lovely husband and two cats.

With his encouragement, I went and got anti-depressants. And wow. It was night and day. These happy pills changed my outlook on life. I look forward to each new day where in the past I hadn’t. I enjoy life now. Everything is improving. I’ve lost weight. I enjoy my job and have fun with the people there. Things that stressed me before do not anymore. I think life is fun and good things are in my future. I plan on spending the rest of the year enjoying life and getting back into writing.