Tag: matt and rose

My covid stories: Two years later

~ stephaniehaggarty ~ Leave a comment

In 2020 I arrived in Utrecht with Chris just in time for their lockdown. I didn’t have a job and couldn’t get one until I got my residence permit. Something I did in by August. So for the first time in years, I had 24 hrs of free time day after day after day.

I wanted to use this time to write many stories. But I didn’t. From memory I had burnout and forcing myself to write was slow and arduous. But somehow I managed to churn out two stories.

First came the novella at 23k. It’s a medieval fantasy story about a wizard’s apprentice and woodcutter’s daughter coming together to try and stop their king from owning a dragon. The second story is 16k and it’s a contemporary supernatural tale about a man who wakes from a car crash following a disturbing dream. It is also my first story where the main character is male. Something I’ve not really done before.

Both of these stories I came up with during 2020 and I was able to write them up to completion and publication within maybe six months for both of them. I didn’t work on them constantly. But I can’t quite remember how long I waited between the two. I know I was brainstorming other story ideas and such.

I’m proud of what I produced that year. I think it speaks about how determined I can be. It was also a lower year for me. I also think back and wonder if I was in higher spirits would I have produced more? But the time has passed and now it’s today.

I completed my 2020 goal :)

~ stephaniehaggarty ~ Leave a comment

I made myself the goal of self-publishing twice this year and I have 🙂 My novella The Dragon’s Mate came out in August and the novelette Matt and Rose dropped only a few days ago. Both are a $1.99 and are available through Amazon and Smashwords plus their networks.

I was worrying about not having Matt and Rose out in time because I seem to be going through a writing/editing slump despite having ample content to produce.

Next year I want to release three stories of any size. I think I can definitely get two out, but I should aim for the stars shouldn’t I.

One draft closer

~ stephaniehaggarty ~ Leave a comment

I completed a draft of this novelette yesterday and I think with a few rounds it should be ready for publication. I was intending for end of September, but I dragged my feet with this maybe it’ll be end of October. I’m also planning on putting it up on Booksprout to get some reviews. I’ve never used that service before so it’ll be interesting to see if it works out for me.

This edit was mostly line and paragraph changes. I did do one larger plot change and that was easily fixed in a few word changes. One of the joys of writing shorter works is that everything is quicker to do. Writing, editing, reading. I’m pretty sure that for the foreseeable future I’ll be putting out more shorter works and maybe eventually put a whole bunch of them into a collection or something.

To do lists

~ stephaniehaggarty ~ 2 Comments

I’ve set goals in the past. Done things like post them to this blog as a form of accountability. I’ve usually achieve some but not others. In the last year I’ve pretty much been lazy about it. I’d list everything on piece of paper and then forget all about it. But I got the genius idea to actually find a goal check list on word templates and see what pops up.

So I found something that might fit me and put in my goals for the next six months. I’ve added the expected completion dates in hopes of pushing me along. Maybe if I view everything as an assignment then it might change how I see it.

The immediate things I want to complete this year is to publish Matt and Rose, hopefully within the next six weeks 🙂 I want to complete the manuscript for my other story, so far titled, Those in the Forest, by the end of January.