April in a Nutshell: Writing, Writing, and More Writing

Oy! How goes it, everyone? I hope it goes well, as always.

Spring has certainly sprung, and this past month of April has been a solid indicator of that, with more pollen than I’m sure anyone reasonably cares for and the allergies to go with it. Then again, I don’t think anyone wants any pollen. Poor jokes aside, April proved to be a highly enjoyable month. I got to celebrate a handful of birthdays with friends and family, read some fun comics, and enjoy a handful of new tunes, including Crown the Empire’s latest album, DOGMA, which was all right.

Outside of the usual shenanigans, there was also writing, writing, and more writing! Holy moly, I did a lot of writing throughout April.

First and foremost, I got into the second round of NYC Midnight’s Short Story Challenge for 2023! Not only that, but I actually managed to come in first place for my group for the first round, which was unexpected and assuredly wild to find out.

The first round took place back in January, and all us writers who took part got the results on April 11th. To refresh everyone’s memory, round one took place over a full week, during which time we had to write a short story of no more than 2,500 words based on a given genre, subject, and character type. I had to write a crime caper, with the subject being “mixed-use” and the character being “an officeholder.”

As I checked through said results, looking to see if I had made it through (though not exactly expecting to have done so), I eventually found my group and noticed what seemed like the title to my story, “Mayor Knows Best,” in the first place slot. I thought to myself, “Wait a minute…isn’t that me?” Sure enough, it was. To say I was utterly elated would be an understatement.

I didn’t have long to celebrate, though, because round two rapidly took place that same weekend, on April 14th through the 16th. Here’s the prompt I was given:

Needless to say, I was a little worried. While I like to think I’m not too shabby with romances, comedy writing is not at all my strong suit. Furthermore, the time limit and word cap were decreased drastically from the prior round—I now had only three days to write no more than 2,000 words. The pressure was high, but I like to think I was able to rise to the challenge. If nothing else, it was just another incredible experience for me as a writer. Still, I’m hopeful that I can make it to round three.

And if that contest alone wasn’t enough, I also participated in round one of NYC Midnight’s 100-Word Microfiction Challenge, which took place this past weekend. I had all of Saturday, April 29th, to write a 100-word story based on a genre, action, and word. Here’s my prompt for that one:

Much like the short story contest, this was insanely fun to do, and though I’m certainly no horror aficionado, this one came to me a bit more naturally. I don’t know, something about writing about disturbing themes and such is just a lot more entertaining. Granted, writing a complete story in just a hundred words is, I imagine, challenging for anyone, but I think I ultimately produced something solid.

I won’t hear back about the results for this contest until late June. Here’s hoping I get to progress further through this one as well!

To top off all of the contest writing, I’ve also been hard at work finalizing the Blood Sisters story. As of now, everything is going fairly smoothly. I’m aiming to release the rewrite of “Recoil” on my birthday, May 17th, as a little gift to myself. Afterwards, I intend to drop the rewrite for “Scars” in June, followed by the long overdue third Blood Sisters story, “Vial,” in July.

While I’m sure I’ll have the stories fully completed well before their actual release dates, putting them out on that monthly schedule just sits better in my mind; it’ll allow me a bit more time to double and triple check them to make sure they’re as strong as can be. Furthermore, it’ll hopefully make the gap between “Vial” and the fourth Blood Sisters story seem a little less egregious.

Yes, that’s right, there will be a fourth story, and even a fifth after that! The ideas for those tales are already brewing, but I have no dates to promise yet. If anything, I’d like to have the fourth one out by the end of the year. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

Overall, I know I’ve tossed around and changed the release cycle for these stories a few times, which is definitely on me, but these aforementioned drop dates are final. If anything needs to change again, it’ll only be because of some truly extenuating circumstances, though I certainly don’t foresee any complications on the horizon. I really just want to be able to finally deliver these stories to you all, so I’m glad we’re nearly at the finish line in that regard. Seriously, I can’t wait for you all to read these.

Other than all of that, April was appropriately chill, much as I expected it to be, which I’m really glad about. Especially because I’m anticipating May to be really exciting, between more writing antics, three new albums coming out (which I’ll probably write about together in a lengthy blog later in the month), and concerts galore! Not to mention, you know, my birthday is coming up, so that’s always fun.

So, until next time, I’m going to do my best to stay strong and keep the positive momentum going. I hope everyone else can do the same, as well. Peace!