Quarterly wrap: October – December 2021
And here it is: my final blog post of the year! Between coming out of lockdown and gearing up for the festive season, the last 3 months have been quite mad, but I’ve still made progress on the writing front. Come and learn more in this my fourth quarterly wrap of 2021!! →
I can’t believe it’s time for my fourth and final quarterly update post of 2021! As you may have guessed, this will be my last post for the year—and what a year it’s been! You can read my reflection on the year as a whole here, but today I’ll be focusing more on what’s happened over the past three months. The key developments in my life throughout October, November and December are as follows:
Getting out of lockdown. We FINALLY started coming out of lockdown in October. For me, that meant resuming regular family dinners, attending some great training courses through work, getting a haircut, and picking up those last few items I wanted for my apartment. The small pleasures in life. I haven’t been keeping up-to-date with the Omicron drama though…
Setting up a new business. This quarter, I set up my very own small business, Southscript Press, which I will be using to publish my novels moving forward. It’s been an exciting experience: registering the business, commissioning a logo, creating a new website and social media pages. I’m feeling very professional now, and it’s all getting VERY real!!
Celebrating the festive season. With the craziness and fatigue brought about by easing restrictions, I could NOT be bothered with the festive season this year. But I’ve actually had a really good time. It’s been lovely to reconnect with family, we kept things pretty low-key on Christmas Day, and I’ve scored a few bargains in the Boxing Day sales. It’s been a great way to wrap up the year!
I am pleased to announce that I officially achieved my blogging goal for 2021, given I published 4x content posts (plus this update) in the final quarter. A lot has happened in recent months, so if you’re not up to date, you can access any this quarter’s posts by clicking on the tiles below!!
Looking back, I’ve actually been in a bit of a writing frenzy in this final quarter of 2021. Despite things picking up in other areas of my life, I set aside quite a bit of time to work on my current active projects, and it certainly paid off! Below, I’ve given a summary of the progress I made in the last three months, and you can always check out my Books page for the most up-to-date information.
Holding Up the Sky
Status: Coming in late 2022
Word count: 85,000 (approx.)
What’s new:
After announcing back in September that I will be self-publishing my contemporary YA novel Holding Up the Sky, I’ve been hard at work setting up all the business and back-end tasks to make that happen. This quarter, I have established my own publishing business, Southscript Press, finalised the manuscript to send to my editor, added my book on Goodreads, and am starting to learn the ins-and-outs of designing a book’s interior!
First the Song (Graceborn #2)
Status: Writing 2nd draft
Word count: 125,294 (57.0%)
What’s new:
I can’t quite believe I’ve written more than 55k words towards the second draft of First the Song (Graceborn #2) in this quarter, given how busy I’ve been! Although I’m still quite a way behind where I wanted to be with this book, I’ve adjusted my expectations and my plans. I should be done with the POV scenes for my two MCs by the end of January, and then I’ll be moving on to my secondary characters’ arcs. This new method of writing has been great!!
Things picked up on the reading front over the last three months. I really enjoyed the 9 novels I read this quarter, although it wasn’t quite enough to reach my 2021 Goodreads challenge goal of reading 40 books. But 2022 is a new year, right? Anyway, these are the books I got through since my last update…
What have you been up to over the last three months? Are you enjoying the festive season? How did you go with your writing projects and/or reading goals this year?
Rebecca Alasdair
I'm an Australian indie author who hoards books, loves dogs and coffee, and has a tendency of staying up all night!
6 Comments
Tomas
Glad to hear you made some progress in the year’s final months. My writing progress isn’t exactly where I hoped it to be a year ago but, given the situation, it’s better than I expected just a couple of months ago.
Here’s to a good 2022.
Rebecca Alasdair
Now that’s an attitude I can get on board with!! Happy New Year! 😊
Alex
Hi Rebecca! Glad you got out of lockdown. Hope things have been better since. Stay safe and hope you’re doing well 🙂
Congrats on the new business! All the best 🙂 Go Rebecca 🙂
Glad you had a nice time during the holidays! :). Mine went okay…
Awesome job on Holding Up The Sky! You got this. You’re going to keep doing great and growing. Go Rebecca!
Awesome job on First the Song as well! So is your new style focusing on POV scenes first?
You read a lot of books 🙂 Do you spend time each day reading, my friend? :).
I decided to take a break towards the end of last year. I took a brief hiatus from social media. I’m back now, but I might take another hiatus. I also drew a lot. I started a fanfic. But, I’m not finished yet.
I kind of met my reading goal, but used a lot of graphic novels to do it. I know they’re valid too, but I need to read more prose novels too. :). Hope you’re having a great day – Happy New Year, friend :). :).
Alex
PS. Do you plan to read 40 books in 2022 :)?
Rebecca Alasdair
No I will be lowering my target for this year!! 😊
Rebecca Alasdair
Hey Alex! A hiatus from social media is always nice!! And all the best with the fanfic!
The new writing method I’m trying is where, rather than writing every scene/chapter in order, I’m writing all of one POV first, then moving on to another. But only for the POV characters who are separated and their arcs aren’t interacting in to book. If that makes sense… 😂