Redoing my Writeblr Introduction for 2022 since a lot of my projects and publishing goals have shifted slightly in the last year.
First of all, let’s get the ‘hello’s’ out of the way! My name is Ari! I’m a fiction writer in her thirties based in the South-East of England.
I live with my mother and my cat, and spend my days wandering through the fantasy worlds that I’ve created, and drinking copious amounts of coffee.
While Tumblr is my primary social media platform I’m also on Instagram, Facebook, and reluctantly Twitter. If you’d like to follow me on any of those platforms, you can find links to my profiles via my website; www.aristaholmes.weebly.com
My planned projects can be found below the cut. If you’d like to be added to my general tag list, or one for a specific project, please let me know! Either drop me a message on this post, or shoot me an ask. My inbox is always open <3
I’ve also created dedicated side blogs for each project, where I reblog any project specific content, world building notes, prompt fills, or snippet shares etc. Links to those side blogs can be found below.
Seasonal Novella - Once Upon A Fey Touched Holiday
The Fey Touched Trilogy is a Portal Fantasy and planned to be my debut novel series. I’d ideally like to publish Book One, Changeling, in the first quarter of 2023, so I’ll be focussing on completing the entire trilogy in 2022 so that I can follow a rapid release schedule for the series.
Assuming no delays or unanticipated crisis cropping up, I hope to have my Newsletter up and running by October 2022 to offer the free prequel short story to anyone who signs up.
Tag List:@/jezifster
Changeling Blurb
Fey go missing in the mortal realm. Everyone knows that.
When Lizzy’s mother is the next to vanish she is expected to grieve and move on. Instead Lizzy wants to find out what happened, but the answers she seeks can’t be found in the fey realm of Arbaon. With the help of her best friend, Booker Reed, Lizzy is determined to retrace her mother’s final steps, straight through an illegal portal and into the mortal realm.
Whatever leads she expected to find, it wasn’t an academy of vampires, and a world stalked by their rabid cousins, the kavians. Forced to rely on the vampires for protection, and secluded away behind the high walls of Speculo School, it quickly becomes clear that not everyone is pleased with Lizzy and Booker’s investigation.
With danger building the further they dig, the two fey need to decide if the answers they seek are worth risking their lives for. The longer they remain with the vampires, the more Lizzy begins to suspect that her answers instead lie amongst the deadly kavians.
I have recently got back into doing some writing. This writing has been multi-chaptered.
So, here is a trick I am going to share that I learned from knitting socks. There is a thing called “second sock syndrome” which is when you finish one sock but can’t seem to get around to starting the second. So, when I finish a sock I IMMEDIATELY cast on the second sock and just knit a few rows.
So, when you finish that chapter, IMMEDIATELY just write one sentence of the next chapter. Trust me.
I have, and do, do this!
Not even, always, the end of a chapter. If I reach a place where there should be a scene break, I write the next few sentences so I have a launching off point the next time I sit down to write.
Tripping the Write Fantastic, a server by and for writers, is going to be celebrating its second year anniversary this coming June - how exciting! (Keep reading to see why this is important!) For those of you who don’t know, we run a zine full of stories from you guys, and we’re preparing for our next edition!
If you like to write stories with myths and fairy tales, this one’s for you - that’s our theme! Our only topic requirement is that your story somehow relates to a myth or a fairy tale. Other than that, the world is your oyster.
Interested in submitting? Here’s some more information!
- Your story must be below 3,000 words. -Any form of written work is acceptable, including but not limited to poetry, songwriting, and prose. - The submission deadline for this period is July 31st, and we are looking at releasing the edition in full in the middle or end of August. - Due to our theme, you must be prepared to tell us which fairy tale or myth your story relates to.
“But Sunny,” you’re asking (I’m sure), “how does the two year anniversary affect this?” For two years, we’re opening submissions for two stories from each writer! They don’t have to be connected should you choose to write two, but they can be - there’s a space in the form to mark that.
And, if you want to design the cover for this edition, you can send me a message for more information!
Woo, that was a lot. I’ll be boosting this post a few times between now and our deadline. Until then, happy writing!
Don’t know if I’ll have time, but this is an awesome idea and lovely offer to open it up, so I’m reblogging to boost <3 Good luck to anyone who enters a submission ^_^
Have a free picture of a Sunrise from yesterday morning.
I’m trying my best to make these monthly updates a habit, and clearly I’m failing at that! I’ve been busy this month though, which strangely helps. It makes me feel like I’ve got more to say than; “Did writing. Did more writing.”
So, let’s dig in…
Since my last update…
Well, since my last ‘official monthly update’ was literally a year ago…
Honestly, my consistency with these updates is embaressing at this point. Let me just look at the last couple of months though, shall we?
I’m still chipping away at Changeling, although since Christmas it’s been slow going. This last week I’ve taken a brief break to write a gift short story, but I can’t say too much about that publicly for the time being.
I’ve also been doing some more reading this month. I was lucky enough to get my hands on an Advanced Reader Copy of Rae Else’s new book, Umbra, that I reviewed in a previous post.
Plans for the coming month…
More word count on Changeling. Honestly, at this point, I think I need to take what I have so far, and rewrite. It shouldn’t set me back too much, but there’s certain things I need to add to the opening chapters that, at this point, are hindering my progression. Having them added into the manuscript now should streamling the process moving forward, and I’m hopeful to have the final manuscript finished by the end of June.
By the middle of next month, I should be able to share details about the gift short story I’ve written too. As I said, I can’t say much right now because the recipient hasn’t recived it, but I’m very proud of it. It only took me five days to write, and it seemed to appear on the page almost fully formed. I’m excited to share it.
As for reading, I’ve got two more Arc’s to review before the end of the month! 'Soul of the Sorceress’ by Cassandra Diviak and 'The Simple Delivery’ by Andrew Claydon. Both Arc’s were obtained through Booksprout, and I’m looking forward to putting my experiances into reviews for the authors, so keep an eye out for those posts.
I don’t think able bodied people realize how lucky they are to live in a world surrounded by people they can relate to. They can talk to friends and family that have likely gone through similar things and actually get help. When I have a problem I don’t even go to other people anymore because I know they will 1) misunderstand me and 2) I will have to spend a ton of time and energy explaining myself- only to have them give advice that is way off base.
Literally it’s so exhausting to have to figure out everything your own, ableds don’t understand how alienating it is to never be able to discuss problems with friends when you’re going through them. It’s only when you’ve already solved a problem that you can speak without getting shitty advice you didn’t ask for, and even then you’ll just get confused and mildly horrified looks.
The sun is probably the closest thing we’ll ever have to a true Eldritch Abomination. Hear me out here-
Older than recorded history; was here longer than any of us and will be here long after we leave. Has a finite beginning and end but is still incomprehensibly ancient
Burns itself into your vision instantly and can blind you if you look for too long
Further prolonged exposure can cause cancerous growths
Non-humanoid shape floating through space; colossal flaming tentacles angrily lash out on occasion
Sort of just appeared one day and is now surrounded by the corpses of its stillborn children
People used to sacrifice other people to appease it
i got a resin kit for christmas and ive been making myself some plugs!! i think im getting pretty decent at it, maybe i could sell some if people wanted :3c lmk what you think!!
i’ve been doing lots of paintings on these tiny 4x4 canvases, but i’m giving them as christmas gifts! so i’ll post pics of them after christmas, stay tuned :3c
having this very sharp upper back pain like right under my scapula and every time I breathe in too deep it starts to spasm and I think it’s the end. my time has come
I tend to be extra annoying on tumblr because, even tho some of my friends do have similar interests, they don’t feel them with the same intensity and often don’t care too much when I post in the group chat so
it’s funny that if you were to fly from california to australia it’d be about 16 hours and you’d be going “backwards” in time for a lot of it until you suddenly jump forward a day
