June Overview

Happy Canada Day long weekend! 🇨🇦 And Happy July 4th to my American friends!

June…sucked, in many regards. I made some high hopes for June in my May Overview and barely accomplished any of them. Here’s what happened this month.

Writing

May was absolutely fantastic for me in terms of my writing. I wrote over 40,000 words, and then had a crisis at the beginning of June, and wrote nothing all month.

I didn’t write another 40,000 on my novel. I didn’t finish it. And I certainly have not thought about the sequel.

When I attended Maggie Stiefvater’s Portraits & Dreams writing seminar on June 3 in Toronto, she offered invaluable and incredible advice. Most of which I have taken to heart. But it got me thinking about all the things that were wrong in my novel, and I decided to put that aside for awhile. It wasn’t the story I wanted it to be, and maybe I wasn’t the writer I needed to be in order to write that story. After some thinking, I figured out how to move forward with that novel, but I’m letting it stew for now. It needs to breathe. I’ve been working on it since 2016, and Maggie said if it’s been longer than a year, I need to move on. I’m not giving up on it, but I’m trying something new.

That being said, this new thing is…exciting. I’m working on plotting and outlining for the first time in my life, and I have a new idea that is almost ready to be put on paper. I’ve read many books and watched many youtube videos about the craft, and I’m allowing myself to develop my writing the way it was meant to. I’m taking time to really think about what I want this story to say and I’m really excited to start writing it in July. My (unofficial) Camp NaNo goal is to write half of this new project. Plus, I’m going on a writing retreat (my first ever!) this month, so I’m hoping to get a lot of writing done then.

Personal

My friend and I heard back last week from a potential apartment, but then…nothing. They asked us if we were still interested, and we haven’t heard anything since. I’m not giving up hope on this place.

Other than that, we’re still looking. Fingers crossed something happens in July.

Work

Well, the changes happened! I was officially promoted to a full-time position at work. My manager is now working closely with me to train me on things that will hopefully lead to more opportunities, like assistant manager. It’s fun.

June flew by faster than I thought it would. Work kept me busy, and I completely forgot about my bullet journal, but I can’t say that I’ve been bored. I did, however, catch a cold, so I’ve been fighting that since Wednesday. Plus, I had a funeral to go to on Saturday, which is never fun. I’m hoping July slows down a bit so I can catch up on my writing. Also, I did not read a single book this month. Maybe one in July? We’ll see. Check back in next month!

As always, happy writing! 😎