Kia ora friends,

I hope you weren't waiting for an important bit of news from me. Because, as I warned you last month, it could take them three months (or more) to get back to me. (For those of you new here and wondering what the heck I'm on about, I will point you to last month's newsletter to learn about Peregrine Pax, and earlier)

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The actual writing:

- The main bit of creative writing I did was finishing draft one, and starting draft two, of my short story for the Auckland Queer Writers Anthology (referred to as AQWA for the rest of this newsletter). It's called Rainbow Stars Unite! (formerly known as Next Wave Incoming!) and it is about a magical girl trying to find hope in what feels like a never-ending battle against the forces of hatred and ignorance. It was actually in some ways really hard for me to get back on the short story drafting horse. My mind and heart were not fully in it. But that's also probably because I spent a lot of this month unwell myself, or looking after unwell children. More on that later...

- So... some mistakes were made this month. I ended up filling a lot of my writing time with various pieces of admin. Some of this was for efforts I am personally very attached too, e.g. researching for future publication efforts for myself and friends, and seeking funding for getting AQWA published. Others I was less personally attached too e.g. I just really wanted to help a friend with some fundraising for a creative effort. But all those little things which take me a short time add up, and resulted in me putting off the important work of deciding where to go next. (On the other hand though, it also made me realise... I actually quite enjoy the sense of mastery this sort of writing gives me..? I've been fairly successful in funding applications in the past, and doing it again made me think, hmm... maybe there's something here. Maybe I could be using my skills for good!)

- But I'll elaborate since I've mentioned it just before: a major component of my writing this month has been on the fundraising page and update posts about this campaign, so I might as well link to it! Just Another F***ing Apocalypse Episode Two is the second in an anthology series of short films. A bunch of keen young film professionals have put the project together to work on their skills and make their dreams a reality. If you have some spare cash to chuck their way, please consider donating.

- And I did snap, in the middle of the month, and did some personal writing anyway, in defiance of more pressing deadlines. I took an unwieldy document of loose ideas and turned it into a workable first draft plan for a prequel to A Prayer for the Pirate Queen, provisionally titled for now Before Queens and Saints. And then I started writing it! Yay! Feels good to have another big first draft on the go again. Even if life keeps interrupting my flow!

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The not-actually-writing-but-writing-adjacent stuff:

- I continued with my beta reading! So far, so excellent.

- I did a month of #pretendpanel themed around short-form writing, and it went so well. I feel like I missed the mark a little with pretendpanels in the past. My May theme of festivals/conventions saw the numbers of participants drop off quite a bit. Then my friend Emily hosting it in June helped bring people back with some good quality questions on a wide range of topics. This month I've brought people back to talking about their own writing, which is always the easiest way to engage writers. Yes, we do love talking(/writing) about ourselves, but I don't think it's navel-gazey or useless: I've actually learned tons from the answers to pretendpanel questions. Things I might never have learned if I didn't ask the question in the first place. AND - super excited about this one - I helped someone get out of a plot block this month, by suggesting the MICE quotient to them as a tool to use. Yay! That's the whole point of #pretendpanel! (more on the MICE quotient in my blog linked below) Perhaps I ought to move pretendpanel over to Instagram and TikTok next? Hmm, that might be one way of finally getting me to use the damn things. I'll think about it. Next month on pretendpanel, we'll be talking about the crossover between our writing lives and our reading lives. I'm interested to see what all my regulars have to say about the similarities and differences between these closely related things.

- I started the month with Covid, and unfortunately I did not balance all the various things I needed to do very well. I took on too many things, thinking I would have the time and energy. Then my kids and I got sick, then as soon as we were "well enough" I went straight back to work, which may have been a mistake. Then I started to get brain fog and my mood plummeted, and .... sigh! Well, that time passed, but then my youngest got hand, foot and mouth (such a stupid name, such an awful disease). While in the thick of it, looking after kids and trying to keep the house running while operating on very little sleep because of bubba crying every couple of hours, it felt like never-ending punishment. And then, in the final weekend of July, my youngest and I got sick again. While she's doing relatively ok, I actually had a heart attack scare. It doesn't seem like it was that, given all the tests I went through after the fact, but I do know it was nothing like a panic attack, or at least not the kind I'm familiar with. So I'm a bit on edge still, vigilant of everything signal my body might be sending me. I suppose it's about time I learned my lesson. Seriously, people, post-covid recovery is a serious thing. (Now to just get that into my own thick skull!)

On to more positive things...

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The AQWA Feedback Workshop:

I posted about this on my blog because I thought the learning and sharing was important enough to put out to a wider audience. If you'd like to see my blog post, go here - especially if you want to learn more about the MICE quotient, which is such a good tool for drafting short stories.

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WriteFest

On Sunday 20th July it was time for WriteFest, a one-day event run by local writing powerhouse Kathryn Burnett in Ponsonby, Auckland. I had a great time at the four sessions I attended (but I wish, as I do every WriteFest, that it was possible to go to all eight!). The thing I love most about WriteFest as opposed to other similar experiences is that the sessions/workshops are so intensely craft-oriented that there's almost always something applicable to your project specifically.

I was challenged in the pitching workshop - I thought I knew it all, but I was so rusty when it came to applying it that it actually ended up being quite valuable to me to have that shock to the system.

The short story session had me scrambling to apply the learning to Rainbow Stars Unite, as I absorbed all the things I was doing too much of, or not enough of, given the constraints of the form.

I also made new friends and got to catch up with old ones I hadn't seen in years!

I'm so grateful to my family for making it possible for me to attend, especially in the middle of this month where everyone was so up-and-down health-wise.

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What's coming up for me next month:

- One last workshop for AQWA, then comes the due date of 31st August. I have to finish my second draft of Rainbow Stars Unite!, and then my final submission draft!

- Here's a promise to you, and to myself. I will take on less next month. I will curtail my helpfulness back down to sustainable levels (unless, I dunno, I get a paid job writing funding applications? That's the dream!). I will keep writing draft one of Before Queens and Saints. And when things feel a tiny bit more settled, I'd better get back to revising, since that backlog of unrevised work only continues to pile up...

- Speaking of, when I do have the strength to revise again, hopefully soon, it's going to be time for my vampire novella Marcie to have her turn getting a second look. I finished draft one at the end of May, and I'm beginning to feel like that's enough distance now. My spouse has had a read and he liked it, which is high praise coming from him. I'm eyeing up a certain small queer press' novella call coming up later in the year as a potential destination for this one.

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May next month be a little easier on me (and you too if you need that!)

Arohanui,

Claire Hiria

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