Welcome April

Hi Everyone!

So, we’ve made it to April, the 4th month of the year. Now, up until a few years ago, I really didn’t think that much about it. However, after the past few years, I’ve decided to celebrate each month as it comes, lol.

So, what’s new this month?

For Writers:

This month is Camp Nano. Camp Nano happens every April and July and it’s a great time to work towards a writing goal. Unlike NaNoWriMo in November, you don’t have to hit a goal of 50k words or even work on a novel, it can be whatever word goal/project you want. However, the benefit of these camps are that you can be part of a community and get some encouragement while writing.

Here’s a link to the official NaNo site and some info on Camp NaNo: https://nanowrimo.org/what-is-camp-nanowrimo

Another great resource for Camp NaNo is 4thewords. 4thewords helps gamify your writing. It’s a wonderful game where you can craft and battle monsters by writing. They have a special month long event with special quests and monsters to battle during Camp Nano.

Come and give it a try, there’s a free trial, so if you don’t like it, you’ve lost nothing. Also, if you enter my code VXKKX33097, you’ll get some extra free time and if you do decide to get a subscription, you can earn some extra crystals as well.

https://4thewords.com/

Happy Writing!

For Readers:

Every April, for bloggers, there is an A-Z blogging challenge that you can participate in. I’m not participating, but I have in the past and it’s super fun. Basically, you pick any topic you want and then write a blog post for every letter of the alphabet and post them throughout the month of April.

There are all sorts of neat topics being blogged about, I highly recommend that you check it out. I think you’ll find something amazing to read 🙂 You can find the master list of topics on this website: http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/

Kindle Vella

My plans at this time are to update my 4 Vella stories once a week, with a random story getting an extra chapter on Fridays. So M-F, I’ll be posting a chapter a day for all of my Vellas. Come by and check them out, remember, the first 3 chapters are free 🙂

Fanfiction

Ok, confession time here. I have way too many story ideas bouncing around in my head. So imagine my shock and surprise when I counted up my in-progress stories and found that I have 15 that have not been finished and many haven’t been updated in much too long (I am so, so sorry my faithful readers).

Because of this, I have experienced story paralysis. So, I’ve come up with a system to beat this. I wrote up all the titles of the stories in a numbered list and then I pulled up a random number generator. Whatever story the number lands on, I’ll update that day and then I’ll mark that story on the list as ‘done’. That way I’m not updating the same story again and again while others languish. Once the list is completely ‘done’, I’ll start again. So updates for all stories will only be two weeks at most and not months like it has been.

You can find my stories here: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madkat89

Hope you’re all having a wonderful day!

NaNo: Day 1

Day 1 of Nano:

Fanfiction: 2,473 words

Today I wrote a chapter for my fanfiction “To Mend a Heart”. After several heavier chapters, Bella decided that it was time to have a few lighter chapters, so today I got to help her play dress up. (I also got to spend some time looking at images of some gorgeous clothes and jewelry. I love my job).

Also, a shout out to Trish for helping me get the awesome new graphic made that I’m going to use for it. I absolutely love it and I’m tech challenged at the best of times, lol.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23082550/

Vella: 1,945 words

So Monday is the day that I update my story “Fight or Flight: A Cinderella Tale of Court Intrigue”.

It was Alyssa and Rowan’s first meeting now that they’ve had time to really realize that they found their mate. It did not go exactly as I expected, they are both strong willed people, but I did get to peek into what both of them were thinking, which is always fun.

I also got to spend some time researching flowers and flower meanings. Have I told you how much I love my job?

https://www.amazon.com/Fight-Flight-Cinderella-Court-Intrigue/dp/B09GFCQX7Q/

Novel: 576 words

So, it’s been much too long since I’ve looked at this story. Honestly, life got busy and this project got moved to the back burner while I dealt with other, more pressing matters. However, I found that I slipped back into the mood of the story easily.

I’m going to have to go through and reread what I’ve already written so that I can refresh my memory, but overall I think that this is going to be a very good month for this story.

So, that was my writing day today.

Oh, and it also snowed today! The flakes were so tiny and pretty, I was so excited to see it.

Welcome to November and I hope that you all had a great Monday!

NaNoWrimo tallies

So, good first day of NaNoWriMo.

So, apparently (to no one’s surprise at all), I fall heavily on the procrastinating side of planning things. Thus, I find myself here on November first having little to no idea when I woke up of where I was going with NaNo. Thankfully, in my whimsically capricious way, I was able to sort out my (tentative) goals for the month.

My plans for this NaNo is that Mon-Fri., each day I’ll write a new chapter for one of my fanfictions, a new chapter for one of my Vella stories, and then at least 500 words on the fourth novel in my Seeker Files series: In Search of Pack.

If I’m having a really good week, you might get bonus content on the weekend, but have no serious plans to do anything on the weekends.At the end of each day, I’ll come here and make a new post my numbers, links to what I’ve posted, as well as stories about how the writing went that day.

This post I’m going to leave pinned to the top of my blog and I’ll update total numbers for the entire month here.

Looking forward to sharing November with you

Stay safe and warm everyone!

Totals:

Fanfiction: 2,473

Vella: 1,945

Novel: 576

Total Words Written: 4,994

Celebrate Achievements

Something that we don’t do nearly enough of is celebrate our achievements, be they big or little ones. People are amazing and we deserve to celebrate ourselves and others. It can be anything from ‘I did laundry today’ to ‘I ran an Ironman Triathlon’. Let’s celebrate ourselves and others. I want to hear where you won today.

In the spirit of fairness, I’ll go first.

I flew a kite today with my little brother (he’s in his 20’s, lol). It was just a nice moment of being together.

I did a progress check test for my martial arts over Zoom along with the rest of my classmates. It was nice to be part of the community and it helped me see where I was succeeding and what parts were a little bit rough. Another step on the path to black belt, it makes me happy.

This last one’s a bit happy/sad. I finished up my largest Fanfiction, put up the final chapter. This story was my first attempt at dipping my toes into The Hobbit fandom of writing. I did NOT expect how large the story would become, 35 chapters/167k words. There may be a sequel for it someday, there may not, but I’m proud of the story that it became.

Only in My Dreams: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21115682/chapters/50247068

So what’s going on in your life? What achievements have you had happen in your life? Let me know your victories so that I can celebrate them with you!

How do you de-stress?

• 

So what do you do for fun while having to stay at home during this time of corona?

Ok, time to share something cool (and kinda nerdy) about myself. As I’m sure that many of you know, I’m a writer. I write urban fantasy and I have some books published and available for people to read.

But that’s not the cool thing. I write Fanfiction as a way to de-stress. What is fanfiction you ask? That’s where you take a story or character from an already established book (think Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings) and then write a story about it from your own perspective. Don’t like how the story ended? Rewrite it the way that you would’ve liked it to end. Want to explore a character more in-depth? Write a story about them and/or throw them into a totally different situation and try to predict how they react.

This is really fun for me, because it allows me to explore already created characters and worlds, but from my point of view. It’s been a great way to help take my mind away from the craziness that it currently our world. Also, I’ve had several people comment that it helped them de-stress and forget their problems for a little while, which made me very happy.

I mainly write in The Hobbit fandom featuring a female Bilbo Baggins, although someday I may expand beyond that into other fandoms.

Curious? Wanna check it out?

Here’s the link for my largest (currently at about 160k words), most popular fic, a “Fix-it Fic”if you will:

Only in My Dreams:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/21115682/chapters/50247068

And here is the link for a place where my various one shots land. These are story snippets that wouldn’t leave me in peace but didn’t quite have enough material for a full story by itself:

Female Bilbo Oneshots
https://archiveofourown.org/works/22775707/chapters/54423808

So what are you doing to unwind during these trying times? I’d love to hear from you!

It’s Friday Night!

So it’s Friday night, also known as the start of the weekend.

However, the world has changed. Due to Covid-19, things are no longer what they once were. Instead of going to see a movie or get a dinner with friends, we’re told to stay at home and social distance from each other.

So tonight, I’ll be attending a virtual karate class for half an hour and then I’ll probably settle in and write some more. Then, if I hit my writing goals by a reasonable time, I’ll go wild and treat myself with a book that I’ve been wanting to read as I’m rereading the series since the newest book came out and so that I can be ready when the latest book comes out in November of this year (The Guild Hunter series by Nalini Singh. A mature read but I love her depth of world building.)

So what are you doing this Friday night in a world that is different from just a few months ago? I’m honestly curious. And would you have gone out before on a Friday night or typically stayed in?

Happy Friday!

Extras:

Here’s a snippet from my writing today on Book 4: In Search of Pack:

Spreading her magic out to about fifteen feet around her in all directions, she made sure that she lessened the signature so that it was nearly undetectable. Only a very, very strong sensitive or someone looking for it specifically would be able to find it. Then she started working her way towards the warehouse complex. She made sure to keep her walk a mixture of determination and insecurity. She was a good girl, so what was she even thinking going to this place. But she really needed this place, needed it badly enough to through a lifetime of morals and scruples away to come seeking it. What then, could she need so badly?

She passed some of the lookouts and knew that she was heading in the right direction, although she pretended to be oblivious of their presence. They were doing their best to blend into the scenery and her looking at them would’ve raised some serious alarm bells. Nope, not what she wanted to do. So instead she monitored each on until she was out of range, making sure that she glanced around enough for an average person outside of their comfort zone.

As she walked, she found herself relaxing into the persona, almost as if it was another role that she had picked up. This was familiar, this was something that she could do. Just sitting around had driven her up the wall. So even without backup, someone out there who wanted to kidnap her and find something, and her leg sore and achy, she felt more herself than she had in days.

(c) Katie Holmburg

(There is no guarantee that this will make it into the final cut of the book, but it’s always fun to share tidbits. Let me know what you think.)

Here’s another fanfiction of mine, a one shot from The Hobbit with a female Bilbo lead

Dealing with Dragons

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23138608

Happy Friday! We are strong together!

I’m Still Here

Hey Everyone!

I know that it’s been a while since you have all heard from me. The good news is that I’m still here. The bad news is that I’m busy and quite forgetful, so sometimes my consistency isn’t always the best. That means as a blogger, I’m rather hit and miss, my apologies.

So what have I been up to?

Well, I’ve been under stay-at-home, the less said about that the better, Imma bout ready to start climbing the walls. Thankfully I live on acreage and I can at least get out into the fresh air and sunshine. I’m ready for life to get back to normal.

I am still practicing my rad ninja skills. I recently tested for my provisional black belt. That means that I’ve learned what I need to know, now I need to hone and refine it before going for my actual black belt. My sensei’s have been doing an awesome job with videos and online classes so that we don’t lose our skills.

Farm life has always been fun. We recently had a single turkey poult hatch. He’s a little corker, that’s for ever sure. (‘Scuse the dirty farm hands, spring time equals a lot of dirty hands but it’s nice to be out in nature)

Corky Trotter, newest resident on the farm

Other than that, I’ve just been writing. A lot. I’m currently working on book four of The Seeker Files: In Search of Pack. It goes, not smoothly, but it goes, lol. I’m hoping to have it finished and published by the end of this month. I’ll keep you updated one way or the other.

Other than that, I’ve been writing a lot of fanfiction. It you want to check it out for yourselves, here’s my most popular story,

“Only in My Dreams”

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21115682/chapters/50247068

Check it out, tell me what you think.

So, how are all of your lives going? I want to hear your trials and triumphs.

Happy Monday!

(And May the fourth be with you 😉 )