April Goals Recap

Hello and happy April! I don’t know about all of you but I am Thrilled that spring is finally here (at least where I live), even if it means I’m going a bit stir-crazy during my online classes. This was a busy month for me – though to be fair, I don’t know when it isn’t a busy month. I’m happy I was able to get so much done between my classes and job, but I’m looking forward to the summer when I can make faster progress on all my fun projects.

15/24 Overall

7/9 Creative Goals

Do basic website “housekeeping”: As I learn more about building an author’s platform, WordPress, and web design, I realized that this blog was a mess. There was no homepage explaining that it is a writing blog, navigation was convoluted and out-of-date, and the blog feed included the whole post which made it a pain to scroll through. I didn’t understand why my traffic stats were so bad when I was putting so much work into my posts, but once I figured out what I was doing wrong I was able to put some temporary fixes in place until I have time to do a proper overhaul (and teach myself HTML and CSS) over the summer. I’m really proud of how this turned out! If you have a minute to spare, click around the site and see how everything looks. I also made a survey so I can see what content is your favorite and how I can make this blog better. If you could fill it out that would be such an incredible help to me!

New updates include:

• The menu is organized by topic, and under the “My Writing” page are sub-pages for each of my main WIPs.
• The pages for each WIP have been updated to include a synopsis, excerpts if possible, featured posts, and a master list of post links for that topic so you can easily find all the information for that story.
• I figured out how to use the special blocks on WordPress so now my featured/related posts sections look pretty
• I edited each post to have related post links at the bottom so that you can easily click from post to post without having to navigate back out to the main menu. I also edited them to have “read more” links, so you don’t have to scroll though the whole thing to get to the next post on the main page.
• The main landing page for the site is still a chronological blog feed, but there’s a sticky post at the top which includes information about what I post, navigation menus, master-links, featured posts, social media handles, and a search bar
• Misc. editing and updating to individual posts and pages to make everything up-to-date

Buy new Computer and external hard drive: My current laptop is 3 years old, has a broken track-pad, and regularly blue-screens on me which is… not ideal. Especially for Zoom University. I think the hard drive is busted, and I’m trying to avoid losing my work during crashes by backing it up often, but my thumb drive can’t take much more. I really just need to replace the whole setup but I wanted to save up some more before I sink $800+ into this.

Finish Oathbringer : THIS BOOK GUYS IT IS MY FAV. I am trying restrain myself from using the Stormlight Archive for a reading rec because it would be WAY more than 4 posts, which was a bit extreme even for TCOMC, and each book is as long as TCOMC. And it’s excellent in so many different respects, I wouldn’t be able to use it for one month’s theme. But I am sorely tempted.

Edit 5K of Storge: Since this month was a session of Camp NaNoWriMo, I wanted to honor the spirit (if not the rules) of the competition and focus more on drafting/outlining. So I didn’t finish this goal, but it’s going to be the new priority for May, especially since the theme of this month is editing and prose!

Run Laoche one shot for college friends : I also ran it for my siblings and cousins and this was SO MUCH FUN. I built a homebrew campaign and it was my very first time DMing but it went really well. It was also their first introduction to my world, and what better way to show them all my wonders than throwing them into the adventure themselves! I also got a lot of fun worldbuilding notes and ideas out of it, so it killed two birds with one stone.

Draw 15 things: Done! Reminder that I share these on my Instagram when I’m done, so go follow that if you’re interested in seeing book illustrations, worldbuilding concepts, and character art!

Write 10K for Camp NaNo: It’s a small goal but a realistic one for the school year. Not only did I get the chance to do some outlining for Laoche this month, I also got started on the first draft of a new wip… which is actually the next goal.

Share Runaways intro: In case you missed it, this is my new WIP! I introduced it in a weekly post, but I also created a new page for it that includes the first scene, which you can read here!

Post once a week on website + 2x a week on IG : I mentioned last month that I was making this one goal instead of two because I’m getting better at batching the work and planning in advance. I also started a new theme on my Instagram (following the yellow rose logo idea which has ~thematic significance~ in Storge) and I really like how it looks so far. Hopefully the color coordination helps satisfy the enigmatic algorithm lol.

That’s all I have for now, but wish me luck on my May goals! Finals approach (dun dun dun). Good luck to everyone studying for exams! QOTD: Did you participate in Camp NaNoWriMo? If so, what project did you work on? If you feel so generously inclined, you can support my writing by leaving me a tip on my Kofi or donating using the secure box below. Until next time, thanks for reading and happy writing!