Image reads "joy" in the middle in calligraphy on a piece of paper. It's surroundrd by red plaid flannel, candy canes, and some ornaments.

Happy December, everyone!

Winter holidays are coming up and the end of the year is near! It’s an exciting time, and also a time where one might feel busy despite the urge to slow down, relax, and enjoy the holidays.

To be honest, I’ve had some difficulties trying to just slow down and relax during the past month. There is often this pervasive sense of pressure to “get things done, get things planned, etc.” right before the end of the year. It can be tiring, and sometimes I just want to do nothing and hide in some corner. Despite this, however, I did manage to get some things planned for later on…

Seasonal Writing Goal Progress

Last month, I aspired to repeat completing the following goals:

1. Write 5 poems and/or 2 short stories per month.

2. Submit short works to at least 3 literary magazines or contests each month.

I definitely failed both these goals for November. Why?

Because I was making even more future plans for 2025 during November.

Because of this, however, I didn’t spend as much time actually writing. I did write a few poems, but only three. I also just genuinely needed a break, of sorts, from huge projects. I did some editing (see the below section for more details) but otherwise, not much.

Given what I do have in store for 2025, however, I think it was worth putting these two above goals aside to work on more long-term plans. I look forward to sharing what I have in store for the next year, in January 2025!

What Else Did I Write This Past Month?

Aside from the above, I wrote Draft #3 of “Immortalz,” my standalone LitRPG novel last month! I think this book is getting pretty close to its final form, but we’ll see if that’s the case. My plan for this book is to edit it sometime in 2025 and get it to its finalized form.

I also started drafting another standalone novel, with the genre being adventure fantasy/comedy. I don’t want to give it an expected deadline for getting the first draft done, especially since it’s so close to the winter holidays as is! I may or may not write about this one again later on, depending on its progress and the progress of other projects. We’ll see what happens.

Image of a person writing in multiple open notebooks (face not shown, just hands)

Newsletter & Email Updates:

As we’re nearing the winter holidays, I usually tend to slow down activity around then. This means the following:

1. There will only be ONE newsletter sent to subscribers this month.

Typically, I send newsletters to subscribers every 2nd and 4th Tuesday per month. However, the 4th Tuesday of this month is December 24th (Christmas Eve). I’ll be taking that day off instead of sending a new newsletter.

This means that the only newsletter you’ll get is on December 10th, 2024!

Regular newsletters will return on January 14th, 2025!

2. I will be offline for the winter holidays!

I will be spending time offline from December 20th, 2024, to January 7th, 2025!

I will not be answering any messages or emails during this time for the sake of the holiday season/winter vacation. I might still post a little bit on socials (Instagram and/or Bluesky most likely) during this period, but don’t expect to hear much from me otherwise.

Don’t worry – there will still be a new writing progress blog post posted on January 1st, 2025! Keep an eye out for it for more details.

Thank you in advance for your support and understanding!

Thank you for following my writing journey!

I appreciate all of you supporting my writing journey as I make these new adjustments moving forward.


If you like this post, please share it with your fellow writers and readers! Also, feel free to follow my site and/or other socials listed in this Carrd for more reader/writer resources!

Similar Posts

Leave a Reply