spring writing and reading wrap-up

what i wrote and read this april and may

Introduction

Spring was a whirlwind for me! Although I did very little due to a sudden onset of migraines, I feel like I started to crack something open inside myself. 2024 was a pretty horrible year for me creativity-wise. I hardly read anything and I wrote maybe 10 pages on all of my creative projects collectively. This spring, I finally felt the resurgence of that creativity. It was quite frustrating to be filled with so much creative fervor and not be able to act on it because of the severity of my migraines, but it was back! This part of myself that I had missed so much has returned to me! I would like to share with you what that has looked like.

Writing Wrap-Up

If you know anything about me, its the fact that I am obsessed with tracking things. I am an avid user of the habit tracker in my planner. I run my Storygraph like I am on salary at the company. I have an Oura ring that tracks my biometrics and my favorite part of the morning is analyzing how I slept the night before. Maybe its the autism but I love being able to see my life in patterns and numbers.

In April, I started tracking how much time I spent writing and what projects I was working on. Up to this point, I measured my writing in how many words I would put on the page per day. I found that method very unhelpful. Not only did the daily word count goals overwhelm me and put unnecessary pressure on me, but they made it hard to track parts of the writing process that weren’t related to word count. There is so much in my writing process that does not include putting words on the page. In fact, I am in the middle of revising my novel, which, most of the time, requires me to delete words instead of add them. I am also writing a Substack essay (which should have been published weeks ago) that requires me to do a lot of studying and researching. I found myself dreading writing because I knew that I wouldn’t be able to meet my self-imposed word count goals. Still, I wanted to be able to track what I was working on. So, I decided to switch to a time-based system of recording my writing. This also allowed me to view how much time I am allocating to each project that I am working on. So far, I have found this method much more productive and motivating than a word-count based system. Not only does it eliminate any pressure surrounding not writing “enough,” but it allows me to track things that are not quantifiable in numbers. Both my needs are met: the desire to see my life in patterns and numbers and the need to have a writing routine that is as low-pressure as possible.

First, to understand these graphs, I will give you a small snippet of what each slice of the pie chart (project) is. I tend to be very cagey and vague with my ideas because I am scared of plagiarism so each project will only be described in a few words.

LTPT: The novel I have been writing for four years. YA, sapphic, and a snow cone shop. As of June 2025, this project has been temporarily shelved.

Journaling: Any time I write in my personal journal. Going forward, I am going to stop counting this on my writing tracker.

School Writing: Any creative writing that I do for school. Essays are not counted here.

Fanfiction: Any fanfiction that I write (I don’t publish my fanfiction so I can’t promo it here but there’s some good stuff I’ve written trust me on that).

Untitled Play: An abandoned play I was going to write. Ride the Cyclone meets Sigmund Freud. Maybe I will return to this one day when I can actually find out how to say what I’m trying to say.

Substack & Substack Research: The post you’re currently reading and all of my other posts, including any time I spend researching for more essay-like posts.

Experimental: I don't know what this is yet but I’m working on it! Sci-fi? Therapy? Freud again for some reason? Robots? This project is so out of my comfort zone but that is kind of exhilarating.

TMSI: A novella in the outlining process. Mormonism, deer imagery, Chicago, Illinois.

Glory Days: A novel in the earliest stages of development. Alcoholism, winter, and mountains. This is all subject to change.

APRIL STATS

Time spent writing in total: 900 minutes or 15 hours

April went well! I spent a lot of time drafting Substack essays. The rest of my month was spent writing anything but LTPT. I love LTPT, truly I do, but I am so burnt out on the project. I experimented with a lot of different things but didn’t find myself stuck to any one project. In fact, the project that has been on my mind the most this spring didn’t even make it onto the chart as all of the development is happening inside my brain and nowhere else. Not even my notes app has seen what I am cooking up.

MAY STATISTICS

Time spent writing in total: 460 minutes or 7.6 hours.

May writing was disappointing. I was still trying to force myself to work on LTPT which was sucking the lifeforce out of me. On top of that, I had a migraine nearly every day which made looking at a screen torture, let alone trying to make words come out of a brain that had turned to soup. I started working a bit more on the project Glory Days (unofficial title), partially because I was thinking of submitting a snippet of it as a writing sample for a retreat I was planning to go on. I never finished the sample or the retreat application. Mostly, I spent May drafting a Substack post that I cannot seem to finish and post or writing in my journal about how mad my head hurt.

REFLECTION

In conclusion, spring writing was uneventful. I hope by the time I post my summer wrap-up, I will have some positive and exciting writing updates to share. Right now, I am still figuring out how to create from a place of authenticity and joy instead of pressure and expectation. LTPT is on the shelf for now, despite how guilty I feel about closing the door on it for a while. Glory Days, an idea that I thought would be a throwaway, has surprisingly charmed my soul. The Substack essay that I’ve spent two months researching for is still sitting in my drafts, far, far from being anywhere close to being ready for publishing. My hope for summer is that my writing practice will include a lot of play. I want to experiment with a lot of different projects and find something that ignites that fire that LTPT once ignited in me. I am thinking it will be Glory Days, which is surprising as I assumed TMSI and a few other projects I have been slowly developing for years would be the logical project to turn to after shelving LTPT. The heart wants what it wants, I guess. I am going to let my passion take me wherever it wants me to go— I have been stuck writing for everyone else for years and now it is time to write for me.

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READING WRAP-UP

I read SO MANY good books this spring! Most of what I have been reading is weird literary fiction, which I have fallen deeply in love with. I’ve read so many books that've sparked creativity within me and made me think, “Holy hell, I want to write a sentence as good as this one.” Although I am obsessed with numbers, I am not going to rate the books I have read. I honestly find it arbitrary. I don’t think that the way a book makes me feel can be explained in a 5-star rating. For example, Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors (my first summer read that I will talk about in my summer wrap-up) would have scored a 5/5 for writing style but 2.5/5 for story continuity. Cleo, as a character, would have scored 4/5, while Frank would have scored 3/5. The premise would have scored 5/5, while the execution would have scored 2/5. It is impossible to pick a single number that encapsulates all of this. All that matters is that I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book.

Please note that I am not a professional reviewer. I know little to nothing about books and storytelling modalities and all of that technical stuff. My reviews hinge solely on my personal opinions of the story. I hold no authority on what makes a “good story” and a “bad story”. Maybe when I finally have a PhD in Creative Writing, I will be able to have opinions that hold weight, but these are just ramblings. Don’t take anything I say too seriously because I have no idea what I am talking about. I am just a girl who likes to read.

Penance by Eliza Clark

I had high expectations for Penance and many of them were met. For some reason, I found it hard to get through this book, but I can’t pinpoint what made the reading sluggish. I loved the characters, they were all electric. I wish the story had delved deeper into the true crime fandom aspect of the story, but that’s just my personal opinion. As someone who was on Tumblr during the infamous true crime fandom era, I think that Clark did a wonderful job of showcasing how insane that space was. This book was wonderful and I think it accomplished exactly what the story needed.

PS: I think this story would be so cool if it were told as an ARG or in a meta-epistalary way where it’s told through Tumblr posts and news articles— but that’s just my opinion as someone who goes insane for multimodal storytelling.

Five Lessons A Millionaire Taught Me About Life and Wealth by Richard Paul Evans

I had to read this book for a personal finance class I was taking but I am still counting it! I didn’t love it. The information was good, but extremely biased to a certain religion that RPE is involved in (Mormonism). I don’t love self-help books and I can’t say I enjoyed this one. Also, RPE wrote a sequel to this book titled Five Lessons A Millionaire Taught Me About Life and Wealth: For Women, which I can only imagine is insanely misogynistic (unless money somehow works differently for us women and nobody has caught on yet except Evans). I would not recommend this book to anyone.

Earth Angel by Madeline Cash

I love a good short story collection. This one was a bit disappointing. I really loved the story “Hollywood Tours”, but that was the only one that really captured my attention. The rest of them felt half-baked. I recommend you check out “Hollywood Tours” in its original publication here! I think that Cash could improve her stories by really committing to them. She has brilliantly weird and grotesque and odd story ideas, but she doesn’t allow her writing to fully delve into the “ugly” and “undesirable” parts of the story. But that is the best part! That is what your readers are looking for. If your character is going to join a terror group for clout, let the reader see it! Don’t just mention it in passing. Let your characters be terrible people who make terrible decisions!

Several People are Typing by Calvin Kasulke

I loved Several People Are Typing. I think it was a very interesting critique on the current workplace culture in the USA and our descent into late-stage capitalism. I also think it was just a cool concept. Because this book was written in the style of an ongoing chat log, it was very easy and quick to get through. The only thing that did not sit right with me was a weird semi-non-consensual quasi-AI sex scene (if you have read the book, please DM me so we can talk about the ethics of this scene because it’s a doozy).

PS: Can we admire this beautiful cover? The original US cover is absolutely atrocious in my humble opinion and makes me want to personally call up the designer who made it, but the new cover? Absolutely stunning.

Ripe by Sarah Rose Etter

I don’t know what I wanted Ripe to be. Although I loved the story, it wasn’t what I expected it to be. I think the synopsis did the story a disservice by exaggerating certain parts of the story and completely hiding others. I have the same critique of Ripe as I did with Earth Angel: commit. The “promise of the premise,” as writers tend to call it, was not met in the way that the description had set up. The most interesting parts of the story were secluded in subtext and vague, short passages. I am excited to see what Etter will write in the future.

A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck

Oh. My. God. This story. Wow. Absolutely breathtaking. If you like The Good Place, Dante’s Inferno, or philosophy about life after death, I recommend you stop reading my lousy Substack right now and pick up this book. It’s an extremely short read, but every single word packs a punch. Reading this book made me feel genuinely claustrophobic— like I was falling through the vastness of infinity. It has been so long since a book has captured me and drawn me in the way A Short Stay in Hell did. Do yourself a favor and pick this one up. You can finish it in one sitting. It’s one of the best books I have ever read.

Annie Bot by Sierra Greer

Over the past six months, I have developed a soft spot for stories about sentient AI. My favorite movie of the year so far has been Companion starring Sophie Thatcher, a movie about a jailbroken sexbot. The dynamic between a sentient AI companion and the individual that owns it is so intriguing to me. (Also, I think the thought process of many of these sentient AI companions mirrors the autistic experience, but that’s a completely different post.) I don't write sci-fi much, but I have been writing about this concept. All that being said, Annie Bot was wonderful. I loved Annie. I loved Delta. I hated Doug in the most fulfilling way. Annie felt so human despite the fact that she was all programming and wires. The only thing I didn’t like about this book was the ending but that’s because I am a masochist.

The Winners by Fredrik Backman

Now this is the book for a true masochist! I love the Beartown series and I strung out finishing The Winners as long as I possibly could because I didn’t want the story to end. This book was perfect. It tore me apart in the most beautiful way. Backman’s writing is electric. The characters feel like my own close personal friends. When you are reading the Beartown series, it is hard not to feel like you live in Beartown. Sometimes, you read a book that feels like it crawled directly out of your heart and that’s how The Winners felt for me. This book will always have such a special place in my heart. (I also had the absolute privilege to read it alongside my friend Amanda and we swapped our thoughts as we read. She still hasn’t finished her and as a diehard Benji fan, my only advice for her to buckle in. Maybe if she was an Amat fan like me she would fare better.) (Amat fans are superior. Argue with the wall). Immediately upon finishing this book (I listened to it on Audible) I ordered physical copies of the whole Beartown series so I could reread them again and mark them up. A piece of my heart will now forever reside in Beartown.

The Yogic Writer by Jennifer Sinor

Sometimes I read a book and I find it unbelievable how much it resonates with me. I stumbled across The Yogic Writer on Amazon and it sat on my shelf for a year and a half before I picked it up. It is packed full of so much wisdom that I think on average I highlighted at least one thing on every page. If you, like me, are into yoga as well as writing, this is a great book to pick up. Its a bit redundant on its topics of writing (chapters on show don’t tell, dialogue, things all writers are familiar with) but I think the conversation about yoga and spirituality’s relationship with creativity is enough reason to give this book a shot.

PS: While reading this book, I found out the author is a professor at my old college! What a shame that I never got to sit down with her. Sometimes I debate sending her an e-mail and asking if she would like to meet for coffee sometime. I would gladly make the 5-hour trip.

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