I’m 30! Finally out of the hellscape that was my twenties, hooray!
Speaking of hellscapes: I’m trying something new with the Everyday Anxieties in the form of content warnings. I was hoping to get some straightforward spoiler tagging going on where you could just click on it, but my lacklustre searching skills couldn’t find a version of this that worked with WordPress’s HTML limitations. For now they’re in alt text–hover over the word ‘contains’ in each Anxieties intro blurb to see specific violences for the story ahead.
As a reminder, June is a Sleepover month so that one is a Patreon exclusive. We’re veering away from urban legends to go into fairytale territory this time, I’m excited to share it! The next Anxiety will be posted in July–The Early Bird, a terrible insight into over-punctuality.
In other news, The Immortal Rose is officially starting the revision stage! It’s very exciting, I’m always keen when a novel enters the end stage and not only frees me up to work on other stuff but allows me to brag about finishing a novel. I’ve been working on my submission pitch for it on and off, as well as making sure I’ve got outlines and scene sketches for a potential sequel (and threequel, sob).
I had a little bit of a slump in competition entries and story submissions, but given how busy April and May we’re for me I’m not mad about it. Definitely gearing up to get back into it through June though! I solved a pretty major restructuring issue with one of my older short stories about babysitting gone wrong and am feeling pretty good about it. Now I just have to finish the damn thing!
March and April saw me sinking my free time into playing Stardew Valley like it was a full time job (literally–according to my Steam account I logged 70 hours across 14 days). It took me about six years and a couple of major updates, but I’ve finally sunk enough of my time to want to write fanfiction for it and onto the fun writing queue it all goes. Also, my farm looks great, just FYI.
I hope you’re all enjoying what’s left of the month!
Rory Banks 