2025 writing challenge

Well… here we are at the end of the 2025 WIP Challenge, and yes, I know that I haven’t posted an update since August. Oops. But in my defense, time is a weird soup, and somehow the last four months evaporated when I wasn’t looking.

Did I write?
A little! Here and there! Enough to feel smug for a moment and then promptly forget what I was working on.

Did I finish any new WIPs this year?
Absolutely not. Not a single one. Zip. Zero. A very symmetrical number, if nothing else.

But did I learn something?
Oh, definitely. I learned that if I ever expect to actually complete any of these WIPs, I need to carve out more consistent writing time instead of assuming Future Me will magically take care of it. (Future Me did not.)

Was it a wasted year?
If we’re talking strictly in terms of word count, maybe.
But in terms of life experience, growth, chaos, plot material, emotional arc-building, and general character development? A gold mine. I’ve been living the chapters I’ll write later. Transformation, baby. Sometimes that counts just as much as finishing a draft.

To anyone who made an honest attempt to write this year, whether you wrote a sentence, a page, or just opened the document and stared at it meaningfully, congratulations! You showed up. That’s the hardest part.

As for whether I’ll undertake another challenge next year, that remains to be seen. I might switch things up and track actual hours or word counts per month. I haven’t decided yet; I’m still in the “thinking about thinking about it” phase.

Here’s to the stories still simmering, the WIPs patiently waiting, and the small but mighty wins that carried us through 2025. Onward!

Well, here we are in 2025, and I still have a buttload of WIPs to crank out. Here’s my wish list of finished drafts by the end of the year:

La Yacata Insurrection (ongoing). This will have regular updates as our community projects develop. I don’t expect this to be finished this year, but I will be working on it.

Lupita’s tamalada in English and Spanish. The first drafts of these books are finished. They still need some polishing, and then I need to send the drafts to my illustrator, who could take up to a year to create the illustrations. SOOOOO, I don’t expect this book to be published this year either.

I’d also like to work on the Apothecary series, but whether I focus on the wellness garden, wellness drinks, or women’s remedies remains to be seen.

I’d like to do the employment book for the La Yacata series and/or the first book of the Woman’s Survival Guide series. I think I could finish one, but not both this year.

I also have a book in the Women in the Bible series centered on Jacob’s family, but there’s quite a bit of work that needs to be done with that one.

My goals seem rather vague this year, and I expect I’ll need to refine them as I go along, but here’s where I’m going to start.