Lately, I’ve felt a little bit stuck in my projects.

For the first half of January, I was making some great progress with my writing! My goal for the month was 25,000 words, and by the time the month was 2/3 over, I was well on my way to making that goal. 17k written! All I needed to do was make sure to hit about 1,000 words a day, which is easy enough to do.

Guys, in the last 1/3 of the month, eight of those days were spent writing nothing.

I think this is mainly because in Fae Marked I’ve reached a really pivotal emotional scene at the half-way point of my draft. And I have no idea how to write it. I have some ideas, and some snippets, but not a lot of concrete action. I know that I should just move on to the next chapter, but I feel like I need to nail these beats in order to establish the character relationships moving forward in the draft. I’m a little stuck right now.

I don’t want to say it’s writers block, because there’s a bit more going on here. I also have been slacking a bit in the Instagram posting department. I almost hit 200 followers in January, which was very exciting! I was working pretty hard on my consistent posting and engagement, and it was paying off pretty well. But in this same stretch of time, I wasn’t scheduling posts, was really slacking on engagement, and didn’t even announce last week’s article going up!

Not only was my reading and bookstagramming lacking, but my reading was, too! I read eight books in January (well, seven and a novella), and was cruising along. Then I started reading Alchemised. Woof.

I had agreed to start buddy reading it with a close friend of the blog on the 22nd, not knowing how dense and long and dark it was. I may write a whole article for it, or include it in my next book review post. But boy was this book something else. Committing to a 36 hour audiobook, while only having 21 days on a Libby hold, while buddy reading and needing to pause chunk by chunk, while also trying to read other books and do blog and writing stuff was maybe a bit ambitious. Luckily, we both were iffy on the book and decided to DNF and maybe try again later. Guess I need to update my article.

So for the last almost two weeks, I don’t think I’ve done any reading/listening. One of my goals for the year was to read 12-15 physical books, but I’m still barely 1/3 of the way done with the beast that is Wind and Truth, a book I’ve been reading for almost a year now! The Night and the Moth has been sitting on my shelf untouched for weeks because I can’t get through this damn Sanderson book!

So, for the last week or so, I’ve barely written, barely read, and barely done my blog and social media stuff. Nicely done, Saige.

However! All is not lost. This could be fatigue and burnout, it could be the energy of the new year wearing off (especially considering how crazy this year has been already), and it could be the beginning of the end, if I want to be dramatic.

But I think this is just something that is very normal! Ava just wrote an article about almost the same thing, where things have felt off, different, and maybe even worse lately. I agreed pretty heavily with her constructive rant. Enough so to do almost the same here.

I’m gonna try a few things this month.

Firstly, for writing. I actually have a really exciting thing in the early stages of development. Too early to share properly, but enough to share that I’ll be doing some editing and revising of a project that you all will hopefully be able to see soon. So that has me excited right now. The main thing for writing is that I think I’m going to divert focus from Fae Marked and work on one of my other projects, either Of Voyages and Virtues, or The Changeling Prince, which have both been on the back burner lately. I also may work on some short story ideas, since I may follow in Ava’s footsteps and work on a self-published collection of my own. And they’re good for submissions while my bigger projects are still cooking. So, we’re briefly pausing Fae Marked in favor of some other pieces of work while I mentally puzzle through the scene I’m struggling with. My main focus is to just keep my writing consistent, no matter what it is I’m writing.

Secondly, for Instagram. I’m just gonna hop back on the saddle and resume what I’ve been doing, which is posting 3 times a week and trying to foster more engagement. I’d love to hit 300 followers by the end of February, but this isn’t anything concrete. The Insta will never be my priority. I want it to be something that is fun and I can do to help get more traction to the blog and bigger projects. I don’t think I need to change anything here.

And thirdly, for reading. Dropping Alchemised will help a ton. Again, I may go back to it another time, but for now I want to get through some other things. Since I’m struggling with Wind and Truth as my physical read. I may switch to the audio book copy just so I can finally get it done. It’s so big, I don’t want it on my nightstand, I don’t want to bring it to work, and it’s too daunting for me right now as I’m trying to get back into physical books. So I think I’ll upgrade it to audio, start my next physical read, The Night and the Moth, and hopefully work my way back into finishing books in a timely manner. I don’t need to read 8 books in three weeks like I did in January, but I need to finish at least a few books this month, right?

So. Why does this matter to you guys?

Because we all get in ruts from time to time! I like sharing how my personal goals are going because, often times, they aren’t going as expected. But we get back up on the horse and keep riding, you know? Who cares if we’re riding slower, or at a canter instead of a trot, or *insert other horse metaphor here*. We’re only human, guys. I’m not immune to the bumps in the road. And my hope is that by sharing my own experiences with my inconsistencies, even one of you can relate and feel affirmed. Plus, I write these for myself, too, since it helps me formulate my thoughts and get something concrete laid out. Often times, these blogs posts are meant more for me than they are for you! But I love sharing them, so I don’t plan on stopping.

So, there we have it. February is only a few days old, as of writing this article, so I have plenty of time to readjust, remind myself of my main goals, and get out of the rut and back on the horse (or something like that, I started combining my metaphors).

Here’s to continuing on, dear readers!

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