What’s Up Wednesday #12

What’s Up Wednesday is a weekly blog hop created by Jaime Morrow and Erin Funk. The goal of this hop is to help connect writers on their writing journey. You can find out more about the blog hop here.

What I’m Reading

I’m reading “Helter Skelter: The Shocking Story of the Manson Murders” by Vincent Bugliosi. I received parts one and two from Netgalley. Each part was around a 100 pages, maybe more – and it’s a looong book because there are eight parts total. But it’s intriguing, and offers different perspectives on the case, the psychological elements that drove the cult members to commit those murders, and how the police handled the investigation. I’m a true crime fanatic, so of course this book is right up my alley. It inspired me to start working on my own true crime book, a perpetual WIP. Alas, fiction writing comes first now.

I also finished a horror novella, “Bootleg Cove” by Devon Govaere, and “Lockwood & Co: The Dagger in the Desk” by Jonathan Stroud, a novella in the Lockwood & Co series, one of my favorite series ever. Another book I finished, “Normal” by Graeme Cameron focuses on a serial killer. Meanwhile, I’m watching episodes of Criminal Minds, to get the full effects of a dark mood. This helps me studying criminology, and I’m in the middle of exams, so the dark mood is helpful. However, I have some lighter reading materials planned for the rest of the week.

What I’m Writing

I finished another short story, which ended up being 6113 words. It’s a first draft of course, so these still need revising. I didn’t get around to work on Ghostslayer. I have the rest of hte book outlined, and I really want to get started, but edits for other projects mean I can’t spend time on it until I finish those edits. And edits are tough. Especially when they’re so thorough like the last edits I got. The book was one of my earlier manuscripts, so I estimated it would need more work, but still, combining studying, editing and writing? Near impossible.

My total word count for this month is 22878 words, which is all the short stories combined, and about 4k in my WIP.

Writing goal for this week: finish another short story, get through the edits for Reflected, and write at least another 4k in my WIP.

What Works For Me

Watching series that fit the genre of the book I plan to write. Since I’m working on Ghostslayer now, I should probably watch some creepy, ghost-related movies or series. I watched some episodes of American Horror Story last week, and they inspired me for that. But because studying has priority now, I have to focus on crime shows first. And now I’m all inspired to write a mystery / thriller (which I will outline once I get the time, because the plot is pretty cool), and true crime books. But it did help with this week’s short story, which is dark fiction, with a tad of psychological horror, but also a crime element.

What Else Is New

I finished the last proofreading project for this month (yay!). I loved the story, but I’m glad I get to take a break until February, when I have other projects lined up. But with studying, and going on a trip next weekend, I need a short break from editing. However, I still have to finish the second round of edits on two projects before I can take a break. I estimate it won’t take that long though, since both manuscripts are in good shape.