“Happy 2025!” I exclaim, a full quarter into the year.
Once again, I have caught the inconsistency bug, and I’m hoping that this time around, I’ll be completely immune to it.
So as a first step toward doing just that, I believe it’s best to share some writing career (and website!) updates!
Inkspire Fellowship
Last year, I announced my first-ever writing fellowship with INKspire!
A separate review is faaaaaar overdue, and it’s coming — without a doubt!
But for now, I will just list my Fellowship works here and on my Published Works page.
These Elements, My Prison – INKspire
Withdrawal, The New Face of Women Empowerment – INKspire
All in all, INKspire was an amazing first Writing Fellowship experience. I couldn’t ask to be part of a better team!
2024 2025 Writing Goals
2024 I didn’t set any writing goals.
I didn’t think I needed to since — y’know — I was in a Writing Fellowship for the whole year. In my head, I believed as long as I was writing something then everything would be okay.
Boy, was I wrong.
That being said, I did have a goal. Just not writing-related.
I wanted to be a Content Creator. And I was! Albeit, for a very short period. I managed to publish one YouTube video after months of research, scriptwriting, recording, and video editing.
And, no, I won’t share the channel. (YET)
Still, I can’t believe how I was able to garner over one thousand views within A WEEK.
Of course, this isn’t much of a brag for larger channels. But for my baby channel, it was a major accomplishment. That alone got me fixated on my “Full-time Content Creator or Bust” goal.
Needless to say, my obsession led to another massive burnout — one worse than I experienced following my first NaNoWriMo. I ended up falling short on grad school prep and (even worse) my writing.
Still, I learned something last year. Content creation — specifically video editing — is hard. Tough work. I can’t imagine folks doing this daily without a dedicated team behind them.
Major kudos to all the YouTubers out there. Sorry, I couldn’t join y’all last year.
But here’s to hoping at some point in my life journey, I will.
Now back to writing.
Writing is where I belong. And where I should’ve kept my butt in the first place.
I’m not a pro-video editor. Nor do I have time to juggle a full-time job, a pre-grad school test, fellowship projects, a YouTube Channel, and maybe/potentially a biweekly Substack.
So writing is where I will stay.
This year, I made it my goal to finally finish a big writing project — Draft 1 of my novel. Draft 0 has long been written and is in dire need of some serious overhauling.
This Work in Progress (WIP) was my pandemic baby. A five-year-old victim of multiple rewrites, perspective changes, and plot shifts. I think it’s high time I settle on a readable draft so that I can get some eyes on it.
2025 is looking like the perfect time to knock this goal out.
Website Updates
Last, but not least! My blog has been through A LOT.
And I fully intend to put it through a lot more.
At random times, I’d dabble in the world of Medium. Y’know — Medium — the place where articles go to die.
I don’t fully dislike the platform but I will say the community has drastically changed since I stumbled upon it in early 2020.
I remember those days fondly. The time when joining a publication meant a chance to interact with bright authors, learn something new from each other’s works, and just experience overall camaraderie within an otherwise lonely endeavour.
But calling today’s Medium a “community” leaves an acrid taste in my mouth, especially when the space where I first developed my article-writing skills has deteriorated into an AI-congested content mill.
People don’t interact like they did back then. At one point, whenever you posted an article, you were guaranteed a highlight or comment and—on really good days—some claps (or applause, whatever).
Now it feels like everything now is an exchange. You clap for my work, I must clap for yours. You follow my Medium, I have to follow yours.
I understand building a reader base is important on platforms like these, but that is certainly not the way to go.
The state of Medium—and platforms like it— has opened my eyes to the necessity of having a personal home for your writing. Of course, this process alone merits its post, but I do fully intend to migrate much of my articles, essays, critiques, and general prattle to my blog — or possibly even start a dedicated website for them instead.
Since the popular writing platforms aren’t holding up their promise of community, I think it’s best for writers to start creating their own.
More details on that later!