on reaching the end
Updates From May 2026
This year has been a whirlwind so far, and often that’s meant that writing has fallen to the wayside. But sometime in April, I came up with an almost unreasonable deadline idea for the end of the draft. Since then, the pace hasn’t just picked up again— I’m nearly to the end of the novel.
I’ve been working on Project Calliope in some capacity since August of 2024. I came up with the idea during a roadtrip, when I was trying to outline an entirely different book which has since been abandoned. As we drove, I typed up a quick pitch in my catch-all Scrivener document for new ideas, and right away I was hooked.
After that trip, I outlined, drafted, brainstormed, scrapped it all, drafted again, and started editing until I finally managed to get here: the last stretch before I can call this novel ‘done’. At least, done for now, because I have no doubt there will be more rounds of editing if I manage to get agented for this project or even sell it someday.
For the longest time I had trouble finishing projects. I’ve been a writer since second grade, when I found out the books I loved so much had been made by someone and that I could be the one to make them. In middle school I used to carry a stack of notebooks around campus, each one filled with scribbled, half-baked stories that never got further than a few chapters. I tried three times to write a novel in high school, but I kept calling it quits when I realized how bad the book was turning out.
It wasn’t until my freshman year of college that I finally typed ‘the end’. So it’s surreal to be at this point, around four years later and with seven finished drafts (not all of them Calliope) under my belt. It’s surreal to be so close to truly finishing a book. I’m almost to the stage of polishing, exporting, and sending out my first fully-realized novel for agents to read.
When you read this, I will have just finished up Draft 4 of Project Calliope. I’ll soon be diving into Draft 5, a quick line-editing round to smooth over anything I missed before. And then I’ll turn to the query-tracking spreadsheet I’ve scraped together over the last year and start hitting send.
Even if I don’t get a single request on this book, I’m still incredibly proud of how far I’ve come. When I came up with the idea for Project Calliope, I was terrified by the fact that I didn’t know where my writing career was going to go. Now I’m standing at the precipice of finding out.
[Writing Related News & Updates]
So in less melodramatic terms, I’ve been working really hard on Project Calliope lately. And not just Calliope, but writing in general.
In May alone, I wrote over 40,000 words (?!?!?!). I finally closed the door on Draft 4, and now I’m getting to work on Draft 5! This one should be a much lighter round of edits, with more of a focus on line-editing and making sure there’s nothing I’ve missed.
I also have worked a bunch on Project Saint. I’m planning to draft it while querying Project Calliope so I have something new to occupy my mind. So, since I’m the type of writer that relies on outlines, I’ve been plotting the book in small chunks of time when I get the chance. So far I’ve completed a super rough outline of the most major plot points, and now I’m slowly chipping away at the chapter-by-chapter outline. This book is going to be a pretty chunky one and I’m really excited for it, so there’s a lot to get right here. Hopefully by my next newsletter I’ll be diving into draft one.
At the end of the month I started working on a short story. I’ve never really done short fiction before this year, but sometime in January I started getting an itch for it, and it’s been really fun to explore! Who knows if I’ll do anything with any of these pieces, but I started jotting down some lines for a story I call ‘Ghost’ in between writing sprints, and I’m liking it so far! Short stories have turned out to be a great way for me to explore tiny snippets of ideas that would never hold up for a novel-length piece, so I’ll definitely keep writing them even if they never go anywhere.
On top of all of that, a few of my older ideas are trying to resurrect themselves. My sister visited us for my birthday and, amongst doing about 10 billion other things, we visited the Old Idaho Penitentiary. It’s loosely rumored to be haunted, which drew us in, so we took a tour of the grounds and did some ghost hunting afterwards. The whole experience actually gave me some really good ideas for a project of mine I call R.C. (It has a real title, but I’m keeping that secret for now.) Now I’m really eager to get to that project, even though in all likelihood it’ll be years down the line. I also had some smaller ideas for how to fix my book Project Mutiny, which I’ve talked about on my YouTube channel before. It’s a project I did wrong the first two times I tried drafting it, so I kind of abandoned it with the hopes that it would iron itself out while it sits in the back of my head. Turns out it might be trying to.
[Creative Thoughts]
After spending this year barely reading, I’m really making an effort to get back into it (partially because it’s so important for writers to read, and partially because I want to save my reading goal for the year haha).
Read Recently:
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath — this wasn’t entirely what I expected but I enjoyed it!
Currently reading:
The Second Death of Locke by V.L. Bovalino — I’m obsessed with this so far
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir — I adore the movie so I had to pick this one up
Dubliners by James Joyce — one of my selections for my 2026 personal curriculum, which I’m super behind on (maybe I’ll discuss it in a letter soon?)
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen — buddy reading this with my husband!! (also a personal curriculum pick)
I’ve also been watching way more movies this year than I normally do! Plus, I’m slowly building up a DVD collection, because that was a staple of my childhood and I want to go back to that simplicity. (It’s way more fun to pick from a small selection of physical disks than try to hunt down something to watch from 2,000,000,000 streaming services and just kidding none of them have it right now)
Watched Recently:
Avatar: Fire and Ash — This one wasn’t quite as good as the other two but I can kind of understand that because it’s the middle of the series. I did enjoy the concept of the Ash people, but this movie had wayyyy too much of the weird human guy for my taste.
Edward Scissorhands — A rewatch of one of my favorite movies. Every time I see this, it makes me want more soft/timid male characters in media.
Suzume — Not my favorite Makoto Shinkai movie (nothing can compare to Your Name) but I thought the concept was kind of interesting.
New Additions to the DVD Drawer:
Avatar (entire trilogy) — I was obsessed with the first movie in middle school and recently rewatched it + the other two for the first time. The first one actually holds up pretty well!
Star Wars (Phantom Menace through Return of the Jedi because those are actually the only ones they ever made) — I got tired of trying to find non-scratched ones at a thrift store and I found a set of all six new so I grabbed it!
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (the last one I needed!) — You heard it here first, as soon as I figure out how to halfway capture the feeling of this trilogy, I’m writing a pirate book.
Pride and Prejudice — one of my favorites ever <3 Also rewatched it this month and it may be giving me writing ideas…
Those are just the highlights because wow I got a lot of new DVDs this month!
[Other Updates]
By the time you’re reading this, I should hopefully be back to more regular uploads over on YouTube! Making videos is such a fun thing for me and I honestly don’t think I’ll ever give up on it, but sometimes when life and writing get busy it falls to the wayside : ( But pinky promise, I’m always working on them at least a little bit. It’s just about finding enough time to actually finish and upload them.
I’m also about to launch my own author website! It’s definitely an extra-credit kind of thing right now, because I have zero published work to talk about over there, but I wanted to set it up as a hub for catching important things as they start coming in. Plus I feel like it makes me look semi-professional? I don’t know… I’ll throw in a link in my next newsletter when it actually goes live.
You may (or may not) have noticed some photos in this letter. Those were taken by me, and I’m going to have some more (hopefully) cool ones going up on the website soon! I’ve collected vintage cameras since high school and I’m slowly learning film photography, so to kick off my new website (and just for fun) I took some self-portraits. But I’m waiting for those to be developed, so in this letter I threw in some photography I did at a local park (not film, but still pics I like).
That’s about it for May updates! I tried to keep it on the shorter side, but I do have a tendency to yap when there’s no one there to stop me. Honestly, I don’t expect there to be anyone reading these letters, but they’re a fun little creative outlet for me, so I’m going to write them for myself. I’ll be back next month with a new letter (unless something crazy happens and I need to update sooner).
Thanks for reading and I hope you’re doing well!
