# Preface Date: Sunday, December 21, 2025 **Please note:** I'm stacking my fiction and (eventually) non-fiction for Fridays in future. So you won't immediately see the content for Substack. It's queued up. This week was a whirlwind for my fiction. I focused entirely on one story for a literary magazine submission. Spoiler alert, they actually closed down early and I didn't notice until the day before the deadline of December 21s. So I spent three days in a row writing up a storm so that I could receive feedback on two different stories on Saturday. And now here I am, writing my weekly wrap-up in silence. Well, I'm also catching up on Dimension20's Cloudward, Ho!, but I'm also trying to read my linguistic books before school starts. # Part 1: Non-Fiction Nothing this week. Unless you count this blog? I'm not gonna worry about that. I have several entries that I want to queue up on Substack anyway, so I really ought to be in editing mode for those pieces. # Part 2: Fiction ## 2.1 Story Submission Word count: Synopsis: Monica, a witch with self-esteem issues, seeks to create a potion to cure her anxiety. Even temporarily. Her experiment turns into meeting a transgender woman she nicknames Sam, the guitarist in a band. Will she find the answer in her new potion, or her new crush? Notes: I counted my initial draft and the following two versions afterward. I covered a lot of ground in three days. The first version was a series of blog posts (over 2K words), which evolved into a recipe-style post (over 1K words), and is slowly becoming a combination of the two (749 words). The numbers themselves don't matter outside of keeping count. However, I note them up here as well because I quickly unearthed the story in about two hours. I also document it all in [my Tumblr post here](https://www.tumblr.com/acewriter/803295209923444736/update-i-wrote-it-as-a-recipe-the-kind-where?source=share). It was a wild week pushing myself. The submission ended up closing early. And I didn't realize that until I shared the link with one of my game devs (see the only other part of the entry below) while preparing for a table read. ## 2.2 Project Castro Word count: Synopsis: A short visual novel where a meet cute happens during Pride in San Francisco. Notes: I'm still working on the elevator pitch. I got to have a video call with my two game developers on Saturday to do a table read. I'm usually nervous about such things, but I was so tired from all the writing that I was mentally tired and was just happy to figure out who would read which lines. There was a ton of feedback. Which is to be expected for a first initial draft. I'm excited to convert this script into something easier to code. # Conclusion This week had me learn that I am still nervous about receiving feedback. I had a fiction workshop in college (æons ago in College V1.0) that used the compliment sandwich method of feedback. But none of us really knew what we were doing, so the "what could be better" was always pretty harsh. These stories are an extension of my self in many ways! And while this is true, there are definitely ways to gently assess how a story can become better. One of those ways is to figure out the direction I need to go in after my stories are written. I write in Vibes, so I often don't know what direction I ought to go in. So I have to figure it out after I let the story cool a little bit. There's efficiency, and then there's also maintaining my emotional well-being. I've been going through a lot of personal changes this year, so it stands to reason that the best parts of said changes should positively affect my writing. We're in the middle of the Holiday Season. So if you made it this far, please know that I appreciate you for spending time reading my words. I'm part of the LGBTQIA+ Community, and most of my blood family ain't that great. So I focus on Found Family. I hope you have a family that you trust and can spend time with. That's important during the winter months. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next week! The below table is mostly for myself. But if you, like me, enjoy seeing numbers go up in any capacity, then this may be for you as well. It's meant to be an encouragement. | Word Type | Word Counts | Monthly Totals | | --------------------- | ------------- | -------------- | | Project Castro | 277+0+749 | 1,026 | | Project Moonshadow | 1,272+267+0 | 1,539 | | Flash Fiction Fridays | 441+628+0 | 1,069 | | Non-Fiction | 1,092+2,350+0 | 3,442 | | Story Submission | 0+0+4,233 | 4,233 | | **Grand Total** | | **11,309** |