Never have I ever…
. . . had a blog before.
I’ve been thinking about starting a blog for a long time. Partially—I’ll admit—because I’ve been told that having a more visible online media presence might help me sell more books in the future, but also, because I love to state my thoughts and opinions without other people interrupting me.
So, I thought I would take some time to let everyone know where I am in my writing journey. For anyone wondering, never have I ever published a novel.
Being a full-time author has been my goal for as long as I can remember. I grew up reading a ton as a kid. I ate up every fantasy, dystopian, and historical fiction book I could find. Some favorites obviously included the classics of the 2000s and 2010s like Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, and the Hunger Games, but I would also find myself reading obscure stories about a random girl in ancient Egypt, or classics like the Little House series. No matter what book I was reading, the act of reading made me feel something, and I’ve always wanted to be able to make other people feel when they read my stories, whether that be immense joy or burning anger, at least it will have made you feel, and hopefully think.
In grad school, I published a short thriller story called Freckles in our program’s anthology: From Arthur’s Seat. Short stories aren’t something I generally gravitate towards as a writer, but sometimes I love the punchiness and effect you can have with a shorter piece. While they’re not what I normally gravitate towards for my own writing, I do love reading them, and my favorite I think has to be The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brian.
I also have experience writing poetry and non-fiction, though my poetry is mostly confined to my notes app, and my non-fiction in leather-bound journals on my bookshelves (yes, if you’re wondering, I do often think about someone finding my journal 3,000 years from now and using it to figure out what life was like in the 21st century). But who knows, perhaps someday I’ll have enough of either to make an essay or poetry collection.
My main love has been—and I think always will be—novels. I am a chronic over-writer, which likely has to do with the fact that I never shut up in real life, especially when I’m passionate about an issue (don’t argue with me online, I can craft a 4,000 word essay stating why you’re wrong in about five minutes). I love slow burn plots, no matter what genre, but especially romance. I love to build tension between characters and have them figure things out about the world and themselves in a way that feels genuine.
As I’m sure I’ve said before, I write in many genres, and I am generally working on a few projects at the same time. My longest project, and the first full manuscript I ever finished, is my WIP (Work In Progress for those of you who don’t frequent the online writing community), a fantasy novel called—for now—The Rose and the Arrow. It’s a story about love and loss and politics and finding yourself in your 20s and healing from generational trauma. This was a story born out of the pandemic, and I finished it while living with some of my best friends in the world (all of whom are amazing writers themselves) in our little house in SoCal. We popped champagne and celebrated the fact that I’d written a staggering 156,000 words.
I’ve been editing TRATA off and on for a few years now. I struggled to edit throughout grad school, and then got a good chunk sent off to beta readers last year. But then my father was hospitalized and eventually passed away, which has led to many months of not only grief and struggles of other kinds, but has affected my ability to write. But, I hope to finish editing that story soon so I can start querying agents! I have also been working on its sequel—The Quill and the Dagger—on and off while I edit, just drafting and making sure I have story lines and arcs that make sense for the whole series.
I’m also working on a ghost story set in a community theater, a mythological retelling of my namesake: the Welsh goddess Rhiannon, a fantasy story about a set of queen’s guards with strange powers who must defend their realm from the evil without, or perhaps from within, a Peter Pan retelling, a story about sapphic pirates, and a look into the life of the youngest of the nine muses in Greek mythology.
Now, I know that seems like a lot (and it definitely is), and never have I ever published a novel, but hopefully I can get the ball rolling soon so I can start getting paid to tell stories. Everyone please send me productive thoughts (and maybe some Adderall, there’s a shortage and I can’t get my prescription filled . . . just kidding. . . unless ;), and if anyone is ever interested in being a beta reader, please let me know!
I’m not really sure how one ends a blog, so I guess we’ll try this for now: thank you for tuning into my rambling thoughts, it is much appreciated. I hope to use this blog to talk to you about my writing journey, to review books and shows and movies, to talk about the writing world, and how our world and the things going on are not only effecting my writing and our lives, but all of media and the way we consume it in general. So, if you’re interested, stay tuned.
Until next time,
Rhiannon