Dear Reader,

Yes, I am alive. There’s a reason for the radio silence and it’s a good thing. I’ve been writing and submitting and teaching and grading.

Oh, all those papers.

So many that I have just looked up and realized it’s the end of MARCH! MARCH!?! What happened to February?

Wait, it’s April. Yikes!

For January, I posted an update about my writing life. My goal this year, at least one of them, was to demystify what some people believe the writing life is. I don’t sit in coffee shops all day. (Though I am now.) I don’t sit and think about life and it’s meaning. I work. Hard. I have a day job and my writing. Oh, and a life to live. That’s the most important part.

Let’s talk about the work, the writing, what keeps you motivated, or, at least, me. February is when all the grading started so I slowed down. I ended up doing the following:

• Revised an old piece to something so much more elevated than I ever could have imagined. YES!
• Submitted said piece to four journals. Woot!
• Worked on a non-fiction essay. (This one I started in October.)
• Yeah, February was slow by comparison
• Re-packaged and re-released my Valentine’s Day serial, The Last Single Girl.  It looks HOT!
• My piece, Everything in its Place, ran in The Fem Lit Mag. Woot!
• Read some Langston Hughes and annotated a poem. Yes, I did that. And it was kinda fun and awesome.

March was way slower. In the middle of all the papers, all the living and all the madness. Here’s what I accomplished:

• FINALLY finished my non-fiction essay.
• Submitted said non-fiction essay.
• Learned that my panel that I submitted to a conference in Madrid, Spain in January was accepted!
• Reading (still) The Secret History of Las Vegas by Chris Abani.
• Listening to The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. (Thanks, Audible!)
• Started a new personal essay
• Jennie Manning chapter 4 completed, chapter five rewrites.

Two slow months, but here’s the thing. Now that I see it written down I don’t think these months are slow. I’m surprised I got done what I got done with all the things that I needed to get done. So, I’m cutting myself some slack. I did alright! #givingmyselfcredit #slay

According to my goals for the year (yes, I still consider them from time to time) I’m don’t what I’m supposed to. Here’s the list.

1. New short stories? I’ve revised old ones which feels like new material
2. More submissions? Uh, yes. Totally have submitted more this year so far than I have in the past two years. My Submittable account tells me that.
3. Work more in non-fiction? I just finished an essay that took me many months and many more Kleenex to finish. I’ve already started the next essay and have located others from my past to revise later on in the year or early next. New project? Good Lord, I hope not. Ha!
4. Continue my Afro-Latina journey? Always.
5. Jennie Manning? It keeps going. I’ll be writing her own separate update but I’m excited where it’s going. The finish line? What finish line? Kidding. End of the year the good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.
6. Translation? This one is the only goal I haven’t started yet. For now, I’ve put this on ice until I have fewer things on my plate.

So there you have it, my months of living this writing life. That’s what it’s like living this writing life. It’s not always glamorous but it’s worth living.

Writing On,