Hello, and happy Monday! It snowed where I live, which is really fun because it almost never snows here, and hasn’t in a few years! Anyways, I thought that today it would be fun to do a little wrap up of all of the writing I did this year. It was really cool to look back on all the writing I did this year, and I’m really happy with how much I was able to do. I think that I really grew as a writer, and learned a lot more about myself and my writing. So here we go into a wrap up of all the writing I did in 2021!

I’m also focusing more on fiction writing here, and not writing blog posts, to clarify!

What did I actually write in 2021?

I did a lot of writing in 2021, and what I’m most proud of is the variety of things that I wrote.

I wrote ten thousand words of a Peter Pan retelling in April, which is the first main thing that I wrote during the year. I still think that the main idea for it was pretty cool, and someday I’d love to go back and finish the book.

My biggest project of the year was probably my high fantasy book! I first came up with the base idea in February, and spent a few months doing worldbuilding, plotting, and developing the characters. At the end of April, I wrote about five thousand words of it, which I used to apply for a writing mentorship program (which I didn’t get into). In May and June I spent a lot of time plotting it out, and getting details of it down, chapter by chapter. In July, for Camp Nanowrimo, I wrote a lot more of it, getting my total up to a little over 18,000 words. I’ve added pieces on since then, but I haven’t added too much. It’s not my longest project by word count, but it’s the one that I put the most work into, but I think I’ve done a pretty good job with laying out the worldbuilding, character development, and with having a lot of details down for the plot arc.

Although I didn’t get into the mentorship program I talked about, the organization running it also did a two month long writing summer camp which I did get to do, and it was a really amazing experience. It was run by TYWI, The Young Writers Initiative, an organization that has a lot of really amazing programs and resources for young writers. One thing I worked on a lot at the camp was short stories, and I’m really proud of a few that I wrote. I’ve struggled with short stories in the past, but I’ve discovered that I really do like writing them, and that’s been really fun.

My final project that I want to talk about is my nanowrimo novel that I drafted this November! I first came up with my idea for the sapphic Sleeping Beauty retelling set in ancient Greece at the end of Nanowrimo in 2020, and finally got around to writing it this November. I’ve so far written 32 thousand words, making it my longest project so far, and although I had originally planned (and wanted) to write more during the month, I’m happy with what I did.

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New things I tried:

I tried a lot of new things this year in terms of writing, and really went out of my comfort zone with a few of them.

A big one was applying for a writing mentorship program. I didn’t get accepted, but I’m really glad I applied because I got the experience of putting myself and my writing out there.

I also did wrote quite a few short stories, and I think I got better at it throughout the year. Its not something I dread doing anymore; now I really enjoy it, and I love getting writing prompts to turn into short stories.

I also tried to do a lot more outlining and plotting before diving into writing drafts, and it was interesting to see how different that makes the overall writing experience. I really got to know my characters before trying to write their stories, and made sure I really understood my worlds before trying to describe them. I think that I’ve found a good balance of plotting and just going for it that will help me be most productive in the future.

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And a few plans for the 2022:

I have a lot of writing plans for 2022, so here are a few.

A first big one is to just keep trying new things in terms of writing, and to put my writing out there. There are a ton of really amazing writing communities online that I’ve discovered in the last year, and I love being a part of the enormous community of writers online.

In 2022, I want to work on finishing things, less with starting them. I can’t promise that I won’t start anymore projects; I know I’ll start at least one new one with nanowrimo in November, but that’s not for a while. I want to finish my first draft of the Aurora and Calypso book from nanowrimo, and my current plan is to do that by March 1st. That gives me a fair amount of time, but also leaves the rest of the year for other writing.

I’m not exactly sure yet what I’m going to do then. While I do think that I’ll be able to set aside a fair amount of time for writing in January and February, March will probably be busier. That might be a good time to revisit The Whisperers, my 2020 nanowrimo project, or another older draft I have lying around.

My main goals that I’m hoping to accomplish however, at some point throughout the year, are to finish rough drafts of both my Sleeping Beauty retelling, and my high fantasy. I also want to pick one to go back through and revise, and to get through a couple drafts of it, hopefully polishing it up nicely. That will probably be Aurora and Calypso, the Sleeping Beauty retelling, but I’m not completely sure yet.

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Wrapping this up:

This is on the longer end of my writing update posts, but I had a lot of fun with it! It was really really cool to look back on all my writing from this year, and it was a little surprising to see just how much I actually did.

Do you like creative writing? If so, did you write anything this year? Do you have any writing projects you’re working on right now? Chat with me in the comments below!