A monthly round-up of my short stories, podcast episodes, trailers, news, and more.

December 2023 | January 2024

Greetings!

In this issue: goals for the new year and wrapping up the last one with a summary of all the December 2023 story posts and podcast episodes.
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2024 GOALS AND TOOLS!

All my major milestones were last year, so I can take it easy now right? Haha, not quite. I have stories to tell you. But I also have other goals that support the Storyfeather endeavor.

One lesson I've learned when it comes to getting things done is that it often pays for me to take one thing at a time, to slow down, and to seize the moment (carpe momentum—I don't know if my Latin is correct, but I'm not trying to write an academic essay here.) That last one is a reminder for me to focus.

GOALS

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One of my goals for this new year is to get the Gazette out earlier than I have been, within the first week of the month. (I’m hoping the later release dates haven’t been bothersome to anyone else, given that the stuff I create is not time-sensitive.) That’s a doable goal, even though I didn't meet it for this month's issue 😬.

I do have a more ambitious goal for the first few months of the year. I want to write and publish a non-fiction book, a companion book to my online short story writing course. This book would contain all the lessons, but at a more affordable price. More on this in coming issues.

But what about creative goals? I hope I can participate in at least one visual art challenge this year. And I aim to do a better job of figuring out some creative frontiers for the theme of this year’s stories. The word just makes me think of the usual things, a physical, geographical space that hasn’t been explored or settled yet. Or a concept within an area of expertise that hasn’t been studied or explored yet.

What else, if anything, could the word “frontier” mean?

TOOLS

Having the appropriate and relevant tool is one way I succeed in reaching my goals. Sometimes that involves buying a new device. But other times, it means revisiting a simple tool that hasn’t worked for me in the past but might help me now.

The calendar, for example. 📅

I experimented with keeping a simple project planning calendar last year. It showed me an overview of the current month and major events in upcoming months. It helped me coordinate celebratory activities for my milestones—otherwise they might have passed without my noticing until it was too late. I created the calendar in a spreadsheet, giving myself four cells per day. I added colors and emojis to differentiate and highlight various items, and looked at it on a near-daily basis. One limitation I had was that the calendar was annoying to look at on my mobile devices. So I’m making a smaller version this year.

Checklists are another great tool I use daily.✅

Even when I’m doing an activity I know how to do well, like creating a podcast episode, I check off individual tasks. There always seems to be one or two things that I might miss otherwise, especially towards the end of a process. And the checked off list also provides a sort of activity log, in case I ever need to reference it again.

Keeping things organized frees up my mind and time so I can spend it on the fun parts of creating a story.

Is it a goal of yours to create stories...to write fiction? If you’d like some help and you’re curious about whether or not I’m the right person to help you, you can watch a replay of a workshop I held over Zoom teaching my method. The lesson part of the video is about 40 minutes. That should give you enough to get going. But if you want more, you can purchase my course. You can find that video here: FASTER FICTIONEER.
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Here's a round-up of the short stories and podcast episodes I released over December 2023.

SHORT STORIES

Click the banner above to go to the Year Eleven page.
Click the story title to go directly to the story post, or the button to watch a trailer and learn a bit more about the story before you decide if you want to read it.

~JANUARY STORIES~

The monthly theme for January is the same one I chose last year, creatures, animals, and beasts—it's Beast-uary. What strange new frontiers will we encounter? Will the beasts be our guides? Or is the creature itself the frontier?

PODCAST EPISODES

Click the banner above to go to the Season Seven page.
Click the buttons below to watch a trailer, listen to the episode, and read the story.

Once upon a time, I thought when January arrived, I should hit the ground running. But I have come to see (or my body has shown me) that a balance between work and rest is the best course of action no matter the season. So I’ll reemphasize the message from the top of this issue. For myself, and maybe for you too, if it applies.
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One thing at a time. Slow down. Carpe Momentum.
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Till next time.
—Nila