Announcement + Update for "What's On My Shelf"

Long Time No See

I know it has been a while. I enjoyed the daily writing challenge, but it was tough. I knew I wouldn't be up to doing a daily upload again, not for a while, so I set to work on my other idea- "What's On My Shelf".

Problem 1: I'm overthinking it.

Problem 2: I didn't set a deadline for myself, and no self accountability, real easy to let something slip from my mind without that.

I'll get into a little more detail on my plans for "What's On My Shelf" and the problems, but first, I have some fun news!

Guest Judge!

I'm the guest judge for the Writer's Workout challenge: Fiction Potluck!

Fiction Potluck is a quarterly short story challenge where the guest judge gets to pick the challenge and the three winners from a group of finalists. The finalists are chosen by the wonderful selection team over at Writer's Workout.

For the curious the prompt is Romantasy!

It combines two of my favorite things. If I was going to be specific it would be my favorite subgenre of fantasy, though really I devour pretty much anything fantasy I can get my hands on. (It's pretty apparent by what's on my bookshelf.)

All the details, including wordcount, deadline, and all the rules of submission can be found at Writer's Workout Fiction Potluck.

The group behind the scenes at Writer's Workout don't just run fiction potluck, they have a yearly writing conference, the Writer's Games (one of my favorite contests, and a few of my publications came through the games), and they have other anthologies (WayWords is also currently open for submission).

Check it out for the Potluck, stay for the absolute feast of writing resources!

"What's On My Shelf" Update

I thought about this project as a way to do a few things.

I wanted to take stock of the books I owned. I wanted to think about why certain books have stayed on my shelf for years, surviving the giveaway pile. And now that I'm taking my own writing more seriously, I wanted to see what I could learn about the craft from books I clearly love.

That third point is really where I started overthinking things. When doing a deep dive of characters, settings, and senses of the first books I reread for this challenge I put my handwritten notes onto the computer... well, it looked more like I was writing a thesis and not a extended book review like I envisioned.

Which sent me back to the drawing board... and I haven't really left. Mostly because I didn't really set a time frame for fixing this, and turned to focusing on my novel.

But I still think I have plenty to learn about the books which I have kept over the years, as well as comparing them to the new additions that keep coming. I need to keep some free time for my novel, as well as my duties as Guest Judge, but I have learned my lesson in not setting a time frame for completion.

Taking a page from the momentum I had during my Ugly Words Challenge, I'll be launching "What's On My Shelf" in January 2026. At least the 'basic' reviews and musing on why the book is still on my shelf. If I still have to tweak how to go about looking at the stories through a writer's lens for lessons, so be it. "What's On My Shelf" will stay a work in progress forever if I don't get started.

Between now and January I will be updating the "What's On My Shelf" progress page with the details of why and what I want to learn from it. And maybe a list of the books that I can cross off as I get to them. (Or the list may be in a blog post, that will be my next experiment.)

Be Back Soon!

That's the plan anyway. In the meantime, check out the Writer's Workout for all sorts of fun and writing education. I'll be doing some planning and getting my fill of romantasy before I start 2026 strong with "What's On My Shelf".