Dear Future Duke,

What a dramatic post title, don't you think? Well, it is true at least. June was such a busy month for myself- I went to Pride, a wedding, and a convention for 3 of the 5 weekends, plus one of those weekends I worked my part-time job three closing shifts back-to-back (Saturday/Sunday/Monday). Additionally, I have two tutoring clients! I'll be done with one of them in a few weeks when the summer course finishes, but I'll have the other until mid-August due to the summer program I'm delivering.

At least it's decent money on the tutoring front. I make at least 20 an hour for the tutoring in any case, and only 16 when I work the part-time job. However, I get a lot more hours at the part-time job to help pay the bills. With me adjusting to my summer work schedule, I didn't realize just how busy I would be to be able to do my whole task list for the month. I probably did 50% of the list, and I only went to the gym once, at the start of the month. Technically I should've gone today, but I once again close today and tomorrow, with church service tomorrow morning. Maybe I can get to the gym before my tutoring sessions on Monday. Maybe I was supposed to have this update posted by yesterday, too.

I also celebrated the big 2-6, which means I'm now in the latter half of my twenties! After a quarter of a century of life, I'm definitely not where I thought I would be if you had asked 10, 15, 20, or even 25 year old Duke. I believe that a lot of reflection is in order- time to evaluate what's important to me and how to best achieve those. On the bright side: my TBR is very trimmed down now. I added The Bardess of Rhulon by Verna McKinnon, and I have several audiobooks on hold with the library. I might just bite the bullet and get the physical copies of them instead since it's such a long wait.

I will say, I'm not doing too bad on the writing front! I've written for both What Do You Fear? and The Mentor Games this past month, and I think I can finish The Mentor Games on-time for my posting schedule. As for What Do You Fear? I'm not too sure. I wrote a very fun scene a couple weeks back and would love to get back into the story sooner rather than later. Ideally, I can get back to Ozryn by the end of the month, but we'll see. I'm hoping to have more progress to share next time!

Dear Future Duke,

What a dramatic post title, don't you think? Well, it is true at least. June was such a busy month for myself- I went to Pride, a wedding, and a convention for 3 of the 5 weekends, plus one of those weekends I worked my part-time job three closing shifts back-to-back (Saturday/Sunday/Monday). Additionally, I have two tutoring clients! I'll be done with one of them in a few weeks when the summer course finishes, but I'll have the other until mid-August due to the summer program I'm delivering.

At least it's decent money on the tutoring front. I make at least 20 an hour for the tutoring in any case, and only 16 when I work the part-time job. However, I get a lot more hours at the part-time job to help pay the bills. With me adjusting to my summer work schedule, I didn't realize just how busy I would be to be able to do my whole task list for the month. I probably did 50% of the list, and I only went to the gym once, at the start of the month. Technically I should've gone today, but I once again close today and tomorrow, with church service tomorrow morning. Maybe I can get to the gym before my tutoring sessions on Monday. Maybe I was supposed to have this update posted by yesterday, too.

I also celebrated the big 2-6, which means I'm now in the latter half of my twenties! After a quarter of a century of life, I'm definitely not where I thought I would be if you had asked 10, 15, 20, or even 25 year old Duke. I believe that a lot of reflection is in order- time to evaluate what's important to me and how to best achieve those. On the bright side: my TBR is very trimmed down now. I added The Bardess of Rhulon by Verna McKinnon, and I have several audiobooks on hold with the library. I might just bite the bullet and get the physical copies of them instead since it's such a long wait.

I will say, I'm not doing too bad on the writing front! I've written for both What Do You Fear? and The Mentor Games this past month, and I think I can finish The Mentor Games on-time for my posting schedule. As for What Do You Fear? I'm not too sure. I wrote a very fun scene a couple weeks back and would love to get back into the story sooner rather than later. Ideally, I can get back to Ozryn by the end of the month, but we'll see. I'm hoping to have more progress to share next time!

Sincerely,
Past Duke

Duke's Personal Progress Tracker (07/05/2025):

Days 54/120
WIP 1 59,500/85,000

Dear Future Duke,

I've been so busy with life lately. As we all know it's Pride Season! And this past weekend was our local Pride festival. Unfortunately I had no time to really bask in my own pride and enjoy myself- I had to work Saturday! I'd've been fine if I could've opened, or even do the mid-day shift- instead I had to close. On top of that, I had a training for another job I have that same morning! My Saturday went like this: 9am wake up, 920am leave apartment, 930am start drive to training, 10am training, 11am start driving back home, 1130am wait in line for Pride to open at noon, 12pm torrential downpouring and get inside to Pride festival grounds, 1pm leave Pride for work, 2pm clock into work, 930 clock out of work. On the bright side, I did buy some cookies at Pride earlier that day so I ate one as soon as I was walking home from work. By the time I got inside, I was high as a kite. But that was just Saturday.

Sunday we went to church and then I had tutoring afterward. Then the rest of the day I've been letting the residual high finally hit the road. Now it's just past midnight and I've added no words to any work this month I fear. I really should try looking for time to write- I just feel like I have none. Anyway, check out my AO3 for my The Hunger Games fanfic The Mentor Games where Katniss has to watch her mom go into the Quarter Quell- I've been posting updates there every Tuesday @dukeofthedisco.

That's all I've got, and make sure to check out Chapter 4 of What Do You Fear? Also, after taking the first chapter to a critique group I'm finally noticing the lack of editing on my part. However, I'm not trying to publish unpolished work on here, that will be saved for if/when I have a What Do You Fear? compendium to publish. (Yes I already have ideas for a Part 2 and a Part 3, but I will get through Part 1 first!

Sincerely,
Past Duke

Duke's Personal Progress Tracker (06/09/2025):

Days 48/120
WIP 1 59,500/85,000

Dear Future Duke,

Clearly the last couple of weeks have been hectic. Starting the new job, of which I will have no further shifts for about 2 weeks! It's nothing serious, just the fact that the schedule is made 3 weeks out and I only got through all the on-boarding today. Luckily I still have a few tutoring sessions left this month and I can always DoorDash if I want to.

I did write one time in the past week, and I plan on rectifying that finally. I'm also on AO3 as dukeofthedisco now! I think that I still want to focus on short-form fiction for now (What Do You Fear?, The Mentor Games, A Ship's Duty) at least until the end of the month when I should have several bits of feedback for Ozryn Act 1.

I have several things on my to-do list though, and those basically need to take priority 9 times out of 10. I have at least been maintaining one goal for this year and that's using my local libraries! It's getting hard to find workshops that I either haven't done or want to do, and sometimes the ones I find are booked up- whether it's writing-related or not. I have not, however, been able to find nothing of interest to me to check out- this month I've read The Final Gambit (via Libby) as well as Bookshops and Bonedust- I was very pleased with Bookshops and Bonedust because I have the first book Legends and Lattes and found it a very fun and cozy read. The Final Gambit felt like it took me a while to read, though I did listen to it at normal speed versus my usual 1.5x speed.

Additionally, I've checked out a couple of For Dummies books, one for Statistical Analysis using R Studio and one for building a website (I think via HTML, like a Millennial). Perhaps I'll be able to learn to make my blog here a more fun place for me to come to! I also love renting movies from the library- just this month I got A Simple Favor and The Watchers. I loved ASF and when my husband and I saw the sequel on Amazon Movies, I was like- "Let me go to the library real quick, babe," and I got the movie for us. The Watchers is an okay movie I saw in theaters- I recognize that it is a poor adaptation of the source material, and is technically a Night Shyamalan film- but I went into the movie without the knowledge of the book and with the knowledge that it is Ishana Night Shyamalan's directorial debut or whatever and I was willing to give it a chance. I think it was a more enjoyable experience in-theater, but it was a decent "palate destroyer" if you will that I think helped me appreciate other movies.

My final update is going to make me sound like an old man, but I finally learned how to play Solitaire. Until yesterday I had been terrific at Spider Solitaire, but I never knew how to play any of those other card games available in the Microsoft Solitaire library. Today alone I played Solitaire for like 90 minutes without a break and honestly I can understand why people with ADHD undiagnosed for forty years back in the 70s and 80s. Anyway, that's all I have for you today. Hopefully I have something new to add Thursday.

Sincerely,
Past Duke

Duke's Personal Progress Tracker (05/12/2025):

Days 43/120
WIP 1 59,500/85,000

Dear May Duke,

It feels like only last week that March Duke was writing to me, and perhaps that's just from the "lack" of writing I've done this month. In my defense, my to-do was long and still isn't done, and that includes making the to-do for you.

I have been working behind the scenes of novel writing however, by attending workshops related to critiques and publishing and copyright stuff, plus I have been doing some writing. I think most of my writing days this month have so far been outlining short-form fiction- the Hunger Games Fanfiction piece, the horror story, and of course the sci-fi story. In fact, I still need to FINISH the horror outline so that may be my goal for this afternoon.

In some stellar news, I got hired for a part-time job- it'll be super chill and give me at least some reprieve from stress related to financial insecurity. Unfortunately taxes are a thing so I had this idea: what if I did DoorDash for the purpose of bridging the gap between my take home and my actual earnings? My schedule is supposedly less than 30 hours a week, probably 3 shifts, maybe 4 depending on what they need from me. While my wage rate would be more than sufficient for my basic expenses if I manage just 100 hours every month, I believe that witholdings will bring that down to just under what I would need to not see my bank account bleed drier with each passing month. Since I get burned out so easily, having a real goal that should be quite easy to attain every couple of weeks shouldn't burn me out too soon.

We haven't gotten quite as much feedback as I'd've liked by now on even Act 1, but I think that the few peoples' feedback I have gotten should be enough for me to go in and A) make basic edits and B) Put down bookmarks or something that tells me where to add something or stuff to fix. Then I think June could see me actually work on "editing" at least Act 1 and maybe preparing for Act 2's edits in July? We'll see.

Anyway, I think May 2025 is going to be a fun month and a great start to the hot season so long as we can keep cool!

Sincerely,
April Duke

Duke's Personal Progress Tracker (04/24/2025):

Days 38/120
WIP 1 59,500/85,000

Dear Future Duke,

I keep forgetting to write these on Thursdays, I might just change it to Fridays at this point.

Anyways, true to my word I've held off on touching Ozryn 1 this month. Instead, I've been on the lookout for more Beta Readers and I also took chapter 1 to a critique group! I think it went well, and I hope I can go to the next one in this series. I've been working on a few short stories that I'd like to bring if possible.

I guess I should update you on what's happened in the last week: I did outline Ozryn 2 properly (which I will elaborate on later in this post), and I outlined 3 sci-fi short stories. The first one is a zombie story (it's somewhat outlined, but I'm almost done with it, I think. To be fair I did pants the first two parts to this story. You might remember this as What Do You Fear? which has 2 chapters up already.), the second one features a spaceship as the main character/POV character, and the third one is fanfiction for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.

On the Ozryn 2 front, the outline is based on the alternate ending I'd like to write for Ozryn 1 in order to appeal to traditional publishers. However, I think I quite enjoy the beginning of Ozryn 2 so much as an outline that I'll probably forgo the original end for Ozryn 1 anyways! That means I should in fact rewrite the end ASAP.

As for the Catching Fire fanfiction, I really enjoy The Hunger Games and with the release of Sunrise on the Reaping last month giving us so much more insight into District Twelve and the history of the Games, I decided to write my alternate universe fanfiction where the 3rd Quarter Quell twist is actually Reaping immediate family members of Victors, rather than the Victors themselves. It's planned to be 12 parts and I already have 2400 words across 2 finished parts, so I may start sharing those as they're finished.

Sincerely,
Past Duke

Duke's Personal Progress Tracker (04/11/2025):

Days 34/120
WIP 1 59,500/85,000

Dear April Duke,

My how this past month has gone. What started as a goal to just finish the rewrites of Act 1 by the end of March so we can start recruiting Beta Readers has turned into trying to finish the whole rewrites for the entire manuscript to be submitted to Beta Readers (still in stages, mind you). We broke 58,000 words today and we're maybe halfway through the final scene we need to write for this story. I'm so happy with it and I'm sure it'll be Hell and a half to do the next draft where we take into consideration feedback from Beta Readers.

That being said, we do need to have a plan regarding the wait time since we only have a handful of them so far and however many we do get, they won't all be on the same schedule for giving feedback. I think we should finish Act 3's rewrites by the end of this month for starters. Then for April we can switch between recruiting Beta Readers and doing outlining stuff for Ozryn 2 from day-to-day. Hell, we could even try continuing the short story zombie fic we've been working on!

Anyways, I have some stuff to take care of today and tomorrow, such as making the task list for April (we didn't quite stick to what I wanted to do for March, regretfully). We have been keeping up with the gym, though! So there is that other win! I don't think I'm going to try to "catch up" on reading for my dissertation or a class, nor will I "catch up" on my DoorDashing. Those tasks will essentially be clean slates for April, though I may try doing a handful of readings instead of spending every other day outlining Ozryn 2.

Whatever. Anyways, I know you'll take the reins and lead us further to our goal of having our first published novel!

Sincerely,
March Duke

Duke's Personal Progress Tracker (03/27/2025):

Days 28/120
WIP 1 58,100/59,000

Dear Future Duke,

So we're a day late again, but it's okay! We've done writing! Chapters 1-3 are ready for Beta Reading, meaning only 4 more chapters need a review before we can start advertising for Act 1 Betas!

Now, I do plan on a couple "rounds" of Beta Reading- though only one round is fully planned out right now. When I finish Act 1's drafting officially, I will send those out to prospective Beta Readers and collect feedback. Those who manage to complete the Act and submit feedback in a timely manner will then receive the next Act, and then rinse and repeat for the final Act. For those who complete the whole 3 stages of Beta Reading will be entered to win a signed copy of the WIP (I know, I know, so pretentious yadda yadda). And everyone who completes at least one Act and submits feedback will get a free copy of the e-book version when it's ready (logistics still being thought through since I want readers to actually *OWN* the copy of the e-book they receive, but I still need to make sure I can get verified ratings and reviews across the internet.

The second round will be much less systematic, I hope. The Beta Readers who complete all three Acts in round 1 will be invited to do a full read of the story once the round one feedback is taken into consideration and the revisions are made, though I don't have any plans for rewards or giveaways at this moment since I still feel like I'm so far away from that point.

That reminds me, I'm actually terrified (in a good way!) about how close I am to being ready for Beta Readers since I've never gotten this far in the drafting process for a novel. Sure, I wrote short stories and stuff in middle school and high school, but any attempt made at a novel or anything longer than 5,000 words just fell flat on its face. Even if Duke from three years ago saw the progress on the WIP now, they'd be amazed.

I guess this means that I'm actually doing something with my writing at this point, even if it's only been a dream for most of my life. Have a wonderful day, and don't get too plastered on Monday!

Sincerely,
Past Duke

Duke's Personal Progress Tracker (03/14/2025):

Days 18/120
Words 11,500/40,000
WIP 1 55,700/85,000

Dear March Duke,

This past month went by quick. We finished a lot of stuff on our to-do list- for instance we've gone to the gym five times (with another visit planned for tomorrow) and we've Dashed 15 times (one more trip planned, and four had to be cancelled due to this wild weather).

We also started writing down some recipes on index cards and attended not just one or two, but three whole events at the library to help our writing career! We still need to finish the to-do list for March, as well as fill out whatever we can/need to for a planner of some kind. It's sitting on my desk, and it's completely empty despite being two months into 2025.

Also, I kind of have an idea. What if I started posting like, actual writing samples of mine? I was at a workshop earlier today for how to write good horror and supernatural stories and I wrote a little scene that was about 500 words of a zombie story. Maybe you, as March Duke, could post it and continue writing it like chapters?

Anyways, we've only really written 8 new days this month, meaning we're behind by about 5. This means we should be writing every other day in March! I'm sure you'll get us to the Beta Readers stage for the first Act by then! You might even have Act II ready by Easter!

As for Ozryn itself, we're still at about 55,000 words, or 2,200 words shy of our February goal. But I've already adjusted the writing goal for March to account for that. Anyways, you're gonna do great next month.

February Duke, out!

Duke's Personal Progress Tracker (02/27/2025):

Days 15/120
Words 10,700/40,000
WIP 1 54,900/85,000

Dear Future Duke,

Clearly I need to set a reminder on my phone or something to do this, haha. Anyways, happy Valentine's Day- I hope you have fun with the husband tonight! Onto the weekly check-in:

I've only written a few times this month, maybe once in the last week. I did finish a chapter and need to get started on another soon, but that'll be a you thing, maybe tomorrow after the gym.

I have spent the past several days DoorDashing and reading. I finished reading Snowglobe by Soyoung Park the other day- amazing. I can't wait to read the sequel when it's released (in English). Snowglobe, for those of you lurkers who don't engage with current YA stories, is about a post-apocalyptic Earth in which most of the world lives in -50 degree weather and work at power plants that basically act like giant hamsterwheels. These plants power everything, including the city of wealthy, elite "actors" who live in Snowglobe. In exchange for the wealth and luxury experienced in Snowglobe, it's "actors" are basically broadcasting their entire lives for everyone outside of Snowglobe. Think of it like 1984 meets 2012 Ice Age meets The Hunger Games. I strongly urge people to go and read it if they haven't already- maybe next month I'll finally get my hands on a copy of The Inheritance Games (and knock off another TBR).

That's right, I'm doing something that most book buyers readers only dream of: I'm finally reading the stuff that I've bought over the years. Currently I've got Holy Rollers by Rob Byrnes on my desk to read! I'll have more to report on it when I get more through it!

Anyways, we definitely need to spend just a little bit of time each day writing- it's a habit tracker after all. I'd love to reach 10 more days this month so I can stay on pace and not need to try playing catch up in March. In my defense, though, February is notoriously and unnecessarily short- we should adopt a new calendar where every month has 30 days and we have 5/6 days that stand apart from any given month.

Anyways, I think we're still only about halfway to the word count goal for the month, so yeah, we should get more story on the page. Alrighty, time to head out!

Sincerely,
Past Duke

Duke's Personal Progress Tracker (02/14/2025):

Days 10/120
Words 9,300/40,000
WIP 1 53,500/85,000

Dear February 2025 Duke,

As the first month of what will undoubtedly be a trying year for the both of us ends, I would like to commemorate a couple of milestones regarding our writing goals (as well as our reading goals!):

First: I averaged nearly 200 words per day this month. This may not sound like much, but with WIP 1 having been mostly written during November 2023, it had been well over a year since I properly touched WIP 1. For 13 months I averaged 0 words per day on this project. After just a few short weeks since starting to work on this goal, I jumped to 193 words per day when counting from January 1st.

Second: I have written at least 7 days (or contributed work relating to WIPs 1 and/or 2) out of the 120 I pledged to complete for GYWO. I realize that we're technically behind on this pacing, as I should attempt a minimum of 10 days per month to reach 120 days by the end of the challenge, but again we also started this pledge a week into the year instead at the first, and by technicality I am on-track to complete my pledge at this rate!

Third: I SURPASSED FIFTY-THOUSAND WORDS! WIP 1 has 50,001 words of writing, and that accounts for chapter titles and other notes that will not be part of the final narrative! This may be the farthest I've gotten on any of my attempted (and long-since abandoned) writing projects, which I think calls for a mini celebration.

With the writing goals out of the way, I feel like I can take a moment to shed light on our reading-related goals. As anyone on this site can agree, good writers should also be good readers. Furthermore, I feel like we haven't utilized our local public libraries nearly enough recently. As a tutor we often host sessions in meeting rooms at different library branches, but we need to get into the habit of using the library in other ways. We also have a good TBR pile of books that we've purchased in the past.

Reading Goal 1: Use each of the three library systems I live near once per month. So far, so good. I've checked out material from all 3 this month- a couple of movies and a couple of books. As a once-voracious reader as a child turned into a burnout adult who couldn't be bothered to actively read in their free time, this is a huge step up for me. Though I'm still only partway through the last book.

Reading Goal 2: My next reading goal is to not need to use the renewal feature on checked-out material. I want to get back into the groove of finishing a book within 3 weeks, or at least saying "this isn't for me, goodbye." by the time the book comes due. So far, mostly good. Remember that partly-finished book from Reading Goal 1? Yeah, that's due in like five days and I have a LOT of it to go still.

While there is a "secret" Reading Goal 3, it's not really something that can be easily quantified. However, I can share that it is to eventually be reading something everyday- whether it's an academic paper or the chapter of a book. Otherwise, that wraps up my writing milestone celebrations and reading goal updates for January. Hopefully next month sees even more progress!

Sincerely,
January 2025 Duke

Duke's Personal Progress Tracker (01/30/2025):

Days 7/120
Words 5,800/40,000
WIP 1 50,000/85,000