Good morning, Cyberspace!

This week, we are talking all about writing. Which is, if I may be so bold, my favorite topic to talk about. Today, I thought it would be fun to talk about my current WIP–Project Goblin!

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BLOGMAS, 2025 – PROJECT GOBLIN

THE BEGINNING

I’ve spoken about Project Goblin quite a bit on both this blog and my old one, Smudged Thoughts. It’s a very whimsical, quirky tale about a man who accidentally discovers an alternate world one day–a world of which he’s been dreaming about for years. The story is filled with glowing mushrooms and weird children and a Goblin King who simply wants to become whole again. I like to say it has Wizard of Oz vibes, but make it weirder. There is, after all, a talking scarecrow… (who, I am proud to say, does not completely mutilate a library in an epic dance number.)

I’ve had this story echoing around in my noggin for quite some time now, and I’ve already written at least one very poor draft of it. However, now that I’m on draft two and officially on track with where I want to take the plot, I have sketched out a very smol blurb for the story!

THE BLURB

Bartholomew Todd had always been a curious child. Now, fully grown, he is an even more curious man. He’s been dreaming of Inkwell for years, and it seems the only way to get it out of his head is to draw that which he sees. As his wall of dark, twisted art grows, so too does Inkwell’s desire to bring Todd back to the place where he lost everything…to bring him back home.

I guess I can’t even call it Draft 2 at this point. It’s more like Draft 3.0. I started rewriting this story, only to realize that there were some glaring plot holes I was trying very hard to ignore. Eventually those plot holes were ripping the entire fabric of the story apart, which caused me to give up and slide the manuscript back into a drawer for a while…

But that is where we are picking up now…

THE INCITING INCIDENT

Recently, I got really, really sick. It wasn’t just your standard cold or flu that eventually goes away. It was a debilitating kind of sickness that caused a lot of my life’s infrastructures to crumble away within a matter of days. I’m better now–the road to healing has been packed with many blessings–but a sickness like that has a way of making you rethink your life’s priorities.

One of those priorities is where I’m spending my time.

I mentioned in yesterday’s post that things will always try and get in the way of your writing. And, if you let it, those things can take up days and weeks and months of your time without you even realizing it. All of a sudden, I found myself staring down the barrel of my life and coming to grips with the fact that it has been months since I’ve written. Months since I’ve put any effort behind my dream of being published. Months since I’ve sat down and even thought about my stories. Once that realization hit, it was like a switch had been flipped back on.

The creativity was back. The voices were still there. But I had a lot of catching up to do.

There’s a pretty glaring problem when you leave your stories in the hands of the computer goblins for months on end. Eventually, when you finally have the guts to show your cowardly face to the screen again, you have no clue where you left off in the writing process. All of that steam and all of that forward progression is just–POOF!–gone. And this is where I found myself on a dark day in December, not so long ago.

THE REIMAGINING

I knew that if I was going to get back into the flow of writing, I had to get excited about the story again. I also knew that in order to get excited about it, I had to reacquaint myself with the story.

Long story short, I had to read everything I’d already written all over again.

I was dreading this, in a way, mostly because the thought of reading my entire book on my laptop felt like such a drag. I prefer curling up with a book, not sitting at a desk and staring at it. My laptop is where I write, not where I read.

It was around this time that I realized I had another option available to me: I could send my ebook (or rather, what I had of my ebook) directly to my Kindle. I could essentially read my novel as I would if I were reading an actual book.

I know it sounds so small and silly, but this revolutionized my deep dive back into the world of Project Goblin. I was able to curl up with my book in my bed or the sofa or the car and allow myself to get swept into the story like a reader would. It was magical.

I’m going slow, act by act. As of writing this, I have read all of Act One and made copious amounts of notes on how I want to redraft it, as well as re-outlined the entire first act. My goal is to read the rest of what I’ve already drafted–essentially the first half of Act 2–and do the same thing. Make notes. Re-outline. Then, when that’s done, I’ll continue forward with the outline, stretching and molding it until I have a full, completed outline to follow.

I’ve never really been much of an outliner, but this entire journey has showed me that, if I want to be successful in my work, I have to know where I am taking it. Funnily enough, I’m actually really enjoying this process of learning to be an outliner! It’s made the journey of reimagining my story so much more fun, and I’ve realized it’s been way too long since I’ve allowed myself to just enjoy the process of writing–to actually play with story instead of feeling threatened by it.

THE END…?

I don’t know where this story will end up, if I’m being honest. I have dreams for it, naturally. I have desires for how I want it to enter the world as a fully-fledged novel. But right now, I’m focusing on the aspect of creation, the actual writing of the story. Everything else will be cherries on top.

Once I settle into the new rhythms of 2026, I hope to keep this blog updated with my progress on Project Goblin, from outlining, to scene creation, to–Lord willing–publication.

If that’s something you’re interested in, keep an eye out for the relaunch of my series, Behind The Scenes, which will feature all of the projects I’m working on, as I’m working on them! (I tried to start it up once a while back, but it was a bad writing season and it kinda died…) As you will see in a post later this week, I have a lot of ideas for stories and a whole lot of goals for them, too…

But I’ll save that for tomorrow…

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TALK TO ME, PEASANTS!

What project are you most excited about right now? Have you ever taken a break from writing–whether intentionally or not–and struggled to get into your story again? What tricks have you used to help get back into the writing groove?