I mentioned in a January post that I didn’t know if I would make monthly wrap-ups and highlights a regular on Lucia’s Fiction. However, it seems that might be the case since I’ve been enjoying them so far! I’ll now title them Highlights on Lucia’s Fiction.
Let’s dive right into the highlights of April!
• Outings
I had two fun outings this month! The first was to celebrate my aunt on opening a new hair salon. The second was to celebrate my younger sister’s birthday with all of my siblings in a cute, creatively-styled outdoor eatery. Both were a nice start to my month!
• Writing
I paused writing ADOBS 3 when I had three pages left in my outline (the full outline has about 60 pages), and have now continued writing those three pages! I didn’t imagine I’d be completing the story anytime soon because I was super intimidated by the big, final scenes. But after my first round of revisions led me to the current end, I’m super amped up to write the rest of the story! After many months of revising, it actually feels strange yet exciting to be writing again.
ADOBS 3 has been an absolute DREAM to revise. Itssuchastrongstoryomg!! Twitter is probably tired of me gushing over it every few business days but I can’t help it! And until others can appreciate my stories, I just have to appreciate them myself hehe. While I’ve been loving ADOBS 3, I’d also been dreading rounding up the revision as I didn’t have another project on ground to engage my creative juice. But now, I’ve been buzzing with ideas for ADOBS 4, as mentioned in an earlier post! (I even have title ideas.) But as this beautiful idea forms, it’s actually, extremely different from the ADOBS 4 idea I posted. This is a story that has existed all along, was simply waiting for its turn, and now is revealing itself to me! I’ve been throwing all the plot points on my notes and it’s sooo long now.
• Reading
I read 8 books this month and won my GR reading challenge to read at least 35 books this year! I actually DNF 2 after reading up to halfway, so I combined them as 1 read. It was a generally good reading month, and one of trying different genres!
Finding my next reads was (and very often is) a frustrating process. While I’m still enjoying cozy mysteries and moved from the A Bakeshop Mystery series to the Beacon Bakeshop series, I also found myself craving:
- Historical fiction
- War settings
- Historical fantasy
I basically wanted something set in the past with historical details and a heavy plot. Partly as a nice balance to the lightness of cozy mysteries. This happened after I read The Warm Hands of Ghosts, which was nothing like I expected, but is a magical realism set in the first World War that I really enjoyed. (It’s also a highlight that I read my first magical realism book! At least that I remember. I also read a paranormal mystery, which I never thought I would willingly read, but loved.) I didn’t manage to find a book to soothe the craving, but I found some mystery/thrillers I enjoyed!
The two outstanding books for me this month were Murder Road and The New Couple in 5B, both mysteries with paranormal elements.
• Movies
Everyone knows by now that I was in the biggest Dune movie hangover for weeks. After that calmed down though, I recently went back to watch Crazy Rich Asians and gosh, it still makes me swoon so hard. I wish the movie was longer. Although not gonna lie, I was there 10% for the plot and 90% for Nick. Eeekkk!
• Social Media
Lucia’s Fiction: After fretting that I had run out of ideas some months back, I actually found myself inundated with blog post ideas. It’s been a LOT of fun writing them! But my blog is the only online place I’ve been consistently keeping up with, despite one of my 2024 goals to stay active on IG and TwitterX.
Instagram: I still love posting on my IG stories and keeping in touch with my pals there. However, I’ve lost interest in creating photos and reels for the main page. One, because the hot, dry season isn’t very inspiring. Dolling up just to take pictures does not appeal in the heat. Yes, it’s been sprinkling a few times but the tiny rain brings more dust and heat. The sky is also gray and trees are still brown-ish, so I don’t get the sudden burst of motivation to take book photos. There’s also the fact that my intention to grow my book accounts isn’t working until I have a to-be-published book to market; so I’m not able to build a brand for now! Going on IG also takes a lot of data subscription over here so that also discourages me. That aside, I still love posting on my stories and don’t want to lose the friendships I’ve made there!
TwitterX: I tweet when I get bursts of thoughts I want to share, but I’ve decided not to force tweeting just so my engagement grows or doesn’t drop! Whenever I tweet just for the sake of saying something, I get this feeling like all I’ve done is made noise and annoy people. And I keep wondering whether to delete the tweet or not. But when I tweet when/what I feel like, I don’t care if anyone sees it or what they think about it. It’s just something I have to say, no matter how silly it is. So I’m still active there, but I’m not tweeting everyday!
Path2pub: Path2pub ran for the full month with at least one agent interview per Monday! I’m also about to feature another editor interview there. And I started a new feature of interviewing debut authors on their path to publication experience. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ve found that particular feature to be the most insightful haha. I’m feeling a bit fatigued with the routine of sourcing interviewees and formatting the interviews. There’s just something about the routine-y side of running a website that I don’t love. I prefer free-styling and writing posts as the ideas flow. So I foresee I might be taking a brief break in May before I continue with more interviews. I look forward to when I can revive the site fully so I can blog freely and not only have to format interviews there!
General Life Stuff
My brother (aka my Dune buddy and one of my best friends) went back to school and I miss him. But as always it was so awesome having him home and having the whole family be on break for a few weeks!
I also went to church for other services apart from Sunday service this month, and each one was inspiring and just lovely. Youth Sunday was also really fun; right now this is the only physical group I’m part of and I love it so much!
I accidentally slammed my finger with a car door and my gosh??!!! I felt that pain from head to toe. For an hour I couldn’t even tell what exact part of my body ached. Everywhere did! 😂 It formed a giant blood clot on my thumb and now looks like the ugliest nail polish ever. I thought it’d hurt for weeks, but thankfully by the next day I could use my finger again—including to type!
That’s it from me! Any highlights from April?
Lucia's Fiction 
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