February 2026 Writing Update

Well, a month into the new year and here we are. I’ve finished the first repass of the horror draft and have started seeking out beta readers. I’ve found one online, but the jury is still out as to whether or not this anonymous reader will have the stomach to endure 140,000 of my words. Oh well.

Otherwise, I’d love to find some sort of writing group this year. For craft and social reasons, I really believe it could be beneficial for me. So, putting this out into the permanence of a blog post in some sort of way to motivate or force myself into making it into a reality.

As for current pursuits, I’ve been checking over my chapters before I share them with the aforementioned beta reader piecemeal. Just to respect the time of my volunteer reader, as well as to hopefully direct their attention to things more surface-level than repeated words or typos. And then, as some sort of strange exercise in brevity and distilling the essence of my story, I am trying to turn my 140,000 word horror novel into a 100-120 page screenplay. We’ll see if I can make that happen, though. I’m about 28 pages in right now. (WOW, screenplays fly by compared to novels…)

Well, all that said, I do want to put something out onto the Blacklist this year for some evaluations I can hopefully be proud of. Whether that be the screenplay version of my horror story, or some new whodunit that’s been tickling my brain, only time will tell. Or, hey, maybe if I cruise through the screenplay, maybe the March update will tell. Stay tuned to find out.