First week of 2024, and now that I’m all settled in it’s time to talk about my plans for the year. Mostly reading and gaming plans, since writing plans are pretty much ‘keep on doing what I’m doing’.

Book Bingo Card

First things first, I have a new Book Bingo Card for 2024. I’ve just rolled my Bingo Card for the year, and look forward to filling in some of these squares. Feel free to play along with this card, or leave a comment if you want me generate a new card for you. I made a card generator a few years ago, and making new cards has always been a highlight of the new year for me. I have a page of sample bingo cards and previous yearly challenge cards HERE.

The card is randomly generated, though I must admit my original roll gave me a lot of tiles I’d done over the previous years, so I rolled a second card and combined the squares. Still kept a couple of repeats that could be filled by books I want to read (is that cheating? Does book bingo even have rules?) but overall I think I made a nice fresh challenge for the year. It’s also a nice and convenient card in some ways; after all, after visiting Jules Verne’s house in September I did say I was going to binge his books. Plus the next Wayward Child book by Seanan McGuire looks like it has dinosaurs, so that’s one challenge easily knocked out within the first couple of weeks of the year. You know what, that sounds like a good segue into…

Books I’m Looking Forward To

I haven’t been as on top of the publishing news as I should be, but there are still some books coming in 2024 that I’m super hyped for.

As mentioned, the next book in Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series, ‘Mislaid in Parts Half-Known’ drops on January 9th, and as usual I’ll be onto that immediately. This is a great series of novellas, with a few short stories thrown in. Last year’s entry, ‘Lost in the Moment and Found’ made me bawl my eyes out. This is a series that asks ‘what happens to the kids that stumble through magical portals and have adventures in fantastical lands when they end up back in our world’, and in doing so delivers a masterpiece of worldbuilding with amazing characters.

The other book I’m really looking forward to this year is Chuck Tingle’s ‘Bury Your Gays’. Tingle’s debut “serious” (everything Tingle does he’s serious about, and he resents the implication that his work pre-Camp Damascus is a joke, hence the quotation marks. However it is the first novel he’s written that is being taken seriously by the publishing world at large.) horror novel ‘Camp Damascus’ was pretty amazing, and from what little I know of ‘Bury Your Gays’ (July 9th) I think it’s going to be another amazing queer horror story. Here’s what I know, taken from the ‘Bury Your Gays’ Goodreads page;

“From Chuck Tingle, author of the USA Today bestselling Camp Damascus, comes a new heart-pounding story about what it takes to succeed in a world that wants you dead.

Misha is a jaded scriptwriter who has been working in Hollywood for years, and has just been nominated for his first Oscar. But when he’s pressured by his producers to kill off a gay character in the upcoming season finale―”for the algorithm “―Misha discovers that it’s not that simple.

As he is haunted by his past, and past mistakes, Misha must risk everything to find a way to do what’s right―before it’s too late.”

That’s all I really need to be onboard with this story. Well, that and my previous experience with Chuck Tingle. I think most people only know about Chuck Tingle through his ‘Tinglers’; silly erotic short stories involving dinosaurs, unicorns, bigfeet, and all sorts of living objects. There is more to Chuck Tingle than just the Tinglers (though, the Tinglers are a lot of fun, and the worldbuilding of the Tingleverse is really cool). ‘Trans Wizard Harriet Porber and the Bad Boy Parasaurolophus’ was what really made me jump on the Chuck Tingle bandwagon. Not only was that book a nice big FU to a certain transphobic author, but the magic system and use of the fourth wall were genius. And yes, it was also silly and sexy, but it was a genius silly erotic novel. Chuck Tingle is a genius and I trust that ‘Bury Your Gays’ will be worth my time.

Well, that was a lot of text to talk about just two books. Let’s get on to what I’m planning to write.

Writing Goals

At the moment, I have six short story submissions pending at professional markets, so fingers crossed some of them make it out to the world. They range in length from just over 900 worlds long to just under 10,000, and include both science fiction and fantasy. I’m also currently working on a short horror story, so already 2024 is off to a good start in terms of short stories.

As for longer works, I’m still writing ‘Amanidas’, though progress has slowed with the holidays and the insistent idea for that aforementioned horror short. Still, I paused at a good time, and should be able to edit the half of the story I already have to make continuing easier. I am really excited about the progress that has already been made with this story, and I think I have something really fun and special on my hands.

I have also completed a second draft of a new World of Green and Black novella, so that’ll be ready to be shared on this blog pretty soon, just need some artwork for it. Speaking of artwork, I’ve been drawing a lot of Green and Black wildlife lately. Might see them appearing in a project soon 😉

Twitch Goals

The last thing to talk about is my Twitch, something that doesn’t get talked about too much here. For those who don’t know, I play a lot of Ocarina of Time Randomizers. Just this week, I just beat my Zootr (Zelda Ocarina Of Time Randomizer) PB, completing the modded version of the game in 3h23m17s. I’m good at the game… but being one of the most well renowned games of all time, the bar is set so high that by comparison to other runners, I’m not so good. Still, I’ve been playing for two years and am still having fun. My goal for this year is to get really good at the bosses, and which should help me start hitting that sub 3:30 mark more often.

I also played Croc: Legend of the Gobbos not too long ago, and would really like to play through more retro games. Especially science fiction and fantasy themed games. Games are a great way to tell stories in speculative genres, and it’d be great to be able to play something new while chatting with fans. For this reason I’m going to start advertising my upcoming streams on this blog. At the moment I start playing at 7pm AEST, which is very impractical to American and European fans unfortunately. I may start experimenting with shifting times so more people can join in.

The Final Say

With that, I think we’ve covered everything about my professional plans for the year. I do also have some more vague plans, such as getting a Patreon and doing more review posts, but we’ll see how that ends up going. My personal life is also set to be quite busy this year. I’m planning to get married, after delaying for longer than I care to admit. I’ve also enrolled in an online TAFE course which will be keeping me occupied for the next year and a half. Hopefully it won’t slow the writing down, but well, I start working on the lessons tomorrow, so let’s see how I go.

And with all that out of the way, I better get back to working. Or to gaming. We’ll see how productive I am over the next couple of weeks.

Happy Reading,

~ Jayde.