Welcome to the latest Meri's Monthly Musings! Still not monthly, but I'm trying to at least make it seasonal as I slowly get back into writing.

Winter 2021-22 Creative Summary:

I've still been struggling with words after having to take about three years away from writing. (A little less, if you consider the moodboards I worked on about a year and a half ago. And I did spend November outlining book 2, although those were notes rather than story.) But! See that picture above with the laptop? That's a good sign! This year I've written a few short scenes and short stories to try to get the creative pipes flowing again. The words aren't coming as nicely as they used to, but a friend keeps reminding me that the more I do these little exercises, the sooner I'll flush the gunk out of the pipes and be able to write freely again. I'm not ready to share these quite yet, although I'm hoping some will turn into something longer that I can share later. I suppose I could share some of them as little drabbles like I did for this tiny fic thing I wrote last year, so maybe some will show up on here sooner rather than later?

I have been continuing to do lots of art this year. I've played around a little with acrylics, having fun painting along with youtube videos with my sister and mom. None of us really know what we're doing, but it's a great time. I also did a bit more with watercolor and oil pastels, and joined a drawing challenge in February for drawing faces. Prior to this month I'd never drawn people before, so this was a neat learning experience!

Here are some of the things I've drawn/painted so far this year. You can check out my art Instagram if you're interested in seeing what I'm creating. I've fallen off of social media over the past year or two and maybe someday I'll be back on twitter and tumblr, but for now I'm mostly just on my art instagram and my main instagram.

Upcoming Plans:

Right now I'm trying to ease into writing, so I'm going to try to focus on just the little stories. Once I can get the words flowing, I'd like to go back to working on books 1 and 2. I also have some more moodboard ideas for characters I haven't really introduced yet. I figure since I'm writing about them, I probably should ramble about who they are. I don't want to make any promises on content yet because I'm afraid I'd have to break them, but hopefully soon I'll be back to updating this site again.

I hope everyone is having a good year so far!
~Meri