2025 is mostly here

And I have somehow used 'liminal' in a sentence without feeling too pretentious.

Hello my darlings! How are we doing in this most liminal time of year?

I am a bundle of nervous lethargy, feeling like I should be resting and recuperating. So I sit and watch TV, and all I have to show for it is a sore butt and the frustration that I could have been getting work done and didn’t. It’s a completely new experience for me, and while I’m not loving it, I’m appreciating what it means.

It means I am finally succeeding.

I am one of those people who makes goals. As a jobless person, I need to figure out how to arrange and fill the hours of my day, and if it isn’t with a goal, I will default to “clean the house and run errands” until I lose my mind.

But this year making goals was so….easy. I usually brainstorm where I want to be in the future, what it could look like there. And each year that is a lot of work, because the year before was so full of failure. I don’t mean that in a judgy way, I’m not maligning myself. But I was trying to write stories, or a novel, and I was repeatedly failing. Not just in the way that I would try to write a story and fail to get to a final draft that worked, or sometimes fail to get through any draft at all. Failing to get to the end of the story also meant failing at process. Because if the end result isn’t what I want, the way I went about getting there has to be inherently wrong. Maybe only partially wrong, but still.

Trying to make a successful goal when you only have failure to build on becomes this exercise in creative fantasy. What is progress when the work never succeeds? How do you get a field goal if you’ve never once….gotten the ball far enough down the field to kick? (I’m really bad at American football, but you get the point.) My goals became more and more abstract, attempting to quantify how much failure could look like success. And I worked SO HARD. I have worked at failing harder than anyone I have ever known.

This year my writing goal is so simple: Finish the first draft of my novel.

And while I might not reach that goal, I know the work that I will do toward it won’t be failure. For the first time, I have a mental model of a novel to work from that I understand enough to replicate. I am learning and working with a process that is detailed and guides me through each step of story creation. And I have support when I become confused or stuck. I am finally learning how I like to work when the process is successful. This is all new territory for me! Of course I don’t want to rest or recuperate—even though I was sick for Christmas. Knowing my hard work is moving the story forward is the. Best. Feeling. EVER.

Originally I was going to say something here about how important it is for an artist of any stripe to learn their process. That it boggles my mind that traditional writing instruction doesn’t mention anything about process other than “throw words at page until success.” This is a topic I could write five essays about.

But what I’m really feeling like sharing with you is my novel. I don’t need to just share theory with you. As a writer, who is writing, I can actually talk to you about my project!

It is very early days, but the working title currently is: To Rise on Borrowed Wings. She’s a space opera, and here is the plot summary I’ve developed so far:

To Rise On Borrowed Wings follows Rhee, an alien working as a transport dragon on a distant planet in the far future. Despite living under oppressive human rule, Rhee enjoys her job and the freedom it provides her to be in her dragon form. When she's selected for a new assignment due to her exceptional performance, Rhee starts noticing strange occurrences within her extended transport dragon family.

As she begins to investigate, Rhee discovers that her kind is being used as test subjects for a new human technology designed to control and prevent them from shifting forms on a planet-wide scale. Determined to expose the truth and protect her people, Rhee appeals to the Transport Dragons' Guild but finds no support. Realizing she must act quickly to escape the planet and warn the rest of non-human space, Rhee turns to her estranged best friend Nadir, a native of the planet living in hiding from humans.

To secure Nadir's help, Rhee must reveal her long-kept secret—<this part hidden for spoilers!!!>. Together, they work to sabotage the research facility and escape the planet to continue their resistance.

To Rise On Borrowed Wings is an adult space opera for anyone who lives for the moments when they feel safe enough to fully accept and be themselves. It reminds us to never give up on ourselves, because we are worth fighting for.

Of course, all of this will change, because I am still in the planning stages. I haven’t even started an outline yet. I am in the middle of developing my protagonist, working on her fears, desires, goals, and scale color¹. But it feels more real than any story I’ve written so far, because at each step I know what I am doing and why. And I am developing the how as I go.

This seems a good point to talk about how I plan on Substacking in 2025. I want to do project updates for you. (Because there’s a project to talk about!) I don’t want the updates to be overly craft-focused. But I’ll keep you posted about where I’m at in the process, and some fun information about where I think the story is going Right Now. I’m devoting this year mostly to learning the Process of Novel-ing, and how I can adapt that process to shorter stories as well. And this is a learn-by-doing situation, so for the first time in my life I’ll also have an Actual Finished Book to go along with all the theory.

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While my personal goals are moving forward beautifully, there was that whole election thing and, and the living in a late-stage capitalist falling empire thing, and the catastrophic climate-change-fueled environmental collapse thing. And I’m not going to let all that political aggravation just sit and stew and foment in my gut, worsening my quality of life to no good end.

So my next goal is resistance. And honestly, I’m not clear what that is going to look like. I’m not a go-out-and-protest kind of gal. I’m the sort of chronically ill that looks and feels healthy on some days, while taking a shower is an activity that I need to recover from on other days. The sheer physical labor of taking to the streets is not my preferred form of fighting the good fight. But that’s not the only way. There is making a positive difference somewhere between signing petitions and chaining oneself to heavy machinery, and that is what I am aiming for.

I’d like to think that the kind of stories I wish to write will have some sort of positive impact on the world, but direct action feels more useful during times like these. Since I know nothing, I’m going to start with Roxane Gay and Megan Pillow.

Yes, I’m going to read their new book Do The Work. I’ll report back on any insights that I find. I invite all those wondering how to stand up for all against the powers that be to also read. We can learn together!

While the holidays are mostly over, these last days after the New Year starting in the middle of the week still feel like dreamy, stolen time. I hope the tail end of the season finds you well. my darlings, and welcome to 2025. Take a deep breath…

💖,

Elnora

1. Her scale color is a bright, shimmery white for the metal she was named for: rhenium.