What a whirlwind of a month. Between watching the FIFA World Cup with my husband, attending the 2026 WriteHive Annual Conference, keeping up with my social calendar, and starting a new writing project, I stretched myself too far. In the fourth week of the month, my body finally had a reaction to all the accumulated stress, forcing me to stop and reevaluate my choices. Worry not, readers—I am recovering and have a plan for future writing. But more on that soon.
News & announcements
You’re hearing it here first: I am having a birthday sale next week, from August 3 to 9. The eBook of The Devouring will be available for $0.99 everywhere, so keep your eye out if you want to read it but still haven’t purchased it.
I’m also a guest in two podcast episodes: one for The Deep List by Oratoria Magazine, which comes out today, and one for Talk Your Lit by Nailah King, which should come out in early August. Subscribe to listen to me talk about The Devouring and my writing process when they drop!
Writing update
When I started July, I decided to experiment with fast drafting using the techniques outlined by Jessica Brody in her book Page One to Done. After some trial and error during the first few days, I settled into a brutal yet productive pace, writing 1621 words on average for 15 days, totaling approximately 24,000 words. In reality, I wrote 1100 some days and close to 3000 on others. I covered a lot of ground in that time—all of Act I of What the Iron Gave Us, in fact.
But it was not sustainable. Not on top of a full-time job, marketing The Devouring, and everything else on my plate. I nearly crashed and burned, managing to see the warning signs early enough that I could step away from the edge. And I was mad about it—mad and disappointed. I have ambitions. I want to accomplish everything I set my mind to, and at the pace I desire. The limitations of my human body grate on me, but I knew I had to listen to it. The compassion I received from my husband and friends helped ease the sting, too. They reminded me that if I take care of myself, I’ll be able to accomplish many more things, but if I don’t, I won’t.
This incident was timely. While taking a break from writing, I was able to reflect on my feelings and thoughts regarding fast drafting. As powerful as it felt to churn out so many words in such a short time, I realized it was also boring. For me, the joy in writing comes from crafting sentences that accurately convey the moods and images in my head. I can’t do that while writing as quickly as possible. Prioritizing speed necessarily sacrifices quality, and I would rather do the opposite. Because what’s the point of writing stories I love if the process itself doesn’t bring me joy?
After all this revelation, I’ve decided on a new approach to writing, starting next month:
First, instead of setting arbitrary deadlines and word count goals, I’m going to set a goal every week to write X times per week. It will change depending on my schedule, but I’d like to aim for 2-3 times per week, at minimum.
Second, one thing I really liked about fast drafting was that it produced a solid foundation of a scene or chapter that I could build upon. For new scenes, I want to start with detailed outlines, then I’ll go over them to expand on and clean up the prose to my satisfaction.
This means I don’t have any idea when I’ll release my next book, but I hope you come along with me on the journey anyway. I promise it will be fun.
Recent delights
- My husband and I celebrated five years of marriage this month! We went out to a fancy sushi restaurant for dinner. I’m so grateful to have him in my life, as he’s been my #1 supporter throughout this whole journey of writing and publishing my own books. I couldn’t be happier to have him by my side, rooting for me at every step of the way.
- I recently had the opportunity to play Hong Kong mahjong with some new friends and have been addicted to the game again. It’s frustrating when the most popular games/apps only offer Riichi (Japanese) mahjong, so I’ve resorted to watching YouTube videos of other people playing. If anyone knows of a good channel to watch or app to play Hong Kong mahjong, let me know!
A. M. Shilling 
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