My final uni assessment for the current academic year was submitted a couple of weeks ago—a creative piece for children about a girl and her imaginary friend—so it means that I finally have no academic work to do. My second (technically third) year of university is over with, and I finally have some time to do other things rather than stressing about deadlines.
Compared to my other years, this one has been for more stressful and busy. A lot to read, a lot to write and a lot to revise (for my first exam since I was in college 20 years ago).
With all this free time I have, other than doing some jobs around the house, like painting walls and fixing a few things around the house. We’ve already been gardening, finally getting our trees out of pots and Into the ground; I will be taking some time to do more book/story writing, which I feel like I’ve not done enough of recently. Although having said that, I did spend some time working on a Creatures remaster and the Creatures Collection, which I released a few weeks back.
New stuff-wise, though, I’ve got a lot of stuff I’ve been working on, but what I really want to finish is the short story that I’m writing based on a 30-minute screenplay I wrote for a uni assignment. It’s titled Maze of Fears and is set in a Halloween corn maze in Iowa with a bunch of friends that start to be haunted. The script did really well in class, so I’m hoping as a short story, I can add more depth to it. I’m not sure what else I want to work on, but I’m sure whatever wants to be written will make itself known.
In addition to this, I want to get back into regularly posting blogs and reviews and update everything on the website so it’s a little more…well…up to date. I will also post regular stories and other writing content on my social media sites, including my TikTok, which I’m still trying to figure out.
And, I will be doing all this while still doing my physio for my hip-—which is hurting more again—making sure that Athena stays out of trouble, which is no easy task.
All in all, I’m looking forward to the next few months, and I’m going to do my utmost to make the best of it before I go back for my final year of uni in September.
Gareth Ellis - Author 