Sara Martin's Blog

Dear reader,

Ahhh… November. “Novel November” as many writers call it. This month is known for its many writing challenges, encouraging aspiring authors to reach a target word count. The concept originated from NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), which tasked writers around the world to complete a 50,000-word novel in thirty days.

The original NaNoWriMo is now defunct, but NaNo 2.0 and other challenges such as the Rough Draft Challenge have sprung up to fill...

Dear reader,

This weekend is a three-day weekend here in New Zealand, and I’m spending it with T, having a little staycation—dinner, a show, and a night at a nice hotel. I plan to do a whole lot of reading and take full advantage of the hotel gym, pool, spa, and sauna.

This will be a welcome break from a particularly busy time at my day job!

In other news, I’ve got back into K-dramas as of late, and while I’ve been waiting for the next episode of Shin’s Project to drop, I decided to watch Romantics...

Dear reader,

It’s been a long while. No reason in particular, I just haven’t been able to think of what to write!

I have a few updates to get through now, so here goes…

Lucy Score

Last week I was fortunate enough to get to attend a talk with Lucy Score! It’s fair to say she’s an absolute legend in the romance writer community. It was so interesting to hear some tidbits from her writing process. She seemed ...

Dear reader,

I turned 35 on Sunday! Oh my gosh. Halfway through my thirties already. How time flies.

This decade of my life got off to a very shaky start, but now that things have settled, it’s overall feeling much better than my twenties ever did.

My twenties were a time of working long hours, making do with less-than-ideal circumstances, and yearning for a better/different lifestyle. A typical day for me was up at 5:30 am to write, then off to my full-time office job, go to ...

Dear reader,

It's been a while since I gave you a proper writing update. So where am I at with my WIP? As of today, I'm at 26,374 words, which is about a third of the way through my second draft. Yeah, I know. Slow progress.

I had hoped to finish this book this year, but that's looking more and more unlikely at this point.

If you didn't know, this project started off as a novelette or novella I intended to write as a palate cleanser1 before my next full-length novel (the follow-up to Clash...

Dear reader,

Long time, no see! No excuses, really. Just felt like I had nothing to share. But now I do!

First up, a video game recommendation: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

WOW. Wow wow wow wow wow. This game is worth the hype and so much more. If you like RPGs (and maybe even if you don’t), play it now. Off you go. And avoid spoilers like the plague because they’ll ruin the experience.

Everything about this game is peak tier: the writing, the peformances, the music, art direction, and g...

Dear reader,

I’m back from a little trip to visit my parents in Napier, followed by a two-night stay in Taupō to basically de-stress (yeah—the family time can be quite draining for me 😅).

T and I had a pleasant stay at a lodge in Taupō with onsite thermal hot pools. I had a nice time relaxing in the pools, dining out, and looking around all the little shops. But mainly, I read my book. Reading during the day is a luxury I usually don’t indulge in, but on holiday I do indulge.

I have been slowly mak...

Dear reader,

I was recently updating my LinkedIn profile (more on this in a sec) when I noticed one of my connections—a former colleague—has just started a very impressive, very high-level role with a company in London. I couldn’t help but be a little envious. I knew her when she was just starting out—she was even a little bit more junior than I was at the time (younger than me, too!) and now she’s way, way, way ahead of me in her career. It got me thinking, if I h...

Dear reader,

A couple of weeks ago I suddenly got a twitchy right eyebrow. The sporadic sensation was accompanied by a general sensitivity to bright light and screens.

So, I did some online research. What was the culprit? Stress? Fatigue? Too much caffeine? None of those applied. In fact, I had been sleeping very well, enjoying low stress, and consuming the same amount of caffeine as I always did (2-3 teas and 1 coffee a day).

But it was like my body was trying to tell me something, becaus...

Dear reader,

Even after all these years, I’m still shocked at how much I learn about my writing process with each book.

My latest revelation is that I have different attention spans for different writing-related tasks.

For example, as I was re-outlining my WIP, I struggled to concentrate for even 30-60 minutes a day. I was worried my attention span had regressed and would never recover! But as soon as I switched to drafting, I found I could easily concentrate for the full two-hour slot of daily wri...