March 2025 Newsletter

Hey, everyone! Happy March!

What’s the weather been like where you live? February weather in Minnesota has been all over the place. There’s been days where its bitter cold and sunny, dumping snow, or cloudy and mild. Sometimes all within a week!

Nonetheless, I've stayed warm tucked away in my room and am excited to share some of my latest projects with you!

Writing: Seasons of Writing

The past couple of months I’ve been in a bit of a writing slump. I still write almost every day and I’ve been making a decent amount of progress, but I’m writing nowhere near the pace I wrote at a couple of months ago. I began to wonder what was wrong with me— why was I struggling to write in a week what I used to easily be able to finish in a day? Shouldn’t I be getting better and faster?

I had to keep reminding myself that my life looks significantly different now. Back when I was writing 10,000 words a week, it was the middle of summer, and I had nothing else to do. I couldn’t expect myself to write the same amount in a week while doing school, working part-time, and practicing for a play, it simply isn’t realistic. I don’t have enough mental capacity to do it all.

Realizing this didn’t make the amount of writing I was doing easy to accept. It was still hard for me to be ok with my slower progress. But, slowly, I’m coming around. I’m trying to be kind to myself, remember that there will be different seasons in my life and that’s ok. Some months I’ll be able to pump out thousands of words and some months I’ll barely eke out a couple hundred. But that’s not my fault, life happens. Sometimes I’ll have to adjust my goals and expectations and remember that my worth isn’t tied to my productivity.

Even though this is a personal journey I’ve been going on, I hope this can help some of you, even if writing progress isn’t something that you’re struggling with. Sometimes life doesn’t go the way you want, and you don’t have time for things you used to prioritize. I hope this can help you to find some sort of acceptance and peace with the ups and downs that life brings.

Reading: Counting to Five in Fantasy Books

I love fantasy, especially fantasy series. I also love sharing books with people, so once again I’m combing my loves and dumping them on you!

I’m not sure if it’s fun or not, but I came up with a new way to share recommendations with you today: counting! Yes, counting. But not boring counting. Counting to five by the number of books in fantasy series! One book series (not really series) all the way up to five book series, one middle grade and one young adult in each category! Have fun, I did!

Standalone or Single Book:

Fantasy is well-known to be the lengthiest genre both in word count and in number of books, so standalones are uncommon, but it made it easy for me to narrow it down to one.

Young Adult: A Thousand Heartbeats by Kiera Cass

Middle Grade: The Scourge by Jennifer A. Nielsen

Duology or Two Book Series:

In recent years, the YA fantasy market seems to have been flooded with duologies, many of which I’ve read and loved. I counted six on my shelf, all of which I adore! The best I can do for YA is narrow it down to three series. XD But when it comes to middle-grade duologies, only one came to mind, so choosing a single series was easy.

Young Adult:

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo (Six of Crows, Crooked Kingdom)

Secrets of the Nile by Isable Ibanez (What the River Knows, Where the Library Hides)

The World of the Narrows by Adrienne Young (Fable, Namesake)

Middle Grade: Sal and Gabi by Carlos Hernandez (Sal and Gabi Break the Universe, Saal and Gabi Fix the Universe)

Trilogy or Three Book Series:

Trilogies are the backbone of fantasy series. If you walk into any bookstore and browse the fantasy section, you’ll likely find dozens of them. Though, in recent years, this trend has started to shift a bit in the YA age range.

Young Adult: The Prison Healer by Lynette Noni (The Prison Healer, The Gilded Cage, The Blood Traitor)

Middle Grade: Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard (The Sword of Summer, The Hammer of Thor, The Ship of the Dead)

Tetralogy (not a common term) or Four Book Series:

I actually haven’t read a lot of four book series, so little in fact, that I didn’t think I was going to be able to come up with a tetralogy for middle grade category.

Young Adult: The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer (Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, Winter)

Middle Grade: The Books of Bayern (The Goose Girl, Enna Burning, River Secrets, Forest Born)

Pentalogy (usually just called a series) or Five Book Series:

Like duologies for young adult, the middle grade market is flooded with five book fantasy series, but I had a little more trouble finding one for young adult.

Young Adult: The Spoken Mage by Melanie Cellier (Voice of Power, Voice of Command, Voice of Dominion, Voice of Life, Power of Pen and Voice)

Middle grade: The Ascendance Series by Jennifer A. Nielsen (The False Prince, The Runaway King, The Shadow Throne, The Captive Kingdom, The Shattered Castle)

(I know we’re not going up to a seven book series, but I thought you should know that Harry Potter would take that spot for both categories.)

Update on my reading challenge:

A BIPOC Anthology: I’m halfway through A Thousand Beginnings and Endings edited by Ellen Oh, but haven’t finished it yet.

(Curious about this challenge? Click the link to find out more.)

Spotlight: February Life Update

February was a pretty full month for me. I started a lot of new things and continued several old and time consuming ones.

One thing that I’ve been really excited about is that I found an in-person writing group. You may have seen me mention the Young Writer’s Workshop and, while I absolutely love their online community, it’s not quite the same as talking to other writers in real life. My sister and I have been part of a book club for a couple months now and one meet-up we started talking about hobbies and three of the other girls shared that they like to write too. Now we’ve been meeting every other week and it’s been so much fun chatting about writing and reading each others projects!

Starting in September of 2024 through January of 2025, my sister and I were part of a local theater company’s production of Beauty and the Beast Jr., one of the last performances before Disney pulled the rights. We had a lot of fun learning all the songs and dances and getting to know some of the cast, so we decided to sign up for the theater company’s next show: Aladdin Jr. At the beginning of the month, we auditioned (and ended up in the ensemble) and now we just started rehearsals. We’ve already learned two big dance numbers in the first week and a half of practice and have roughly four more full-cast dances to go!

Another big thing that happened this month was that I finally got a job!!! I have been trying to find a job since October and applied to six places before I got a positive response. Last Saturday, I had my fourth day of work at the UPS store and I’m getting more confident/comfortable every time. It might seem weird, but I really enjoy all the organizing and packaging evolved in the job and getting a paycheck isn’t too bad either! (:

While I’m writing this I have a pile of stuff on my floor, waiting to pack, but while you’re reading this I’m probably sitting out on the beach or in our hotel room in Hawaii! My family is lucky enough to be going to the island of Maui with my grandparents for a week. I can’t wait to not have to wear a coat when I go outside and eat way too much shaved ice!

Quick Writing Update

• Finished reading through The Phoenix Pendant

• Wrote 5,500 words in my new Sci-fi novel

• Wrote one chapter in Project:Europe

• Started a short story of a creative writing course I’m taking

Are you a big fantasy reader? What are some of your favorite fantasy books? Let me know by replying directly to this email or leaving me a comment of the website that corresponds to The Introverted Writer!

Thank you so much for reading! Have a great rest of your day!

Abby Henderson

P.S. Keep an eye out for my April 2025 Newsletter! I have some fun things in mind!