Alexandria Francetic

Been a while since I last addressed this, but 2024 will be coming to an end soon, and aside from some poetry I have not written any new stories or novels, and I have no plans to anytime soon. 
          
          Graduate school has been my main priority eating up most of my time, and on top of that life has been full of drama and bs this year, it hasn't been good and I just don't have the inspiration or mental energy for stories anymore. Even after I finish school, I will have to start looking for a job, which will take up even more of my time. Things haven't been great at home, so I also want to move out as soon as I possibly can, which could be another year from now, but still.
          
          Basically, the life changes I've been going through over the past couple years have been pulling me away from fiction writing (though I have still been writing other things, mostly technical writing and occasional NSFW stories for myself), and I simply don't feel the passion for it like I used to. I feel like I've written basically all the stories I wanted to write about, so I certainly don't feel lacking, and I've built up a large body of work over the years that I cherish and treasure dearly, and I am continually editing and updating. I have no plans on abandoning my Wattpad or anything else, I will continue to keep my current novels up to date, and right now I have been working on creating print versions of my novels via Amazon for myself as well as readers to purchase. It's a slow process, but I already have a hard copy of Scarlet Reflection and I plan on doing this with all my stories in time. 
          
          So for now, I will be taking a more backseat role with maintaining my work, and even if no more novels come out, I am very proud with what I have created and will continue to cherish and keep them alive for as long as I can. Thank you to everyone who read my stories, left comments or votes, and I hope they can continue to be enjoyable for everyone~

Minor announcement, but due to changes with Wattpad recently I will be removing all music and video from my stories. This is because for some reason, on the desktop version of Wattpad, the Youtube links I have embedded will keep playing nothing but ads and will not play my music, which makes them effectively useless. Not only that, but dealing with constant copyright strikes, region locks, and removals of the songs from Youtube made continually adding new music links for all my stories a headache that I just don't have the time to deal with anymore. This will not be an overnight process, but I do plan to remove all the songs from each of my stories over time. I apologize for any folks who may have enjoyed listening to the songs while reading, but they simply will not work properly for me anymore.

New short story addition to the Dark Shards anthology! This is an old relic from my Fanfiction.net account dating back to 2016, back when I used to write fanfiction instead of prose fiction like I do now. This is an odd little experimental piece, a Pokemon and Madoka Magica crossover of all things, but I enjoyed rediscovering this piece and wanted to share it with you all here~
          
          https://www.wattpad.com/1411096138-dark-shards-an-anthology-of-fear-and-wonder-short

Thought I'd throw out an update for the end of 2023 with an announcement for a new set of poetry added to the Dark Shards anthology! This is a collection of all the poems I have written in 2023 (including The Drowning Machine, which is contained in its own chapter). Happy reading~
          
          https://www.wattpad.com/1347674958-dark-shards-an-anthology-of-fear-and-wonder-poetry
          
          I also wanted to let out a few things about future writing, because as of now it is kind of uncertain. Grad school has been kicking my butt this year, with each semester being mentally and emotionally exhausting, and not only have I not had as much time as I used to in order to write, I have also not been feeling the same level of passion and inspiration for creative writing that I used to. I find it physically and mentally taxing, and I just don't have the energy for the massive creative process of writing novels that I usually do. Throw several bouts of sickness and some really rough mental health struggles into the mix, and that results in no new novels for 2023. Basically, I don't know when or if I'll be writing any new novels anytime soon. In the meantime, I may continue to write poetry, short stories, and possibly rework older stories of mine to re-release. I do have a large body of work currently that I am very proud of, so there is still plenty of content for old and new readers alike. I hope to return in 2024 with more stories~

I usually don't use this space for life updates, but since a lot has changed recently it'd be a good idea to update folks about things going on right now, and what might be in store for the future of my writing.
          
          For starters, in December of 2022 I graduated with my Bachelor's degree, and last month I began my first semester into a graduate program. While I am glad to have my Bachelor's degree and be working on my Master's, being a grad student has been a bit more complicated and stressful. On top of all this, I have been looking into getting a part time job. All of these factors will significantly decrease the extra time I have for writing, so I would expect future stories to be much more sporadic from now on. I have also been on hiatus ever since finishing Requiem of the Villainess, and as of right now I have no more creative projects in mind. While this will change eventually as new inspiration and ideas come to me, there likely won't be anything new for a while, aside from occasional updates to the Dark Shards anthology. For me, making a new novel is a massive creative process that takes months of planning and writing, and I tend to need long breaks afterwards to recover. Coupled with all these new responsibilities, my creative writing is somewhat on the back burner. This does not at all mean I plan to stop writing- it's my passion and you'd have to pry the keyboard from my cold dead hands to make me quit, but I probably won't be as active as usual. Just something I wanted to talk about for folks to keep in mind~

I wrote a lot of poetry in 2022, and I wanted to share it with you all! I'm quite proud of many of the pieces I created, most of which were for my poetry workshop class, but I learned a lot and I enjoyed them nonetheless. I experimented with many different styles and played with several different themes, so if that's something that interests you, check out the poems of 2022 in Dark Shards: An Anthology of Fear and Wonder~
          
          https://www.wattpad.com/1304827301-dark-shards-an-anthology-of-fear-and-wonder-poetry

My latest completed novel, Requiem of the Villainess, is now fully released and ready for reading! This is my final novel of 2022, inspired by the very popular otome villainess isekai anime/manga, which is a genre I have fallen in love with recently thanks to titles like "My Next Life as  a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom," "I'm the Villainess, so I'm Taming the Final Boss," and "I'm in Love with the Villainess," which were all big inspirations to me while writing this story. I wanted to put a slightly darker twist on this very common genre, so I hope you all enjoy it~
          
          https://www.wattpad.com/story/329212772-requiem-of-the-villainess

I was looking for a fanfic and instead I found one of your stories. I’m not going to lie to you, your work looks very interesting so I’m going to read it, in addition, in some synopses the names of your characters remind me of musicians of the visual kei scene! It all looks very interesting, rest assured that I will read your works ❤

I added a new short story to the Dark Shards anthology! Check out "The 11th Floor" in Dark Shards: An Anthology of Fear and Wonder~
          https://www.wattpad.com/1270936865-dark-shards-an-anthology-of-fear-and-wonder-short

I finally worked up my courage and submitted my most recent novel, Poison Princess, to the 2022 Wattys! I've never done this before but I'm very excited to see how things will go, even if I don't win anything it'll at least be a chance to get my work out there better~
          
          https://www.wattpad.com/story/308678991-poison-princess