Last year I did pretty well on my yearly goals but this year I’m gonna scale it down a bit. I don’t want to get overwhelmed:
Draw more. I actually really miss this.
Treat my writing and blog more like a business. I’d like to be publishing more often.
Clean off my Kindle, Nook, iPad, AND read the ARCs I have piled up.
More needlework.
That’s about it! I’ve gotten a pretty good running habit, my doctor says I’m very healthy so, my main goals now are the success of my writing and clearing out. Let’s see how this year goes!
In my ever going quest to get more readers and reviews, I’ve listed my first book in the First Brood series on Voracious Readers. If you’ve found your way here via them welcome and I hope you enjoy the book!
I’ve found some interesting books on there (which I will be reviewing) so I figured I’d offer my stuff on there, too.
You could have seen this post earlier on my Patreon.
Since I’m signed up for his newsletter, I went ahead and opted into Jeff Goins’ 500 Words Challenge. And so far, I’m doing pretty good! I think the only day I’ve missed was January first since I signed up for the challenge on the second.
I have been focusing on book 4 in the First Brood series since that’s the one I want to finish the most. Don’t worry. I’m still putting around with my other projects but First Brood 4 is what’s really been on my mind.
I know on the blog it says blogging counts but I haven’t been counting it because it’s the stories that will hopefully be providing me with the income I desperately need. Since I’ve built the momentum, I hope I can complete this challenge!
I was reading through some reviews on my books – which I tend to do when I feel blocked or like I suck – and looking at the reviews on Go Away Girls: The Mirror, I decided to check and see where I left off with the novel I’m working on in that same universe. I plug in the flash drive, I double click the file and get a happy little message that the file is corrupted and can’t be repaired. I check my Google Drive? No backup. I had backups of every story BUT that one.
Then I think “Well, that’s fine. I’ll just get the notebook I wrote it in. I’m sure there’s a printed copy in there.” I spent the next 20 minutes tearing through things to locate it thinking I’d lost that too.
But the good news is, I did find it. I’m glad the worst thing about all that drama is the fact I have to retype the whole thing. Not a big deal at all. I have lost stories before (mostly because I’d trusted someone to give me the damn disk back and of course they lost it) and it’s devastating.
I’ll be adding that book into my rotation.
Right now, Emma’s story is up to 6375 words and I see plenty of potential in it now that I’ve spent the weekend editing it. I did consider scrapping the project thinking it would just going to be too short but I changed my mind.
Long ago in a submission call far away, I wrote a lesbian thriller story. A nice clean one, not like Sunburn (also at Amazon, B&N, and Kobo and SUPER 18+). While I did get accepted, I never did hear anything back about when the collection would come out and well, it’s been a very long time.
I rediscovered this story while going through some folders on my flash drive to clean some junk files out. When I saw this I felt it was just a shame that it was sitting there doing nothing so, it has a shiny new cover and some new edits.
Am I counting this towards my one story a month goal? Yes, yes I am. Because I did have to re-edit the whole thing and that pretty cover cost me some coin. I know I did say the goal was a finished story every month but not publishing every month but hey, I need the cash and people need more stories!
I usually don’t like to work under pressure but giving myself the goal of finishing book three in lieu of NaNoWriMo has actually worked for me! I’ve been sticking to my 5 pages every day and I’m absolutely going to have it done before the end of the month.
The only drawback is I’m pretty sure to see some MAJOR editing time in my future. I’m just scribbling my words on the paper and making notes on what needs to be added in the margins. I’m sure the notebook will be a funny artifact once I’m dead… Actually, no. My handwriting is shit. Forget it.
I’m not a big fan of NaNo and that’s mostly due to how I write. I tried it and what I produced was such a mess, it required so much time to fix I might as well have just taken my time in the first place.
So, why even bring it up? I do have a nearly completed draft of Lost Brother; the third book in my First Brood series. I gotta say, it’s been an emotional roller-coaster working with this beast of a novel and there’s some hesitation in me to wrap it all up. Since everyone is talking about NaNo, I’ve decided to use this month to plow through that ending no matter what. Maybe that challenge will get me out of my own way so I can finish a current project rather than start a new one (as I have so many up in the air, there’s no way I’m beginning another).
I haven’t just been plowing through all these books to review, I have been writing! Probably not as much as I should, seeing how I usually don’t hit my page goal for the day, but if I feel blocked on a story I go ahead and read through my pile of books.
Don’t even ask how the short stories are going… They’re not. Consider them stalled until come brilliant idea hits me.
The good news is, despite not always hitting that daily goal, there are some days where I fall asleep mid sentence because I just wouldn’t be able to stop writing. This means good things for the third book in the First Brood series. I really hope this will finally be the year I get it finished.
As for the blog, expect more reviews of the random books I find on the web, more movies, more comics, and perhaps even more art. You can see the “Finally Watched It” series has begun and I’m planning a series of posts called “There, I Fixed It” where I take movies that either sucked entirely or had a good concept but shit/lazy execution and plot out how they could have been improved. I get so frustrated with movies that fail so I decided to complain about it.
Yay?
There’s some exciting things coming down the pipe and I feel pretty awesome about them so I hope you all enjoy!
Things have been going pretty well on the promotion front these days. It’s not much but I still see my writing as a way to make a decent sized side income. What is a trickle today may be a flood tomorrow so I’m not giving up. If anything, I’m working harder and being more diligent about meeting my goals and polishing my craft. One of the tools I picked up to help me out (because I’m concerned about copycats) is Grammarly’s online plagiarism and grammar tool because I’m awesome enough to do all this other stuff, but can’t remember how to properly use a comma to save my life.
This week I have finished one more chapter of First Brood 3 and picked at a few submission calls that I have floating around. My main focus has been to get my finances in order and get debt free. I’m a pretty responsible person so my credit debt is nil but I still have the car loan and the mortgage. Once my car loan is paid off, I can throw that money on the mortgage. 🙂 And of course the sales of my books go towards that, as well. (hint hint, nudge nudge)
Next week is Winter Break and being a good mama, I’ve taken my vacation with my daughter. I’ve got plans to get crafty so be prepared to laugh at my attempts to make homemade lip balm and teach my 6 year old to knit.
