2019, Gone In A Blink

Ah, 2019... Here today, gone tomorrow! At least that's what it feels like to me. This year, it firmly feels like time ran away due to my productivity, so that's good. I mean, I didn't accomplish everything I set out to do, and some plans shifted, but I do feel I've run many miles (in other words, written a lot of words).

Is it time for numbers yet? Remember, I love numbers. No, not yet? OK, I'll wait patiently. Sits on hands. Wait, I can't type up this blog post if I do that...

Anyway, first I'll go over the publications for the year, and then I'll list my progress, including some numbers.

2019 Publications

❦ Born of Blood and Souls: 13 Dark Fantasy Stories & Poems

❦ Thorns Entwine the Blade (Trinity Torn, 2)

So, two publications this year, and I honestly think this is a good goal for the next couple years ahead (Spring and Fall releases?). But more importantly, finally publishing Thorns lifted a huge weight off my shoulders. I hate it that it took so long, but it's finally out there! And I almost forgot to mention - you can get the paperback version now on Amazon, too!

2019 Progress

❦ Completed the revision and three edits of Thorns Entwine the Blade.

❦ Completed the rough draft of Well of Solitude (Fortunes of Fate, 7), which came in at over 15,000 words, and may hit 20,000 during revision.

❦ Wrote almost 5,000 words for the rough draft of Downward Spiral (Urban Unicorn, 1).

❦ A bunch of job requests for Haunted Unicorn Publishing!

❦ Wrote 19,554 words of rough draft material.

❦ Revised 48,690 words.

❦ Edited 205,439 words (this excludes my third edit of Thorns, since that was a quicker edit, applying my editor's suggestions).

❦ 30 blog posts (including this one).

❦ Spent 171.58 hours writing, revising, and editing.

❦ Spent 45.62 hours formatting, working on cover art, and publishing.

❦ In total, spent 344.05 hours on writing and writing related tasks (up to this post, and not including my Haunted Unicorn work or reading, aka market research, this time).

I think those numbers look a lot better than the ones from 2018. Don't you? No, I'm not linking to the embarrassing 2018 post. Let's just forget 2018 ever existed. Yes.

However, I will leave the link to my goals post from the beginning of the year: 2019 - Determination.

You can compare those goals with what I actually accomplished. The initial planned schedule didn't quite work out, but I have adjusted things so I can fit in 3 hours of writing/writing tasks on school days (unless other crazy things crop up). I'm pretty comfortable with the schedules and routines now in place!

Here's hoping 2020 will be even more productive. I'll post my goals in a couple of weeks! Until then, I hope you all have a wonderful rest of 2019. I'll leave you a pic of this year's new ornament on our Yule tree!

NaNo Report 2019

If you were watching the word meter at all, you'll see I only wrote about 4.9k words for NaNoWriMo. November seriously never seems to go as planned!

I actually spent a good week of the month doing one final editing pass through Thorns Entwine the Blade (Trinity Torn, 2). And then... release week... I got sick. Which meant all of my release plans were slow to roll out and pretty delayed. That darn NaNo Crud, it never fails to fell me.

After being sick through the Thorns release, I was looking forward to a nice quiet weekend with Hubbie, kids at grandma's. Unfortunately, the kid-free weekend started with us hitting a deer on the way to dinner. =/ Dealing with that, of course, tumbled into the next week. We likely won't even get our car back until mid to late December.

Needless to say, stress and sickness and what not found me up against a mental wall and I also felt completely scattered. I decided I needed a break from writing - drafting and revising - until 2020. So, progress on Downward Spiral and NaNoWriMo 2019 came to an end for me about mid-month.

I still have plenty of writing tasks that I need to clear off my to do list, so I haven't been completely idle. You'd think the bulk of the work would be drafting and revising, but sometimes it doesn't feel like it! I'm looking forward to planning 2020, though. That should help with my scattered feeling. Though with my current thoughts Spiral and its sequels may be put off for a few more months just so I can complete a couple other projects instead of worrying about them not getting completed.

One of the things I worked on last week was formatting the paperback for Thorns Entwine the Blade! My cover artist also got me the paperback wrap rather quickly (so awesome - AMDesign Studios), and the proof arrived swiftly as well, so... it's now available to purchase on Amazon!

It feels great to have Thorns done now, and quite frankly, I think it's a better book than the first in the series, Mind Behind the Mind. But my opinion doesn't really count, does it? I hope anyone who reads it enjoys it!

Anyway, pushing on with December, not getting too upset about the NaNo flop, and next post will be looking back at my progress for 2019. Happy reading, all!