Wednesday's Writing Update: November Stats, December Goals, and The Next Big Thing

 

Happy Wednesday!

The Nightmare Collection Blog Tour went great last week. I had 25 stops in five days, am now over 600 blog followers, 2300 Twitter followers, added 14 subscribers to my newsletter, am almost at 150 likes on my author fan page. I had 170 individual comments too, not including people who commented more than once, and I had 363 entries to my Rafflecopter giveaway (winners have been notified). All in all it was awesome, and I met so many new people. I'm working on commenting on everyone's blogs this week and following back.

I have November stats for everyone. Since it was NaNoWriMo, my word counts were pretty awesome, and the pages edited wasn't too bad either.

Word count: 60,003

Pages edited: 224

My December goals included:

1. Finish writing The Phoenix Prophetess. Although I got 60,000 words written last month, I didn't manage to finish the novel. I hope to remedy that this month, but I'm not putting pressure on myself to finish it. It'll either get done or not.

2. Plan for next year. This means I'll make my tentative goals for next year as well as plan when I would like to accomplish them. I also would like to write outlines for everything I want to write in 2013, so there will be less planning time and more writing time.

3. Modify my website and blog. I like what I have, but I want to play around with things and see if I can make the sites better. So far, I've updated my blog's look, but there is still more to do.

4. Read and relax. Ideally, I will have everything done by December 20th or so, so I can spend the last bit of the year by taking a break.

Also, the lovely Emilyann Girdner tagged me in The Next Big Thing meme. I've been tagged before and answered the questions for Starred and The Phoenix Prophetess, but I've decided to use them meme to tell you about my first project in 2013.

1. What is the working title of your book? The Loveless Princess
2. Where did the idea come from for the book? I had finished writing Women of Foxwick, and I wanted to explore more about Eirwyn, Queen of Wintermill. She’s probably my favorite character of my Foxwick Chronicles.
3. What genre does your book fall under? YA Epic Fantasy
4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? No clue, but I do have an idea on what young Eirwyn looks like, if this character had more blue hair than blond. Click here for the picture.

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? Princess Eirwyn craves a fairy tale ending, but the costs of one will destroy everything she’s ever known.
6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? It’ll be self-published.
7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? I don’t know. I haven’t written it yet, but it shouldn’t take more than a month or so.
8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? Not that I can ever have as beautiful prose as Michelle Davidson Argyle, but the story reminds me a bit of her fairy tale collection Bonded. It has that feel to it, even though it’s quite different.
9. Who or What inspired you to write this book? The character Eirwyn inspired me. She is a villain in the other Foxwick stories, and she’s ready to tell her side of the story.
10. What else about your book might pique the reader's interest? The Loveless Princess will be a novella-length book, or so I assume it’ll be, since I haven’t written it yet. Eirwyn is a strong character, and she’ll do whatever she can to have the life she thinks she deserves. If you enjoyed A to Z Flashes of Foxwick and Women of Foxwick, then you’ll definitely want to pick up The Loveless Princess when it is available, but I believe people who like fantasy and young adult will enjoy it as well. I hope to release the novella sometime early next year.

And if you would like to answer the questions, feel free to do so.

Do you have any news?