Writing Update: December Goals and Blogging Vacation and 'Tis More Blessed

 

Happy Wednesday!

Since this month is NaNoWriMo, I've been busy working on two novels: Reigned and Reforged. I have also spent work days finishing my edits on Reborn, which I hope to be ready to send to beta readers by November 25. *crosses fingers*

With this month being so busy, I've realized I need to give myself more time for things on my to-do lists. Just because I have a day job I can sometimes edit/write/blog at, it doesn't mean I have eight hours of uninterrupted time to do my other work. I was thinking next year that I would try to publish four works a year, but now I'm thinking two to three might be more feasible, so it's changed up my goals a bit.

Here are my December goals:

• Edit Neighbors of Foxwick short stories based on my critique partners' suggestions. I hope to finish this up the first three weeks of December, so I can take a break from the stories before proofreading/formatting/publishing them for the February 2014 release.
• Continue to write in Reigned. I'd love to get another 20,000 words written in Reigned in December, but I'll be happy with any writing. My goal is to finish this novel by the end of January 2014.
• Consider changes to the outline for Reforged, Book Two of The Fate Challenges, and start outlining Redestined, Book Three of The Fate Challenges trilogy. By writing Reforged, I realized the outline needs some work, so I'm going to fix the outline and work on the outline for book three. My goal for Reforged is to start back to rewriting/writing it in February and finish it around May, so I can start Redestined after that. Unfortunately that means Reborn will be out before I write first drafts for books two and three, but I'd rather write the books right than have to do major rewrites afterwards.

Since next week is Thanksgiving in the States, I'll be taking the week off, so I'll see you next time on Monday, December 2nd.

2013 Stats

160,481 Words Written

2191 Pages Edited

*Stats taken from 1/1/2013-11/19/2013*

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Milo James Fowler is hosting a 'Tis More Blessed giveaway every Friday in December. Many authors, including myself, will be giving away books, so if you'd like to sign up and learn more about it, please visit Milo's blog here.

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?

Wednesday's Writing Update: November Stats, December Goals, and New Anthologies Available

Happy Wednesday!

My review of Karen Amanda Hooper's Tangled Tides can be found here.

Phew, I'm glad November's over. Time to sit back and relax, right? Well, not quite. Here are November's stats:

Submissions: 1

Rejections: 1 (Although they said they wanted to keep my story in mind if they have other anthologies)

Acceptances: 0

Word count: 76,136 (Thank you very much, NaNoWriMo)

Pages edited: 103

Also, last week, two anthologies with my stories became available. My horror story "Wishes" is in Under the Stairs, published by Wicked East Press. To purchase: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Pill Hill Press Book Shoppe. My friend and critique partner Christine Rains also has a story in this anthology.

My flash piece "Snow Storm" is in Daily Flash 2012, published by Pill Hill Press's imprint Daily Flash Publications. To purchase: Amazon and Pill Hill Press Book Shoppe. My friend Nicole Zoltack also has flash pieces in this anthology.

I have a lot of things I want to do in December, so if I get a fourth of them accomplished, then I'll feel like I'm ahead. *laughs* First up, I'm finishing my NaNoWriMo book two, The Last Prophetess. I'm continuing edits on The Phoenix Prophetess and I plan to start editing/revising Starred on December 15th. I also have some short stories to write for The Foxwick Chronicles: Women of Foxwick and proceed to do what I can to self-publish it in January/February. If time allows, I'll also begin working on my paranormal thriller with romantic elements titled Confessions of a Telekinetic.

I do have a client's manuscript I'm editing, but I quit my editing job for the small publisher I was working for. I hated to do it, but between that and doing work for individual clients I wasn't getting enough time for my own work. Plus, I can make more money for individual clients than what I was getting paid from the small publisher. So my main focus will be on my own work, and I'll take on a client here and there to supplement my income and keep my editing skills sharp. I do like to help out. :)

So what are you up to this December?

Wednesday's Writing Update

Oh, where to begin with my Wednesday's Writing Update?

For starters, I finished the first draft of Missing on Sunday, November 28th. It came in at 51,669 words. You can read more about it here. And, the last installment of the flash fiction related to Missing can be read here. By finishing this first draft, I now have three completed first drafts of novels in two years.

I received an acceptance from Abandoned Towers for "Soul Survivor." It'll be for their online edition. I wrote "Soul Survivor" in 2005, and it was the first short story I've ever written. Since then, it's gone through different revisions, including a complete rewrite in January 2010 at the request of the Abandoned Towers' staff. I'm so pleased it was accepted, and I'll let everyone know when it is up and they can read it.

Back in October, I entered Hannah Kincade's Halloween contest. I didn't win, but she put up all the entries on her blog. You can read "Shadow" here. By the way, there are some other great entries she put up during November, so if you have a spare moment, be sure to read them. As a side note, "Shadow" was inspired by a dream I had.

Now, since it is December 1st, here is November's stats.

Submissions: 0

Rejections: 0

Acceptances: 1 ("Soul Survivor")

Word Count: 52,335 words

Submissions Still Out There: 1

Of course, my NaNoWriMo novel took up the majority of the word count for November. *winks*

Now, on to December's goals, and I have quite a few of them. There are five Fridays in December, so I decided to divide the items in the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas." Then, I'm writing in one or more items into a flash fiction piece for each Friday throughout the month. The first one is already written, so look for it on Friday. I hope to write the other four this week and set them to go up on their respective Fridays.

Also, for Raven and the Writing Desk, our theme is Christmas elves. I'll be writing my short story next week and the first part of our three-part story next week too.

Aubrie Dionne mentioned to me about a very awesome pirate anthology from Wicked East Press. I have a neat idea for it, so I hope to write it either next week or the next.

Then, I need to write my Fangtales entry after that.

And, probably most of all, I plan to do my research, character sketches, new blurbs, outline, a synopsis, and world building exercises for Virtuoso. Starting in January, I'll be rewriting the entire novel to some extent from scratch.

So even though I wrote an entire first draft of a novel last month, I plan to do quite a bit of writing this month too (although not as much in word count!). I'm really looking forward to beginning new projects and working on some old ones.

I still can't believe it is December already, though! Seriously, where did the time go?