Wednesday, December 12, 2012

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?

13 comments:

Kyra Lennon said...

I think the most important part of this month's goals are to read and relax! You've worked hard this year, you deserve some down time!

Misha Gerrick said...

I adore the sound of The Loveless Princess. Let me know if you need me as a CP again. ;-)

Al Diaz said...

You truly keep yourself busy, Cherie. And by the way, I liked your short story in Spells. I thought it was tender and sweet. Good for you! This new story will be great for sure.

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Glad the tour was so successful! You had a ton of comments on my site.
You could be writing Foxwick stories for a very long time.

mshatch said...

wow, those are some serious goals! Good luck and fabulous one sentence synopsis :)

Trisha said...

I'm actually bored with my blog's look - been so for a while. So I'm going to have to do another makeover soon. ;)

This is not necessarily the time of year when one should put pressure on oneself to meet all goals. haha. Silly season you see! Good luck with your Dec goals :)

Suzanne Furness said...

Glad to hear the blog tour was a success. Read and relax sounds like a great way to finish the year :)

Anonymous said...

Congrats to all you're working on!

Jennifer Joyce said...

You have been busy! I need a lie down after just reading about it.

Romance Reader said...

Congratulations on a successful tour, Cherie!

And all your goals sound awesome!

All the best!

Heather R. Holden said...

I am blown away by your November word count! Good luck with all your December goals! (Taking the time to relax is especially important!)

And wow, I'm absolutely loving the sound of The Loveless Princess. (No surprise, since I'm a sucker for YA fantasy!) Hope you have fun writing this! :)

Unknown said...

Wow, Big congrats on the Blog tour Cherie!

The Loveless Princess sounds great. I love the picture of the character and the concept is one I think many people can relate to. We have so many ideas about fairy tale endings and what life should be like, and often in trying to attain those things, we end up making sacrifices. At the end of it all we learn we had the fairy tale at the beginning.
I'm really excited for you about this story! =-)

P.S. I love the new header!

Dariel Raye said...

Hey, Cherie. Congrats on a successful tour! You've got some more great projects for 2013. Looking forward to sharing again in another great year :-)