2017 Year-End Review and 2018 Goals

Time has been flying! Holy cow! It’s almost 2018 already, and and and —

Okay, I’m a bit early. I don’t expect much to change drastically in 3 days, so here we are.

So how did I do?

~Release 1 book (besides Ever Touched) ~NOT DONE, although I got a new cover for In Flames and put Reaper Girl into KDP Select. 
~Publish Ever Touched (set for May release)~DONE! 
~Start revision of Pirouette/Death Dancer ~NOT DONE, but had an interesting idea the other day about Alisia’s lineage. 
~Finish Covenant ~NOT DONE, but it’s at 24k now. Wanted to hit 30k before the new year, but I’m not sure that’s possible now. 😦 
~Start Elysium ~NOT DONE. At all.
~Finish and release Fireborn ~DONE. Rewrote it and submitted it to TDP for publication next year.
~Outline book #1 in Fey Touched spin-off series ~NOT DONE. May toy with this next year.
~Get on a consistent, simple exercise plan and STICK WITH IT ~NOPE. 
~Eat healthier/Gluten-free ~NOT DONE.  😦 Well, made the attempt, anyway…
~Get back into darkroom when hands are better ~NOT DONE.
~Add in a second writing session twice a week (8 minutes)~NOT DONE. Have been fighting pain and exhaustion.
~Try to write more short fiction ~DONE! Fireborn (55k) and When She Sleeps (projected 60k) 
~Continue with FYFB class (so behind right now!)~NOPE. Downloaded everything that’s available that I haven’t gotten to.
~Start working on Survivor Rewrite outline again ~DONE! Not finished due to wrist issues.

This year has been roughly for me physically. I have been exhausted more, and the trigeminal neuralgia flared up again so we’ve been trying to find the right combination of meds to control the pain. So far, we haven’t been very successful.

I was also laid off from my job in August, so there’s been some upheaval there. I have been working on my freelancing/virtual assistant business to try to bring in more money. Things are kind of up in the air, and it has been wreaking havoc on my productivity.

I have decided to buckle down and make things happen in 2018!

Goals:

~2nd round of edits/release secret project (early 2018)
~Revise and release Fireborn
~Get serious about exercise and DO SOMETHING
~Take pictures regularly (once a month, 1 a day for x amount of days, etc)
~Get moving with dictation again
~Progress on Covenant
~Progress on When She Sleeps
~Start Survivor Rewrite for reals this time
~Do something with Death Dancer/Pirouette
~Get better with planning
~Start writing every day again, even if it’s 100 words
~Figure out Reaper Girl #3, Faeborn

I’ve written roughly 80k this year, which is down from last year. Would like to hit 100k and more in 2018.

#ROW80 Check-in Oct. 16th

Wow, half the month is already over! It’s insane!

I’ve been busy, mostly working on Ever Touched and my class. My knee is still a problem, and I have an appointment with my doctor in 2 weeks, so I’ll be talking to him for sure.

Here’s the rundown:

Ever Touched Revision – Up to 117 pages done, just over halfway. I will need a second pass though. There are parts I’d forgotten I’d written, and stuff that needs to be figured out yet.

Short story – We’re in the copyediting phase now. I sent mine in already. Just waiting for the story I’m copyediting to come to me. 🙂 (We share copyediting duties so one person isn’t bogged down with it).

FYFB class – I’m a bit behind now. Lessons 6-12 posted yesterday, and I need to listen to at least one today. I’m on the worksheets for lesson 4. Had a slight hiccup because I’m supposed to be comparing my book (the one I’m supposed to write for the class. Probably Elysium) to others out there, and I’m having a hard time finding any! I bought two books that looked promising to read, and I’ve started reading both (yes, I am insane!). So, next up is lesson 6.

Water – Every day except one.

Exercise – Nada, due to the knee problem.

Reviews – Just posted one yesterday. I have a deadlined one coming this week. Still working on my backlog.

Photography – I was supposed to have a picnic with my hubby at a lovely park, where I planned to take both digital infrared and regular pics. But yesterday I got really sick, so we postponed it to next week. I was not happy 😦

Weight – I have technically lost the 5 pounds I recently gained, but the plan was to lose 5 pounds, not gain any. I’m trying really hard, so we’ll see what happens in the next few weeks.

Next project – I am leaning toward Death Dancer, just because it will most likely be a TDP release, and it needs some work before I can offer it up. Still pondering though. I also had a brainstorm for my older project Darkweaver and I am itching to outline it. Big time. Again, we’ll see.

Chocolate consumption – pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, chocolate caramel thingies, WW sundaes, ultimate chocolate sandwiches. Lots of snickerdoodles again. I am really addicted to those.

 

#ROW80 Check-in May 15th

I’m still making glacier-slow progress on Ever Touched dictating. I guess it’s just going to be slow while my wrist heals. Very frustrating, but it is what it is.

Also I’ve been fighting exhaustion again, so there’s so much I wanted to do that didn’t get done. Apparently I’m not anemic, so it must be the fibromyalgia. I’ve been meaning to get back into my darkroom to print, but I’ve had to put it off for the past few weeks. Hopefully, I can soon.

I also participated in #PitDark on Thursday (a twitter pitch thing where you pitch a book in a tweet to agents and publishers). I got two really good agents who are interested in my book (Pirouette/Death Dancer – the same one I sent off to a different publisher in January) so for the past few days I’ve been working on a query letter. Distilling a 121k novel down into what feels like haiku is not only really hard, but exhausting. I’ve been getting good feedback on a forum I’m on, so I think I’m on the right track. One of today’s tasks is to do another revision. Cross your fingers and toes that this works! I would love to get an agent out of this. If anything else, it’s great practice for the future.

Okay, on to the rundown:

Ever Touched – up to 87k (approximately 4,000 words written since the last check-in. More than I thought, actually! Maybe it just feels like it’s going slow?)

Covenant – Nada. I really feel awful about this. 😦

Water – Every day except two.

Exercise – 3 times – 2 walks, 1 bike (up to 6 minutes now!)

Elysium – Nada. Wanted to do something on it yesterday but the wrist wasn’t cooperating. Does planning on doing it, even if it doesn’t get done, count? (Just kidding!)

Darkroom – As mentioned above, this has been put off due to exhaustion.

Chocolate consumption – Oreos. Lots of Oreos. WW Sundaes. WW chocolate caramels.. Ice cream Twix bars. Did I mention Oreos? 😉

Annnnd that’s it for me. How about you?

 

 

 

#ROW80 Check-in #3

It’s been a rough few days for me. I spent most of Wednesday night in the ER thinking I had appendicitis when I actually was severely dehydrated. That was a wake up call. I’m not a fan of plain water, but it looks like I will need to start drinking it. So I’ve been trying to add it into my daily routine. We’ll see how that goes.

I have finished the submission to the publisher – synopsis and first 3 chapters. I am waiting for a bit to see if there’s any other feedback on the most recent version of the synopsis I posted to the forum. I still have almost another week. I am not waiting till the last minute though. They are in the UK and go by BST, and I have no idea how that converts to our time, and I don’t want to miss it. So mid-week or so I’ll submit.

Next up is Changeling 4 revision. I’m wibbling a bit on the ending. I think I need another installment to wrap things up. So I need to leave a few things ambiguous. I’m pretty sure I know how it ends, though, so that’s progress.

What else? I’m giving some thought to what’s coming next. Fireborn, for sure. Getting my freebie set up with Mailchimp so I can get more subscribers to my newsletter. A Facebook ad for it, too.

After that…not really sure. Probably Covenant and Ever Touched. Something for my 8-minutes a day thing(if different). Survivor Sundays for sure.

That’s about it. 🙂