undiscovered countries
February was another good month for me. My goal was 20K words, but I got over 28K. And I finished the first draft of Ghostlight, complete at almost 49K words. I expect I’ll add more to it when I edit, and bump its wordcount to over 50K.
The big March goal is to get 25K words on the sequel, working title Ghouldark.
That should keep me busy!
How about you? How are your projects going?
At the beginning of the year, I wrote up a list of resolutions. How am I doing on these one month into 2016? Let’s dig in and see!
Write 25K words a month: January was a great writing month for me, with over 40K in new words. I’ve adjusted my February word goal to 20K, though, because…
… I finished the first draft of Flare (about 95K) words and read through the ms. It hangs together surprisingly well (yes, I was surprised!) but I do have some big-picture revisions I want to do before sending it out to alpha readers this month. I’m one (big) step nearer to publishing the third installment of The Sunless World.
All of my current new words are going towards Ghostlight, the first book of The Shadow Lands. Here’s the working blurb:
Trevlyan Shield knew that Arabella Trent was trouble the moment he saw her hesitating on the side of a busy street one morning. But it wasn’t her sparkling eyes or dark ringlets that caught his attention—it was the way the sun shone through her translucent form.
Bella has no memories of the runaway carriage that hit her and left her for dead. Nor does she know why she was found so far from home. Those hours are a total blank in her memory.
Fortunately, Trey is no stranger to dealing with ghosts and other phantasms. But the rules of his profession are strict: spirits must be sent on into the afterlife. Any who linger are susceptible to corruption and being preyed upon by the denizens of the Shadow Lands.
Time is running out for Bella. If she doesn’t figure out how to return to her body soon, she’ll be dead for good.
I’m about 24K into the book, with less than half of the story left to go. Finishing it this month seems a doable goal.
How am I doing taking better care of myself? Eh. This is the one thing that gets easily shoved aside. I’m getting sleep and watching my eating, but exercise is one thing that doesn’t fit into my schedule (and *confession* I’m not fond of exercise so I don’t try very hard, either).
How about you? How’s your year going so far?
Even though I know what happens to the best-laid plans on first contact with the enemy (in my case, reality), I can’t help myself. I love making lists and setting goals. And the new year is such a perfect excuse for doing so, how can I resist?
This year I resolve:
To write 25K words every month. This is not that big of a stretch for me. I can write over 1K a day easily when I’m in my writing routine. It’s consistency I need to work on. I’ll have a few great writing months followed by burnout (or is it a lying fallow period? I can’t decide). It’s also hard for me to balance first draft writing with all the other aspects of publishing.
The 25K words, by the way, includes work on all my other side projects. If it’s fiction, it goes into the monthly word pot. In the past, I’d lock myself into working on particular stories and then waffle about, not writing, if that stalled for some reason.
As always, I’m using my husband’s WriteTrack to measure my progress.
To publish the third installment of The Sunless World series. Unless the series takes off, Flare is the last book. I’m 85K into writing it and expect to finish the first draft this month. A mid-year release is a reasonable goal from my current vantage point.
If the series does get popular, I have very broad sketches of two more books. Working titles: Lune and Flow.
To write all four novellas of The Shadow Lands. I planned this as a series and I have a complete outline of the first book. I even cheated on my current WIP to write the first scene over the weekend. Sorry, Flare. It’s hard to compete with the New Shiny.
The Shadow Lands is a romantic fantasy with paranormal elements. In a quasi-Regency setting. I tried so hard not to cross genres with this one. And what did I do? Crossed genres. You may laugh, but the series concept started out as a bit of sweet Regency romance fluff. Then the dead bodies started piling up. My fluff grew fangs!
To look after myself. Healthy eating, regular exercise, enough sleep. ‘Nuff said.
I reserve the right to revisit and readjust these goals as necessary. I’m fully prepared to jump ship to more marketable projects if need be.
What about you, gentle writers and worthy readers? What are your resolutions for this brand-spanking-new year?
Long-time readers of this blog may remember me enthusing over M.C.A. Hogarth’s business-of-art columns, with cartoon jaguars illustrating the various principles. Hogarth expanded these into a web comic, and recently collected six months’ worth of strips into a print volume.
So, if you want to be both educated and entertained, head on over to Amazon, B&N, or Createspace and get your copy! The delightful Three Jaguars will make you think, smile, laugh, and yes, even get a little teary-eyed.
Looking for bargains for your reading habit? I’m participating in a promotion run by Vivify Books. Check out free or 99-cent indie books in all genres here. Or, just the fantasy ones, if that’s your main cup of tea.
Sale runs from September 1st-7th.
Last–but not least–is a plug for WriteTrack, my husband’s nifty wordcount tracking tool. It’s free to use, and he recently updated it with a fresh, new look. I’m using it to keep me on track with my 25K-word goal for the month.
The best thing about this tool? You can tell it which days you’ll be out of town or only able to write a little, and it’ll handle all the calculations to give you the daily word goal you need to stay on course.
Your turn! Got a book to recommend, or a site you think I should check out? Tell me in the comments.
