Truth be told, it's probably a bit early to be doing this, but I was motivated to do it today, so why not? 2020 was one hell of a year, but writing wise, I feel like I set out to do everything I wanted to do and more. I finally broke ties with my former publisher and became Indie. I made more money in those subsequent months than I did the three years I was published with them. I wrote THREE books since March, two of which are going to be released very, very soon. I would say the only thing that didn't work out like I wanted was that I really wanted WAR DISTORTION to be released on December 1st. If nothing else, I feel like I learned a lot about the self publishing process, and about being patient, especially when other people are helping you get your book ready for free. I'm very goal orientated. I was this way when I did Irish dance, I have a check list of skills I need to learn to move up in Figure Skating. While I don't think I'm ready to plan exactly how many days I want to write each year, I do like to have my plans written down so I can look back at them later. I just looked at last years goals and with the exception of audio fiction, I did everything I set out to do. Okay, so without further ado...my writing goals for 2021: 1. Complete my Squad Treble Series by the end of 2021. The end of an Era! It's bittersweet, but it's time. I want it done and dusted, available on Amazon by this time next year. I did the outline a long time ago (like while I was writing Shrewdest Faction) and minor things have changed, so I've been plotting this week. My heart tells me this will be my next project after I polish Angel in Plain Sight (Current title LOL). 2. Release Semi Sweet in the first half of 2021. I'm already thinking that February isn't happening. It's the damn Beta phase! It's not the best time with the Holidays, but can't really move forward with this one until my editors/proofreaders finish WAR DISTORTION either, so hopefully by March? April? 3. Polish Angel in Plain Sight and figure out where I'm going with this series. I'm almost finished reading through the rough draft and I've got plans to fix some plot holes. I generally have plans for a sequel, but thought it might be fun to the story from the demon's point of view. I've got time to figure this out. 4. Participate in Camp NaNoWriMo and NaNoWriMo 2021. This is because I enjoyed myself last month and I miss writing every day. 5. Participate in a virtual writing retreat at least once. I'm part of a writing sprints group that does this monthly so this should be an easy to accomplish. 6. Do an actual writing retreat even if it's for the day. This might not happen because of Covid-19 and my son, but why not put it here and see what happens? 7. Keep it up with Social Media and Marketing. This has gotten better this year, but I could still push it. I really want to start a newsletter, and keep posting here regularly as well. 8. More sales than 2020. My ultimate goal is quit teaching and write full time but I don't think I'm close to that unfortunately. So let's see more sales, I'm hoping having two new releases will help this. *9. Eminence? Will this be the year I finally write this book? Hahaha What are your goals? Happy Holidays and Happy New Year1 Kay
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I had originally planned on talking about this in the previous entry, but ultimately decided that it needed it's own post. I'm a NaNoWriMo winner! This shocks me because as I have previously stated, November usually sucks for me. I think there were a bunch of factors for this. First, due to the pandemic, I'm not really going anywhere beyond work and home. Second is that for whatever reason, all of the school related stress I usually have happened THIS WEEK instead of during November. Finally, it became a habit that I'm still kind of living with. With the exception of Election day, I wrote every day. I typically woke up at six, got to work around 6:45 and wrote until my first student walked in at around 7:30. I also wrote at home too, but that routine helped me big time. My final word count ended up being around 63,000 words. This excites me because Shrewdest Faction and War Distortion were both around this wordcount after several drafts. I've already thought of a few new scenes I'd like to add in addition to fleshing things out so I'm confident this book will be longer than both of those novels. That being said, this is the first time possibly ever that when I start my next draft, it will probably be in a fresh document. Typically when I do a new draft, I just write in a different color in the same Google Doc, but this manuscript is ROUGH. I know I wrote a whole book in 28 days, but it's just not flowing great for me. Hoping for better luck next draft. Now you are probably wondering a few things. Are you curious about why I haven't referred to the story by it's title? Well, I might be changing it again. I actually really like An Angel Among Us...but every time my students saw the tab open they were like, "OMG, IS IT ABOUT THE GAME, AMONG US?" and I twitched a little bit more each time they asked. It sucks because I totally was playing with the title of the song "Angels Among Us" ("Oh, I believe there are angels among us"), but I'm wondering if maybe "An Angel in Plain Sight or "An Angel on Earth" might be better. I wanted it to coordinate it with "The Devil You Know" which will be the title of book two. You might also be wondering why the title of today's post has the the word Phantom in it. Well, as I wrapped this draft up, I was reminded of a song from Phantom of the Opera by Andrew Lloyd Weber. I looked the lyrics up and I was like "WOAH" and then I looked up a different song and said "THIS ALSO APPLIES" and holy crap there a few parallels. For one, a mask plays a huge role in my book (though not to hide a disfigured face, just for identity purposes) as well as the idea of someone always being there watching you: In sleep he sang to me, in dreams he came That voice which calls to me and speaks my name And do I dream again? For now I find The Phantom of the Opera is there Inside my mind It's like I'm back in the eighth grade listening to the soundtrack in my portable CD player. LOL. It's not a retelling by any means (There is no Raoul, unfortunately) but I might pay a little homage to the show in book two. Maybe I'll have the 2004 film version be Jane's favorite movie or something. :) Alright, I think that's it for me.
Kay We made it! 2020 is nearly over. As much of a poop show as it was, it was good in many ways. I won't get into all that now, I'll save it for a goals/resolutions post later in the month. I've got plenty to share in the meantime 🙂 Okay, first thing first. Enshrine is part of a huge multi author Christmas giveaway hosted by Writerly Yours. If you are one for photo challenges, this is one you don't want to miss! http://writerlyyoursco.blogspot.com/2020/12/writerly-yours-christmas-bookstagram-challenge.html… Big War Distortion News!
Hopefully by tomorrow it will be official, but I've finally got a release date for the third book of my Squad Treble Series! War Distortion: A Squad Treble Novel will be available January 8th! Hopefully by tomorrow you'll be able to pre-order the book as well. I plan on having book one on sale in anticipation! So excited to finally release something new. Hopefully it will be the beginning of the life of I was always supposed to have. |
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