Excelsior!

So, 2020 … a great year all around, amirite?

Muse: Go sit down.

Yeah, it was a rough year for a lot of reasons. But since my better half is always (rightly) encouraging me to be more positive and not such a pessimist, I thought I’d pick out something positive, so here it is: I wrote 505 thousand words this year. Half a million words.

I suspect to some writers, that’s not a big deal—that they do that and more every year. For me, it was an accomplishment. I’d never even remotely written this much in a year and I have to say … it feels pretty damn good.

So what does it mean for next year? Hell if I know. Since there’s one day left in 2020 (as of this writing), I am just going to bask in the glow for the remainder of the year, so I can hit the ground running on 1 Jan and get back to work for 2021.

Here’s a breakdown of how the words went this year:

The Holly Sisters

• Added about 20K words to the early drafts of The Mauler (book 2) before it was published in Sep
• On the second draft of Sylvan Valley Aflame, to the tune of 114K words. I have my beta feedback now, so going back to polish it up, with a hopeful publication date of late March.

The Sentinel

This is the new series I am working on, which will be quite a different in tone than The Holly Sisters. Maybe four book before it’s over.

• Completed the first draft of the first book, with a tentative title of She Who Fights Monsters at around 116K words
• Began the first draft of the second book (no title yet), with 38K words drafted

Romance books, with—

Muse: Wait, what?

I’ve been working on my interconnected romance book series. Not published yet, as I want to have 4-6 of the books ready to rapid-release.

Romance

• Book 1, added 17K words to the 2nd/3rd drafts, so it’s almost publication-ready (oh, and did the cover myself, too, and it’s not bad)
• Book 3, got to 36K words in it before I stalled out
• Book 4, completed first draft of 54K words

(Book 2 was drafted in 2019 and I haven’t gone back to it yet)

Smut Stories (Yeah, I write smut too. Shut up!)

Total of about 89K words in seven different stories. They are getting some good ratings on websites where they’re posted.

Other

I do some writer prompts with friends and some other short stories, which came out to about a total of 21K this year

Whew.

Okay, so 2020 is about in the bag. Now what? What lies ahead for 2021? Well, here are the goals:

• 1) Publish the last book in the The Holly Sisters, Sylvan Valley Aflame, around 31 Mar.
• 2) Write the sequel to Pilgrimage to Skara, with a planned publication sometime in Nov.
• 3) Revise Sentinel book 1, finish book 2 first draft, start book 3
• 4) Finish romance book 3, revise book 2 & 4, draft book 5.

No real goal for the smut. I’ll just tackle that as the ideas come … err, arrive.

You all have a happy, wonderful holiday, and let’s kick off the next year on the right foot! Cheers!