Wow. It feels like January raced by me, the illusion of a busy month and being sick for more than a week. Once I got myself back on my feet, I found that I was lagging on my monthly goals. With a little hard work and some perseverance, I was able to catch up and finish the month strong, close to where I wanted to be when I put this post together.
I should mention that I do have an announcement that I need to hold onto until the publisher gives me permission to post it. I am very excited to let you know about that, so as soon as I am allowed to share I will activate the post I’ve already written about that. Keep a look out!
On the writing front, I spent most of my time working on the second book of my YA series. I started by revamping a big chunk of the second act. The middle of that book changes settings frequently, and I am treating each change like a new story of sorts. For that one story piece, I found it wasn’t clicking and did not feel like it fit with the rest, and it lacked the depth of importance and emotion I wanted it to have. I did a reset on it, revamping the timeline and the motivations for some of the new characters, and I am much happier with how it flows now. It was around that time that I got sick, so everything was put on hold until I could focus again. When I resumed, I dug into working on the dialogue for a few chapters and I got into a good rhythm with that, so I was able to churn out three chapters worth of dialogue that forms the framework of chapters 4 – 6. The writing resumed and with that dialogue sketched out, I was able to draft two chapters in the span of a week (probably a personal record). So while I wanted to get through chapter 6 by the end of the month, I feel very good about how much I was able to accomplish.
I also spent several days working on the second draft of book one. I re-wrote a few troublesome sections, tweaked some areas that had timeline continuity issues, and bulked up one of the minor characters who will be returning for a brief appearance in book two. As a result, the word count ticked up to close to 105K words, so when I return to that book I will be looking for places to trim down. I like to let things sit for a while before I resume work on them, just so it doesn’t grow too familiar. I’ll probably take another run at that in March or April.
Speaking of letting things sit, I also went back to a story I wrote over a year ago. Still untitled (shocking, I know), I wrote it for an anthology but just couldn’t get it done in time. I still like it a lot, so I did a quick run through on that with the objective of cleaning it up, tweaking some of the events, and trying to find a home for it.
Lastly, here’s a reminder of my 5 goals for 2024 with notes on my progress:
1 – I want finish editing book one of my YA series to the point that I consider it good enough for publication (it probably won’t be, but I want to get it as far as I can take it). As I said, I did a fair amount of editing on book one, I even toyed with a few titles – gasp! – and I feel like I got it closer to where it needs to be.
2 – I want to begin querying agents to see if I can publish that book, and its sequels, traditionally. I’m not there yet but accomplishing goal #1 must happen first.
3 – I want to finish the first draft of book 2 in that series and begin outlining book 3 with an aim at starting the writing process this year as well. I got some done on that in January and I have a lot prepped to carry me through February.
4 – I want to have at least 2 short stories accepted for publication (not ones I submitted in 2023). Well I revisited an older story with the goal of finding it a home. I may also shop Blade of Glass around to see if someone will take it.
5 – I want to extend my visibility as far as social interactions and publicity goes. Well if this is the first of my blog posts you are reading, then that’s progress! But I have been making sure to post a minimum of once per week and have linked my blog to my little-used Facebook page. I have a couple of fresh likes and follows, so a step in the right direction.
That’s it for this update. For February, I’m planning a post about some of the things I read and some posts about how I write, specifically how I outline and prepare for a story. That will probably be two or more posts.
I hope you all had a great start to 2024. Keep writing, keep working, and don’t give up on your dreams whatever they may be.