Welcome 2021

Happy New Year, everyone. I’m back!

I know I’ve been gone for almost two months, but it seemed like it was time to come back and give you all an update on just what I’ve been doing. So, here’s the skinny:

As you know, back in November, I was participating in NaNoWriMo, a challenge to write 50 thousand words in 30 days. Well, I won, successfully writing just over 56 thousand words by the last day of November. The problem I faced, however, was that my book wasn’t finished yet. So, I took the month of December off to give my brain a break and give me time to figure out how I wanted to finish out my novel. As it was, the two main characters—the love interests—hadn’t met yet, and I needed a defined way to way to get them to the end, something that was going to tie all the little strings I’d started with together.

So, during December, I wrote a little bit, but mostly, I planned. I figured out how to improve my characters, where to take my plot, and how to finally, finally tie things up and bring everything together. It took quite a bit of time and several conversations with my two close friends—my writing buddies—to finally figure out what I was going to do and how I could make my characters even better going forward. So, on January 1, I gave myself a new goal.

My writing goal for January was 35 thousand words. I didn’t want to feel as bogged down by my word count as I had in November, but I still wanted to get a significant portion of my story drafted. So, I thought that 35 thousand words sounded like a relatively moderate goal that would push me closer to the end of my book without adding undue stress. Currently, with just under half the month to go, I have written over 21 thousand words toward my goal. I’ve successfully written something every day, just like I did in November, and while I feel as though it may take me another month and another 20-thousand-word goal to finish out my novel, I’m excited about where everything is headed and how my project is shaping up. When I finish the first draft, I believe I’ll have somewhere around 110 thousand words, and I plan to cut around 20 thousand of those. I’ve already identified two possible places for that to happen with my wonderful writing buddies.

So, why am I writing an entire blog post just about this one manuscript, and why should you care? Well, 2020 marked the first year that I ever successfully completed NaNoWriMo, writing 50+ thousand words. For that success, I owe many thanks to my writing buddies who did word sprints with me every Monday to get me to my goal, encouraged me every step of the way and were excited about my characters and my plot. I also owe a lot of thanks to my family. I had several who inquired about my progress throughout the month and got excited with me, too. My husband, as always, was very supportive, letting me have time to write when I probably should have been working on other things around the house. (Thanks, honey!) On top of that, if you’re reading this blog post, I owe you a huge thank you, too. I’m the kind of person who needs outside motivations and accountability to meet my goals a lot of the time, and if I didn’t have someone to share my progress with, even if it was just here on my blog, I wouldn’t feel nearly as dedicated to this project. That’s reason number one for my excitement.

Reason number two is that this manuscript will be the longest thing I’ve ever written, a prospect that both exhilarates and scares me. I know that I’ve got a solid plotline, and I hope my characters support and back that up. But my word count—which is, yes, for a first draft. But still—is outside the industry norms for a book in my genre. Although, with my sub-genre, I’m not sure there is much of a standard. I’m unsure whether or not, after I polish the manuscript up, I will try to self-publish it or I’ll query it to traditional publishers and see if I get any takers. No matter what path I decide to go down, however, I am going to be incredibly proud of this accomplishment. I’ve never done anything like this before, and I hope it can become everything I’ve dreamed it to be as well as provides me a solid segue into book number two. I have a ton of ideas!

But wait. There’s more. As promised, though it’s taken me longer than I’d hoped, The Secrets Behind My Eyes is becoming an audiobook! The recording process is finished, and I’ve moved into the final editing phase before submitting it to ACX and, hopefully, getting approved to upload it. I will give you more information on that when it happens, or I have an actual release date but look for that in the next month or so (I hope.) Next up is to work on recording Unfettered for release. That book is quite a bit longer and will almost definitely take me more time, but I will get it done. I’m determined.

The last question to be answered, I suppose, is: what projects do I have coming up in 2021? So, let's talk about that for a moment. I am currently working on another poetry book entitled Dear You, a series of letters written in a loose form of lyrical poetry designed to be read aloud. The plan is for the book to have roughly 30 poems in it, each one written to an unidentified “you.” The goal is for the poems to be relatable to relationships and situations in the reader’s life. This book will be self-published with an as-yet-undetermined release date in 2021. Additionally, I plan to participate in both Camp NaNoWriMos this year. Camp NaNoWriMo happens in April and July and is a much looser version of NaNoWriMo where you get to set your own writing goals and work on any project you wish, not just novels. My plan for that is to work on my stand-alone wedding novel, I Must Be Tripping Wedding Bells. More information will come on that later as well. Last but not least, I want to host some of my own writing challenges this year on my social media platforms, just like I did last year with Flash Fiction Friday in August and Ominous October. I have not determined yet when and what events I’ll be holding, but I want to be sure that I’m keeping up with writing every day, working toward publishing more books and finding more readers to share my stories with.

If you’ve read all the way to the end, thank you. I appreciate your support more than you could know. I invite you, if you haven’t already, to sign up for my newsletter. I haven’t sent one out in 2021 yet, but I have plans to send out at least one here in January. I promise not to spam your email; you’ll likely get no more than two emails per month from me that will keep you up to date on my projects. Those that get my newsletters also get early sneak-peeks and exclusive access to complete stories that I work on and share from time to time. All it takes is an email address, so please consider signing up!

With that, I shall bid you all adieu! I hope you have a great week, a great month, and I hope you’ll check out my next blog post, too! Bye, and thank you!