Marching On

Posted on by Nathan 9 Comments

February came through for me. I kept to my basic plan of 2,000 new words every day and using the rest of the day to work on second drafts, production, etc. I didn’t get as much walking in as I needed to, but there’s next month. Early on, I was still recovering from the January surgery. I got more walks in–and more talks in–near the end of the month.

Statistics:

February: 63,534
For the Year: 141,480
Current WIP: 117,500
Streak Words: 375,614
Days in a Row: 139
Average words per day: 2,702

Status:

Audio:

  • Home Run is currently available for pre-order on Audible. It drops March 3.
  • South Coast is in production at Podium. No word yet on narrator or schedule. I’ve contracted with Podium to produce all three Shaman’s Tales.

Paper:

Ebook:

  • No new books dropped in February.

WIP:

  • The Wizard’s Butler is with the editor and I’m still waiting for the cover art.
  • Hostage (Book 1 of the Barbarians series) is in second draft. This book will be a while in production because I’m co-writing it and we both need to agree on the draft before we give it to the editor.
  • Dark Knight Station: Origins remains the current first draft, new words project. I should find an end here in the next couple of days. When I do, it’ll slide into the “afternoon” queue.
  • Next project might be Troy Harbor – the last of the Shaman’s Tales. I’d like to wrap that series up before I forget too much about the story line.

What Am I Reading?

I neglected to recommend a book in February so let me recommend Carol Van Natta’s Central Galactic Concordance series. I inhaled the first two and forced myself to put down the series and address some of the samples waiting in my TBR pile. Great world building. Interesting characters, but (fair warning) there’s kissing. Which – for the record – I support.

Book 1: Overload Flux

Last Words

Two months into the “2k for 2020” campaign, I’m keeping up with the words. Shifting gears to work on a different book in the afternoon is more hampered by my ability to actually get the 2k in before lunch than my ability to shift my brain to a different story line.

Mid-month I felt the rise of incipient burn-out. I pushed too hard and neglected some of the self-care that I need. I’ve made some adjustments on calendar and expectation. The burn-out seems to be averted for the moment.

I feel good. I’m happy with the work. I’m looking forward to publishing at least one of these WIPs before April and I’m ready to roar into March.

February: So Far, So Good

Posted on by Nathan 7 Comments

January had a few surprises but I managed to maintain focus last month and get a lot accomplished.

Where Am I?

Words for the Month77,946
Words for the Year 77,946
Current WIP (Dark Knight Station: Origins)53,966
Streak (110 Days)309,623

What doesn’t show here is that I finished the preliminary drafts of The Wizard’s Butler and gotten beta reader feedback on it. I’ve seen the cover art sketches and I’m really stoked.

ICYMI: Cape Grace is out

I’ll be pushing out the paperback in the next couple of weeks and Podium has stepped up to produce the Audible versions. No word yet on who will read or when they’ll be available. Stay tuned.

What Else Is Happening?

Home Run should be out though Audible on March 3rd. Pre-orders will be available a week or so before then.

Hostage (Barbarians Book 1) has a full draft. This is the book that my daughter and I are trying to co-write. She gave me her half a few days ago. The ball is in my court at the moment. I’m trying to get The Wizard’s Butler read for the editor so this is on the back burner while she gets her next book – All’s Well In Asgaard – ready for release.

Dark Knight Station: Origins is my current WIP. I needed something to write when I finished the Butler so I picked up and combined some of the ideas that fans submitted to write the origin story of Dark Knight Station and how Verkol Kondur came to run it.

Troy Harbor (Shaman’s Tales: Book 3) will slot in after that. I think. It seems pretty clear from the feedback that people need that closure and I’d rather do it now while the wounds are still bleeding than to heal up from the Cape Grace ordeal, only to rip them open again.

Besides, I’ve got about half of it done already in clipped out stuff from a year trying to write Cape Grace. I’m hoping this one won’t be as painful.

There’s probably more, but the key piece of news here is that the plans that I started working on in October and November have stood me in good stead through December and January. They seem to be flexible enough that they stand up to the day-to-day struggle of staying on top of new words while still editing and producing the works that are in second and later draft stages.

I owe some of that to my Publishing Planner and more of it to the group of writers I’m hanging with – all of whom are cheering each other on while holding us accountable to our goals.

It’s only the first month of 2020, but so far, so good.

2020 Will Be Better

Posted on by Nathan 15 Comments

Looking back at New Year’s Day 2019, I had no idea how much worse it was going to be. I remember having such high hopes and big plans.

So screw this 20/20 hindsight thing. Let me get the statistics out of the way.

Books published: zero. I haven’t had a strike out year since 2013. On the upside, that 11 months I spend on Cape Grace is paying off in a really good story. I just need to get it back from the editor and poke my cover artist to get that work to me. Both of them have had worse years than I had, so I’m finding it difficult to get too salty with them.

Books drafted: Two and a bit.
Cape Grace: Just over 100k words. The story is complete.
Barbarian 1: (tentatively titled Hostage): 90k words. It was my NaNoWriMo project and I’m waiting for my co-writer to get her part to me so we can see where the story goes.
The Wizard’s Butler: 104k words and nearly done. It’ll come in under 110k, I think so probably before the end of the week.

Written words: 306,641. 197 out of 365 Days
That pretty much sums up 2019. I wrote – and recorded the effort – only 197 days last year. To be fair, I spent a lot of hours reading and tweaking and throwing out and rewriting stuff that I didn’t count at all. Cape Grace was a monster that devoured me in tiny bites.

However in the last 79 days? 230,683 words Basically 2/3rds of my word count for the year in the last quarter. 72k for the month of December alone.

I’m still using 4thewords to gamify the writing. As I said last month, I’m planning on 2k a day, every day, while doing the production work after I get my words for the day. I managed it every day in December. We’ll see how long I can keep it up.

My scheduling has been thrown for a loop this month because of some health issues, but I’m on the mend and looking forward to ironing out the wrinkles in my schedule as the year progresses. I need to rebuild that walking habit, if only for my weight control.

What Am I Reading?

Book 3 in Glynn Stewart’s Light of Terra series. I’m enjoying it immensely, but I always like Glynn’s books.

Audio Updates:
Suicide Run dropped on Christmas Eve.
Home Run is scheduled for “February, 2020.” I don’t have a firm date yet.
Tanyth … still waiting.

That’s it for now, Crew.

Thank you for hanging in this year and cheering me on. I’m looking forward to a better 2020 and hoping all the best for you and yours in the new year.