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.