February: So Far, So Good

February 1, 2020 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 Month	77,946
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

January 1, 2020 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.

December Already

December 1, 2019 by Nathan 7 Comments

Another successful NaNoWriMo behind me. My goal was 100k or a completed draft by the 20th. I wrote 5k words a day until the 18th when I finished the draft for my half of the Barbarian book that I’m co-writing with my elder child. I also picked up my new habit of writing 2k new words a day and I’m 30k words into my next book – The Wizard’s Butler (h/t to Chris Weible for the title and idea).

Onward to status reports:

Writing:

Cape Grace:
At the editor. Karen was booked solid last month and is still fighting free. I still haven’t seen the new covers yet. Time to rattle his cage again.

Hostage: Barbarian at the Gate – Book 1
Waiting on the second half from my co-writer

The Wizard’s Butler
30k into it and enjoying it more every day.

Next Project:
I have a list of about 60 ideas. My next task is going to be organizing them to see if any of them have legs. Some top contenders at the moment:

I need to get back to Ishmael. I don’t know what that story looks like yet.
One of the recurring ideas from my newsletter readers was a series of Toe-Hold/CPJCT stories about the stations and life there.
Back stories on all the characters in that universe – notably Lois McKendrick, and the Carstairs clan.
Tanyth Fairport adventure. I don’t know what that might be yet.

Audio:

Suicide Run
Podium sent me the official release date – 24 Dec 2019. It should be available for pre-order soon if it’s not already.

Home Run
Still on the calendar for Feb 2020.

Tanyth Fairport
I contacted the production company and gave them a nudge. Fingers crossed.

What I’m Reading

Newsletter readers get to see my reading list. Seems only fair blog readers should, too.

Some of you know I read a lot of litRPG. Right now I’m into Desert Runner by Dawn Chapman. Dawn’s one of the comparatively few women writing in this space and I really like her touch with it. I’m about a third of the way through book one and I’m hooked even though it’s a novella length.

You can find the three book set here: https://www.amazon.com/Desert-Sequence-Puatera-Online-1-3-ebook/dp/B079QTHJMY

Looking ahead

My goal is to write 2k new words every day to keep books in the pipeline. I’ve tried it before but 4thewords has been really helpful over the last 48 days (over 150k words) It’s keeping me on track with the gamification. I can satisfy my ADHD by trying new quests and fighting new monsters. I’m not saying I’ll succeed at this goal of over 700k words in 2020 but one day at a time, one month at a time, I’m going to give it a shot.

December’s goals:

62k words. That should see me through The Wizard’s Butler
Publish Cape Grace – although much of this is out of my hands at the moment.
Line up the next project

Bottom line: I’m ending December with 122k words and a new sense of purpose.

That’s it for now.

Safe voyage.