I don’t know about you, but I’ve kind of had my fingers in my ears going LA-LA-LA when it comes to the calendar lately. I guess some people might have reacted to 2020 by eagerly awaiting the dawn of 2021, but idk. For me, it’s been very la-la-la.
Nevertheless, it’s now basically halfway through January (WHAT?!?!?!!!!!), so I guess at least a brief 2020 overview is warranted 🙂 And, more excitingly, a look ahead to what 2021 might hold.
…Hang on, I’m going to go dig around in last January and see if I did one of these posts twelve months ago. I stumbled across the one I wrote a few years back recently, and as ever, my plans for the year ended up being laughably inaccurate.
…Okay, looks like I never did a 2019 wrap/2020 plans post? I feel like I talked about both these things here, but I must have integrated them into other posts, because I can’t see a specific post in Dec/Jan or Feb talking about it.
OH WELL. I SHALL DIG OUT MY BUSINESS PLAN INSTEAD.
Because in the spirit of having a similar laugh about how inaccurate my plans always are, I present to you What I Originally Planned To Do In 2020.
- Write Define Good, approx. 30,000 words.
- Write How Not To Ring The Hero’s Bell, approx. 75 – 85,000 words.
- Edit & release How To Map.
- Write A Stag Of Hope And Memory, approx. 70,000 words.
- Write Define Love, approx. 30,000 words.
- Complete 6 short stories.
- Work on Moon Shot.
- Release A Fox Of Storms And Starlight.
- Trial review boxes.
- Plus a bunch of other press related stuff, like publishing the 2020 Inklets, Liana Brooks’ Change Of Momentum, and a whole lot of updates and admin.
…Okay. Give me a second while I die laughing, then I’ll be back and we can discuss this.
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There. Okay. I think I’m good. Alright, here’s the annotated list:
- Write Define Good, approx. 30,000 words. (AH HA HA HA YOU NAIVE FOOL. This is book 1.5 in the Kaditeos series, following Chiara’s adventures for a bit, and IT IS NOT GOING TO BE 30,000 WORDS. I will be lucky if it clocks in under 60k, which is to say: this is not a short lil novella I can squeeze in in between projects. This IS a project, a full (if slightly short) novel. OOPS.)
- Write How Not To Ring The Hero’s Bell, approx. 75 – 85,000 words. (Can’t do this until after Define Good, because DG sets up some plot strings. Oops?)
- Edit & release How To Map. (Okay, yes, I did this, and this means that all the stand-alone parts of From The Ground Up are FINISHED.)
- Write A Stag Of Hope And Memory, approx. 70,000 words. (…Um. Oops? In my defence, I did TRY to write this in Nov/Dec. It just… turned into a prequel for Fox Book instead of a sequel. Oops?)
- Write Define Love, approx. 30,000 words. (Yeah this is in the queue after Ring The Hero’s Bell, which means that with two other Kaditeos novels and a Fox Book novel ahead of it in the queue, this one was NEVER going to be completed in 2020, past me what were you THINKING?)
- Complete 6 short stories. (Okay I did well on this front. In actual fact, I wrote 25 short stories last year. Oh, wow. Twenty-five. o.O Sixteen of these are super short and are collected in It All Changes Now, and one of these ended up long enough in edits to be a stand-alone novelette – it’s Rush Job, my next release 🙂 )
- Work on Moon Shot. (Yep, did this. I wrote 10,000 words in the book, woot woot.)
- Release A Fox Of Storms And Starlight. (YES, HURRAH.)
- Trial review boxes. (OMG these turned into the Fan Kits and they are even more awesome than I could ever have hoped for, and I am SO GRATEFUL for Kickstarter campaigns that are making these possible!!!!!!!)
Huh.
Okay.
Well, 2020 was not a trashfire, writing-wise. I wrote lots of short stories and published Trust Issues, A Fox Of Storms And Starlight, How To Map and It All Changes Now, as well as all the 2020 Inklets. Woot.
Good to know.
Oh, and How Not To Acquire A Castle was runner up for Best Book in the ACT Publishing Awards 2020! That’s pretty cool, too.
This year, I’m aiming for a slightly more sane plan (though still optimistically unrealistic, no doubt, as my annual plans always are).
This month, I need to get Bones Of The Sea complete. (Oh, this has a cover now! I shall show you next week!) This will be my Q2 release (this is the plan, anyway), and I’m hoping to launch a Kickstarter for it, complete with Fan Kit Minis, on or around Feb 1. It’s a YA outdoor adventure fantasy with carnivorous mist, magical bones, and somewhat of a quest. Yay!
After that, I really need to get Moon Shot done, because of Promises To Children. It’s at 10k out of a planned 50, but I think I might end up chucking most of what I have and starting over, because I did a lot of refining of the worldbuilding for Rush Job, which is set in the same universe (though centuries in the future). The good thing about that though is that now I know exactly what I’m aiming for, so the writing should progress more smoothly.
Then I really need to tackle A Stag Of Hope And Memory for realsies. Storm Foxes is planning to be a duology at the moment, so Stag Book will wrap the events up. Hopefully. In theory. *side-eyes the prequel novella that appeared last time I tried to write Stag Book*.
Then, actually and again for realsies, Define Good, because I need to get back to Kaditeos. There are five books in the main story arc, three for Mercury and two for Chiara. In theory you should be able to read the Mercury and Chiara books independently, so Chiara might seem like the beginning of a new series in that world, BUT it DOES set things up for Mercury #2, so I want to have that clearly sorted in my mind before moving on the Mercury #2 (How Not To Ring The Hero’s Bell).
Assuming that that all goes according to plan (stop, stop laughing, just stop), I’d also like to do a huge massive edit of Aphelion, a sci fi novella also set in the Witch Blue universe like Rush Job and Moon Shot. It is, in fact, set on the same space station as Rush Job! The draft has been malingering since 2015, and I’m keen to boot it out the door to finished adulthood.
As well as that, I have 13 short stories to write because of more Promises To Children, plus another 5 articles for Aurealis. (My article on the history and symbolism of vampires was just turned in this week, and it’ll be out in the February issue of Aurealis, yay!)
And, if everything goes vveerrrryyyyy smoothly, there’s also a sneaky lil Christmas paranormal romance I’m dying to write. But that’s my reward for finishing all my actual commitments first, so who knows if I’ll get to it. We’ll all have to wait and see.
ALSO there will be Fan Kits/Fan Kit Minis for Dreaming Of Forests, Bones Of The Sea, A Stag Of Hope And Memory, A Moment Of Roses And Sunshine, and maybe also Moon Shot if I get the book done in a timely fashion 🙂
So that’s about it! Not a bad writing year last year (and certainly significantly better than the personal trashfire that was 2019), and hopefully an even better one again this year as my health continues to mostly improve. (*stabs insomnia in the guts*)
Tune in next week for a sneaky cover reveal of Bones Of The Sea, and let me know if there’s anything you’re dying for me to hurry up and write! 😀 (Also, sign up to my mailing list that I attempt to send out every second month if you want new release info and special subscriber discounts.)
PS Oh look, I found my 2020 planning posts here, in February and March!