2013 Review, Part Two: Writing

How about that, a double post day...what is this, a flashback to my LiveJournal days?

2013, The Year In Review, Part 2: The Writing

I honestly believed in my heart of hearts that this was going to be the year that I got my deal. Obviously, it wasn't. But I'm not going to focus on that right now. Most of that is out of my hands now, so there's not much to carry on about. Anyway, let's talk about writing.

I felt like this was one of my worst years writing since I spent a good portion of time working on revisions and rewriting, so it was hard to do "word counts" for those things. And they look bloated because I may work on two chapters that only need light cleaning up in one night so it looks like I wrote 7,000 words and the next day I have a chapter that needs to be blown up and I only get 700.

I keep a writing log in Excel and I usually quit on it at some point (October this year) because I don't know exactly how to handle revisions/rewrites in my word counts.

Anyway, a review of what I wrote this year:

• SISTERS OF KHODA, YA fantasy, 2nd rewrite (112k).
• TOURNAMENT OF PRINCES, YA fantasy, plan, abandoned.
• WINTER'S SORROW, Fantasy novella, 2 rewrites (31k).
• TOURNAMENT OF PRINCES, YA scifi, 1st draft started, back burnered (~3.5 k done).
• THE WRONG PATH, Fantasy short story, 1st draft. (3k).
• THE SEVEN LABORS OF NICK JABLONSKY, YA contemp, 1st draft (~12k done).
• WINTER'S DISCORD, YA fantasy, 9th rewrite (131k).

By my count, that's about 300k, give or take....maybe I was a little more productive than I thought. I think the last draft of DISCORD is damn good and I think the TOURNAMENT and LABORS have loads of potential. SISTERS does too. I have a really thorough beta reading it right now and she's already given me amazing notes for the first three chapters and how to fix them. I'm very excited.

As for 2014, what do I have planned? Well, I haven't gotten my official 2014 notebook, so I haven't written a formal plan, but as I see it, here's what I plan on doing:

• Finish LABORS and TOURNAMENT drafts.
• Rewrite SISTERS.
• Plan the sequels and prequel novellas to DISCORD. Possibly draft one of the novels and the accompanying novella.
• Plan and draft the follow-up to SISTERS, tentatively titled THE ROAD TO STANDISH. (Part of the YOUNG WEAPONMASTER series)
• Work on a novelette or two based in the WEAPONMASTERS world.
• Work on a short story or three.
• Plan and write something that my daughter would enjoy.
• Plan and write something that my nephew would enjoy.

I've written a ton on writing routines. Now it's time to stick to that routine.

Wish me luck.