I cringe every time I write goals now, because my reporting back always seems to center around all the reasons why I didn’t make my goals. It gets tiring really fast. It’s almost like my contrary nature makes me self-sabotage. I don’t know. It’s weird.

And yet, here I am writing down the goals I have in my head for 2019.

Writing

I’m sticking with the 5,000 words per week plan again. This should put me somewhere around 200,000 words for the year. I’ve already put together a production calendar that has blocked off vacation and travel time and noted events that may hamper production so I can hopefully plan better.

I also included ample plotting time in the calendar for each new book. I’ve found that I write better with an overview, a framework. It often gets changed on the fly, but giving myself space and time to plan the next book before diving in should help when it comes time to buckle down and write.

Publishing

I have two books that are in editing now. Hoping to get those published soon.

By the end of 2019 the plan is to have three more ready to go or already published.

That’s it. That’s all there is. I decided to keep it super simple this year, in hopes that it will be easier to achieve and evaluate at the end of the year.

Now that Star of Time is at the editor a book launch is looking pretty imminent. Frankly, the idea terrifies me, but I can’t stop now. The ball is rolling and all.

In the meantime, I’m not just sitting around twiddling my thumbs waiting for the editor to finish his work. I have a bunch of stuff to do. I thought I might list it here for you to see – and comment on. I love to hear what others are trying to do in the busiest month of the year*.

• Work towards completing my NaNoWriMo novel. This one is a bit of a departure for me (just like 2016, actually, though I never finished that one). It’s a sweet romance set in a little town in Colorado. I’m almost halfway in and still don’t completely hate it, so I thought I’d finish and see if the thing has legs. In the writing, I’ve found some side characters that would be easy to use as expansions into a series. Early stages yet, but…
• Tie up loose ends for the launch of Star of Time. These are book-related details. Think licenses for cover elements, working on front-matter, working on back-matter. I’d like to have that settled before the book comes back to me.
• Tie up loose ends on the business side of things. I bought my domain, and I set up a domain email address. I also started a newsletter (link in the sidebar if you’d like to sign up). I want to get a simple auto-responder ready to go.
• Complete my edit of Star of Fire. This is book 2. I’d love to be able to send it to the editor in January/February for a first-quarter 2018 release. Still, a lot depends on what happens with the edit of SoT.
• Plan the launch. Look, I have no illusions about how this is likely to go. I am a literal unknown, I’ll be tossing a book into the roiling waters of Amazon and crossing my fingers for the most part. But, I’ve watched a couple of other first-timers make some headway and I plan to evaluate and adapt their strategies for my book.
• Finish the plot plan for book three. That’s the next writing project. Looking to start that one probably mid-January.

* I would argue that May is equally as busy as December as literally every school in the area has parties, graduations, concerts, banquets, competitions, proms, dinners, celebrations, and awards ceremonies. I have friends who spend 14 hours a day attending these things for their kids every May. And yet, December gets all the glory.

This post originally appeared in May 2016. I’ve updated the information to reflect progress and plans. New info appears in bold.

I am trying to get this book done this month. No really, August is gonna make it happen.

And by done, I mean the second draft completed. Finishing at the end of August would put me at 13 weeks to write a full historical fantasy novel and redraft. At this point, I am targeting a finished length of about 80,000 words which feels right for this story. It took about 60 hours of writing to finish the first draft.

The Series

I planned this book to kick off a seven book series. For the direction I want to go, it just makes sense. I know I want to self-publish, but I don’t want to lose much visibility, so I am thinking of holding book one back until book three is almost ready to go. That way I can release books 1, 2, and 3 in quick succession. If I time it right I might be able to get book 4 and part of book 5 written in that time, based on how long it has taken me to do book 1. If I can then get 6 and 7 done I could potentially have a completed series in 18-24 months.

This is the part of the plan that is most in flux because there are so many life factors that have to be considered when planning something like this long term. For sure I want to publish the first 3 books pretty quickly. The rest is up in the air at the moment.

Writing Cycle

This is a super aggressive writing plan to get all three books drafted and somewhat edited by the end of 2016. Adjusted for summer off…

Book one first draft due May 31, 2016. Finished August 4, 2016 (summer off)
Book two working outline due June 3, 2016. Due August 31, 2016.

Book one first edit and notes due June 10, 2016. Due August 17, 2016.
Book two first draft due August 31, 2016. Due October 28, 2016.

Book one second draft due September 16, 2016. Due August 31, 2016.
Book two first edit and notes due September 30, 2016. Due November 4, 2016.

Book three working outline due October 7, 2016. Due November 11, 2016.
Book three first draft due December 16, 2016. Due January 13, 2017.

Publishing Cycle

This is more up in the air. I’ve never sent a book to an editor or beta readers or anything, so I really don’t know how long or how many passes, etc. But I want to publish book one in January 2017 at the latest, probably November 2016 at the earliest. Definitely not til January at this point.

That would put book two published between December and February, and book three published between January and March.

I know those are broad ranges, but until I get a little experience under my belt (and see if I can even keep up with my aggressive writing schedule) (Nope. But I’ve recalibrated) I just don’t know. These are penciled in dates that don’t even take into account getting covers, blurbs, etc done.

Final Thoughts

I’m glad to have a plan in writing. Heck, I’m glad to have a plan, period. Of course, I’ll update every step of the way. And hey, if anyone out there has any experience in this game and wants to let me know if this looks good/doable/sane I’d love to hear it.

I am trying to get this book done this month.

And by done, I mean the first draft completed. Finishing at the end of May would put me at 9 weeks to write a full historical fantasy novel. At this point, I am targeting a finished length of about 80,000 words which feels right for this story. It’s possible that it might go longer, but not by much. I won’t have a total of hours until the end of the book/end of May and that may affect the final plan here, but I thought I would lay out what I have so far.

The Series

I planned this book to kick off a seven book series. For the direction I want to go, it just makes sense. I know I want to self-publish, but I don’t want to lose much visibility, so I am thinking of holding book one back until book three is almost ready to go. That way I can release books 1, 2, and 3 in quick succession. If I time it right I might be able to get book 4 and part of book 5 written in that time, based on how long it has taken me to do book 1. If I can then get 6 and 7 done I could potentially have a completed series in 18-24 months.

This is the part of the plan that is most in flux because there are so many life factors that have to be considered when planning something like this long term. For sure I want to publish the first 3 books pretty quickly. The rest is up in the air at the moment.

Writing Cycle

This is a super aggressive writing plan to get all three books drafted and somewhat edited by the end of 2016.

Book one first draft due May 31, 2016.
Book two working outline due June 3, 2016.

Book one first edit and notes due June 10, 2016.
Book two first draft due August 31, 2016.

Book one second draft due September 16, 2016. Send to editor.
Book two first edit and notes due September 30, 2016.

Book three working outline due October 7, 2016.
Book three first draft due December 16, 2016.

Publishing Cycle

This is more up in the air. I’ve never sent a book to an editor or beta readers or anything, so I really don’t know how long or how many passes, etc. But I want to publish book one in January 2017 at the latest, probably November 2016 at the earliest.

That would put book two published between December and February, and book three published between January and March.

I know those are broad ranges, but until I get a little experience under my belt (and see if I can even keep up with my aggressive writing schedule) ) I just don’t know. These are penciled in dates that don’t even take into account getting covers, blurbs, etc done.

Final Thoughts

I’m glad to have a plan in writing. Heck, I’m glad to have a plan period. Of course, I’ll update every step of the way. And hey, if anyone out there has any experience in this game and wants to let me know if this looks good/doable/sane I’d love to hear it.

Back on April 1, I announced that my Camp NaNoWriMo goal was to write 30,000 words in the month of April. April was also the first full month that I tracked my writing and can produce some metrics around production.

Over 30 days, I wrote for 25.05 hours and produced 30,445 words. That’s 1,215 words per hour. Not too shabby, I think, especially if you go back and compare to my output from just since August 2015. My goal that month was just shy of 7,000 words. For the month. And I still only wrote just over 14,000 words.

The reality is that I write much faster with a plan in place. This is version 3.0 of this book, and the first time that I actually created a plot outline. Versions 1.0 and 2.0 were hot messes and it took 4 times as long to write. I will stand by this, but it was because even though I had a vague idea of a start and finish, I had no idea how to get from point A to point B. That alone caused way to much wandering around in the dark looking for the path and created books that weren’t even editable, much less publishable.

If you’re reading this, and you’re just starting out, please, please, please, don’t give up hope. It’s only after nearly three years and almost 1,000,000 words that I am even close to producing something that I wouldn’t be embarrassed to publish.

The bonus is that I feel like my stamina is increasing too, though that is not evident in my tracking. After my daughter’s wreck, with her car in the shop I have been back to Mom’s Taxi Service, which severely cut into writing time. I am hoping that after she gets her car back and we settle into our routine again I can prove what I feel in the numbers.