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A Sale is here!
This is it! The Day is here! Thank you all for following along this year. I’m so excited to be dropping this book. I will be doing more blog posts and videos this week. As I always say, it’s an exciting time to be an author! WOO WOO!
Monday Update: Stay on target. Stay on target!
63,190 words.
So far for this month, I’ve written 63,190 words.
I…no, seriously. I’m astonished. I was a touch behind, but now…I’m a tiny bit ahead. I’ll be doing my words in a little bit. I don’t want to lose that tiny bit. I’d like to stay on target.
Never did I think I’d maintain this pace for half the month. Now with ten writing days left, it looks like I might actually make it. Another 30,000 words and I’ll do it. I’m not sure what to say. I guess we’ll see where I land.
As I said from the start of this challenge, I’d be happy to hit half my goal. That would have been 44,000 words. I’m already past that so I’m excited! Like… very excited! Currently, I’m 100,000 words ahead of my annual goal. I think I’m going to leave that goal of 438,000 for 2017 in the dust. In fact, I’m already looking at 2018. I’ll be bumping up that goal to 2000 words a day and see where that takes me. It’s very likely I’ll come close to that goal this year, but we’ll wait and find out. I’ve a couple more challenge months I’ve set aside, so we’ll see where that takes all this.
I’m also thrilled that I’m knee-deep into Almost-Super Heroes 2. I’m so excited that I decided to do a little timelining on when these books will drop. As I said in the last post, I’m looking at a 1 year, 5 year, and 10 year plan. As it stands, here’s what I’ll be dropping for the rest of the year.
July 1st, 2017 – Golden West 3: Showdown
September 1st, 2017 – Giant Robot Planetary Competition 2: Villain
November 1st, 2017 – Almost-Super Heroes 1: Escape
Yes, I’ve already plotted out 2018 releases as well. All of this will lead up to the Military Sci-Fi trilogy I have planned with the 4th book in V&A Shipping, GRPC, and Almost-Super Heroes all tying in.
In total this entire story arc will take place across 15 books. Yes, a massive undertaking. That’s a lot of books. A lot of teams. A lot of moving parts. To be honest, at this stage in my writing, I’m finally ready to take it all on. I can’t wait to start dropping books over the next two years to see what happens.
All of this wouldn’t be possible if I hadn’t challenged myself to see what was actually possible. I’ve had a few of you following along and thank you for your encouragement. It means a lot to me. I’ve cleared away many roadblocks and mental challenges that I’ve had. Those prevented me from really allowing myself to move forward with this.
I’ve got a lot of words to write and I’m going out tonight (Yes, I still have a life beyond writing) so I’m off to make words happen.
Until Next Time!
Stay Awesome!
Monday Update: My 5 Year Plan.
My kid has a thing. My family had a thing. I need to be somewhere else. I’m tired. It was a long day and I just want to relax. I’ve got so much else to do. My favorite show it on! I’ll just watch the news for a little bit.
The list can go on forever. I get it. I honestly do. There are a billion excuses that can be made for not writing. The biggest being “I need to do my job.” Ok, that’s not en excuse. You need to do your day job to pay the bills. It can’t be your excuse for doing nothing.
I have a day job. I watch TV with my wife. I do things for my favorite daughter. I spend time with family, friends, go see movies, etc. I’m doing all that.
I’m also writing 3000 words a day. On average! If you recall last week, I put up a bit of a buffer. This week I had some other things going on and didn’t write 3000 words a day every day. Here are the numbers.
Monday: 3127
Tuesday: 4314
Wednesday: 3042
Thursday: 3292
Friday: 1427
Saturday: 2040
Sunday: 720
Yes, that’s only 2566 words per day. I needed to be out of town on Friday and Sunday was Mother’s day. Saturday I was plain wiped out and took a 4 hour long nap.
I had excuses. I still wrote each day. I wanted to hit my numbers, but life prevented me. I still found time though. So, I lost my buffer. I was a day and a half ahead of schedule. Now, I’m dead on. This week isn’t about getting caught up or trying to get ahead. No. It’s about staying on track. It’s about making sure excuses don’t get in my way. It’s about setting my priorities and moving forward.
For the month I’m sitting on 42,127 words. Honestly? I’m still shocked I’m hitting the numbers I’m hitting. I set this goal and like all my other goals, I’d be happy hitting half my target. To think that I’m on track to hit my goal, I’m stunned.
I’m also having a great time. I’m getting stories done I’ve been waiting to get done. I cleared away all my excuses. I communicated my goals with my family. They’re helping me and pushing me. Motivating me. I have friends both IRL and online giving me encouragement. It’s empowering. it’s a driving factor and helping me put up the numbers you’re seeing.
I’ve not only broken through a writing block that’s plagued me for years, I’ve also overcome the misconceptions of I need to write slow to write well. I blew past the myth that I could only write X number of books a month. From what I can tell, at this point, is there is no true upper limit other than the ones I put on myself.
I took 53 days to write GRPC2. I took 32 days to write Golden West 3. Sure, one was 97,000 words and the other 80,000 words, but guess what, they’re both done. Yes, last week I finished Golden West 3. That trilogy is done. Finished. I most likely won’t go back into that world of revisit those characters. I have a different direction for my writing now and I need a lot of books done to start on that target.
Yes, I still have a master plan. Do you want to know what it is? Here is goes.
Golden West 3 will come out later this year. Probably July. I need to record book 2 and book 3 for audio. Book 1 is already recorded. Then I’ll look at releasing GRPC2. I need to record books 1 and 2 so it’ll most likely be September before I drop that book. Then I want to release Almost-Super Heroes 1 in November. I need to record that one as well. I’m currently writing ASH2 and should have it done before the end of June (vacations need to happen). After that I’ll be writing GRPC3 and ASH3 as well as V&A Shipping 3. If I can keep up my writing pace, I’ll have those done before the end of the year and start dropping them in January, March, May. That will complete what will be leading into a Military Sci Fi trilogy. There will also be ASH4, GRPC4, and V&A4. That will be a total of 12 sci books before the end of 2018.
That’s when I’ll reassess where I’m at. If I release that many scifi books in 2 years and I get little or no traction, I’ll be flipping to Fantasy for two years. That’s when I’ll jump into Of Gnomes and Dwarves and write the 10 books I intend for that series. I’ll also write a few books in the Astel series. That will be nearly 2 years of fantasy.
After that, I have a fun idea for another series, plus I can work on books in the Supernatural Learning series. I could easily spend a year writing 10 books in each of those series (I’m planning on those being 30,000-40,000 words long each, so much shorter books.
Now, that’s a five year plan, subject to change and depending on the level of success for any of those. If my Sci Fi takes off, Fantasy will take a back seat. My goal is to make money at this endeavor, so if I’m making money and having fun writing the stories, why would I stop? If I’m not hitting the numbers I want to hit, I have SO many other stories I can write.
After 5 years, I’ll assess where I’m at. I’ll keep writing, but if after 5 years, I’m not getting any traction, I’ll most likely write for another 5 years and then reassess again. If I write at this level for 10 years and I’m still not making money at it, I most likely won’t be having any fun with it either at that point.
So let’s review the 5 year plan. Shall we?
I’ll be writing 10 Sci Fi books to have a total of 12 across 4 different series. I’ll be writing 10-15 fantasy books. I’ll be writing 20 paranormal fantasy. I’ll write somewhere between 40-50 books in 5 years of varying length across different genres. So you think that’ll make an impact? I honestly have no idea what will happen. I’ll hope for the best, but honestly have no expectation that this will be anything more than me writing a lot of books.
So you’re reading all that right. it sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? Not if you look at the pace I’m writing. it’s actually less than I’m capable of. And it’s all subject to change at any given time. It’s subject to life happening. It’s subject to a large number of factors all which may be out of my control at any give time.
My hope for the coming months it to average 60,000 words a month. I know I can do more and get ahead of schedule, but mostly I want to set an achievable goal and have shorter term targets like I’m doing to try and push myself from time to time. I don’t want anxiety to creep in and I give up.
There it is. It’s out there. My 5 year plan. go back up and reread that Derek Jeter quote. I saw it on a friend’s feed and had to share. There are a lot of writers out there that are better than I am. Faster. More popular. More successful. I’m not measuring my success on theirs. Don’t measure your success on mine. Work as hard as you can toward your own goals. Set your targets. push yourself. if you know you’re not putting in the time you know you could be, push harder. If you’re not working as hard as you can on your own goals, there’s only one person that can change that.
I’m off to get my 3000 words in. It’s late, it was a rough day. I watched too much news. Now it’s time to put those excuses away and write.
Until Next Time.
Stay Awesome!
Monday Update: Wait…what?
Call me nuts. Call me crazy. I spent the last two weeks of April trying to write 3K per day. And failed. I did write a lot of words over those two weeks and had a LOT of fun. Even though I failed, I still succeeded by writing more words than I thought I would. Percentagewise, I made it to 77% of my objective. 42000 words in two weeks. Sheer madness!
So, I thought, why not try to do that for an entire month! Even if I fail, I’ll still have written a lot of words. Right? Why not try and see how close I can get. 21,000 words a week for 4 full weeks? I must be off my rocker.
How did the first week of May go?
I’m glad you asked.
Total doomed failure yet again.
um… Jay…no, it wasn’t.
Wait…What do you mean it wasn’t a failure?
Just that, you succeeded.
What? I hit my target of 21,000 words for the first week of May?
Well, not really.
I told you! FAILURE!
You overshot it by 3200 words.
*double take* Wait…what?
Yes, you read that right. I didn’t hit 21,000 words. I passed 21,000 words in the first week. 24,165 words to be exact. I know, I know! I’m shocked as well. After missing badly the first two weeks, I ran past it on the third week. Who’d’a thunk?
Here’s the breakdown of week 1
Monday: 3002
Tuesday: 3007
Wednesday: 3028
Thursday: 3067
Friday: 3090
Saturday: 3887
Sunday: 5084
I crossed 67,000 words in Golden West 3. I’m around 20,000 words from the end. That means, if I stay on pace, I’ll blow past the end this week! I started the book just 29 days ago. I’ll be done with the first draft in less than 40 days. I’m flabbergasted.
Now, I knew I could write quickly. I know I type faster than average. But with life, work, family time, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, friends, etc. I honestly didn’t think I’d hit my target, but I thought it would be fun to try.
If all goes well, I’ll be done with GW3 in 7 days. So far this month I’ve written 24,165 words. So far this year I’ve written 230,982 words. I’m more than half-way past my annual goal I set at the beginning of the year. Remember that? 438,000 words on the year. 1200 words per day. I thought it would be challenging. Averaging that many words a day for an entire year? I didn’t think I’d make it. Now I’m contemplating how far beyond that initial goal I’ll make it.
Not only that, how many books I’ll get written at this pace. I’ve already finished two books this year. I’m coming up on the end of a third. Mike and I will have Jack Kane 2 done soon. Before the end of the month, I’ll have these books done and unpublished.
Jack Kane 2: Jack Kane and the Kaiser
Almost-Super Heroes
Golden West 3
Of Gnomes and Dwarves 1: Chance Encounters
Giant Robot Planetary Competition 2: Villain
That’s 5 titles under my belt, ready to go. One will require publisher edits and timeline. The others are mine, all mine, to do with as I please. And I shall. In my own time. I was planning on starting my release cycle in July. I may postpone that slightly. I don’t mean to tease or not give you stories to read. I’m still working through how to best do this for maximum impact. As you can see, all of these titles are different series. They’re scattered all over. My brain wants to just drop them and move on. But I need to think about the business aspect of all this.
OGAD is a fantasy series. GW is steampunk. Jack Kane is steampunk/humor. ASH and GRPC are both set in the V&A Shipping universe.
What I’ve done is spread my efforts among many titles. I had the theory of “write one of each, see what sticks” and I didn’t give any of them a chance to make an impact by continuing my efforts in one direction. So I’m having to rethink my entire gameplan.
Yes, Golden West 3 will come out first. That’ll end that trilogy. It was always intended as a trilogy, it’ll be finished as a trilogy and I’ll be done with that story line. Jack Kane will come out when the publisher is ready to put it out. When I finish GW3, I’ll start work on Almost-Super Heroes 2 (already have the entire plot in my head). Then I’ll go ASH3, then GRPC3, and V&A3. Why? Well, let me fill you in.
All three of those titles, V&A, GRPC, and ASH, all are set in the same Universe and if you follow along with those stories, I’m leading into a major event. That major event will be a new trilogy that I’ve been planning for over a decade, but my brain was never to the point I thought I could pull off the storyline. Now I think I can. With those titles, I’ll be leading into a Military SciFi trilogy. I plan on making it epic and there will also be tie-in novels with the three other titles giving different perspectives of the event that will occur.
That means I want to get deeper into those books before I start dropping so I can release faster (one every two months). So you will see a couple of titles drop this year. Of Gnomes and Dwarves will have to wait until I get through my SciFi phase.
Why?
When I start dropping fantasy, I want to be knee deep into fantasy and drop that series all in a row. Not one book, then two years later, the next. I want to drop series titles in rapid succession. I’ll do the same with my Supernatural Learning series. I’ll do the same with <top secret series title>. I’ve picked up a head of steam. I have a direction. I have the motivation and the power of momentum behind me.
What I’ve always lacked over the years has been focus and direction. I’m somewhat confident I have both of those now and going into 2018, I plan to make a big splash…finally. It’ll be an exciting time and I’m glad you’re here at the beginning of it all. I’ve had many false starts over the years, but this time, I’m ready.
I’ve got a LOT of words to write over the next few years. If I don’t write ’em, no one else will. Stick around. Watch this space. In a couple months, things will start to get interesting.
Until Next Time!
Stay Awesome!
Monday Update: 3K a Day Until May!
Hey, Howdy, Hey, Gang! I hope everything is well in your world. Mine? Crazy, Hectic, Fun! So much going on and I’m having a great time!
Let me start with a breakdown of how I finished out my Lent goal. If you recall, my plan was to try to average 2750 words per day (Pulp Speed 1) until the end of Lent. Well. I failed. There’s no easy way to put it, I dropped the ball. Had I stayed on pace, I should have written 63,250 words during those 23 days. Instead, I only managed 56,112. Horrible.I know. I hang my head in shame. I only managed 2440 words per day on average.
Oh, who am I kidding? As I keep saying over and over. Set your goals higher than you can reach so it forces you to stretch and fight and claw your way toward that goal. I do NOT look at what I did as a failure. Not even close. I failed better than many succeed. That’s why I pushed myself. I know I could have hit the word goal had I not done one thing in the middle of all that.
What happened, Jay?
So glad you asked.
I jumped from one series into another. If I’d jumped into GRPC3, V&A3, or ever Almost-Super Heroes 2, I probably would have maintained that speed or done even better. Instead, I jumped into a world I haven’t been in for 3 years. That meant I needed to re-read two full novels, make notes, and still try to tap out a few words a day while I did that. Not an excuse, just a reality of what happened. It also took me a few more days to get them back into my head so I could start pounding out words.
Where am I at with that story?
Golden West 3: Showdown, will be the final book in the Golden West trilogy. That’s why I wanted to complete it. I’ve gotten nearly 12,500 words done in the story thus far. I’m excited. I’m ready to rip through this book and git it done. I’ve had these scenes planned out in my head since I typed the first words of the first book. I know how the entire trilogy would end. How the final few scenes would play out. Just like all the other books I want to do this year, I’m crazy excited to write this one.
That said, now that I’m ready to go on a tear, why not give myself a bigger challenge? I mean, come on, why not? I set a HUGE goal for Lent, and I crushed it! That means I’m capable of more, right?
Oh, yeah, Lent goal. I should probably give you the final numbers on that, eh?
This year, Lent was 46 days long. I wanted to write, on average, 2000 words per day or a grand total of 92,000 words. What I wound up doing was averaging 2250 words per day for a total of 103,495 words. So I set, met, and surpassed my original goal. Was it set too low? I don’t think so. I was coming into this year with a nearly two-year hiatus of not writing much at all. By “not much” I mean maybe 10,000 words per year for two years. That’s awful.
I set the goal at something I thought I might be able to obtain. I never thought I’d fly past it. I honestly didn’t.
So, back to where I was before. I need a new goal. A new challenge to get me through to the end of April. Something that might be beyond my grasp, but unless I try, I’ll never know. From today, April 17, 2017, until May 1st, 2017 I plan to write (on average) 3000 words per day. 3K a Day Until May! I’m back into a groove with this book. I’m excited to hit some of the upcoming scenes, why not? Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Right?
What does that mean for word totals? If I hit my target of 3000 words a day, I’ll write 42,000 words over the next 14 days. That’s nuts! That’s crazy! I must be off my rocker! No, being off my rocker would be trying to hit triple my daily word count which I’ve set at 1,200 words per day this year. 3,600 words a day? That sounds very difficult. So let’s stick with 3K per Day Until May. That also has a better ring to it.
Again, this is all words of new fiction. It won’t be blog posts or emails or anything like that. It’s ONLY new words in a fiction world. Be that Golden West 3, or Jack Kane 2 (If I can nudge Mr. Plested along, wink wink). Who knows what’ll happen. I surely don’t! But it sounds like fun to try. Ready to watch me fail in spectacular fashion? Here we go!
Until Next Time,
Stay Awesome!
Monday Update: Progress is Progressing
Hey Howdy Hey and welcome to another Monday. I hope everything is going wonderful for you.
So I decided Monday seemed like the best day to post an update. Why? Well, because it’s the start of the week for most and it’s a good stepping off point. Let’s see where I’m at and where I want to be.
When last we spoke, I’d finished GRPC2 the day before. That meant jumping into a new book. I didn’t jump into a ‘new’ book so much as jumped into a book I’d already started. That, for me, is even more difficult. What happened before? Where was I going with all this? What little secrets did I want to reveal? What foreshadowing did I do?
Let me say this here and now. Writing faster means I don’t lose track of those things. When it took me months to write a book, I would lose track of a little item and would forget why I’d dropped it in. Writing faster means I can drop a hint, and a dozen chapters later, I can get the payoff. Since it’s only a few days away (and not two or three months). I’m liking that.
So, I jumped back into Almost-Super Heroes after being away from the story for nearly three years! This book, in a way, will tie into the V&A Shipping universe. Giant Robot Planetary Competition is also in the V&A Shipping universe. I plan on tying all these books together. Without meaning to, Billy Barbarian is also in that universe, but won’t be directly involved with the current storyline I’m weaving through all the other titles. I will say no more on this, ever! You’ll have to read and follow along with the books to know what I’m up to. No spoilers to you!
Back to Almost-Super Heroes. The week started out…bumpy. I chose to go back and re-read/edit the first 40,000 words I’d already written. As I said, it’d been over three years. I knew where I was going overall and how it tied into the major story arc across all the titles. So over four days with cuts and additions, I only had a net gain of 3300 words, BUT I knew everything that was going on. I was able to get back into the character’s heads. It all started to click once more. All those ‘candy bar’ scenes were still in my mind and waiting to jump onto the page.
Over the last three days of the week, I knocked out 8300 words. I keep saying, I want to average 2000 words a day during Lent. I’m not going to get upset because one of those days I cut an entire 2500 word chapter and only netted a total of 400 words. Yeah, I wrote 2900 words and I could have counted that, but I’m in an existing story. I’m going by net gain. As I said, those first days were bumpy, but the story is better for it.
Did I manage 2000 words a day last week? Nope. Total miss. I only had 1661 words per day. That’s not important. What is? That I’m still averaging over 2000 words per day for Lent overall. I was able to pound on the keyboard and still hit my words I needed to. This week I will get ahead. Why?
First, Mike Plested, you remember him? My writing partner on Jack Kane? Well, he tagged me so tonight I wrote the next chapter in Jack Kane 2. So I’ve got 2100 words down, and I’m ready to try and do the same with Almost-Super Heroes.
I’ve got a new goal and this is what I should have done for Lent because I think it would have been a true challenge.
Remember a couple weeks back when I was talking about Dean Wesley Smith and Pulp Speed writing? Well, for the rest of Lent I intend to write at Pulp Speed 1. It’s not that many more words per day (average). It’s 2750 words a day. Guess what? I already did that for 3 days without thinking about it. I’ll do it again today. I’m fairly confident I can do this for the remainder of Lent.
If I do, what’ll happen?
First, it means I’ll crush my Lent goal. If I stay on target of 2000 words per day, I’ll hit 92000 words easily. If I write at Pulp Speed 1 for the rest of Lent, I’ll hit 110000 words over those 46 days. I’ll be at 20% over my goal. Being that I’ve never (ever!) hit my Lent goal of 2000 words per day, this would be a big deal to not only hit my goal but surpass it.
Another benefit, I would be 44 days ahead of my annual goal! That means I could have 44 days of 0 word count, and still be on target. That’s huge to bank that many words. There will be time off. There will be vacations. There will be days where there aren’t enough hours to find time to sit and type. I’m taking advantage of having those days now!
What else will it mean?
First, I’ll have a second book done before Lent ends. My goal is to finish five books this year. I don’t count finishing this book as cheating because based on my goal, I would have written 4.75 books, roughly. That means getting this book done and out the door is part of that process. Rather than target partial books, I’m shooting for 5 total books completed.
If I can nudge my good friend Mike along, Jack Kane will be done very soon as well. JK2 is already 80% complete. We’re in the homestretch! I’m excited to bring this book to market. These characters are so much fun to write. Hopefully, we’ll jump right into book 3.
That means very soon, I’ll have three books done this year. Two of those would be half books, so I’m not counting 3 books I wrote, but only 2. I will need to write three more books to hit my 5 book goal.
Will I succeed? Will I fail? You know what, I could stop writing right this moment, and I would still consider this year a win. Why? I have a writing streak of 65 days. I’ve already written 128,000 words. That’s more than some professional writers I follow knock out in a year when they produce one book. Yes. I did that in 65 days.
Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t consider myself a pro by any stretch of the imagination. What I am doing is having a GREAT time writing fun stories I’ve wanted to write for years. Hell, for decades. I have so many books in my head that if I kept up this pace for 10 years (5 books a year for 10 years) I still wouldn’t run out of ideas and fun stories to tell.
So I’m glad you’re along for the ride. Let’s see if I can keep up Pulp Speed 1 until next Monday as a start, shall we? This should be a hoot. Check back here next week to see if I hit my numbers. I won’t cheat. I won’t fudge. I won’t do anything other than count my net gain of words and report to you next week. I fudged my numbers in the past for no good reason as I was the only one I was fooling with those numbers. No one else ever saw my spreadsheet.
If any of you are interested in the spreadsheet I use, I could look at posting a read-only version somewhere and giving it public access. Then you can all follow along 🙂
I’m off to make more words happen. Only 750 words to go for today’s goal, but I’ll try for more.
Until Next Time!
Stay Awesome!
Monday Update: First book of the year DONE!
Hey, Gang!
It’s Monday! WOO WOO! Most people hate Mondays. I’ve never been sure why. Me, I’m a Monday kind of guy. Well, I’m also a morning type of guy. don’t hate me because of that. Hate me because I’m beautiful.
That said, I figure I need to start posting far more regularly. I know, I know. I keep saying that and then I don’t do anything about it. So, let’s see how often I can post my progress on Mondays. Maybe other days I’ll post something different.
Let’s start with the numbers and we’ll go from there.
Streak of days writing: 57 consecutive.
Total words written: 113,695
Average words per day: 1,995
Lowest day: 55
Highest day: 5,444
Number of books completed: 1
Let’s dig in, shall we? I decided to write, daily. No matter how many or how few. If I’m not on vacation or doing something where I cannot get to a computer, I plan to write every day. It shouldn’t matter. Writers write. That’s rule #1. I plan to write daily. So far, I’m good on that goal.
Over 100,000 words already this year. I’m stunned too. I honestly didn’t think I’d get there so fast. I started out 25,000 words behind, but I didn’t allow that to be a negative. I started from day 1 and sat and wrote. Some days I wrote more than others. That’s why I posted the min/max numbers. I had a few low days, a few very high days. Some days I didn’t want to write and started late (after 10pm some days). It’s all been an exercise to sit and write daily. That was my first goal above all else. The second was to write an average of 1200 words per day. You can see I’m blowing that out of the water. I went from being 21 days behind schedule when I typed my very first word this year, to being 16 days ahead of schedule. I love my spreadsheet 🙂
The biggest thing was not to view the spreadsheet as punishment. I’d done that before and got depressed and sad. I hated writing, but it wasn’t because of the spreadsheet, it was other things happening in my life at the time. I haven’t had this much fun writing for a few years. The past two years I barely wrote. Let’s not dwell on that and look forward, shall we?
Looking back at my past spreadsheets for reference (we’ll get to the future in a moment, I promise), in 2012 I wrote 267,000 words. 2013 – 172,000. 2014-130000. I didn’t record my words in 2015 or 2016 because I had almost given up writing by then. So far this year I’m at 113,695. I’m on target to blow away all those previous years. I just need to not focus on how I missed my word count goal every single year I tried. That’s a recipe for failure. Instead, I need to look at where I am presently, and where I’ll be if I sit and write again today. Each day gets me closer to that goal. If I do miss a day, not a big deal. Try again tomorrow. Every little bit adds to the whole.
Books completed? One? Really? Yes! Last night I wrote the last chapter in Giant Robot Planetary Competition Book 2: Villain. I’m super excited about this book. I can’t wait to edit, cover it, and publish it. This will be my first book in…a while. Hopefully the first book of many that’ll happen this year. Honestly, I didn’t know if I would be able to keep this output going. I really thought I would peter out, give up, suffer from imposter syndrome. In the end, I figured out what I wanted to do was to create art for me. If others like it, bonus. If not, I’m still happy with the book I wrote.
What’s next on my plate? Remember, I’m in the middle of my Lent goal. I’m 3 days ahead, but I don’t want to stop. I thought about starting something new, but I decided to dive back into a book I was half-way done with. Almost-Super Heroes is another fun book and I’m jumping back in tonight. It’s sitting at 45,000 words. I was targeting 80,000. Let’s see what happens. If I keep on target, I’ll complete this book before the end of Lent.
Oh, speaking of word count, I almost forgot. I had targeted 90,000 words for GRPC2. I did the same for GRPC1. Book 1 came in at 96,420. Book 2 came in at 97,793. I have a hard time hitting targets when I’m having so much fun with the characters. I honestly think I’ve found my voice again and my style as well. It makes it so the words just fall off my fingers tips and onto the keyboard.
I’m writing again. I’m having fun again. Now I just need to be consistent with my output. Next week, I’ll make a similar post.If you made it this far and want to BETA read GRPCs (warts and all) drop me a line at jay@ofgnomesanddwares.com with the type you’d liked and I’ll fire it off to you. It will help if you’ve read GRPC1 first, so if you need that one as well, let me know and I’ll send both on over.
If you made it this far and want to BETA read GRPCs (warts and all) drop me a line at jay@ofgnomesanddwares.com with the type you’d liked and I’ll fire it off to you. It will help if you’ve read GRPC1 first, so if you need that one as well, let me know and I’ll send both on over. It’s rough, and unedited, but I look forward to hearing what you think.
I need to get to doing some writing. Those words won’t write themselves.
Until Next Time
Stay Awesome!
JR
Starting From Zero
Well hello there! How’ve you been? I’ve missed you. I’m glad you are still here with me.
Yes, I’ve been very very quiet over the past couple of years. There’s been a random post here and a random post there. I never intended to abandon the blog and I really should have been more open about life, the universe, and everything. (42)
Let’s just say that life happens. I let it get away from me. Writing wasn’t happening. I didn’t feel like writing. My brain just wasn’t in the game. Yes, for two years I was more focused on other things. Those things are very important, like family, friends, my job, and my health.
So I came into this year and I wanted, NAY! Needed to start writing again. It had to happen. I was going to hit the ground running! I had a fire behind me.
<cue laughter>
Yes, as you can guess, writing didn’t happen on day 1. not even on day 2. Sadly not even on day 21. But on day 22! Yes! on Day 22 words started. I had procrastinated getting my part of Jack Kane 2 off to my writing partner. Yes, I’m a slacker. But feeling bad about not writing wasn’t going to get words written.
So, on day 22 I wrote words. It always feels good when I sit at the keyboard and make stuff up. Last year, the election in this country drained me. I don’t talk about that here. That’s not what I write for. You want to discuss the election, please call your representative and talk with them about how they are or they aren’t representing you. That’s their job, not mine.
Back to writing (you can see how much the election has been on my mind. It’s very distracting). ANYWAY! Putting the election behind me, I decided the next day that I needed to pick up on a project that I meant to do last year and never got to. I had every excuse for not working on it and, again, I felt terrible. Still, bad feelings weren’t getting words written. So I sat, I wrote.
That project is a Star Wars Fan Fiction. It’s exciting for me to be dipping my toe into the Star Wars universe. My partner on that one was also very excited to get this going. We had many discussions, laid out a basic plot last year. We got all the characters in place. It was all set to go, then I fell down on the job.
So once again, putting it all behind me, I started working on writing up the Audio Script for the first episode. Yes, Audio Script. This is a totally different writing muscle. Way different than sitting and writing prose. I won’t say it’s more difficult, it’s just a different way of writing a story. It’s still writing a story though.
Over five days, I knocked out the script. It felt awesome. We’ll be reviewing it later this week and I can’t wait to get it cast and get to work on the second episode (there will be 6 in the first season).
So I was having fun with that script, but at the same time, I wanted to get working on my books once more. So at the same time I was working on the script, I would finish a scene, and I would start on a new book.
What am I writing?
A fan reached out to me who left me a great review of Orphan: GRPC1. I had wanted to start the book two and work on book three so I could write V&A 3. That little bit of encouragement was all I needed.
BAM! I started work on a new book.
All this also started at the same time I spoke with Kimi from Tale Chasing. She was excited about getting to work on her next Guardians novel. I can’t wait to read it! i loved the first, I’m sure the second will be awesome. She also helped fuel my fire. Thank You Kimi! *wave*
So what did all this add up to? Now that we’re at the end of the month and I only wrote for ten days. How did I do? How will I do going forward?
If my first few days of writing will be a streak I can carry on for the rest of the year, that has yet to be seen. I’m hoping for the best. But that I was able to write just shy of 20,000 words. Yes, ten days, 20,000 words. I am so excited that I’ve knocked out so many words. I’m ready to run into February and continue this streak.
If you’re waiting for GRPC2, I hope you won’t be waiting long. I’m already 10,000 words into the book. that’s about 1/8th of where I’m targeting. GRPC1 was roughly 80,000 words. I’m hoping GRPC2 will also be roughly 80,000 words. If things keep going the way they are, I hope to have it completed before the end of February (I write much faster when I get to the end of a book).
So things are looking up. I’m excited about writing again. Words are flowing and pending another life event, they’ll continue to flow. I also plan to blog more often. i want to keep you updated regularly. Fun times are ahead and I’m glad you’re there with me. Thank you.
Until Next Time!
WOO WOO!
Climbing the Charts!
V&A SHIPPING! STILL FREE! http://www.amazon.com/V-Shipping-J-R-Murdock-ebook/dp/B00B1MVTYM
I woke up this morning to see that V&A Shipping had reached #42 in free Space Opera! That’s quite exciting! My Goal and hope is to get it into the top 10 of Space Opera! Now that would be something.
But I cannot do this alone. I do need your help. If you have an Amazon account and you haven’t picked up a copy yet, please consider doing so. It will help move the book up the charts and help it gain some much needed visibility. And hey, you get a free ebook out of it. 🙂
I’ve sold a few copies of V&A Shipping II as well as a couple copies of Giant Robot Planetary Competition. This was the goal all along to help get some other titles a little bump while getting this one moving along.
If you’ve gotten a copy, THANK YOU! You’re awesome! If you’ve shared my post in your social media feeds, THANK YOU! You’re even awesomer! If you’d like to help a little more, please consider leaving a review on Amazon.com or goodreads.com. Both help tremendously.
Again, thank you for all your help and support.
Stay Awesome!
WOO WOO!
GIANT ROBOTS! Coming to smash a world near you!
What? Giant Robots? Yes, you heard right. I wrote a book about giant robots. Why? Because GIANT ROBOTS!
It was available for preorder, and now it’ officially up for sale! You can grab a copy right now for my $2.99!
I will apologize now if you don’t do Amazon. If you prefer an ePub version, drop me a note at jay@ofgnomesanddwarves.com and I will get you a copy straightaway!
For the rest of you that do Amazon. Hop on over to http://www.amazon.com/Giant-Robot-Planetary-Competition-Entry-ebook/dp/B010F2ON6Y/ and pick up a copy today!
If you help spread the word by posting on your social media (anywhere will do), drop me a line at the above email address letting me know where you posted with a link to your post and I will send you any other book in my catalog FREE! Yes, ANY of the books you see, I will send to you. Don’t have Jack Kane yet? Pick up a copy of GRPC, post about it on Social Media, BAM! Free ebook in your hands. (Oh, and I will be gifting the books to you through Amazon, so it helps if you kindle 🙂 )
If you’ve read the book and love it as much as I loved writing it, drop me a line, leave me a review, post about it on Social Media. Help me spread the word far and wide!
And thank you for being awesome!
J.R. Murdock 