Happy New Year!
I hope you all safely celebrated the end of 2019. I spent a quiet night at home, ringing in the new year with the kids.
The Struggle
The last two years have been particularly trying for my family. In June 2018 we lost my mother-in-law, followed by grandfather in July 2018. In December 2018 my other grandfather passed at Christmas time. Then the following March we found out my grandmother only had a few months left. She passed in May of 2019. We’ve also experienced the death of a friend’s child in a horrific car accident, multiple suicides, the loss of a great-grandparent and of a close family friend.
Amid all the loss we made the decision to purchase my grandmother’s home in my hometown, thinking a return to small-town life might do us and the children some good. So we moved during the chaos of setting her and my grandfather’s estate. Then our house took a full six months to sell. I could go into the details of that, but I feel like I’ve made you suffer a lot.
As a result of all the changes, the grief, and the adjustment of moving and selling our last home… my last year has not been great when it comes to publishing. I managed to push out a few short stories but every time I picked myself up and dusted myself off, we got another blow. It was A LOT.
Hope for 2020
Transitioning into 2020 has been really cleansing for me. I know… we’re just getting started. But I actually changed my mindset in November after returning from the biggest indie author conference in the world. The energy there was incredible and it refueled all that had been drained over the past two years.
I’ve started really pushing to reach my goals.
In November (I started tracking on Monday 11/18/19) I clocked in 23,315 words… in a mere 13 days. I wrote at least something every single day.
In December, I beat that number by the 14th. By the end of December I was up to 65,809 overall (42,494 in December alone… this number would be higher but illness has seized our home).
To put that into perspective, each of the Ardent Redux Episodes run about 30k words each. The Cost of Survival is somewhere around 65-68k words. So this is a big deal when it comes to getting my writing back on track. I’m fairly certain I can hit 50k words per month based on the numbers for November and December (provided nothing weird happens).
I’m still a little scattered when it comes to my multiple projects… but I’m honing it in now by only working on 3 at a time. I focus most of my attention on whatever is at the top of my priority list… and for 2020 my priorities are wrapping up existing stories before publishing any more.
Top Priorities
- Operation Ardent Redux
- Rebel Yell is with the editor
- Rebel with a Cause is almost finished (working on the last chapter)
- Rebels Never Say Die is up next
- Ardent Redux Allies
- Shira’s Hope will be the next focus after Operation Ardent Redux is done
- Standlin’s Promise is after that
- Genesis Rising
- The long anticipated sequel, The Price of Freedom will be my main focus after I wrap up the two mini-series. I hope to release in the fall.
Secondary Priorities
- A YA Space Opera – I’m working on this with coauthor Wilhelmina Kirk. We started it a while ago and after I hit my wordcount on my focus book, I move on to this one. So far this has been a lot of fun and I look forward to sharing this with you. We’re planning on 3 books and want to release them somewhat close together.
- Space Opera 9 book series – I’m also working on a really fun, massive space opera with author Jeremy Fabiano. I really think our combined ideas are going to make this a great story and with a 9-book series as the plan, readers will have plenty to keep them going
- Illustrated dark fantasy serial – this project got shelved for a bit due to life complications but I’m good friends with the co-author and artist and I’m looking forward to picking this up again.
- A space adventure trilogy in a new universe – I am super excited about this series. It’s an idea I threw out into the universe as a joke but then it never really left my head. It stewed until it developed a mind of its own and now it’s nagging me to write it.
- Ardent Redux Saga: Season 2 – I’ve got the basic idea behind season 2 worked out and, after I get my top priorities finished and then move some of the coauthored projects to that list then I’ll start going on ARS season 2. Depending on if the characters get tired of me running them through the ringer then there may or may not be a season 3. Just playing it by ear. 🙂
And More…
The crazy thing is that these aren’t even all of my projects. My mind goes faster than my fingers and I have post-it notes with partial scenes, ideas, you name it, all over my desk, hung on the blinds in my office… just about everywhere really. I just need to get my brain to focus on the things I already have going before I can dive into those. Thankfully, I’m pretty darned motivated so it’s only a matter of time. 🙂
I’m really excited to share the next books with you and I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing them.
JLS
