Recently, I watched an excellent programme, from the BBC, on the Renaissance period, entitled “Renaissance: The Blood and the Beauty”, featuring the artists Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael. And what struck me was how many initial sketches artist’s make before putting brush to canvas. And then what struck me was how similar this was to my method of creating a large piece of work.
When Michelangelo received the commission from Pope Julius, he didn’t immediately put up his scaffolding and mixed his paints and plaster (the work on the Sistene was in the form of frescos). He thought about what he wanted to depict. The main work is divided into 3 sections (3 acts, maybe?) – the Creation, the Creation and Downfall of Adam and Eve, and three stories of Noah. All around the main work are smaller pieces, identified in the following diagram:
Coming back to the point – from way back in the 15th and 16th centuries, and almost certainly before that, creatives have been preparing small ‘sketches’ for their work before applying paint to a canvas. Composers will ‘noodle’ on instruments before sitting down to compose. Very few people can approach a large blank canvas (real or metaphorical) and begin creating immediately without any planning.
One of the biggest causes of writers’ block is fear of the blank page.
My process involves levels of design, beginning with simple, overall statements, and then breaking the story of the story into smaller and small pieces. I’ll talk about this more next time.
One thing I want to say about my novel writing process up front:
I AM A PLOTTER
Us writers love to see how other writers do things – the writing. What is the secret to their success? What hours do they work? What’s their writing room look like?
And in this world of the right way and the wrong way to do things, writers are (apparently) either plotters (otherwise known as planners) or pantsers (otherwise known as a discovery writer). A pantser, by the way, writes the book by the seat of their pants – they sit down in front of a blank page, and begin writing. I know, weird, huh?
I have been accused of ‘over planning’ – creating a shorthand version of the story, scene by scene. To me, that makes sense. On the other side of things, writers talk loftily of “just seeing where the characters and the creativity takes me.” I don’t mean to criticise, but if that works for them, then great. But I don’t like to spend month after month rewriting and rewriting, trying to knock the thing into some shape. I know, I’ve been there.
So, on occasion, my friends and colleagues like to have a laugh at my expense, to which I shrug and smile. For me, my process is perfect.
And the fact that, over 500 years ago, creatives were using a similar process – to break down a major project into small, manageable pieces, – might indicate that I’m in good company.
When you’re a creative, inspiration can come from almost anywhere. Part of our job is to be a receiver, with all of our senses set to input at all times so we can experience things going on around us. And, so often, we take inspiration from those things, especially when it comes from newsletters and blog posts.
And so it is with today’s post, and inspiration has come from author, political journalist and broadcaster Ian Dunt (excuse his language, which might not suit everyone):
“Resonate” is one of those words, whose meaning is clear, but flexible, and is often overused in attempts to sound clever. But – in not in any remote way an attempt to sound clever – this blog post resonated with me. It’s the sort of piece I wish I had written.
One quote (talking about waking early with stress and anxiety):
This happens to me whenever I can’t control something. I have dealt with big, serious problems without any sense of anxiety, simply because they’ve been in my control. But as soon as something affects me but is decided elsewhere, by other people, who may or may not be competent, I experience anxiety: a broiling sense of internal turnover, like someone’s kneading my soul.
These matters must be prioritised. It doesn’t matter how petty they are. Break them down, find solutions, implement, achieve progress, no matter how slow.
Those last six words are most powerful, and indicate the problems with New Year Resolutions. In my experience, they are either:
a) too tightly focussed on achieving a specific outcome (e.g. stop smoking, begin volunteering, finally get that spare room decorated) which only have a binary outcome – success or failure
b) too wishy-washy to create the drive necessary to move away from current behaviours (e.g. drink less, lose weight)
This looks to be an inherently impossible conundrum – provide enough focus to create drive and desire, but not aim at a binary outcome. In engineering, we have a term called “inertia”, which often gets confused with “momentum” when, in fact, they’re (sort of) almost opposite terms.
Inertia is the resistance to begin moving from a stationary position (we sometimes referred to it as “stiction” – friction causing stickiness, which means you need to apply more force to ‘get it going’ that you do to ‘keep it going’). It’s why when you move off in a car, you begin with a low gear, which delivers more power to the tyres, which helps the car overcome inertia.
Momentum is the resistance to slow down or stop from a dynamic, or moving, position. Momentum is the force which keeps your car going forward when you take your foot off the accelerator. Your car begins to slow down as a result of air pressure on the front, as well as various resistance forces on movement. And, eventually, it slows down more rapidly when you put your foot on the brakes, because of the friction between your static brake pads and the discs rotating with your wheels.
What does all this have to do with resolutions? It is simply that inertia needs more of an effort to overcome than the effort required to maintain momentum. In other words, it’s more difficult to move away from existing habits and create new ones. Once you have created the new habits, it’s far easier to maintain them.
Let’s consider losing weight (something I need to do). It’s very easy for me to continue the eating and drinking I’m doing, which has created my weight problem, than it is to move away from them and develop new, healthier habits. Some of the things I love to eat aren’t conducive to weight loss. I don’t eat them them because I like staying fat. I eat them because I enjoy them. So I need to make an effort, a substantial one, to begin creating new, healthier habits. Once I have developed them, they will be easier to maintain, because they become my new norm.
So, we come back to the 6-word phrase:
achieve progress, no matter how slow
Considering weight loss for a moment (not than I’m fixated on food and feeling hungry right now), a lasting weight loss will not happen overnight, no matter how often I weigh myself and try to cheat the scales (anyone else do that – sway my body on the scales a bit to get the lowest reading? No? Just me then).
But when progress towards our goal (e.g. losing weight) is slow, it’s easy to lose that impetus, that drive, which is needed to move forward. We want to lose weight, we haven’t lost weight, what’s the point?
And the point is: we are making progress towards our goal. If we are changing our habits, changing the things we have done in the past, we are winning. The targets will be achieved as we develop the new habits necessary to achieve them.
Change is good, and not to be feared. Embrace the changes we’re making, to allow us to move forward. That goal, that target, will come.
And (finally) to writers: you may be wanting to write that novel or memoir you’ve promised yourself. How to do that when you haven’t been able to achieve this previously?
Simply – change your habits in order to make progress.
I’ve always asked: do you think you would write a page of a paperback novel per day (that’s around 250 words)? Could you find time in a day? Maybe skip a soap opera. Maybe get up half an hour earlier. Do something which changes your habits. If you can do this, by this time next year (when, once again, you may be lamenting the fact that you were unable to achieve what you said you wanted to do a year previously) you WILL have written that book.
Start now, change habits, even in a small way, and make progress. Once you begin to make progress, you can change gears, and continue forward with less effort.
For those who are unaware of my year-end analyses, I do not ‘do’ New Year Resolutions. Why choose a particular date in the calendar? If you want to lose weight, why not start as soon as you think about it? Why make a promise to yourself that you are extremely unlikely to keep? Around 80% of resolutions fail, most people give up in 10 days. Maybe. Or 20% – 40% are achieved. Maybe. Statistics, eh? [ https://www.cynicsguidetoselfimprovement.com/are-new-years-resolutions-doomed/ ]
The fact of the matter is, I know that my own history is littered with failed resolutions made, at the time, for the best of reasons and with the best intentions. But when those resolutions are broken, the realisation that the journey has come to an end in crushing defeat, can be harmful. The well-wishes of loved ones and the high hopes of a change in circumstances count for naught. Yes, of course there are long-term goals and aims. When you get to your late ’60s and are overweight, of course I wish to lose weight, move more, and eat (and become) more healthy. One day. Soon. But I find this time of year is great for looking back on what I said I was going to do the year before, cry a little, and gird my loins (whatever that means) for the upcoming year.
So, what am I going to achieve in 2025?
BOOKS – FICTION
Our February ’shutdown’ (where we move offsite for the whole month) is an opportunity to take stock of where I am with my writing and publishing. Am I doing the right thing? Could I do more to advance my writing career? Should I change course slightly now as the publishing landscape continues to change, when opportunities for the self-published other are not the same as they were a year ago? It is a fact that in a world that continues to develop and move forward, if we stand still, we end up going backwards as others sweep past. I am a commercial fiction writer, a storyteller, but if my books aren’t selling as well as I wish, where’s the problem? Is it my writing, or the subjects and themes of the books, or is it the marketing? These are questions to be asked before any meaningful plan can be drawn up. But, for the moment, I need to finish the 3-book series of Witford Mysteries. Book 1 is out and published [ https://gerald-hornsby.com/last-orders/ ]. Book 2 (current title “Deadly Trails”) is about 70% drafted, standing at 43,000 words if you’re interested in that sort of thing. Quick note: a first draft – even a ‘clean’ first draft which has been structured properly – still needs several rounds of editing, proof reading, beta reading by trusted readers, and so on. And here’s a little teaser for the cover image:
BOOKS – NON-FICTION
One fact of my writing and publishing career is that my non-fiction books have always outsold my fiction. By a considerable margin. I’ve just done some analysis (to be detailed in a forthcoming blog post), which shows that my 10 non-fiction books account for 65% of my sales, but only 37% of my published output. Hmm. Maybe I should write a non-fiction book this year – something like “Book Marketing and Selling for Self-Published Authors (and Others)”
BUSINESSES / TUTORING / PROJECTS
I will continue with my help for self-published authors offer. I should probably market them more aggressively (or maybe even marketing them at all!)
VLOGS / VODCASTS / PODCASTS
Podcast productions are becoming increasingly the preserve of well-funded media concerns… and Gary Lineker, whose Goalhanger Productions company looks to corner the UK market. Other podcasts are suffering. There is a corner of the vlog / vod / pod world where enthusiastic amateurs can still strut their stuff. But as a viable means of creating money? Not so much [ https://www.joanwestenberg.com/is-podcastings-golden-age-already-over/ ]
So in the meantime, I watch other creators who started years ago and have a substantial following, whilst I dream about what might have been. Having said that, I’m nothing if not stubborn. I’m not a quitter, and there’s a broadcast medium for me. Somewhere. Doing something.
And I’m still toying with a project centred around analysis of language – in particular, the language of persuading people to think and act in a certain way.
YOU WILL BUY MY BOOKS!!
No, that doesn’t work. But other mathods do, and not just in the narrow world of writing and books and selling. I find it interesting to see how the course of history is changed by use of language. Maybe some others will, too.
ONLINE COURSES
They’re still tempting, and despite sometimes being a refuge for scoundrels and pedlars of dodgy schemes, I’m sure they can be a viable stream of income. But here in Britain, we recoil from the American “ra ra just do it” tactics of some US businesses. We just need to get past the inherent reticence of the Great British Psyche, and convince some people that it’s worth spending a few quid in order to learn something new. As well as convincing them that it’s the sort of valuable information which ISN’T available for free on the internet somewhere.
PERSONAL / NON-WRITING
I’m getting to the stage of life where waking up in the morning is a huge win. After that, I need to focus more on my health (weight, specifically) and activity. I need to get the bikes out of the shed and do something with them. I need to get more flexibility back into this aching and pain-wracked old body of mine.
So yeah, those things will do for a start. When I’ve done those, I’ll come back to you.
SUMMARY
How do I summarise that little collection of black clouds? Do I need to? Okay – don’t become a zombie-like couch potato.
As we near the year end, we traditionally start by looking back on this year – and specifically, what I said this time last year, looking forward. You could call it “accountability.” I just call it “mildly interesting.” Take a look for yourself here: https://gerald-hornsby.com/blog/2024/01/01/looking-forward-to-2024/ and here’s what I said 12 months ago, and my comments on that. And the fact that, one day into the New Year, I’m already behind on my schedule tells you something.
BOOKS – FICTION
From JAN 2024: This is the year the Witford Market Mysteries gets released! Oh yes! Book One is in first edit, Book Two (part-written for NaNoWriMo last year) is about quarter written, Book Three is planned, and Book Four might be the Christmas episode I’ve written and abandoned several times.
GH Dec 2024: Ya. This time last year, I was looking forward to publishing the beginning of the Witford Market Mysteries. Well, that happened! The first book in the series was published (to Amazon, of course), in July 2024. The others? Not so much. The second book is about 2/3 drafted. Also also… sales of fiction novels have been a little disappointing this year. I’m going to use our ‘shutdown’ in February to work out what I want to do with long form fiction, going forward.
BOOKS – NON-FICTION
From JAN 2024: At the time of writing, I don’t have any plans to write any more non-fiction books. I should do, because they always sell well, but there’s nothing I’m currently working on which would look good in a published book form.
GH Dec 2024: Ha ha! A plan to do nothing, and you know what? I was 100% successful! I need a prompt, or a cue, in order to write non-fiction. It needs to be something useful to other writers. THINKING CAPS ON!
BUSINESSES / TUTORING / PROJECTS
GH Dec 2024: My ‘Author Services’ offer keeps ticking over, mainly with requests from friends and colleagues. I made little or no effort to promote myself in 2024.
VLOGS / VODCASTS / PODCASTS
From JAN 2024: I do want to do more with video next year. I don’t know what that will be. A writing vlog isn’t that interesting to people. I know that. But at the moment, I don’t know what would attract a larger audience, which remains writing and creativity related.
GH Dec 2024: Yes. Well. No insight came my way, except I keep coming across people doing what I’ve thought of doing. My Lone Star Reviews wold be something of interest, I’m sure, but is it worth the time and effort of researching and recording videos? I still don’t know. Chalk another one down for the February shutdown. And, sadly, we’ve decided to call time on the Literary Roadhouse podcast, after around 270 episodes. One of my co-hosts now has a very important job, which takes her away from home a lot, so co-ordinating a recording slot has become more difficult. Also, we had an issue from an author who took exception to something we said on one podcast, which made things difficult for us. Also also, it’s been many, many months since we were able to put out an audio podcast. It’s a huge amount of time to produce a quality audio podcast recording from our individual audio tracks.
ONLINE COURSES
From JAN 2024: I’m interested in creating courses. It’s a lot of work, and although I created the Efficient Novelist Programme https://gerald-hornsby.com/efficient-novelist-programme/ there wasn’t a lot of take-up from my initial marketing. To me, it seems a brilliant idea, a way to create novels more efficiently, with benefits to readership and royalty income, but many writers don’t like this idea – the ethos of being an author means that output needs to be crafted and honed over many, many months – otherwise, it’s no good. I don’t agree with that, obviously, but it’s a hard sell.
GH Dec 2024: You ain’t kidding. Eventually, I pulled the plug on the paid subscription to Teachable, because it was costing us more than we were getting paid.
PERSONAL / NON-WRITING
GH Dec 2024: Swanwick
One highlight of each year is the annual Swanwick Writers’ Summer School.
https://www.swanwickwritersschool.org.uk
This year, 2024, was my 2nd, and last, year as Chair of the committee.
I’m looking forward to this coming year with eager anticipation. I hope to be able to be publishing at least 3 novels, and maybe 5 this coming year.
GH Dec 2024: Ha! Aim high, brother, aim high! One published, and one semi-drafted. Yeah, not so productive. But I shan’t beat myself up over it. That’s not something I do. I will analyse, yes, and hopefully learn and understand more. What I do with that information is to be determined, but I’m not one of those “Ra-Ra-Ra Be PRODUCTIVE!!!!” people, who have productivity apps on their phones and keep fifteen types of journal on the go.
SUMMARY, LOOKING BACK
It hasn’t been an amazingly productive year. There are some reasons for this, and there are no reasons for this. This will be the subject of a forthcoming blog post.
It’s a summer school, residential, full board, where writers can participate in many aspects of a learning programme, be entertained with evening after-dinner speakers and quizzes, open mics and musical evenings.
We have around 200 delegates per year, and it’s a great place to meet writers and discuss the many, many aspects of writing. This was my 7th year, and I have just stepped down from 2 years as Chair.
It all happens at the Hayes Conference Centre, in Derbyshire.
So, how did this year’s School go? Pretty well, I think. We had a great committee leading up to the School, and our hard-working Secretary Sharon Payne and Treasurer Sally Warr were central to the smooth running of the organisation for the delegates.
I took the opportunity to visit a couple of courses – “The Road to Self-Publishing Success” by force of nature for self-publishing Lizzie Chantree, and “AI and Writers – Should we Worry?” from Martin Lake. Both are items of interest to me. Much of the rest of the time was making sure last-minute glitches were avoided / fixed, supporting the other members of the committee, and gleaning feedback from delegates.
It was a great time – hard work, but worth it. There is a certain magic about the place, a feeling of community, in that we are all writers. Many of us are following different paths, many of us have different destinations, but we are all writers.
The committee arrive on Friday, a full day before the delegates. There’s a lot of work to do to preparing the School. Signs to make, many items to liaise with The Hayes about, certain things which need clarifying. It’s different every year, but it needs to be done.
On the Friday, we pick up boxes of room keys which have been programmed by The Hayes (over 200 of them!) and we need to print name badges and match them up, which is an incredibly fiddly and time-consuming operation. We always feel there must be a more efficient way, but as yet, we haven’t found it!
Early Saturday afternoon, we get the reception volunteers – those lovely people who sit in one of four locations around the site, and welcome delegates with their information packs at the ready. Nearly all the time, this works fine. There are always those delegates who haven’t received or haven’t read their email which tells them which reception is for them. So there’s a bit of human signposting required, always with good humour and WITHOUT asking “WHY DIDN’T YOU READ YOUR EMAIL???”
And then there are those who haven’t been allocated the room they requested. We always try hard to ensure they are happy with their allocation, but sometimes we need to work with The Hayes, who are BRILLIANT, in reallocating some rooms.
Photo: Susanna Lewis
It was our 75th Anniversary! Our secretary, Sharon, had reproduced the very first programme from 1949, and a booklet with a great timeline of significant events over the years – from the use of the Hayes as a prisoner of war camp, up to date. The Hayes had donated an amazing celebration cake (including a gluten-free one), the King had sent us a wonderful message of congratulation, we had the Lord Lieutenant of Derbyshire, Mrs. Elizabeth Fothergill CBE to cut our cake, and share our special anniversary dinner in the dining hall. We had pinned some reflections from tutors past on the walls of the Main Conference Hall, and we had bought and donated a celebration bench, which was assembled and installed in the labyrinth, near to the chapel. Our programme had a lovely diamond emblem on the cover, which was matched by the icing on the cake! Thanks to everyone who contributed to the special celebration events!
Photo: Helen EllwoodPhoto: Viv Brown
One of the Chair’s roles is to stand on the stage and make little speeches. A Welcome Speech on the first day, a short speech at the first timer’s reception, introductions to all of the guest after-dinner speakers, running the AGM (essential, because all delegates are members of the charitable organisation, and therefore must be included in a number of votes). I also MC’d the prizegiving ceremony on the last evening, which was great fun.
Photo: Keith Hinchey
I’m not a natural on the stage, as last year’s School showed. I get flustered easily. Delivering courses and workshops to people has never been an issue, but speeches at Swanwick always seemed like an artistic performance to me. So in preparation for this year, I wrote out my speeches in advance. There were a few items which wouldn’t be known until the School was underway, but at least I knew my scripts were in place, including the introductions to the evening speakers.
Another of the Chair’s roles is to book evening speakers. Despite our own preferences, it’s important to get a speakers from a broad spread of the writing sphere. We had 4 slots available, and I know we needed a scriptwriter, a poet, a novelist plus one other (sounds like the opening to a bad joke).
My role on the committee of the Frinton Literary Festival << https://www.frintonliteraryfestival.co.uk/ >> allowed me access to a number of speakers, which usually results in one or two bookings for Swanwick. This year, I invited Adele Parks to speak, as she went down really well in Frinton. Lesley Kara is a personal friend from Frinton when we both lived in the area. The scriptwriter Julian Unthank contacted me directly, interested in returning. I watched an evening speaker session from him a couple of years ago, and he was engaging and funny, and provided an interesting insight into scriptwriting. This year, he had a particular insight which I thought would go well. And finally, Luke Wright was a personal recommendation through a friend of a Swanwicker.
On Saturday evening, we hosted Adele Parks <<https://www.adeleparks.com/ >> and her husband Jim, who conducted an interview. I think it worked really well, and a tiny frisson of marital relationship came through. Adele was awarded an MBE for her services to literacy in the New Year’s Honours list in 2022.
Photo: Keith Hinchey
On Sunday evening, we entertained Lesley Kara << https://www.lesleykara.com/ >>. Lesley and I used to be in the same local writing group, from 2015 – around 2019, so I wanted to try to show that the road to writing success (if becoming a multi-million Sunday Times bestseller is your measure of success) can come to all of us. I thought it might be interesting for the audience to hear what it was like at the pinnacle of the book industry. Lesley is a great speaker, and answered my occasionally slightly intrusive questions with honesty.
Unfortunately, Julian Unthank << https://vhassociates.co.uk/writer/julian-unthank/ >>, who we’d booked for Tuesday evening, needed to cancel at the last minute as he was suffering Covid-like symptoms. We like to try to cover all aspects of writing from our after dinner speakers, and Julian is a superb screenwriter, with a host of credits such as Queens of Mystery, Doc Martin, New Tricks and The Bill, and has spoken to us before with a very entertaining and dynamic event. I hope you recover soon, Julian.
Our final speaker of the week was Luke Wright << https://www.lukewright.co.uk/ >> His approach to poetry is fresh and exciting. His performance skills have been honed over many years of professional gigs and support acts. He is the regular warm-up guy for John Cooper Clarke. He’s a theatre maker and broadcaster, and visited us after another successful set of sell-out shows at the Edinburgh Fringe << https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/luke-wright-joy >> Suffice it to say that he held us, the audience, in the palm of his hand for an hour. Spellbinding!
Away from official events, I was able to chat to a number of delegates – some old friends for several years, some I’d met once or twice, and some I met for the first time. I always enjoy speaking to delegates quietly, and away from the events, as I feel I’m like to get a honest opinion about the week, how it is going, what they’re enjoying and what they’re not. This is really valuable.
During one of the discussions, someone asked about marketing information. I referred to a couple of websites I’ve used in the past when researching marketing advice.
Alas, like a number of websites, Amazon didn’t like the use of “Kindle” in the name, so they needed to change it. This is a great discussion board, especially in the Writers’ Café section << https://www.kboards.com/forums/writers-cafe.60/ >>. This was where the ‘big hitters’ used to hang out during the ‘goldrush’ of self-publishing, in 2010 – 2014. Suddenly, there were devices where reading ebooks became a genuine possibility (and a pleasurable experience), and when Amazon first began using Print On Demand. For those who don’t know, PoD is based on a machine which takes in paper at one end, feeds your manuscript and cover data in the side, and out pops a book at the other end. There are no print runs. If someone wants one copy of your book, they will print one copy. Magic!
Anyway, one recent discussion concerned the use of Google Ads for books, which is fascinating. Real world data from real authors.
And another resource I have used is K-Lytics << https://k-lytics.com/ >>, which uses software to interrogate the Amazon store software, and despite Amazon’s continued desire to hide *actual* sales figures manages to create data and charts to indicate both the sales volume and competition for a number of categories and sub-categories. They also do a monthly general report, showing trends for ebooks and print books generally, and in specific categories.
Some people were kind enough to ask about my own books. My fiction is listed at:
Long time readers will know that I don’t like RESOLUTIONS. There’s too much focus on one day in the year, and there’s too much looking back on a previous year with regret, with a false determination to DO BETTER next year. And it’s all too easy for the resolutions to fall flat. Like: “This year, I’m going to lose x weight”. It’s a focussed target, which might appear to be good, but it’s a digital target. You will either succeed, or you will do the ‘F’ word – FAIL. And failure is a destructive state of mind. We don’t like destructive things – we only like constructive things. So my resolutions are NOT resolutions – they’re aims, or goals. If I don’t reach those goals, I’m not going to beat myself up about it, because as you will have seen if you’ve read my ‘looking back‘ post, there’s still a lot to celebrate. So let’s get started.
Yes, I know this year has been … different. That ancient philosopher who said “may you live in interesting times” needs to just shut up now. The ‘featured image’ sums up what a lot of people think about the year just gone.
But that doesn’t stop me from doing my annual roundup – a look back to last New Year at what I said I was going to try and do during 2020, and what I actually have done.
I’m afraid the blog is on a bit of a hiatus at the moment.
Every year, during November, I participate in [ NaNoWriMo ], a world-wide writing challenge to complete 50,000 words of first draft writing during November. This will be my 17th year of participation, trying for my 16th year (12th year in a row) of successfully concluding it.
Alas, despite being a full-time author, coach, mentor, and publisher, my November 2020 schedule is incredibly busy, and so the blog has had to take a back seat for the moment. I have several blog posts ‘roughed out’, but as we all know, 80% of the work takes 20% of the time, and I can’t afford to put other things to one side to keep the blog up to date.
✔︎ 1. to write one short story a week for the whole year (a.k.a. the Bradbury Challenge)
Yes! I’ve written 4 shorts in my linked series, and 7 (yes, seven!) pieces of flash fiction, one of which will be uploaded one day soon.
✔︎ 2. to write 100,000 words @ 1,000 words a day (a.k.a. #100kwords100days
Yes! I’m doing well, and certainly up to date, and in fact, slightly ahead. I also doing a 365k challenge for the whole year. Mad, I know.
⎋ 3. to do first edits on two previously-completed novels
Nothing more on this one yet.
⎋ 4. to self-publish two collections of short fiction for halloween and Christmas
Nothing yet.
✘ 5. to write a blog post once per week (minimum)
Oops.
⎋ 6. to write book and short story reviews on the blog
Soon. Honest.
✔︎ 7. to be more active on Goodreads, posting reviews etc.
If you count logging in, updating my friends list and checking off my latest book, then yes, I’ve been more active.
So, all-in-all, not too bad. Some things are to be done later in the year, which is understandable, but apart from activity here, I’m doing well!
