Writing and Publishing Goals for 2021

Hello lovelies!

Today I'm going to be talking to you about what you can expect from me this year. There are all sorts of fabulous stories that I planned to write and publish in 2021, but I have changed these plans at least a dozen times. There are a million reasons why this occurred—two of the biggest are that I don't write as quickly as I'd like to and it took me forever to even settle on what to write. There are definitely other factors (mostly to do with IRL setbacks and obstacles), but those two are the main issues.

After I finished writing and editing The Risqué Series, I had every intention of writing something new right away. Instead, I spent months starting and stopping several stories after writing one, two, or three chapters. To say it was frustrating is an understatement.

When I finally found something, I was ecstatic. Yay for words flowing again! I had some off days and moments when I strayed from the outline, but it's okay. That can be fixed during revisions, right? No biggie.

Here's the deal, though. This new story needs to be handled with care. The title is My Roommate's Ex, so there's the element of a forbidden romance and keeping secrets. I don't want my readers to hate the protagonist or her love interest, but I have a feeling some of them will. Plus, the protagonist has a co-worker who is going to get her own book. I'd hate to publish my current WIP and not have the next book in the series available until a year later (slow writer, y'all). This makes me wonder if maybe I should finish my WIP, then set it aside to publish next year to give myself enough time to fix any issues as well as write the second book. So, I'm currently considering this as a possibility.

Also, I have two other projects that I would like to publish this year. The one is a boxset of The Risqué Series, which I would like to write bonus scenes for, and the other one is a secret. I don't like being vague, but I don't want to announce anything on this one until I have it written in full. I will say that it is a novella, but that's all I can divulge at this time.

Last year, I wanted nothing more than to get back on a regular publishing schedule. Of course, life gets in the way, along with other things. Fortunately, as an indie author, I'm able to change deadlines and potential release dates around before announcing them publicly. And hopefully I'll have more details regarding my next release very soon.

Thank you for reading and listening to me ramble a bit about what's to come!

Camp NaNoWriMo: April 2021

 

Hello lovelies!

It's time for a wrap-up of how Camp NaNoWriMo went for me in April! I really enjoy participating in Camp NaNo in the spring because I can set my own goal. NaNoWriMo in November has the automatic goal of 50,000 words and that's a tough goal for me to reach in a month. I would love to get to the point where I'm able to write 1667 words consistently every day, but it will take some time. In the meantime, Camp NaNo is where it's at for me!

My goal for April was 10,000 words. That comes out to 334 words per day. On a good writing sprint (10-15 minutes), I'm able to write between 250-350 words. I figured that as long as I can get one writing sprint in per day (or double up when I miss a day), I can reach this goal.

Take a look at my daily word counts for all of April to see how I did!

GOAL = 10,000 words

April 1st = 400

April 2nd = 556

April 3rd = 0

April 4th = 178

April 5th = 457

April 6th = 251

April 7th = 215

April 8th = 156

April 9th = 467

April 10th = 505

April 11th = 494

April 12th = 319

April 13th = 229

April 14th = 499

April 15th = 366

April 16th = 540

April 17th = 648

April 18th = 877

April 19th = 306

April 20th = 100

April 21st = 369

April 22nd = 735

April 23rd = 418

April 24th = 555

April 25th = 92

April 26th = 326

April 27th = 0

April 28th = 0

April 29th = 0

April 30th = 0

TOTAL = 10,058 words

As you can see, I had a spectacular month of writing. I managed to finish early, which is why the last 4 days have 0 for the word count (I took a break). All of the words written in April got added to the grand total in my work in progress, bringing it to 20,932 words!

I'm about halfway through the story and I'm hoping to be able to have it finished sometime this summer. My original goal was to have this book available this summer/fall, but I'm unsure what my plans will be at the moment. I'll post an update this month regarding my potential writing and publishing plans for the rest of 2021. In the meantime...

Thanks for reading and have a wonderful week!