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!

Lilly Avalon Monthly Writing Update #12 for April 2021

Every month I share an update about what I'm writing in my Monthly Writing Update!

Here's the latest for the month of April.

If you look at my March update, my main goal was to participate in Camp NaNoWriMo with the word count goal of 10,000 words.

Have I accomplished this?

YES! I am so pleased to say that I managed to meet my goal of 10,000 words this month. On April 26th, I hit 10,058 words, which brings the grand total of my WIP to 20,932 words. I had a really good first two days, then I missed a day and had some low word counts for a few days. I got caught up and managed to remain consistent and ahead which allowed me to finish early.

While I could have continued and gotten another 500-1000 words, I decided to give this WIP a short break for a few days. I love this story, but there is so much that I need to fix to prevent any continuity errors as well as adding in the correct details. I had written an outline up to a certain point, yet I've deviated from that outline so much along the way that I feel I may have some potential issues. Those will hopefully all be corrected during revisions.

Goals for May

I would love to get as many words written as I possibly can in May. As far as a word count goal goes, I'm kind of leaving it up in the air for now. Aiming for 10k would be optimal, but I don't want to force it, even though 323 words a day is reachable. My husband and I are going to be visiting family one weekend, so I don't want to aim too high when I won't be able to write for a few days. But I promise I will keep writing as much as I can!

If you want to keep up with my progress, I'll be posting occasionally on my social media about it, so be sure to follow me.

Love you all lots! Take care, everybody!

Lilly Avalon Monthly Writing Update #11 for March 2021

Every month I share an update about what I'm writing in my Monthly Writing Update!

Here's the latest for the month of March.

If you look at my February update, my main goal was to write 7500-10,000 words in my WIP.

Have I accomplished this?

Unfortunately, I didn't, but I did manage to get just 6,103 words (as of last night), so that still feels great! There were, of course, several ups and downs as well as days I simply didn't want to write, but I still managed to get a decent number of words written. This story has had some slight changes along the way, so the original outline has been adapted a bit here and there. The main story still remains the same, but there are new scenes being added as I go.

My total for this book is currently sitting at 10,874, which means I've broken the 10k barrier for revealing the title to my Facebook group! If you want to see what it is, join my group.

Goals for April

April is Camp NaNoWriMo! I'll be participating again this year. Last year I had the goal of writing 12,000 words to finish writing Seducing the Star and I managed to finish writing it in fewer words. While I didn't hit the goal for Camp NaNo last year, it was still an accomplishment.

My goal for the month is 10,000 words. I've decided to aim low, but still higher than I did in March. At 10k, I need to do 334 words a day, which I feel is manageable for me. I can knock out that in one sprint on a good day, plus easily make up for lost days by doing two or three sprints! If you're participating in Camp NaNoWriMo next month, let's become buddies on the website!

If I can get 10k next month, that will mean I'll be about halfway through writing this book. I haven't decided what my goals for May are just yet, but there's a good chance I'll aim to finish the book if I feel confident enough.

If you want to keep up with my progress, I'll be posting occasionally on my social media about it, so be sure to follow me.

Love you all lots! Take care, everybody!

Lilly Avalon Monthly Writing Update #10 for February 2021

Every month I share an update about what I'm writing in my Monthly Writing Update!

Here's the latest for the month of February.

If you look at my January update, my main goal was to write 7500-10,000 words in my WIP.

Have I accomplished this?

Not quite. I had a rough start of it at the beginning of the month. It took me forever to complete the first chapter, and once I did write it, I still wasn't 100% sure it was exactly what I wanted. Even though it wasn't perfect, it was still a good start. That good start can be fixed during revisions later. I made myself some notes of things to adjust in it and I know that once I'm in revision mode, I'll be able to see more clearly the direction I want it to go in.

The grand total as of yesterday is 4429 (mostly from only TWO chapters), which is still a mighty fine number if I do say so myself.

Goals for March

To keep on writing as much as I can! I would like to aim for 7500-10,000 again and see if I can do it this time around. April is Camp NaNoWriMo, so if I can get myself on track with my daily word counts, I should be able to participate and possibly finish writing the first draft of this book (or at the very least come very close!).

If you want to keep up with my progress, I'll be posting occasionally on my social media about it, so be sure to follow me.

Love you all lots! Take care, everybody!