With only about 85k to go to reach 1 million new words this year, you can imagine that I've done a lot of projects. Not so many as you might think, though. A novel a month? It's possible for a first draft if you are really dedicated and writing has become your profession. You also have to want to write them, and not spend your time surfing the web, watching shows you don't particularly like, etc. Not many people can devote the amount of time I have to writing. I'm lucky.
If the first drafts are near or over 100k, you only need ten of them and there you are at the one million mark. However things are never that easy. For me, this year meant a lot of editing as well. I compare the original count to the new count. Sometimes there are new words, sometimes not.
If I am rewriting from scratch, though, I count them all. That's when I either write an outline based on the earlier story or I take the book, read a page and rewrite it. Those are drastic projects.
This years projects included getting something ready for publication each month.
The fiction publications were:
- Mirrors (Urban Fantasy)
- Vita's Vengeance (Science Fiction)
- Paid in Gold and Blood (Fantasy)
- Devlin's Team 2: Farewell to Summer (Science Fiction)
- Xenation: Draw the Line (Science Fiction)
- Waiting for the Last Dance (Contemporary Young Adult)
- Playing with Fire (Shorter, Science fiction)
- Badlands (Science Fiction)
- For the Honor of the Hunt (Collection, Science Fiction)
- Don't Go Home for the Holidays (November release, Science Fiction, Humor)
- Journey to Winter (December release, Fantasy)
(Link to all my work on Smashwords, which has formats for Kindle, Nook, Sony, Kobo and more)
So, besides those books, all of which were edited before publication, there were the last three 2YN books, a short book on writing short stories, and two issues of Vision in ebook format. That's probably enough work for anyone.
But those aren't the first drafts for the year. I started the year with the third Summerfield novel. I have the 4th ready in outline for the last of NaNo. I did a number of rewrites from scratch, including Badlands and a couple others that are on the published list, which then had to go through editing as well. Other new stuff included The Legend of Tom Luck, Connor of Northgate, Whispers of the Past, The Path: Ost, and a couple others that I can't call to mind right now.
(To be honest, this is mid-NaNo. I've already written over 100k, and it's a wonder I have a brain left at all.)
There is one project this year that I've found a lot of fun. I started by writing Flash Fiction every Friday. A couple months ago, I changed that into a flash serial series called Surviving Elsewhere. It has been a real challenge to write an entry that is right around 1k and have something exciting happen each time. I expect it to go for at least a year and then I'll probably rework it into a novel. I'm not sure. The serial is here on the blog and the link to all the sections is up above.
I have made a good dent on my 50 year project (also see link above). How will next year go? I have an outline ready to start on January 1. After that I have no idea what I'll do yet. Let's survive NaNo first. Which means . . . Yes. Time to get back to writing.
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