Welcome to New Year's Eve, 2017. First off, it is COLD. Seriously cold. The temp right now is -9f with a -32f wind chill, and that's in the middle of the day. It is going to drop to -21f temp and who knows what the wind chill will be. No, not a pleasant New Year's Eve. I hope people are wise enough to stay home.
My computer is so cold that it's making odd noises. The office isn't that bad, but right up against the wall -- yeah, it is feeling the cold!
But let's talk about how 2017 went and what I want from 2018.
I started my writing year with Journey of a Thousand Truths on 1/1 and ended it on 4/23. It's probably the best new novel I wrote this year. It is novel #103 in my total count and came in at 126,752 words.
On 1/1 I also started the rewrite of Devlin 4 -- Missing Persons. I'm glad to say that one went well and I finished on 3/19. This was a shorter work at about 69,780. I was going to do the next Devlin novel, but I actually need to get another novel in the story universe (but not a Devlin tale) done first because Devlin's team interact with those people in book 5.
On my birthday, 3/8, I began novel #104, Amusing Grace. This is the sequel of Muse. It went well for a few hundred words and then died out for some reason. I restarted it from scratch for the second NaNo novel in November and it went fine that time. I was done on 11/30 at 50,152. I like it, but I see some basic things that need to be changed and added. That's fine -- that's the way my first drafts work.
On 3/22 I began the rewrite of the second Raventower and Merriweather novel, War. This went very well and was done on 5/7. This one is 135,520 words -- and so much fun! I really like working with those characters and I do have a third novel getting ready in my little brain for 2018.
On 4/24 I started the rewrite of Circe's Gifts and started posting chapters on Wattpad as well. That one is 84,880. It's an older story, but I thought it came out very well. It is a YA Fantasy with some lovely changeling characters.
And then the rewrite of Tales from Grey Station 9: Season One, a wonderfully fun science fiction project. That one is one of my longest works at 181,260. The rewrite went very well.
On 6/20 I began Dusty and Friends, a Flash Fiction serial novella that I posted on my Joyously Prolific blog and on Wattpad. That one came in at about 28,000 words and is a nice little Young Adult, maybe Pre-teen (though the MC is teen) story. Anyway, it was fun to write.
The next one is another rewrite and one that did not work out right. I began it on 8/1 and finished on 9/4. Singer & St. Jude 1: The Lost Cause is already published by Double Dragon. I have the rights back and I wanted to move it up in the overall time line with the rest of the Inner Worlds Council books so it could fit into the overall storyline. When I was done, though, I realized I hadn't given it enough of a 'future' feel from the original, so I have to go back and redo the world building for that one and try it again, maybe in 2018.
I started the rewrite of Written in the Sand on 9/9 and finished on 12/10 (with a NaNo break in there). This one went much better! It's going to be my first publication of 2018, probably on New Years Day. 91,022 words of a desert fantasy story with a really fun set of characters. I hope people will enjoy it.
Aegyptica Magicae was my first NaNo novel, started 11/1 and ended it on 11/15. It is #105 of the total novels I've written and a true experiment as a steampunk/fantasy/Egyptian tale. I have not reread it yet, so I'm not certain which parts of it I got right. I know it will need more work, but all first drafts do, so that's fine. I know that at 65,556 it is far too short for what I want. (I was in the hospital for the three days prior to NaNo and that really threw me off this year. The second NaNo novel was Amusing Grace and my NaNo total was 115,708.)
And finally we have the rewrite of Differential Equations, a contemporary (well, late 1980's) YA mystery that I started on 12/1 and finished on 12/28. It has formatting still to go through, but after that it will be ready to publish in early 2018.
There were other things I wrote as well like outlines, world building notes for larger universes, and flash fiction for Friday posts (those come to about 52k, including Dusty and Friends). Also rewriting the 2YN class stuff. I am also starting to republish updated versions of the 2YN books. The first one went up last night, replacing the previous version. I'll get the first five done and the last three as I rewrite the material for posts on Facebook.
My total word count for 2017 is about 1,006,000. I'm still finishing off a few small things like world building notes and such, but I'll be done soon.
Publications for 2017 were:
3/20 -- Devlin 4 -- Missing Persons
5/7 -- Raventower and Merriweather 2: War
5/22 -- Circe's Gifts
9/8 -- Tales from Grey Station 9
This brings my total number of published novels to 45. That does not include any of the writing-related stuff like 2YN books, Writing Short, etc.
You can find my publications here:
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/zetteG
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004RS45YS
Personally, not a great year with illness, hospitalization, and all that fun stuff along with everything else. I am still fighting with that but I've made it to New Years so there is that good news. There is a lot about 2017 that was just bad for many reasons, some of which I just refuse to face and deal with, but even so ... here we are.
We are having a very cold New Years Eve (low of -21f and that is not the wind chill) so we will stay home, watch shows, enjoy stuff, and hope the weather gets warmer soon. I plan on this little post being pretty much my last writing of any length for the year. 2018 is seven hours away. Can I not write that long? LOL!
I also took 14,581 pictures this year, including about 800 on the trip to the mountains. What a wonderful vacation!
What about 2018?
I have no outlines. This is rare for me, but I planned it this way. I want to take at least some time to write without anything but the words flowing from me. My first novel (or at least one of them) is going to be a brand new Devlin novel. I also have a superhero story (something very new for me!) bouncing around in my brain. I'll probably start them both on 1/1 and maybe a rewrite of something as well.
My other big plan is to write sequels to many of the works that need them. I am looking forward to that part as well. I mentioned the Devlin novel (which will be #10 or #11 in her series, I think), but I also want to write the sequel to Glory (Dreams), Kat Among the Pigeons (Kat Among the Penguins), Raventower and Merriweather #3 (Untitled), Summerfield # 4 (Spring Break) and Tales from Grey Station 9 (Season 2). I don't know how many I'll get to. That's a lot of new material for one year.
I spent too much of 2017 worried about sales. I've decided not to do that this year. I will write, publish, and hope people enjoy the books and say so to others and post reviews. That's the only hope an indie writer really has for making sales. I'm eclectic in my writing so I should have a chance of catching various types of readers. If not? Well, I'm still going to be writing and publishing.
I intend to have a good year. I hope the rest of you do as well.
Happy New Year!
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