Goals and Results

Hello friends.

I meant to discuss how 2013 went and my goals for 2014 a while ago.  But, you know…life.  Pesky life intruded, and I did not.  Now it almost feels too late to talk about it, seeing as the year has already begun to move on.

But I’m going to do it anyway.

In 2013, I set a goal of writing 300,000 words.  Included in those words would be finishing The Pericles Conspiracy, Glimmer Vale 2, and Dawn of Enlightenment 2.  I was also going to submit to Writers of the Future every quarter.  So…how’d it go?

Meh.

I didn’t hit the word count goal – 196,000 words total on the year, or about 2/3s of the way there.  Which isn’t too bad.  But still not what I wanted.  This brings my total word count since I started being serious about this to 569,000 words (since 2011).  Just over 1/2 way through the mythical 1,000,000 words of crap.  Of course, I think I got through several of the million words earlier, before I began tracking and being serious.  But I’ve no idea how far, and it could be I’m deceiving myself as to my level of suckitude.  Time will tell, I guess.  🙂

So that’s word count.  Novel output?  Much better.  Pericles and Out-Dweller are done and out there.  Glimmer Vale 3 is about 80% done.  I didn’t make any more progress on Dawn of Enlightenment 2; it still sits at about 8,000 words or so.  So overall not too bad.

Writers of the Future?  Fugetaboutit.  I dropped the ball on WotF completely, after the second quarter of last year.  It’s now been…two?  Three?…quarters since I submitted to them.  Why?  Well frankly I haven’t wrote any short fiction in a while; I’ve been concentrating on longer works.  I need to get back on the horse there, I think.

So as far as goals go, 2013 was a mixed bag, but more good than bad.  What about business metrics?

Well, I accrued more royalties in 2013 than I did in 2011 and 2012 combined, so that’s good.  If that trend continues in 2014 (and I expect it shall, with what I’ve got planned), it promises to be quite a nice year.  I also got some books into a local bookstore, which is great.  They seemed pleased with how that worked out, so I expect I’ll be invited back again.  Which is also great.

So things are going pretty well.

That said, I feel the need to kick things up a notch.  So I’ve set the following goals for 2014:

1) Write 500,000 words – because I want to hurry up and get past that 1,000,000 words written milestone.  Broken down as I did last year, assuming a 40 week writing year I need to write 12,500 words/week.  I did better than that several weeks last year; I just have to be consistent about it this year.  Now…is this doable?  If you look at my first three years’ output (229,000, 144,000, and 196,000) you might say it’s not likely.  And you might have a point.  But it’s totally doable if I focus, and you know what?  Even if I don’t make it I’ll write more than I would have without the goal.  So it’s all good.

2) Publish Glimmer Vale 3 by the end of March.

3) Finish Dawn of Enlightenment 2 and 3, and publish in the summer and fall, respectively.

4) Write that crime novel, 30 Hours, that’s been percolating in my brain for 2 years now.

5) Get going on The Penitent, which has also been percolating for a couple years.  It’s going to be a long one, so I’m sure I won’t get it finished, not with everything else I want to do this year.  But it’s going to rock, so I want to get going on it.

6) Submit to Writers of the Future each quarter.

Whatcha think?  Is that enough?  I hope so because  that’s what I’ve got.

Last year, I fell away from revealing my weekly word counts, like I’d planned on doing at the beginning.  That was bad; it removed accountability.  So I’m going to get back to doing that reporting here this year.

So that’s it.  The plan for the year.  It’s going to be fun!

🙂