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2015 in review
Dec. 31st, 2015 05:36 pmI did the first of these year-end roundups in 2006, so this is the 10th year I've done it and probably the strangest one I've written so far.
The thing is, I hardly did anything at all on my 2015 list! So technically this year should be a dismal failure ... except this year was actually amazing because (thanks to a friend) I discovered a new "door" into writing and self-publishing, and I basically took off like a rocket. I wrote 456,000 words this year (by comparison, my previous best year was 2013, when I wrote 270,900 words. And this year's words were almost entirely useful words, as opposed to most years, when my technical annual word count doesn't take into account all of the aborted projects and false starts. This year, nearly everything I wrote through the whole year was either a completed project I self-published on Amazon, or something I submitted somewhere. And I made decent money off my writing for the first time ever.
But the awkward thing is, I can't talk about a lot of it, because a lot of what I'm writing is paranormal erom (erotic romance) under pseudonyms and I'm not ready to disclose them publicly yet. I did launch the Lauren Esker pen name for slightly plottier paranormal/shifter romance, and Lauren now has a website and a mailing list and is generally doing pretty well.
Looking back at last New Year's goals:
- I DID NOT: edit any damn thing, publish the Hunter's Moon book (which has been on every single one of the last 10 years' lists; it's the world's most amazing procrastination success story), or finish the year with a decent page buffer for Kismet (though I do have next week's page done!)
- I DID: write two novels (actually considerably more than two), keep up with Kismet updates (with one or two skip weeks, but mostly I did pretty well), and I have done amazing at keeping up with a writing schedule and marketing (of my erom/paranormal romance) this year if I do say so myself, though I really need to do better on marketing Kismet and maintaining my blog. I also attended an anime convention and two local shows, got a print version of the first Sun-Cutter chapter together, and started selling more craft/art stuff.
Back shortly with 2016 goals!
The thing is, I hardly did anything at all on my 2015 list! So technically this year should be a dismal failure ... except this year was actually amazing because (thanks to a friend) I discovered a new "door" into writing and self-publishing, and I basically took off like a rocket. I wrote 456,000 words this year (by comparison, my previous best year was 2013, when I wrote 270,900 words. And this year's words were almost entirely useful words, as opposed to most years, when my technical annual word count doesn't take into account all of the aborted projects and false starts. This year, nearly everything I wrote through the whole year was either a completed project I self-published on Amazon, or something I submitted somewhere. And I made decent money off my writing for the first time ever.
But the awkward thing is, I can't talk about a lot of it, because a lot of what I'm writing is paranormal erom (erotic romance) under pseudonyms and I'm not ready to disclose them publicly yet. I did launch the Lauren Esker pen name for slightly plottier paranormal/shifter romance, and Lauren now has a website and a mailing list and is generally doing pretty well.
Looking back at last New Year's goals:
- I DID NOT: edit any damn thing, publish the Hunter's Moon book (which has been on every single one of the last 10 years' lists; it's the world's most amazing procrastination success story), or finish the year with a decent page buffer for Kismet (though I do have next week's page done!)
- I DID: write two novels (actually considerably more than two), keep up with Kismet updates (with one or two skip weeks, but mostly I did pretty well), and I have done amazing at keeping up with a writing schedule and marketing (of my erom/paranormal romance) this year if I do say so myself, though I really need to do better on marketing Kismet and maintaining my blog. I also attended an anime convention and two local shows, got a print version of the first Sun-Cutter chapter together, and started selling more craft/art stuff.
Back shortly with 2016 goals!