Well, 2014 didn’t end up like I had originally planned. This is both good and bad.
While I did do a lot of writing this year it somewhat lacked direction and focus, something I was sure I had in abundance and yet the old 90/10 rule struck me hard. 90 percent of the work happens in the last 10 percent of the project. It’s easy for me to start new projects but sometimes impossible to complete them. While some projects do get finished, they are not of the high quality they should be for release and so get filed away. Then I move onto the next new exciting and shiny project on my mind.
This year, completion has to be the focus. Without that, I’ll never know what chance my work has for acceptance by my audience.
Some of the issues included:
- Write and release 1 short story a month – never happened! See sidebar for list of WiP stories yet to be completed, sigh.
- Complete one fantasy short (Storms on an Opal Sea) and release a book of fantasy shorts called The Three Realms – didn’t happen.
- Complete a new draft of An Empire Forgotten – sidelined due to plotting issues.
- Complete Built for Murder before Thanksgiving – didn’t make it.
Generally, it’s been a slothful year of writing. Too many starts and definitely not enough finishes to make the year even notable. Did manage over the holidays to revise all of my released books to bring them up to date as regards to cross-marketing my stories, but that’s about it.
For 2015, I once again start with high hopes.
I recently began several new short stories; a SF future-tech story on live gaming, a biographical story from my childhood (not sure what to do with that one), and a sequel to the Skar Doorishmurk story began in A Painful Blessing, as well as working on a Flashman-type sexual adventure definitely NSFW. In addition, there are only a few chapters left to complete the first draft of Built for Murder and some ideas on the second book in the Erich Ramble series.
Here’s hoping 2015 turns out better from a writing perspective.
