June 2016 in Review

Last year, I decided that I would post my accomplishments for the month and what goals I hope to achieve in the following month.

Now that I’m completely free from school and waist-deep in Dead Magic, I have been writing my little fingers off and being shockingly productive. Part of me is pleased and part of me is wondering when it will all come crashing to a halt.

What I accomplished in June:

1. Wrote 21,000 words of Dead Magic
2. Wrote 6 blog posts and a guest blog on Mariella Hunt’s website
3. Published a Spanish translation of The Earl of Brass entitled El Conde de Latón, which is available here.
4. Published the audiobook for The Winter Garden, which is available here.
5. Planned out the beats for a forthcoming Ingenious Mechanical Devices novella
6. Read 4 books
   1. Magic Bitter, Magic Sweet by Charlie N. Holmberg (2 stars)
   2. Ninety-Nine Righteous Men by K.M. Claude (4.5 stars)
   3. Fiction Unboxed by Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant (4 stars)
   4. Nimona by Noelle Stevenson (5 stars)

What I hope to achieve in July:

1. Write 20,ooo words of Dead Magic
2. Write 10,000 words of the unnamed novella
3. Write 6 blog posts
4. Work more on my syllabus for freshman writing
5. Work on the cover for Dead Magic with my designer
6. Read 3 books
7. Enjoy life in between everything mentioned above

I love watching my word count steadily increase from month to month. June was wonderful in terms of productivity. I feel like I got so much done and that the rest of Dead Magic should go smoothly now that I’ve hit the 2/3s mark.

There are quite a few balls in the air with my series. I have my Spanish translator working on The Winter Garden, my Italian and Portuguese translators working on The Earl of Brass, and my narrator is working on the audiobook for The Earl and the Artificer. Then I have Dead Magic to start wrapping up soon and the novella I’ve been plotting. I’m confident it will all get done, and that I can manage.

I’m seriously excited about my writing projects. Ideas are bubbling out of me, and now if only my productivity could keep up with my ideas. The one thing that was completely neglected in June was editing. I told myself I would edit chapters 1-8, but in the end, I decided to dump that idea. I’ve been spot editing as I go, fixing issues that arise or adding foreshadowing of future chapters, but at this point, editing without being finished or having a clear goal in mind seems pointless.

Right now, my tentative release date for Dead Magic is November 15th, BUT if the book is done before then, I will happily move the date forward. I’m really hoping the book will be out sooner than that.

Finally, I will be taking part in Camp NaNoWriMo and am sharing a cabin with some fantastic authors. What will you be doing this July?