Hello! Wow! It’s June!
Every year I set some general goals, and every year I check in sometime about June to see how those are going. This year I’m happy to say things are going well!
One of my big goals for this year was to finish a new manuscript — a novel-length manuscript, not a novella. In August of 2020, a book slapped me upside the head, and I was very hopeful I could get that new draft finished by December of this year.
Well, I finished it Memorial Day weekend. You and I are both shocked. It’s also the longest draft I’ve ever produced, at 102,000 words. So, for folks counting, that means I did a little over 10,000 words a month to get that knocked out. I was (and am) both exhausted and inordinately pleased. Patrons get to read the entire first chapter this afternoon (as it currently stands, subject to change), so head over there around 2 pm EST if you’re curious.
So that goal, at least, has been accomplished. If I manage nothing else this year I will be very happy. But since I am ambitious, I did have some other goals for this year that I had set. One of those was to finish rewriting White Wedding…again. I’m happy to say that this rewrite is going better (though the draft is still not where I want it to be) and I suspect I’ll easily finish by the end of the year. Far less glowy feelings with this one, unfortunately, but I have put enough work into it that I would like to see it done. So no new updates on the editing track at this time, but my plans remain more or less the same as they were in January.
As far as other efforts? I’m hoping to get back to my horror novella in the next few weeks, once I recover from my current draft hangover. I generally know the plot to that story and I’m aiming for around 30,000 words so we’ll see if I can finish it fairly quickly. After that? There’s a certain trilogy I’ve been meaning to wrap up, as I believe I mentioned before…
Of course, there’s no point in counting those chickens yet, because there’s a lot going on in my personal life as I’ve alluded to in other posts. The next month is going to be focused very closely on dayjob and family projects. Writing has to take a backseat for the moment, as sometimes happens. There will also be blog pauses over the summer potentially as well, more on that in the future. I’ve got a lot of ideas floating around for projects and adventures, but only so much time. So we’ll see how it goes. But every little victory is worth celebrating in the interim!
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Amanda J. McGee, Author 
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