November 2014 Wrap-up, and Look Ahead at December

So, I won NaNoWriMo (or as I like to think of it, successfully completed the challenge, since everyone who validates 50,000 words or more "wins") for the 6th year in a row :-D The result is the rough draft of The Source-Fixer (working title, or possibly the permanent title if I can't think of anything better) and three accompanying short stories giving the backstory on the main characters. Like a lot of my books, this was based on yet another old unfinished story fragment I was stuck on. I decided to go a different direction with the characters, which I'll write about another time, and, as so often happens when I take a fresh look at the characters, this is what got me un-stuck.

I also printed out my very first novel ever, Prince of the Trozdozh (another meh working title, I suck at thinking of titles) and its sequel (untitled, the one with Travarac and Kilahra). I think there's hope for them, I started reading the sequel while I was printing it out and couldn't stop.

So the pile of manuscripts awaiting revision grows even bigger.

Also in November, Beneath the Canyons had a fantastic release. Thank you, everyone, for your support! Book 2, Bad Hunting, is now under revision.

On the A-Z reading challenge, I'm still on D (Darkmage, by M.L. Spencer). It's very long, and I'm also dividing my reading time with The Plains of Kallanash by Pauline M. Ross, a lovely author I've gotten to know on Goodreads and Google+.

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Besides Christmas, the main focus in December will be on continuing with the revision and editing of Bad Hunting, aiming for a release hopefully in the first part of January. Between NaNoWriMo and Thanksgiving, I didn't get as far with this as I wanted to in November, so it doesn't look like I'll be able to get it out this month. I'm writing a lot of new material for the book, filling out some things that needed to be filled out, and so far I've added over 5,000 words.

I've also started revising the fanfiction I wrote for NaNoWriMo 2013. Now that the big, heavy first revision on Daughter of the Wildings is done, I have time for a side-project, and some of my fanfic readers have been asking about it. So it's time to get it finished and posted.

Which leads into the big dilemma I'm having right now. I've got lots of stories I want to write, and lots of things awaiting revision (including but not limited to books 2-6 of Daughter of the Wildings). The more time I spend writing new stuff the less time I have to spend on revising, but, as always happens during a NaNo event, I'm reminded again of the importance of writing every day, to improve my craft and stay in practice. So it's a matter of trying to figure out how to allocate my time and, more importantly, mental and physical energy. Right now I'm thinking maybe 30 minutes a day of planning (if the project is still in the planning stage) or a daily writing target of 1000 words (which takes me about 30 minutes to do) will fit into my schedule and energy limitations, with the remaining 2-3 hours of writing time spent on revisions.

Also on the to-do list is to finish the paperback edition of Beneath the Canyons and do some work on the website. My list of books is getting too long to display them all individually in the sidebar (not that I'm complaining!), so I'm looking at some other ways of letting website visitors know about my books. Weebly (my site hosting service) has a nifty slideshow widget, so I'm thinking I'll put my first six books into that and have the Daughter of the Wildings books separately as the current and upcoming releases. (I started my first website in Jan. 2001, and I've been a happy website-fiddler ever since).

For the A-Z reading challenge, I think I need to start choosing shorter books. Will not finish by the end of the year.

Finally, there's another special blog hop event coming up Dec. 19-22, the Winter Warm-Up romance blog hop.

This should be enough to keep me out of trouble for another month.

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