Scheduling and Rest of 2010 Goals

Just a quick post this morning before I get sucked into yet more staff meetings.

It’s the second week of August.  I’ve been looking at scheduling of stuff for the rest of the year, trying to estimate when I might be able to get stuff finished and released as I juggle teaching duties and catching up on things that were put off due to leg breakage (like all the desperately needed spring cleaning).

It’s looking like I’ll be able to get the first draft of Devil’s Eye finished in 5 weeks (from start date, not today).  It will then need at least a week of revisions to clean some stuff up and fill in a few gaps.  I’m hoping to have a fast enough turnaround by betas so that I can release it the last week of September or first week of October.  As I said before, it’s gonna be my freebie and available in assorted locations in all major formats (but $0.99 at Amazon since we’re not allowed to list stuff for free).

After that, I’m hoping to hit the ground running hard on Edge of Shadow, which I hope to be able to finish first drafting through NaNoWriMo (even though it won’t be 50,000 words). I’m hoping, again, for a fast enough turn around that I’ll be able to release it just in time for Christmas (ideally by December 15th, so that there’s time for the Amazon page to fully propagate with information) in order to capitalize on the “OMG, I just got a Kindle, what can I buy?!” rush.

That would put me with three short titles out for 2010, which, considering how my year has gone, is none too shabby. I definitely have some longer works in the pipeline to work on and hopefully release in 2011.  Revelation, the first full length novel in the Mirus series.  The first Edible Enchantments novel about my kitchen witch.  And possibly a YA paranormal.  And that doesn’t count all the OTHER ideas that are floating around in my head.  So LOTS going on in my brain.  Either way, I want to go full steam ahead on projects through the end of this year.

10 thoughts on “Scheduling and Rest of 2010 Goals

  1. Great goals. I think it always helps to get deadlines out there in the world so you can prioritize. Three titles in one year is definitely not too shabby. I’ll have two novel length out in one year and I’m not sure I’m going to do that again! Might be time to brush up on the ol’ short story skillz. 😉 I’ll be interested in hearing how Devil’s Eye does as a freebie and if it garners you many new readers. (I’m betting it will!)

    1. Yeah that takes a lot out of you. I think my cumulative word count will wind up being about that of a longish full length novel (100kish). I’d really like to get into a routine of 1 full length and 1 novella a year, but we’ll see how that shakes out depending on what my brain gives me.

  2. I think you’re doing great! And you know I’ll read everything you put out there. :0)

    I think Amazon is making a mistake not letting indies put free books on Kindle. Free is a good way to advertise an author’s work and garner more sales. Which would also be good for Amazon.

    I may not be doing something free after all…my brain will NOT come up with an idea for it. 🙁

    1. I’ve been wanting to do something short for free for more than a year and only recently did I have a storyline show up that would suit. I really wanted to do something where I wasn’t having to contrive anything to make it work and where readers won’t feel like I left TOO much out (which are two of the main criticisms that are often leveled at short work). That’s HARD!

    1. Thanks Chris! I don’t expect to get more than 2 full length titles out in future years (at least not as long as I’m working the day jobs). But I’m really happy with the idea of 3 short novellas out in a year where life was determined to kick my tush!

    1. Last year I wrote a course during NaNo, which was totally unexciting but it was good to have the motivation.

  3. Yay, another NaNoWriMo participant! I’ll be there, with several outlines. I’m working on the planning right now. To reach 50k, have you thought of doing 2 novellas? I did something similar for JulNoWriMo by writing 3 novellas. As they were the first three in a series, it worked out great, as I went from one to the next with all the characters still fresh in mind.

    But, that wouldn’t work if you are planning on revising the novella for part of November. 🙂

    1. It’s not that I can’t think of something that would take up 50k, it’s that I can’t WRITE 50k while juggling 2 jobs and primary responsibility for Thanksgiving dinner. Too much stress. I just like the daily report on wordcount and the camaraderie.

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