November News and Progress Post: Zoom

Well, y’all, another month has gone by and we’re now staring down the end of the year! Let’s talk about what I accomplished last month, and what’s ahead of us for the remainder of 2018.

As you know, in October I started writing “the wedding novella,” which quickly became “the wedding novel” and then, painfully, “the wedding duology.” I finished Book 1 in October by writing 100K words on a battered and inappropriate keyboard that did a number on my wrists. As we went into November, I started on edits for that novel and polished them off in the first week while everyone was furiously racing into their NaNoWriMo projects.

A week into the month, I told myself I’d take November off, because I’d just finished a 100K book in 31 days. So naturally, I started writing Book 2, because I was bored and writing is better than kicking around doing nothing. Which is how I came to write a second book in one month, this one topping out at 113K.

My progress for November, then, is: "I wrote another book." That was my progress for the month. “I started and finished another novel that I hadn’t planned on writing.”

(Yeah, yeah, it’s all right, you can snicker.)

So the good part about this is that first readers are crawling all over both Book 1 and 2 of the Jubilee Summer duology and that means we’re on track for release next year; probably January for Healer’s Wedding and February for Farmer’s Crown. And the other good part is that I have very certainly tested my new ergonomic keyboard (pictured above) and it came through with flying colors. Absolutely no wrist problems this time. (Here's the keyboard. It's the best keyboard I've ever had. I love it so so so much, I can't even tell you. My love for this keyboard has become a household joke.) 

Did I do anything else in November? *checks* Looks like the answer to that was materially… no. I kept up with Patreon, I did some doodling, I started on the book cover sketches for these two novels; I messed with scheduling for next year, lined up some promos/ads, and worked on my Christmas card design. But my day was mostly “wake up, start writing, take breaks when restless, continue writing until house burns down or you fall asleep.” With interludes for meals and bike rides with Child. I think I might also have fed the cat. At least, he hasn't shrunk.

So what’s coming up in December? An excellent question, given that a month ago my answer was ‘continue writing the second wedding novel.’ I suspect December’s going to be given over to odds-and-ends I've been putting off:

• Editing the two wedding novels and preparing all their marketing materials for the 2019 launch. I’m already doing this, but I’m not pushing hard on it. I wrote these books fast; I want to give them a little simmer time, make some notes, make sure they’re right before they go out.
• Doing some work on Kherishdar 4. As I’ve mentioned on Discord, while I’m tempted to rush the writing of this one, I feel it really needs to be done at a serial pace: contemplative with long pauses. And I'm really pleased with the quality of the discussion going on in Discord every Wednesday after the post goes out. You all are fascinating people.
• Doing some preliminary work on Coracle 2. This book is already a chapter long, but it would be good to tidy up the outline and add a few lines to it.
• Finish my last newsletter article for NINC (about Kickstarter), and outline my next one (which I think will be on writing bilingual/multilingual characters).
• Finish and publish the Princes’ Game summaries so that people who want to jump into the wedding books can do so. This is also my test case for my new ebook/print book process, so that should be instructive.
• Start on end of year accounting/tax prep.
• Finish up buying hardware/making changes to my office space. More on that when I'm closer to done.

So that was November's progress. November sales numbers and analysis will go out to coffee cup subscribers this week, so watch for that. (This is a good time to note that Patreon's changed things so that you have to select a specific reward tier in order to receive your prizes; previously you'd just get whatever the money you put out would unlock. Now you have to tell Patreon you want those things, or it will assume you don't want to be bothered. This FAQ should help you with that.)

That's a wrap. As usual, questions, comments, observations, welcome! And thank you all for being here. You are awesome. :D