Hello 2018!

It's 2018!  I know, it has been for over a month, but I've been busy.  Sadly, that busy time has mostly been made up of real life and work.  I didn't have turnover at the day job this past year (yay, finally!), but I still stayed incredibly busy.  We spent a lot of 2017 fixing up the house.  So, at the end of the day, not much time or energy left for writing or illustrating.  So, what did my 2017 look like?

English: Christmas fairy tale, light show, Grabrovnica, Croatia Hrvatski: Božićna bajka na imanju obitelji Salaj u Grabrovnici kraj Čazme (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

68.58 hours worked
15,134 words written
452 average words per hour
1 illustration finished
4 blog posts published
0 new books published

God, that's depressing.  I did make some progress, though.  I finished a rough of another illustration, and I'm almost done coloring a third.  That last is, so far, the most complex illustration in the upcoming Derrick and Max book, and it's taking quite awhile.

I also finished writing the 1st draft of A Christmas Tale.  I finished editing the 2nd draft of Bound, and I'm now working on the 2nd draft of A Christmas Tale (I like to give them some breathing room between drafts, so I work on another project).  Since editing tends to involve a lot of time with little progress in terms of words written, my words per hour were rather low last year.

I also attended the first four Brandon Sanderson lectures.  I can't believe they're free.  If you've not watched them, you should.  It's time well spent.  Here’s the first one:


So, that was my 2017.  In looking back, I didn't hit a single one of my resolutions, but I made some progress.  I didn't achieve what I'd hoped to, but it's a new year.  Just because I didn't hit my targets doesn't mean I'm going to give up.  So, here's what I hope to achieve this year:

Stop reading news stories about Trump

They're so depressing.  I don't want to hear anything else about that man unless it's about a successful impeachment.

Get a book published

I'm making slow progress on Bound and A Christmas Tale.  Maybe I'll get one of them finished.  Fingers crossed.

Make a major life change

I don't want to jinx it, so you'll have to wait.  If I pull it off, you'll hear about it here.

Read 24 books

I usually hit that, but I didn't last year.  It's my Goodreads goal again this year.

Log at least 80 hours

Like I said, I'm in an editing phase, so I don't expect a high word count this year.  But I think I can manage to invest more hours in the craft than I did in 2017.  I broke 80 hours in 2015, and I almost hit 80 hours in 2016.  I'm shooting to get back above that point in 2018.

Finish the Sanderson course

I'm caught up on Fear the Walking Dead, so I plan to get back to Sanderson on my lunch breaks.

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