Well I said the second job might kill me and I was nearly right. I’ve had to quit due to my really horrible feet requiring more surgery (in just about 2 months now!). What that means is that I am finally getting on a roll toward these crazy lofty goals. In the past couple of weeks things have picked up steam. I released The Chief, the third in The Tribe series. I finally finished Red Zone and it’s been through edits. I’m revising the second to last existing Dominion Falls book, and working on The Child (The Tribe 5).

So things are going a little wacky crazy here in a good way for a change. 2016 may turn around yet.

For a brief period of time I lost my precious notebook with pages of notes for all the series, the 40+ planned books, and ideas for character names…but fortunately it turned up right as I was about to throw in the towel and cry my eyes out. And of course it was right in a place I looked 20 times. So with that stress gone I got on the ball and worked hard this week.

Onto the update!

First, my overall goals for the year…

1. I’ve challenged myself to write 600,000 words in 2016. (at 317,514 as of 8/29/16. Finally crossed halfway, but way behind.)
2. I will build my audience and work harder at promotion. (This is going GREAT. Had a couple of real surges due to some promo opportunities I got in on. Excited for it to continue!)
3. I will regain my focus. (Really kicking off now. The younger kids are back in school, and while I’ve picked up more hours at the bank, I still have free days for work. Past two weeks have been stellar.)
4. I will face my demon/salvation – the one story I’m afraid of. (Nope, not even a little bit yet)
5. I will decide by July if I will return to Lake Point in 2017. (So…it’s past July…and I’m still not 100% sure. I know I am doing some revisit/recap stories of the existing books…and have story ideas for more books, but haven’t figured out when I will return to this lovely town.)
6. I will prep all the things for print. ALL. The. Things. (Tribe and Wolf are in print. The Chief is giving me fits, which I hope to fix soon. Next is The Raven. I’m still working on others on the side.)
7. I will update my author website. (Haven’t gotten much further, and need to add pages for The Chief and The Raven, among others. Again, slow going…but I’m getting there.).

And next is my list of projects. The list seems small without all the Lake Point books of the past on it, but I’m sure it will change and grow over the year. The books in ORANGE are current works-in-progress. The books in BLUE are new to the game.

1. Into a Mirror Darkly (Morgana Chronicles 1) – 100k (~10k done)
2. Dust Raiser (Dominion Falls 6) – 100k (Title Change!!)
3. Dead Man’s Switch (Dominion Falls 7) – 100k
4. Red Zone (Dominion Falls 5.5) – 40k (DONE 8/10/16)
5. The Raven (The Tribe #4) – 85k (DONE 5/15/16)
6. The Child (The Tribe #5) – 85k (~7k done)
7. The Seer (The Tribe #6) – 85k
8. Auld Lang Syne 1 (Lake Point 12.5 ~ Revisiting Year 1)
9. Auld Lang Syne 2 (Lake Point 12.6 ~ Revisiting Year 2)
10. Untitled Project (Hand Delivered Book 1) ~ 40k
11. Escaping Humanity (Co-authoring w/ Mary Terrani) – 100k (60k done)
12. Masked Hearts – Create new cover and re-release this one last SCP book (Plan to work on this in September)
13. Fall (Hidden Senses #1) ~30k

2016 has definitely been a struggle and a half for me. I am glad to see things picking up, and look forward to much more. I have plans to make some more money on the side to make up for my lost job, but I don’t expect those things to take too many hours out of my week. I still plan to meet the lofty goals I set for myself, and can’t wait to continue to tackle them all!

Now, off I go to editing. I have a book due to release on October 4th.