April was a good month for me, with some great achievements. (Can’t remember the yearly goals? Check them out here)
Goal #3 (working on my novellas) took a good jump forward as I published The Troll’s Toll (my first venture into self publishing(not counting flash fiction here on my site). This means I’ve met my requirement of publishing ‘at least one of them’.
Goal #4 (writing and selling short fiction) proceeded with my writing a new short story (working title ‘Kitsune In Space’) and starting Charming‘s first sequel, Charming Rivals.
As far as goal #8 (learning) I did plenty. I learned how to format an ebook (Guido Henkel’s guide is super handy, but I needed a few other bits and pieces and some special formatting for my ‘about’ page so it’s an effective starter (and intermediate) but doesn’t have everything. Also, it’s free.). I also learned no matter how perfect an image is in the author’s mind for the book, sometimes it just doesn’t work out and you have to let go. And on top of that I discovered the Writing Excuses podcast and binged an entire three seasons of the thing. I need to take a break before delving deeper into the back list as I’ve been podcast listening for nearly two months now. Back to audiobooks!
And now, my goals specifically for April:
- Revamp of website: Mostly done. I updated the look of this, the main part of the site, and I did a cool new books section. It took a lot of work though, making a subdomain, setting up a separate install of WordPress on there so it could have its own theme and using MyBookTable to make it all pretty. Considering my only website before this was an old Geocities Sailor Moon fansite I think I did a pretty good job with all the technical stuff ;p That’s probably why I’m waiting a little longer before I update my ‘free fiction’ section. I’ll try getting to that later this year.
- Release The Troll’s Toll: done, though by the skin of my teeth really as I uploaded it late at night on the 28th. So late I didn’t have time to do all my release/out now promotion.
- Help with the promotion of the releases of ASIM #63 (which contains my story Gaps) and Leading Edge #68 (which contains my story Charming): I had heaps of fun with this, I got to send out my first ever newsletter(and second), make book pages on my site and I even (after checking the publisher didn’t mind) put the magazines on Goodreads. I only hope my sales copy wasn’t too sales-y in my newsletters.
Stretch goal:
- Write first draft of (very loose working title) Kitsune In Space: YES! Yes I finally completed on of my stretch goals. I even found the time to revise it and submit the first 2/3rds to my writers’ group for critique. I hope to submit it to a specific anthology at the end of May.
I also found the time to sit down and flesh out the entire Charming For Hire series, the full outlines of all the sequels to Charming, (Charming Rivals, Naught for Charming, The Glass Witch, The Handrell War, A Charming Child). I’ve even written a good portion of Charming Rivals‘ first draft. I found this time as I was waiting for my proofreader to send me back The Troll’s Toll.
So over all, I’m pretty happy with the results for April.
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I did so well in April I worry it might be hard to follow. I can’t help but wonder, I set less goals for April, then got more done than expected. Should I follow that model?
