Pre-Year End Evaluation

Today is the last day of November. Tomorrow is December 1st.  In a mere 31 days, not only will December be gone, but also the year 2011.  Where did it go?

Rather than focus on the "where" of the year, let's focus on the "what" of the year. 

WHAT did you accomplish?

There are 365 days in a year and in my working days (retired now) I would say that each new day was a whole new chance to screw up.  Sort of a lame excuse to face a new day, wouldn't you say?

I'm retired and each day I now realize that I'm moving closer to my final reward but until that day, I want to make the days actually mean something.  So again, there are 365 days and how did I use them?

In November I used 30 days to write a whole new novel.  Yes, I participated in National Novel Writing Month and wrote 50 thousand words in 30 days.  Well, actually I wrote over 53k words and have at my fingertips a great story with absolutely crappy writing.  I will let it rest until after the New Year and then decide to address the poor grammar, spelling, plot, etc. and edit the project.

Only 335 days more to cover.  I can't be accurate since I didn't timecard myself during the year but I know I spent time editing a book to publish and got "Three Steps: The Journeys of Ayrold" done in both paperback and ebook format.  Between edits and learning curve on Amazon's Kindle and CreateSpace, I figure I spent at least 4 to 5 months on that.  I also did some editing on another novel which I hope to release after the first of the year -- "The Legend of Pangea" which took another 2 months.

There!  That is definitely a half year squandered.  Only another 155 days left to go.

All work and no play makes for a boring life.  I mowed the yard, worked a garden, weeded flower beds, traveled to Texas for Mardi Gras, went camping a couple of weeks, did some days of gambling at the casinos and visited with family.

And during that time, three anthologies that I'd submitted to got published -- "Shadow Street," "Guide to Writing Paranormal Novels," and "Mother Goose Is Dead."  

Oh, wow, I forgot I also e-published a short story in book format entitled "Coleen" which is a little ditty about how Ayrold and Queen Arienne met and introduces some of the main characters from my novel "Three Steps: The Journeys of Ayrold."  That endeavor took about a month.

I also wrote stories for other anthologies which weren't released this year (yet) and might be coming out right after the first of the year -- a zombie anthology, a forsaken anthology, and a how-to-write horror book.

There, the year wasn't wasted and I think it had a pretty good return. So, overall, I'd say it was a pretty good year and seems to have the beginnings of a new year already being processed.

In case you didn't realize it yet - I love writing.

Until next I blog...