Eating A New Year's Resolution

SPECIAL:
October 1, 2014: My novel, "Pangaea: Eden Lost," will be available for free ONE (1) day only.  This is a savings of $4.99 and a great read.  All I ask in return, please give it an honest review.

Hard to believe that over 2/3 of the year has passed already.  In fact, in just a few short weeks, the end of the month (September), it will be 3/4 of the year shot with only 3 more months left until the end of the year.

Where did the time go?

On January 1, 2014, I made a resolution to publish 4 (FOUR) books this year.

Only with sheer, pure luck and all the happy gods smiling on me will that happen.

Still, I am not off by that much.  I am currently cleaning up the edits for the 3rd novel to be published this year.  Three is not a bad number of books to release in one year.  And I know that I can do it... definitely three, for sure.

What caused me to miss my goal?  There were several factors.

1) Goofing off.  Worst thing to do.  Like the hare in the race with the tortoise, I was ahead of schedule (2 books done by May 1 and finalizing edits almost done of book 3). I knew I had all the time in the world to get the third book finished and finalize the fourth.  Wrong!

2) I had a couple of edit jobs that took away some of my time for writing.  Again, item 1 seemed to play a good part in this.  I was ahead of schedule.  I could edit 3 books for clients.  Right!  I had to edit a book of 76k, 89k and 103k.  I miscalculated my time needed since I was editing newbies, first timers and I wanted to be as thorough and fair as possible.

3) While working on the edits for my clients, I realized a major issue in my current novel I was trying to finish up for publication.  It was a major flaw.  You can't have a lead character who is led around by the other characters.  It became a major rewrite to correct the flaw and then a whole new edit process.  Remember?  I was ahead of schedule.  Suddenly I was behinder schedule more than I realized.  I was to be done with this book by July and publish it in August.  Again, wrong!  It is now September and I am just getting into the edit stage on it.  I should now be working on book 4.  I'm not, and book 4 has a lot of work to do!

4) Summer and life got in the way.  Contrary to popular belief, writers do have a life.  There are those other humans in the house that the writer must interact with and even socialize.  My wife is a saint and tends to allow me the luxury of writing but I'd forgotten that the grandchildren enjoy week stays with us.  You can't ignore grandchildren - especially the younger ones who are 4 and 5 and well, the 9 and 12 yr old ones also want to see you.  Day trips to do things and camping trips tend to take away time from writing.  The one redeeming grace I had was my older four grandchildren are over 18 and work so we didn't have to entertain them - although the one did come out for an evening at the campfire.

5) Of course, there is this blog and I also do a weekly writing tip which take a bit of time away.  Normally I can come up with a topic to write about for a writing tip, but this summer, I seemed to be distracted and the thought process was clogged and I struggled for ideas.  I usually release these project each Monday and Sundays became evenings and nights of terror as I strained to write viable blogs and tips.  One week, my blog and tip was released late into the day on Monday rather than shortly after midnight.  Can I blame the grandkids for this form of writer's block?  Nah.

Of course, as winter moves in, perhaps I might get lucky and find myself stuck in the house more and able to spend that time at the computer getting my writing done.

Hmm?  There is still three (3) months and a couple of weeks left to get things done and fulfill my resolution.  I might not get the book I chose finished, but I could do a different book. Maybe I shouldn't give up so easily. I realize I still have a big elephant sitting in front of me but the easiest way to eat that elephant is one bite at a time until it is finished.

Time for me get busy eating!

Until next I ramble on...