2022 Writing Goals Review

Well, 2022 was a fairly productive year, although with two novels in work, not a lot was completely finished. Combine that with work stresses and several items around the house that needed to be addressed, it was good that I could get some work accomplished on the goals that I did. Here's the recap for how things went against my 2022 goals.

1. Complete the first draft of my fifth Aston West series novel, Before the Dawn. 

Didn't finish the first draft of this novel, but I have been working on it throughout the year. Now up to around 30K words and have a good handle on the direction I want to take it, including the ending! 

2. Complete the first draft of my second title (Tempted) in my new Demonkiller series.

Didn't finish the first draft of this novel, but like Before the Dawn, I have been working on it throughout the year. Will be interesting to see which of these novels ends up finished first. Now up to around 20K words.

3. As the rights from Dead or Alive have been returned to me, it's time to re-publish and re-brand my two short story collections. 

Didn't get this finished this year. No excuse, just didn't.

A follow-up post for my new goals will be coming soon. Hoping to gain a little momentum and have 2023 be an even better year.

"Turnabout" is Fair Play

 It has been a great long while since I've posted, and even then, most of those had been my regular writing goals posts (end of the year posts are coming soon). But I'm happy to announce that my latest Aston short story "Turnabout" will be published soon in a magazine. It has been over a decade (11-12 years?) since my last official magazine publication, so pretty excited about that. Will let everyone know when it comes out (e-published and print both).

Readers of my very first short story "Little White Truths" (in the now-defunct Ray Gun Revival, issue #33 - also re-printed in the Aston short story collection Dead or Alive) will be in for a special treat with this one. It's been over 15 years since that one came out for the first time, so if you've forgotten the story, go back and re-read it in preparation for the new story arriving.

2022 Writing Goals

Well, I neglected to put out a set of goals in 2021, and almost did the same here in 2022. I guess it's only a month late (not making excuses, but the past month or so has been a train wreck, health-wise). Here they are:

1. Complete the first draft of my fifth Aston West series novel, Before the Dawn. I have several chapters written on this one, so I am expecting to finish this goal. That said, I have been "pantsing" this story, which has not turned out that well for me so far (Some good material, but it seems to be wandering a lot with no real direction).

2. Complete the first draft of my second title (Tempted) in my new Demonkiller series. I do have a rough plot outlined for this one, so planning to flesh that out a bit more, and then start in on the draft. Stretch goal will be to get it published this year, but we shall see how things go the next few months.

3. As the rights from Dead or Alive have been returned to me, it's time to re-publish and re-brand my two short story collections. Planning to get that done this year as well. Perhaps in time for Air Cap in November.

Completely doable, so now it's just a matter of bearing down and getting on these goals.