 Happy New Year's Eve! It's time to check in on if I met my reading and writing goals for 2024!
Reading Goals 1) Read my physical TBR Achieved! I read my backlog of physical books and bought more, for a total of 25 physical books. 2) Read what my friends are gushing about Achieved! I read 12 books with my friends, including the ACOTAR series and the Crescent City series. 3) Find comps for my next book Achieved! I found three recently published books that are great comps to my book. 4) Keep track of reading stats, but don't sweat Achieved! I read 59 books and 24,133 pages. Writing Goals 1) See what working with a professional editor is like Achieved! I had the opportunity to work with Jeni Chappelle and it was amazing. Read about my experience here! 2) Polish my manuscript and send my first query for my next book Achieved! I finished in time to pitch at a conference in September and have sent queries since. Keep your fingers crossed! 3) Keep up with my writing groups This one got difficult at the end of the year when work got pretty overwhelming. I had to let go of my highest-volume groups, but was able to keep up with a couple groups that have a lower volume of reading.
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 The Bainbridge Artisan Resource Network (BARN) had their first annual Dark and Stormy short story contest this year with a theme of uncanny valley. I entered because I enjoy short horror writing, and I won! I'm so excited to share my story Waxing Fame at the BARN Dark and Stormy party later this month!
Hi blog readers!
Sorry for the mini-hiatus! My day job has required longer hours and even some weekend hours recently, and I've been reading a very long set of books so I haven't had time to finish books or post about them! As an apology, here is a list of what's coming soon! Is It Worth the Hype? The Crescent City Series Is It Worth It? A Developmental Edit (Including a comparison to feedback from beta readers) My favorite resources for editing your novel Podcast Episode: Legends and Lattes Hopefully work calms down soon and I can post more regularly. Thanks for your patience!  In January, I posted my reading and writing goals for 2023 and now I'm checking in to hold myself accountable. My reading list from 2023 is at the bottom and I'll share my favorites in another post!
Reading: Goal: Read 15,000 pages. Reality: I read 19,608 pages! Goal: >50% of the authors will be marginalized or different from me in a demographic way. Reality: 50.9% were marginalized or different from me in a demographic way. Goal: Read 9 indie books Reality: I read 9 indie books (see reading list below) Goal: Read 2 foundational scifi novels Reality: I read 2 foundational scifi novels: Frankenstein and I, Robot Goal: Read 4 scifi nominees/winners from the last two years Reality: I read more than 4 award winners/nominess, though I'll admit they aren't all scifi, and not all nominated in the last two years: Chain-Gang All Stars (National Book Award 2023 nominee); Babel (Nebula winner 2023); Woman of Light (multiple award winner/nominee 2023); The Sixth Extinction (Pulitzer Prize 2015), All Systems Red (Nebula and Hugo 2018); Artificial Condition (Hugo 2019) Goal: 5 debut novels Reality: I read 7 debut novels: Woman of Light, Lessons in Chemistry, Please Report Your Bug Here, I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself, The Blood Trials, Camp Zero, and Chain-Gang All-Stars Writing: Goal: Send >5 queries each month until I finish my potential agent list. Reality: Because some agents never opened in the time period I was querying, I didn't finish the list. However, that's beyond my control, so because I did send more than 5 queries per month until my list ran dry, I am counting this as a success. Goal: Finish the draft of my current WIP Reality: Success! Goal: Continue to attend my critique groups and keep up with pre-reading Reality: Success! Goal: Attend one writing workshop or conference Reality: I attended the PNWA 2023 conference. Goal: Get one short story selected for publication Reality: Nope! I totally forgot this was a goal this year. I wrote a short story, but never shopped it around. Oops! Overall, not bad. I only fell short on a couple goals. Below is my reading list from the year. My most popular genre by far was fantasy, followed distantly by scifi. Three of these books were DNRs, but at least 100 pages of each counted toward my page goal. Title Author Pub Type Genre Link The Sixth Extinction Elizabeth Kolbert Trad Non-Fiction My Review Woman of Light Kali Fajardo-Anstine Trad Historical My Review Arsenic and Adobo Mia M. Manansala Trad Mystery My Review Reminders of Him Colleen Hoover Trad Romance Podcast All Systems Red Martha Wells Trad SciFi My Review Chain of Thorns Cassandra Clare Trad Fantasy Lessons in Chemistry Bonnie Garmus Trad Historical My Review Anastasia Sophie Lark Indie Fantasy My Review The Chemist Stephanie Meyer Trad Action Podcast I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself Marisa Crane Indie Scifi/Literary My Review Please Report Your Bug Here Josh Riedel Trad Scifi My Review Fevered Star Rebecca Roanhorse Trad Fantasy The Blood Trials N. E. Davenport Trad Fantasy My Review Murder Your Employer Rupert Holmes Trad Mystery Podcast Artificial Condition Martha Wells Trad SciFi Bird by Bird Anne Lamott Trad Non-Fiction My Review Babel R.F. Kuang Trad Fantasy My Review Rogue Protocol Martha Wells Trad SciFi Six of Crows Leigh Bardugo Trad Fantasy My Review Story Genius Lisa Cron Trad Non-Fiction My Review Crooked Kingdom Leigh Bardugo Trad Fantasy My Review The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi Shannon Chakraborty Trad Fantasy My Review Charlotte: The Price of Vengance James Moore Pre-Pub Mystery Podcast Camp Zero Michelle Min Sterling Trad Scifi My Review The Power of Babel John McWhorter Trad Non-Fiction My Review Putting the Fact in Fantasy Dan Kobolt et. al. Trad Non-Fiction My Review Love, Theoretically Ali Hazelwood Trad Romance My Review The Terraformers Annalee Newitz Trad Scifi My Review The Legacy of Yangchen F. C. Yee Trad Fantasy Toph Beifong's Metalbending Multiple Trad Fantasy Fourth Wing Rebecca Yarros Trad Fantasy Podcast Frankenstein Mary Shelley Trad SciFi My Review The Mimiking of Known Successes Malka Older Trad Scifi/Mystery My Review The Raider Bride Johanna Wittenberg Indie Fantasy Starlet Sophie Lark Indie Historical/Mystery My Review Throne of Glass Sarah J. Maas Trad Fantasy My Review iRobot Isaac Asimov Trad SciFi My Review Of Cinder and Bone Kyoko M. Indie SciFi Poisoned Primrose Dahlia Donovan Indie Mystery My Review Chalice of the Gods Rick Riordan Trad Fantasy My Review Sun and the Star Rick Riordan/Mark Oshiro Trad Fantasy My Review Crown of Midnight Sarah J. Maas Trad Fantasy The Dictionary of Lost Words Pip Williams Trad Historical My Review When We Left Cuba Chanel Kleetan Trad Historical My Review Chain-Gang All-Stars Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah Trad Fantasy My Review My First and Only Love Sahar Khalifeh Trad Historical The Savior's Champion Jenna Moreci Indie Fantasy Iron Flame Rebecca Yarros Trad Fantasy Podcast coming soon! The Throne of the Five Winds S.C. Emmett Trad Fantasy Grunt Mary Roach Trad Non-Fiction Heir of Fire Sarah J. Maas Trad Fantasy Assassin's Blade Sarah J. Maas Trad Fantasy We're All Monsters Here Amy Marsden Indie Fantasy My Review Queen of Shadows Sarah J. Maas Trad Fantasy Hello blog readers and people visiting this site after meeting me at PNWA 2023!
I am exhausted after PNWA's wonderful conference, so this is the tiny little blog post I can wring from my brain this week. Next week I will talk about if the cost of the conference is worth it to help you decide if it's something you'd like to attend next year. (Or even if a conference more local to you is something you'd like to attend!) Other upcoming posts I can currently tease: A review of Throne of Glass from a newbie to Sarah J. Maas: is the hype worth your time? Lessons from a Classic: Asimov's iRobot Lessons from my first (and so far only) DNF of 2023 I was also recommended some amazing writing resources at the conference, so I'll be reviewing those as well, including the one I'm most excited for, the Trope Thesaurus by Jennifer Hilt. Don't forget the Judging More than Just the Cover Book Club podcast is currently reading Fourth Wing. Get ready for my hot takes on the Murder College trope! See you here next week, readers! If you're here because we met at PNWA give a shout out in the comments! The annual contest Revise and Resub (aka RevPit) is starting up and the window to enter is coming this week. I'm entering for the second time (first for this novel). One of my problems is that I'm pretty shy on twitter, so I haven't been interacting with the editors much. The other problem is that I usually only see threads many hours after they started and feel weird hopping on. So I thought I'd make a post with some ~vibes~ of my manuscript so if any RevPit editors check out my website, they may see this and get more of a sense of my novel without me having to manage the anxiety of Twitter interactions. Title: The New Neanderthals Genre: Adult sci-fi Included tropes: Cinnamon roll love interest Fake dating Corrupted corporation Fish out of water Songs that capture a moment/emotion: Human by Christina Perri Start a War by Klergy & Valerie Broussard Confident by Demi Lovato Look What You Made Me Do by Taylor Swift You Don't Own Me by Grace Fight Song by Rachel Platten Mood Board/Aesthetic:  Photos from Unsplash If you're not doing RevPit and/or aren't a RevPit editor, then come back next week when I will have more of my usual content!
If you are doing RevPit, let's discuss in the comments! Have you done it before? Have you been braver on Twitter than I have?  After my successful reading (and only a little successful writing) last year, I'm setting more goals! Of course, I've learned some lessons I'll be applying to my new goals as well.
Reading 1) Volume of Reading In 2023, I won't be keeping track of the number of books I've read, but the number of pages. This is because I got so stressed about needing to finish books last year that I felt guilty choosing long books, and didn't want to DNF a book after investing so much time into it. If I go off of pages read, then I can DNF a book without feeling like I'm letting myself down, and I can pick long books without worrying about needing to read faster. I went back to my data from 2022 to get a baseline and in 2022 I read just over 14,000 pages. My 2023 goal: Read 15,000 pages 2) Variety of Authors I liked keeping track of the number of female authors I read, but I found it super easy to hit my goal of >50% of the authors being female. Therefore, I don't think I'll set a goal for this in the up coming year. However, I will keep track, and if it drops below 50%, then it'll be back on my resolutions next year. I just want to see if I naturally meet this mark. However, I was challenged by my 2022 goal of 50% of the authors being unlike me in some (demographic) way. My 2023 goal: >50% of the authors will be marginalized in some way 3) Variety of Publishing One really tough aspect of my goals last year was the 8 indies. Most of them were great, but two were big flops for me. Still, I could just be looking in the wrong places for recommendations, so I'm going to keep at it! My 2023 goal: Read 9 indie books 4) New Aspects to Track I want to add a new challenge this year as well, and I've thought about reading award winners/nominees, classics/foundational novels of scifi, or debuts. I'm a little torn, so why not all three? My 2023 goal: Read 2 foundational scifi novels My 2023 goal: Read 4 scifi award winners/nominees from the last 2 years (2021-2023) My 2023 goal: Read 5 debut novels (from 2022 or 2023) Writing A lot of these will look familiar, but the only way to get published is to keep trying. 1) Querying This is staying the same, since finding five open agents from my list every month proved to be pretty tough sometimes. My 2023 goal: Send >5 queries each month until I finish my potential agent list 2) Writing Fresh I don't care which month I finish the novel in, so long as I finish it. I've been getting great feedback on the first half, which has given me a ton of ideas for the second. My 2023 goal: Finish the first draft of my current WIP 3) Critique Groups Tried and true, I'm going to earn my keep in these valuable groups. My 2023 goal: Continue to attend my critique groups and keep up with the pre-reading (when applicable) 4) Continuous Improvement I have great opportunities this year for workshops, and I feel like maybe it's even safe enough to go to big conferences again. Hopefully the timing works out. My 2023 goal: Attend one writing workshop or conference 6) Short Stories These have never been my focus, but with two short stories published now, I want to keep going. You never know when an agent's reading an anthology or magazine, right? My 2023 goal: Get one short story selected for publication. That's about it. I'll check back on this post at the end of next year to see how I did. Do you have 2023 goals and resolutions for reading or writing? Let's chat in the comments!  A year ago, I posted my 2022 reading and writing resolutions. Now it's time to check in and see how I did. Reading Goal: Read 45 books Achieved! I read 45 books exactly and reviewed 23 of them (see links below) Goal: 8 of those books would be indies Achieved! I read 8 indies exactly and reviewed 3 of them (see links below) Goal: Greater than 50% of the books would be written by female authors Achieved! 66.66% were written either exclusively by women or at least one woman, where multiple authors contributed Goal: At least 50% of the books would be written by authors who have a marginalized identity. Achieved! 55.55% were written either exclusively by or including at least one author with at least one marginalized identity I read a ton of great books this year. It was a good mix of new, old, big hits, and quieter releases. SciFi and Fantasy tied as my most common genres, which is no surprise as those are always my favorites. Here's my reading list from 2022:
Writing Goal: Have my WIP query ready by February Achieved! I sent my first round of queries for this project in February 2022. Goal: Send at least 5 queries per month 11/12 on this one, can't win them all, though some months I sent more than 5. Goal: Complete the first draft of my next WIP by August 2022 Nope! This one is still under construction. Goal: Continue attending writing groups whenever possible Achieved! Goal: Keep up with this website Achieved! A couple months were slimmer on content than others, but that's the way it goes sometimes. I'm still deciding on my 2023 resolutions/goals. Did you achieve your 2022 goals? Did we read any of the same books? Let's discuss in the comments!  I'm so excited to announce that my short story "Please Don't be a Serial Killer" will be published in Nightmare Sky, a night sky themed anthology from Death Knell Press. My story is my first attempt at publishing horror rather than scifi, so I was surprised and thrilled! I will say that there's a lot of humor in my story compared to most horror, so it's still very me.
You may recognize the name Red Lagoe, the editor, as someone who was on my 2021 reads post. She has two anthologies of horror out now, Lucid Screams and Dismal Dreams. She also recently released a stand alone short story, "Black Feathered Fury" and has many shorts published in other anthologies. Nightmare Sky will be published in January 2023! Transparency note: I know Red Lagoe in real life, as we have been in the same writing group. She did not see my short story in advance. I did not think submitting to her was a guarantee for inclusion. Wow June flew by insanely fast with almost no posts! What happened to me? Well, covid happened.
I wear a mask in public, at stores, on transit, at work, etc. But it still got me. And it was no joke! I was very happily vaccinated and boosted already, so it could have been much worse. Especially considering my asthma. I'm on the mend now, though! Here's what's coming up on the blog: More book reviews A publishing announcement A review of my experience at Futurescapes at Snowbird in August Thanks for your patience while I coughed my way through June! |
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