Thursday, January 2, 2014

New Year

I've been pretty quiet for the last few weeks, so I thought I'd crawl out of my cave and say hi. I've been sick a few times, got to know more of the folks working the local ER. I missed holidays with my family because I've been afraid to travel; having to start from scratch to break in a new ER staff, convince a bunch of strange doctors that I know what's going on and how to treat it, when at times I have to argue with the local ER staff who have my history in their records, just feels like too high a hurdle when I'm already feeling lousy. All together, my give-a-damn broke down about halfway through November, and I didn't feel like getting it fixed. I've read a few million words, played a lot of solitaire, and generally vegged for a while. I'm actually feeling eager to get back to the writing, so I guess the downtime did me some good.

My 2013 writing goal was 250,000 words. Even taking the last seven weeks or so of the year off, I managed 304,169, which feels pretty awesome. It's the most I've ever done since I started keeping track, and I'm pretty sure it's the most words of fiction I've ever written in a year. I had two novels come out this year -- Captive Magic and The Executive Lounge -- and one short story in an anthology that paid pro rates, another first for me that I felt pretty good about. I finished eight other short stories, which are making the rounds on the pro-pay side. All together, I'm pretty happy with 2013.

My 2014 writing goal is 300,000 words. It's obviously not a stretch goal, but I know myself; if I push too far and fall behind at some point, I'll get depressed and it'll be twice as hard to catch up. Almost a third of a million words is still pretty decent, and if I pass it, that's a bonus.

I'm looking forward to the coming year, and I hope everyone else is too.

Angie

5 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

Sorry to hear of the slump, but it probably did help you to veg out some. Luck in 2014!

Andrea Blythe said...

Yuk on the being sick and all the stress.

But awesome on exceeding your writing goals! Plus new books and stories out? That's awesome.

Have a lovely 2014 and happy writing!

Angie said...

Charles -- thanks. And yes, I really needed that break. Luck back!

Andrea -- Thank you! Hope you have a great year too!

Angie

Suzan Harden said...

Sometimes you need the mental break as much as the physical break. Here's to a fabulous 2014!

Angie said...

Suzan -- very true.

You have a great year too!

Angie