The Writing Goals for 2015

I have a couple things this year in “Dependent” status that might change OTHER plans depending on what happens. I will do my best to double plan so I can be adaptive...


First Quarter

IN my control:

January I will do two more rounds of revision on Also Appearing for ABNA and then enter.

January/February I will read Kahlotus Disposal Site and Medium Wrong, then revise the one I am closes to happy with for Querying.

And in March I plan to write a mystery... WHICH mystery depends on...


Somewhat out of my control: What Ales Me is with Ellen. If she LIKES it, hopefully she can sell it (meaning a focus on this series all year). If she DOESN'T like it, I think it is still good enough to query. My agreement with Ellen is project by project and I like working with her, but she will do the best job for me if she really likes it. Most of her suggestions last time she saw it I totally agreed with, but I will have to see if I managed the tweaks where I didn't agree with her (my approach is to generally think I didn't get what I meant across right so I need to do a better job rather than to make it something I didn't mean in the first place... usually it works, not always).

IFF I sell it, I will write the 2nd in March (March Madness). If I DONT sell it, I will write my 2nd Corset Cop one, strictly because I have one for THAT already started)

Historic postcard from Lake Chatcolet

Second Quarter

April and May will again be revision months, one for a YA, one for the first Corset Cop (unless I have requested revisions for What Ales Me or the YA I submitted in February). Then June, as usual (as it is BuNoWriMo, I will write a book... I have a YA I've been thinking about for a long time and really want to get to called Summer Bones—it is part of my Chatcolet series, of which Also Appearing is the first—they are standalone novels, but connected by location—the lake and small communities nearby where I spent much of my growing up. This one is a bit of a prank gone wrong/bullying tale. BUT if I've sold What Ales Me, I MAY be in a position of needing to write one from that series (the 3rd).

Third Quarter...

July and August tend to be months I reserve for winding stuff up that needs doing. If I've sold the Artful Ales series, it will be a polish time there—getting book 2 really totally ready. If I haven't (or my timing is farther out) I may invest it to make progress on either Undoing or Endangered—both of these are huge projects and both need a lot of work still. Undoing is 3 books in three acts and I've written 2 of the 9 total acts. Endangered I am closer to half done but have done a lot of reconceiving. I may structure it more like I did A Shot in the Light—as written I rotate 4 PoVs but the action doesn't distribute that nicely, so I need to restructure.

September will hopefully be a polish/submit time... (TBD--maybe first Corset Cop)


Fourth Quarter:
October a revision TBD.
November write a mystery for NaNoWriMo
December pick my ABNA book and work on revisions for THAT...

Hopefully there is enough flexibility built in here that I can manage... It is a total of 3 new books, polishing and querying 2 and major edits on 2, plus progress on a big project...

Ready, set... GOOOO!