2018 Goals: The Successes

It's hard to believe this is going to be the last post of 2018. At least this is a good time to review the goals I did achieve this year.

Write and submit [short stories] to 3-4 anthologies/magazines--Achieved. I had two short stories published this year, one in an e-zine and one in an anthology. Three of my short stories were rejected. I'll publish two independently and possibly use material from the third in Catalyst in the Crucible. I intend to submit two short stories to anthologies in January; we'll see if any other markets catch my eye the rest of the year.

Prepare and publish 1 or 2 box sets for the Season Avatars series--I did a complete ebook box set of the Season Avatars series early this year.

Participate in local literary festivals when possible--I moderated a panel for the Elgin Literary Festival (ELF) and had a table at my library's Comic Con. I'll be back at ELF to sell books (and raffle off a dinosaur), though I'll have to see if my schedule allow me to participate in any other local writer fests.

Make Santa Jawa costume--I'm now calling it the "Holly Jolly Jawa" since I did it in green instead of red.

Crochet at least ten SW characters--I managed to accomplish this back in January. I made so many I'm considering selling some on Etsy after Star Wars Celebration in April.

Troop 20-25 times--I trooped 21 separate events. At this rate, I should reach my 100th troop before I turn 50 (another of my unofficial goals).

Read 150 books--My Goodreads count is currently 148. Book 149 is nearly done, and since I have a couple more days off this week, I'm quite confident I can finish at least one more book before the end of the year. More details about my reading will be revealed next week.

Although the month isn't quite over, it's still been a long December. Let's hope next year will be better than this one--and that I reach more of my goals!  See you on January 2nd. 

2018 Goals: The Misses

Way back at the end of last year (doesn't that seem longer ago than it really was?), I posted a rather ambitious set of personal goals for 2018. It's time to look back and see how I did. I'm going to spread this discussion over two blog posts. Today, I'm going to list the goals I didn't achieve this year. Unfortunately, there were a lot more misses than I thought there would be. I didn't even finish the first draft of Dryads to Discover, which I started in 2017. Part of that is because I traded a lot of writing time for crochet, and I spent a lot of my remaining time working on short stories. (More on that next week.) I recently decided to make a major change to the plot, so I wouldn't have been able to publish Dryads to Discover this year anyway. My slow publishing may be linked with my slow sales, but there's only so much I can juggle along with my job and my family. Additional commentary on my failed goals will be added below:

Writing

Finish Dryads to Discover (new urban fantasy, first in series)--See above.

Start Dragons to Deceive (sequel to Dryads to Discover)--Obviously it's hard to start Book Two when Book One isn't done

Finish “The Unnumbered World"--I'm having so much trouble with the plot that I may shelve this short story indefinitely.Maybe I should move on to Catalyst in the Crucible, the next installment in the Catalyst Chronicles series.

Revise “The Fighting Roses of Sharon"--I need to revise at least two, if not all three, of the subplots. 

Work on Welcome to Costume City--Didn't have time for this one.

Plan overall arc for Selathen Avatars series (followup to fantasy Season Avatars series)--I wrote a short story bridging the Season Avatars series to the sequel series (which I may rename), and there are some rough notes somewhere. There's still a lot of plotting to be done here, though.

Publishing

Publish Dryads to Discover

Publish “The Fighting Roses of Sharon” as standalone

Marketing

Prepare at least one pull quote graphic for each novella/novel-I may have played around with some graphics, but I need to find some suitable quotes to use.

Send out at least four newsletters--I actually sent out three, but there's been nothing since June. Maybe I should send one out in the next couple of weeks.

Run a promotion every 1-2 months--I did paid sales and Instafreebie promotions for about the first half of the year, but they fell off afterward.

Sell 150 units (books, short stories, collections)--Effective selling is one of my biggest challenges as an indie author. I don't sell many books unless I do discounts and promotions, but even then the sales don't make up for the promotion cost. I really need to write and publish more so my works can promote each other.

WisCon?--I haven't missed a WisCon since Alex was born. We had other things scheduled that weekend.

I did almost nothing on the goals listed below:

Other

Finish Jedi costume!

General Leia costume?

Finish 2 Death Star pillows--I did one, but not the second.

Crochet blanket for Alex

Household

Garage sale!

Get compost bin?

Landscape back yard

Despite this long list of misses, I did have a few successes. I'll share those with you next week, along with (hopefully) more realistic goals for 2019. Until then, happy holidays!

Book and Stocking Stuffer Sale!

Just a reminder that books make great gifts! I have copies of all the books shown here. I'll be happy to autograph them and send them either to you or directly to a recipient. Lyon's Legacy is $5.00; all other novels are $10. If you want to purchase an entire series, it's $12 for the Catalyst Chronicles (Lyon's Legacy and Twinned Universes) or $40 for the Season Avatars (Seasons' Beginnings,Scattered Seasons, Chaos Season, Fifth Season, and Summon the Seasons.)

I also have some pictures of my crocheted characters and lanyards. The characters are unique, but I do have more stock of the lanyards. The pterodactyl is $20, the other crocheted characters are $8, and the lanyards are $5. Cost doesn't include shipping.

If you're interested in any of these items, please e-mail me at
ulbrichalmazanATsbcglobalDOTnet. (Replace the "at" and "dot" with the appropriate symbols.)


 

IWSG: Five Things in My Writing Space

Welcome to the final Insecure Writer's Support Group for 2018. You can learn more about the IWSG on their website, Facebook, and Twitter. Our hosts this month are J.H. Moncrieff, Tonja Drecker, Patsy Collins, and Chrys Fey. Our question for this month is "What are five objects we'd find in your writing space?"

The easiest way to answer this question would be to take a picture of my home office, but it's too cluttered at the moment to show anyone. Instead, I'll describe a few things that I think will be most interesting or reveal my character.

1. "Let There Be Write." I have a two-page printout of a short story called "Let There Be Write," by Nancy Fulda taped to my desk, right above my laptop. It was published online in Strange Horizons in 2005. It's a parody of the Creation story from Genesis, detailing how a writer creates a story. The twist ending is something that will ring true for many writers, including me. I'm not sure if posting a picture of the printout would violate copyright, so I won't include one.


2. A small statue of an Egyptian scribe that I bought in the British Museum. We visited London in 2006 for our one-year anniversary. The leftover British money from that vacation rests on the scribe's lap as an offering. Perhaps I need to increase my donation to advance my writing career.

3. Christmas Trooper--My son made me a Limited Edition Christmas Trooper by coloring one of his Lego Stormtroopers red and green with markers. I keep it in the original packaging, on the same shelf as the scribe.

4. An acrylic dish with a sunflower on the bottom. I needed a little dish for my tea strainer, and this one cost only a dollar or so. I'm a big tea drinker and go though multiple cups of green, loose-leaf tea daily.

5. Reference books. I still keep paper copies of a dictionary, a thesaurus, grammar/style guides, and baby name books on my desk. However, I almost never use them anymore, since my first instinct is to look things up online.

As you can see from the pictures, there's lots more I could list, but I'll stop here. Feel free to share details about your writing space below.

Have a Holly Jolly Jawa!

I promised you I'd share my "Holly Jolly Jawa" costume with you today, so there it is. The normal Jawa softparts (robe and hood) are made with brown weathered monkscloth. I made new versions with green velveteen (which is much easier to work with than the monkscloth) and trimmed them with faux fur. The rest of the costume is the same as what I'd normally wear. I did wear this in a parade last Friday night, but I don't have any good pictures from the parade. Hopefully I'll have at least one more chance to troop in this costume before the holidays are over.

Project Updates 11/21/18

I'm not going to list every single project I've started or I want to start, as that would be rather tedious. I do have a couple of quick updates, though:

1. I finished the rough draft of one of my short stories. The working title (which is already the third one I've given this story) is currently "A Shawl for Janice." We'll see if I change the title again during revisions.

2. I'm nearly done crocheting a poodle. The "Bare Naked" version is below. Hopefully she'll look more poodle-like after I add lots of loops for fur:















3. Dryads to Discover hasn't quite reached 50,000 words yet, but I expect to before the end of the month.

Although it feels like the holiday has already started, I do have to work tomorrow. Whether you're working, traveling, or staying home this weekend, I hope you have a good one. Next week, I'll show off the Holly Jolly Jawa costume I made for a parade this Friday.

Project Update 11/14/18

It feels like it's been a while since I posted an update. Here's a quick rundown of what I've been up to (besides the usual work and family stuff):

Writing: I'm closing in on 50,000 words for Dryads to Discover, but since I started it last year, it definitely doesn't count for NaNoWriMo. I've temporarily set it aside to work on a short story for an anthology. By the time this post goes live, I should be over 2,500 words on that. The submission period for this anthology opens 1/1/19, which is hopefully enough time for even this slow writer to finish the story. However, there's a second anthology that opens around that time that I also want to write for. I have an idea for that story, but I need to do more research before I can crystallize my idea into words. After that, there's just more projects all the way down.

Sewing: I finally managed to finish the holiday Jawa costume for a special parade Thanksgiving Day weekend. Sorry, no pictures until after the parade. I may try making a dress out of the leftover material, but it would have to be a simple one. I also need to make a second set of normal Jawa robe and hood to replace the one I've used for over three years. At least after that's done I should be able to start the Jedi costume. It would be nice to have that for Celebration.

Crochet: I still have a few projects that I need to finish, including a custom Wookie, Spiderman, and a poodle. I did make a green Porg to help celebrate the holidays:

I guess by now you shouldn't be surprised that I have yet another long list of things to crochet once I finish with my current ones. At least I manage to keep myself occupied!

I have a three-day weekend coming up since my son has Friday off, so hopefully I can make progress on a couple of things. I'll let you know more next week.

IWSG: Writing, Creativity, and Life

Welcome to another blog post for the Insecure Writer's Support Group. You can learn more about the IWSG on their website, Facebook group, or Twitter feed.

Our hosts this month are Ellen at The Cynical Sailor, Ann V. Friend, JQ Rose, and Elizabeth Seckman.

This month, we've been asked to answer the following question: How has your creativity in life evolved since you began writing?

My life has definitely changed a lot since I began writing over twenty years ago, but I'd say other factors besides writing have definitely influenced my creativity. One major life event that increased my creativity was becoming a mother. Although motherhood takes up a lot of free time, it also exposes me to different interests and activities that I wouldn't have discovered on my own. For instance, after taking my son to bouncy houses when he was younger, I used one at the setting in my short story "The Mommy Clone." When he became interested in Star Wars, our whole family got into Star Wars costuming, which has led to me learning to sew.

Other creative hobbies have come and gone over the years. I taught myself how to crochet in my twenties; among other things, I made a ring bearer's pillow and a baby outfit. Then I forgot about crochet for a while until the end of 2016. I found a pattern to crochet a "pussy hat" for the Women's March and ended up making two. From there I just kept on going. I currently found a niche  in making geeky amigurmi with Star Wars characters, though I'm expanding into other fandoms and other crochet projects. Most of my crochet is done using patterns someone else designs, though sometimes I modify the pattern. Eventually, I want to create my own designs, possibly to sell.

How has your creativity changed with your writing? Feel free to share in the comments.