Three days left until the end of the year. Have you got your files in order? Started creating your 2025 folders, from writing scraps to filing invoices?
Looking back, what did you want to get done this year?
What went right?
What are you planning for next year?
What in your processes are you going to keep the same?
What do you plan to change?
***
While I wanted to finish a story this year, this was not the year of finishing; it was the year of persistently coming back after getting knocked down.
In the end, once I remove the reasons why and simply look at the numbers, I wrote on 120/363 days, or 33% of the years. That’s… not nearly as bad as I feel like I’m doing, which again underscores the disconnect between how I feel I’m doing and how I’m actually doing.
The first five months of the year, I wrote on 4, 7, 7, 2, and 3 days respectively. Only when I got above 7 days / month could I sustain a story in my head… and indeed, the next month I wrote only 7 days was the month I completely lost the thread on the WIP and ended up starting the current story.
The current story has 54 writing days, and is slightly over 58K. So, I’m currently getting about 1K/ day when I do write.
So, next year, I’m going to shoot for writing 4 days a week (because writing 7 days a week neither leaves enough time to refill the well, nor rests my wrists enough). We’ll see if that balances work, life, other hobbies, and ability to hold the story in my head (assuming I stay healthy enough to do so.)
I’m also going to see if it takes less time to write from scratch, or to pick up a WIP that got put down, do a heavy edit pass, and run it out to The End.
Here’s to all of us, having a better year ahead!
Mad Genius Club 
8 responses to “Wrapping Up”
I wanted to finish at least one novel this year, but I now have five in various stages of completion. Which is…25-30% my fault, but that’s how it goes.
What went right? Finally getting some processes done that I haven’t been able to really fix over the years. New medication to help deal with several issues, including working half-asleep because that seemed to be my best way to write.
Planning for next year? Finish at least two novels. The more the merrier, of course, but two is my working number at this time. One is the LitRPG story that I plan to serialize on Substack for a little bit of profit, and A Solist In Rome as well.
Processes I plan to keep the same? I have two writing groups I go to on a regular basis and as long as my current employment allows me to do it, I’ll keep going to them. Even though I’m not a fan of one of them (the location is nice, but it tends to be a chatty hen spot of “authors” that have been working on their memoirs…for fifteen, twenty years…), it does encourage me to get out of the house and that is something Dad wants me to do.
(It also requires me to interact with people, and I’m not a fan of that.)
Plan to change? I’m starting to work with Scribner for the LitRPG story and one other possible story, more note-taking and more formalizing of my writing process. My current “checkpoint” method of writing is taking more time than I want, but I am having a hard time trying to plot out everything. Not quite my style.
2025 will hopefully be an interesting year for us all.
I hope that 2025 will NOT be an interesting year, as that is a Chinese curse…
Otherwise, The last 1/2 of the year, I’ve been slowly building inspiration, knowledge and motion towards my goals for 2025. I’m not going to start the year thinking that I’m already going to be doing the same level of work that I would be doing at the end of next year. Just like I wouldn’t expect to start lifting 500lbs on day one, when I’ve only been lifting 10lbs all year previously. So, building up my systems and habits, to strengthen myself for later. A marathon, not a sprint.
I’m putting Notion more to the forefront, and trying to reduce some of my other systems that don’t work for me any more. I also still have a paper planner for daily tasks. And I’m trying to set up databases to track my words/time better so that I can celebrate the wins…and trying to set up folder systems to track my work and be able to find it again, instead of lost in the bowels of my computer.
I never recovered from my hard drive borking this past year. So, I may have to mourn and move on (Very hard for me to do).
I do have goals, but trying to keep them close to the chest this year. And I’m giving myself Grace for things that I know are coming up to disrupt my life (like a new puppy in February). So, being kinder and gentler with myself – which means to have patience and not a buggy whip, as I get up to speed.
“Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.”
I’m somewhere between pessimist and paranoid for computers; I have two independent backup systems. One portable USB drive backs up twice a day, then keeps weekly and monthly backups. I made an error with that one a few years ago, and it managed to bork the file system on the main drive. OTOH, once I got the system untangles, my data was available.
Following paranoia, I do a monthly backup on a second USB drive. Haven’t needed it, but drives are fairly cheap and it didn’t take much to set it up. (I did Unix stuff back in the stone age, and do Linux now. I don’t know if dual backups can be done on MS or iOS.)
My problem was that I did a “roll back” and that messed up the MBR record. I tried everything (it was flagging my drive as a GPT drive? which it wasn’t) and finally took it to a computer shop. They said, nothing they could do and suggested that I put in a new drive with a fresh install and then see if I could get my info back off. So, I did. And once it was plugged into a new slot (I have a work station. And an external USB converter wouldn’t work.) I could access everything that was data, programs, etc, just fine….. So, I tried making that the primary drive again, and Blue Screen.
So, I can get to the data, that isn’t an issue. My problem is that a lot of programs that I depended on, won’t run, because they no longer have the license due to being in the OLD registry. And while some things I’ve replaced by getting the key from the company, some things were GiveAwayoftheDay, and you have to buy a new one. And some of those are gone/no longer in business. And then there are the random things. Like I got all my Thunderbird email across, but not my calendars from Thunderbird Lightning and I had to rebuild the folder system, because that wouldn’t port, either. (I haven’t rebuilt my calendar yet, too sad.) And I have my data backed up on Dropbox, for most of it (I need to do that again, because depression killed my routines), it’s most programs making my sadness. But, thank you for the reminder.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/805511083369166283/
Looking back, I accomplished a lot, but it was mostly a matter of finally finishing the last part of this, that needed to be published before the one that was done was published, some shorter works, and cramming together a collection.
But from the end of the year, it looks like I got a lot done.
Chaos and getting distracted seems to work for me. But really, a nice calm year, and finally finishing two things that have been hanging for too long would be really nice.
In 2024, I got a novel finished and published, and started the process of updating covers on my older books. Goals for 2025 are to finish the cover refreshes, write and publish the third and final book in my current series, get at least one all-in-one series collection released (space opera duology), and maybe one for the Ancestors of Jaiya series as well. Stretch goals include getting the space regency done and one other novel at least started.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot these past couple of weeks.
On the plus side, I finished a story a week for the entire year. I’m rather proud of myself for setting that goal and sticking with it.
On the minus side, I’m not sure if the way I did it was worth doing. Writing the short stories consumed all of my writing energy and left me emotionally drained; I was barely able to do anything with my novels. Twice this year I reached a point where I was just so burnt out that, not only could I not write, I couldn’t imagine ever writing again. And despite all the energy that I invested into short stories, I actually sold fewer of them than I did in 2023.
The plan next year is to focus more on process than production. I want to do 20 minutes of freewriting 3 times a week. And, rather than making a big deal of writing a story a week, I want to set aside one afternoon to lock myself in the library and write a story. I suspect that many of these stories will reach a point where I have to stop showing and just resort to telling, “and then this happened. And then they did this. And here’s how it worked out,” and that’s fine. If the story is any good, I can go back and write it for real. If not, no biggie. Not every story has to be publishable.