2016 Goals - Hits, Misses and Surprises

As part of our end-of-year wrap-up, the SFF Seven are Looking Back on 2016's Goals: How'd We Do? What Was Our Biggest Deviation from the Goal or Plan? Why? Most Satisfying Accomplishment?

I always find it interesting to look back on what I thought would happen during the year, then compare it to what actually occurred - and try to parse why. It helps me plan for the coming year.

It was a particularly interesting year for me in that it was my first full year as a full-time writer. Since getting laid off in October 2015, my biggest goal was seeing if my husband and I could make it without me having to get another job. Our situation is compounded by the fact that he doesn't have a salaried job either. So this meant dealing with fluctuating incomes and me paying my own health insurance.

Biggest hit? Nailed it!

I almost can't believe, but we're making it. And things are getting better all the time. Whew! Huge win right there.

The biggest miss is that I thought I'd be able to write about 25,000 words/week. I had a good reason to believe I could, as 5,000 words/day is doable for me. Instead, the graphs look like this:

 While I did hit 20K/week a few times, my average for the year turned out to be about 7,000 words/week. Very surprising to me. In fact, my overall annual word count went down for the first time in four years.

Now, I still wrote over 400,000 words in 2016 (with a couple of weeks left), so I'm not beating myself up about it. I think a few things happened to account for this:

1. I blogged a LOT less, a number I had always included in my word counts. Some of this is because I quit a couple of group blogs that felt like they weren't doing much for me - a refocusing of effort on my part - but I also posted less to my personal blog. Conversely, I posted to social media more, word count numbers I don't track. This felt like a natural drift to me.
2. I taught more, which means stuff that I used to write for blog posts, I wrote for online classes, and I didn't track those word count numbers.
3. I spent more time on business and business-related activities.
4. I wrote in a more focused way, not playing around with stuff, but concentrating on producing specific stories.
5. I did a couple of major revisions, including revising an entire novel I would have been better off simply rewriting. That project accounts for the low word counts of August-October. 
6. I went to a lot more conferences.
7. It seems to continue to be true that I pay for high word-count productivity with rebound phases. I'm not sure I can escape that. Notice that my high-count weeks are followed by low-count weeks.
8. Finally, related to #7, I tried to be kinder to myself. If I needed to take days off, I did. For the first time since summers off as a kid, I didn't set an alarm in the morning, which meant I found my natural sleep calendar and that felt really good. In fact, my Fitbit graph shows a very interesting seasonal rhythm to my sleep cycle, which I had already suspected might be the case. 
   

The most satisfying accomplishment was also the surprise from 2016. I got serious about self-publishing, in order to establish a more regular income,

With the two-month lag in royalty payouts from retailers, along with time for me to get previous obligations handled, then new projects written and edited, the ramp-up was slow. But, once it kicked in, son of a gun, it worked! Having this option for authors makes a huge difference in whether we can make a living at this profession. 

I think the take-home from this is that we can set goals, but we can't always be sure what will really pay off. Which keeps life interesting!

Finally, to compare to what I set for goals at the end of 2015 in this post, I said:

1) in 2015 I made twice as much from writing as in 2014, but in 2014 I made five times as much as in 2013. Since I'm no longer working the day job, I *really* need to make a living wage from writing this year, so I really want that every-other-year thing to kick in. Five times what I made in 2015 would be awesome. Putting it out there.

I did not make five times what I made in 2015 - what a dreamer Past Jeffe was! - but I did make over twice as much. So, go me.

2) My agent has a book out on submission for a new epic fantasy series. It's a rework of the second novel I ever wrote and I love so much about it. In 2016, I want to either see it published or firmly in the publishing pipeline.

So did not happen. For Reasons. This is still a plan for 2017.

3) We're also going out on submission with a new contemporary romance, the first in a trilogy. That one is getting published in 2016, one way or another.

And... no. What it got was the Revision That Would Not Die. But it's a way better book now. My agent said: "Words cannot express how impressed I am with this new draft. You have taken something I thought was enjoyable and fun and turned it into something raw and meaningful and powerful." 

I'm still calling that a win. 
4) I have a third series that's been parked for over a year. The first one is going out in 2016 or it's in an amazing confirmed pipeline. Enough already.

Also did not happen, but mostly because I decided to back-burner it in favor of another project, which is the one that accounts for most of the self-publishing sales, so I think it was a good choice.

5) I'm making this last one vagueish. I have numerous plans. Hopeful plans to help secure the future for me and my hubs. This is the blogging equivalent of throwing my prognostication penny in the well of good fortune. I totally promise that, at the end of the year, I'll report back on what worked. But I'm too superstitious to unveil them beforehand.

Totally worked! Woo hoo!!!

For 2017, I'm mainly going to work on evening out my production. I'd like to see if I can consistently produce at 15,000 words/week, which works out to 3,000 words/day, which seems to be more sustainable for me. We shall see!

What about you all - what was a surprise win from 2016? Goals for next year??

My Three Most Memorable Reads of 2016

When I'm talking about memorable books, I go by two things: do I still recall large chunks of the plot and details of the romance long after I finished reading the book? Or even better, has it become one that I reread when I'm in just the right mood?

Being a voracious reader, I go through tons of books during a given year, usually on my trusty kindle.

In no certain order then, here are my most memorable of 2016 (I tried to stick with books released in 2016 since like Jeffe mentioned earlier in the week, I often read ARC's of future books that aren't out yet and/or I read books that have been out forever but I just found them):

Michelle Diener’s Class 5 Series (three books): Dark Horse, Dark Deeds, Dark Minds. Although the first book was released in 2015, the other two came out this year and the series as a whole is excellent. I’ve written about, talked about and recommended these books everywhere. I loved the three smart Earth women heroines and the spooky smart Class 5 Artificial Intelligences, AND the alien heroes were excellent stalwart military dudes with sexy Tolkien elf-like pointy ears. Definitely in my "I remember the book" and the "I reread the book" category.

Writings from Ancient Egypt by Toby Wilkinson. I do plan to get back to writing new books in my

paranormal series set in ancient Egypt, hopefully in 2017, and the author has translated all kinds of highly useful and fascinating writings  of all types. Reading through the selections gives good glimpses into daily life and the way people felt and believed. Yes, I write fantastical adventures, not historical novels, but I like to do as much research as I can and this book has been terrific.

OK, I do really badly with these numbered lists because there are so many good books.....I usually cheat and list more than I'm supposed to...

But (I'm heaving a DEEP sigh here), ok.....for my third choice I'm going to list A Faerie Tale: The Enchanted and A Faerie Tale: The Beloved, both by Genevra Thorne. Her use of language is wonderful and really put me into the world of the Fae. Her plots were cool and twisty and I wish there were more in the series. I didn't expect to fall so much in love with the characters and the settings and then I did. 

But in fairness, I must also mention our Jeffe's Pages of the Mind, which I adore, and  Fire Touched by Patricia Briggs and Dark Planet Warriors by Anna Carven.

OK, I'll get off the stage now!

Levity, Science, and a How To for 2016

Have you ever had one of those weird prescient moments where someone recommends a book and you get it even while thinking, heck, none of this applies to me and then WHAM. So relevant it gives you migraines? That was the first of my most memorable books of 2016.

How to Care for Aging Parents by Virginia Morris

Not the kind of adventure I'd wish on anyone, much less recommend to anyone. However. We all end up here at one point or another if the parent(s) have survived into old age. I read this a good five months before Dad suffered his heart attacks. This book gave me very accessible, easy to understand and implement advice on dealing with my father's doctors, his nurses, my father and my mother. It's a great book for pointing out options you might not know exist (I didn't.) So while I hope no one needs it, I am eternally grateful I'd read it before Dad's health challenges. The coping skills suggested in this book gave me the fortitude to be Dad's live-in care giver for the first three weeks of his recovery without being a nag, and no matter how badly I wanted to, I didn't try to wrap the man in bubble wrap. Very valuable book. Hope y'all can wave it off for many years to come.



Do you read less than you used to? I do. Used to never be without my nose in a book. Then we moved aboard the boat and I had to convert my paper books to Kindle versions. Paper and water, you know. Not to mention storage space and that whole 'no sinking the boat' rule. I kidded myself that I'd just run out of time for reading, but a part of me called bullshit on that. I knew I'd stopped reading. I just didn't know why. Then someone loaned me a print book. And I inhaled it in a day. It's possible a tear was shed when I realized how much I'd missed reading. Turns out, I can't see the Kindle print very well. Yes. I need glasses. No. It doesn't seem to be a monetary priority. So they go unpurchased. But it means that the deterioration of my eyesight made reading on the Kindle harder and less enjoyable to the point that I just quit without realizing WHY I'd quit. Until the experiment with a paper book. When I can see the damned print, I adore reading. To celebrate finding this out, I bought myself scifi. Because scifi. And this turned out to be one of my fav reads this year: The Martian by Andy Weir. What's to say? Mars. Left behind. Certain death. Science!

My last book is a bit of a cheat because I haven't gotten to read it yet. But I am SO looking forward to reading it that I'm including it.

The Angel Wore Fangs by Sandra Hill

The hero is a Viking, Vampire Angel. An angel. Who's a vampire. And a Viking. Seriously. How could you not love this? I am counting on this book to be a complete send up of every romance trope available to the market. Counting on it. This is slated to be my guilty pleasure holiday read.

It was this or stock up on Chuck Tingle titles. That may yet happen. Either way. I'm looking forward to some levity.

Great Books for 2016?

This is the time of year where one is supposed to talk about the great books of the past year, the things you read, the things you recommend for awards, and so on.

I have to confess, this year?  I got nothing for you.

This year I did a lot of starting-books-and-bouncing-off-them.  The things I did read to completion?  They were... fine.  Nothing that I'd be "You Must Read This Book!"  (Or, at least, none of it was from this year.  I don't exactly keep records of my reading, but I think I read The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson and Rules for Werewolves by Kirk Lynn in 2016, but they were both 2015 books.)  

Other than that?  The best thing I read I actually can't recommend because it's an unsold, unpublished book that I read for blurb-giving purposes.  

But part of that is because, as I said-- start-and-bounce.  A lot.  That isn't something that should reflect on those authors, and I won't call out people whose books I didn't get into.  Because that's about me, not them.  Their books didn't click with me.  That is OK.  Not every book is for everyone.  Heck, if you start-and-bounce with my books?  That's fine.  Really.  I mean, don't go giving them one-star reviews or anything.  That's not cool.  

I know at least part of my bouncing on other people's books ties to what I'm doing, writing-wise.  I have a lot of stuff to keep track of, a lot of process and writing craft stuff going on in my head.  I can't read without going into diagnostic mode now.  Again-- this is on me, not the writer.  I can be all "Oh, that's a really well crafted thing they're doing", and I make no emotional connection to the story.

So I'll throw it out there: what should I have read?  What should I be reading, especially if I'm going to be doing any award nomination stuff?

My 2016 Recommendations

Linda's 2016 Recommendations

The Red Queen  (link here) by Victoria Aveyard

A well reviewed debut novel that got my attention. In this world people have red blood or silver, and the silver-blooded are royalty and have power. Mare, the main character, is a red blood who ends up in front of the Silver court and there discovers she has power ofher own, which, of course, the king wants to hide from other red bloods.






The Silent Army (link here) by James A. Moore

I love this series and Moore is a great guy.

I recommend this one on audio book. There are many odd words/names/places which I adore in fantasy, but if you have any qualms about such, then the audio book smooths that right over. Also, the narrator for this has his narrator voice and gruffer voices for character dialogue which suits this telling well. Check the link above and click the listen button under the cover image.

A Curse on the Land (link here) by Faith Hunter

First in a new series set in Faith's Jane Yellowrock world.

I also recommend this one on audio book. Check the link above and click the listen button under the cover image because the reader has a southern tonality that really sells this story/character.

Happy Between Aces: My 3 Most Memorable Books of 2016

My Three Most Memorable Books of 2016...

10% Happier by Dan Harris
My mom sent me this book three times. I figured if I read it once, it'd make me 30% happier.  I'd be full ebullient mode 24/7. Or Not. Maybe. The book isn't about finding your favorite tree to hug. It's about coping when your mind turns against you.  Dan Harris is a national news anchor. The book opens with the day he suffered his first panic attack live on air. It gives a fascinating look into his early career working for Dan Rather and going to Afghanistan to cover the war.


Between You and Me, Confessions of a Comma Queen by Mary Norris
If you've ever had a copy editor bleed all over  your manuscript, this book will remind you that you are not alone. Norris uses humorous vignettes of her storied personal life to embed grammatical lessons. It's a light read that's worth the time and might save your copy editor a few gray hairs.



Aces Wilde by Jenn Stark
An Urban Fantasy with flying swords on the cover...what's not to love? This action-packed story is about an artifact hunter who uses Tarot-Cards to find her targets. This time, she's inherited the head honcho spot for the criminal syndicate of the House of Swords. Naturally, an outsider being handed the reins doesn't go over well, and in this line of business it's fight or die. Magic might save her, but her relationship with the Arcana Council's seductive Magician just might ruin her forever.

MY top three of 2016

Damn, that's a seriously hard list. I mean that. I haven't read nearly as much as I wanted to this year, but still, what I have read has been a whole lot of good books. I started a few lemons, too, but i set them aside, because life is too short for the bad books.

I used to make myself read them. I felt an obligation. Not any more. that stuff goes to the wayside very quickly these days.

So here they are in no particular order:

1) Mark Morris's THE WOLVES OF LONDON: OBSIDIAN HEART BOOK ONE
I'm a sucker for high tension suspense. I thrive on horror that creeps in and chills you without necessarily getting all kinds of gory. I love a good time travel story. the Obsidian Heart series has all three and that's just in the first book. I have the other two short-listed in my TBR pile. You know, along with about a hundred others.

2) Christopher Golden's DEAD RINGERS
I love a good mystery. I love a good ghost story. I love a tale that mingles both and DEAD RINGERS is flawless at it. Golden continues to challenge himself with his characters and continues to be up to the challenge. An added bonus for me is that I now live in Massachusetts and when visiting Boston recently I could actually see some of the places listed in the book. Damned fine read.

3) Jonathan Maberry's KILL SWITCH
I enjoy a good series as much as the next person. I love a great series. The JOE LEDGER series by Maberry is one of the best. I'd put it up there with F.Paul Wilson's REPAIRMAN JACK series and that one is my all time favorite. In this tale Echo Team goes south, as into Antarctica, and encounters the sort of nightmarish creations that leave a chill which has noting to do with the weather. Great subplots, loads of action. I loved it.

Honorable mentions: E.J. Stevens' HUNTING IN BRUGES is the first in a spin off series (Spinning off from the Ivy Granger Series) and it's a fun ride. Lots of action, a solid mystery and a healthy heaping of snark. Dennis Lehane's A DRINK BEFORE THE WAR. I'm behind the times when it comes to reading Lehane, but, damn, he's good! I just read the first two books in the series and I'll be reading the rest in short order. Joe Hill's THE FIREMAN. I'm not even going to try to explain the book properly. It's amazing, it's different, it's fun. Highly recommended. Thomas Sneigoski's SAVAGE is a book that lives up to its name. Nature strikes back and strikes hard. Bracken Mcleod's STRANDED is a hard, brutal and utterly delightful read. It might seem like he's coming out of nowhere, but the author has earned his chops.  Lastly, Hillary Monahan's series BLOODY MARY: THE SUMMONING and BLOODY MARY: UNLEASHED are delightful YA stories that merge proper horror and local folklore to potent affect. Gruesome, scary and everything that a tale of a vengeful ghost should be.

Okay. Ten instead of three. I said it was a good year for reading and I meant it. I could go on and name more, like the latest from Tim Lebbon, or Wesley Chu, or Paul Tremblay, but I think you get the idea.

I hope 2017 brings you endless good books to read, folks.

Bracken Mcleod reading from his novel STRANDED at the release party. 

Top Three Books of 2016: Jeffe's Picks

Every year since my birth, my mother has given me a Christmas ornament. She usually gives it to me at Thanksgiving, so that I have it for decorating my tree. This year she gave me a Nambé star for a tree-topper. I may have made a special request, as I love all things Nambé, and I love this, in particular. One day I hope to have Santa's sleigh, but ... alas the price! 

Our topic this week at the SFF Seven is a round-up of our three most memorable books of the year. I think it's interesting that we frame it as "most memorable," as opposed to the best, or most loved or favorite. There's a difference, isn't it?

So when I went to write this post, instead of first combing my list of five-star reads, I thought back to what books stood out in my mind. The first that popped into my head was one I loathed - not only for the story itself, but for the blatant manipulation of the reader. I ranted already about it here, so I shan't give it any more press than that.

Another book that jumped immediately to mind turned out to be one I read in October 2015, and so not eligible. However, I figure any book with that kind of impact deserves an honorable mention, so I'm including it now: Everything I Left Unsaid by Molly O'Keefe. What a wonderful story. I've recommended it any number of times to people this last year, so I think it totally counts.

Otherwise, I made a list of the books that loomed large in my head and checked those against my lists. As many of you may know, I keep a spreadsheet (OF COURSE) of everything I read in a given year. That includes work for critique or editing, and so includes my own books. My goal for the year was to read 150 books. That was a reasonable (I thought) and optimistic increase from the 122 I read in 2015. Right now I'm at 88. There's some reasons for the lower numbers, along with other ways that 2016 was a strange dip year for me, which I'll talk about that more next week when we explore how our 2016 goals turned out - both accomplishments and deviations.

But for now... My Three Most Memorable Books Read in 2016!

The High Ground

This is the only book in my top three for 2016 that was actually published in 2016. Time is ever a problem for me. This year I read books that will be published in the future, some published long ago, and very few in the narrow twelve-month window that makes them award-eligible. I'm trying to get better about this (which did factor into the fewer books read), but I'm not where I'd like to be on this.

I met Melinda for the first time in May when we did a signing together. She bought my book, I bought hers, and we became friends - which is cool since we live quite close to each other, New Mexico-landscapewise. This sort of buying-each-other's books thing can be fraught as there's always the possibility you won't like the book, and then you see this person you like again and it's all weird and awkward. Happily, I loved this book! Fortuitously, she also liked mine. Regardless, this is a wonderful first book in a new space opera with a tasty slow-burn romance. The world - one where corporations are the aristocracy - is oddly prescient of our current political climate, but not so much that it will make you think of modern politics. Can't wait to wrest the next book out of Melinda's paws!

Wishful Drinking

I came at this book through a winding path - mostly due to having my iPod on All Songs Shuffle during a June solo road trip. Paul Simon came up and I listened to songs from Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints for the first time in ages. I loved those albums in the day, so the revisit felt wonderful and magical. In the ensuing years, I'd come to understand the significance of him being married to Carrie Fisher, who also resurfaced this year in my mind as an enduring hero - and totally badass in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Simon's songs tell stories and, listening, I began to wonder which were about Carrie and their marriage. A LOT OF THEM it turns out. I downloaded the audio book and listened to it on the trip home. Her stories made me think about art, creativity, love and being drawn to other creative types. Fascinating stuff that fed into many of my ideas this year.


A Game of Thrones

I tried to read this book a few years ago. Before I kept a spreadsheet, in fact. I'd read my requisite 25% and set it down as a book that would not make me happy. When the HBO series came out, we starting watching that and I felt validated in my perception that, yes, this is an author who will break my heart. I even got rid of my paper copy finally.

Then it came to be that my friend Anne Calhoun talked me into reading it. We are embarking on a project, a book club of two, to read epic fantasy and learn from them. I'm on page 539 of 802, so it might be a bit of a false positive that it's a memorable book of the year.

And yet... I don't think so.

One thing I've noticed in reading this book is that it's invaded my dreams - and has done so from the first page. I think about the characters and I freaking worry about them! This is one reason I abandoned it before, because I don't WANT to be this involved with people I know will face horrible events, including their deaths. But it's also amazing that an author is able to do this. Anne has called reading this book a master class in writing and I think she's right.

It's also an interesting bookend to these three that George is longtime friends with Melinda, so now I'm friends with them both.

It's been an interesting year!

So, what about you all? Most memorable books? Most loved??