December & January 2018 Bi-monthly Goals — Derek Barton – 2018

Here are my production goals for December & January and my writing production for September & October.  I know what you are saying, “What happened to November?” Sighhhh.  Yeah, well, I had hoped to “Win” at the National Novel Writing Month Challenge (NaNoWriMo) which was my only big goal, but my health derailed me for over a week.  I am doing better with a chiropractor and physical therapy for my back and knee. However, I did get 26,000+ words written on my new fantasy novel for the Wyvernshield Series.

The bi-monthly goals for September & October:

• Complete the editing of Elude #2. — Finished
• Publish Elude #2 by the end of October.  — Published on October 19th, 2018!!
• Complete the writing for Elude #3 (about 30,000 to 40,000 words). — postponed this goal.
• Start my outline for Book #3 for the Wyvernshield Fantasy series. — Accomplished but as I found out during NaNoWriMo, it is far too skimpy in details and needs fleshing out for me to get through. As I have said before, I am not a “pantser” or a writer who writes by the seat of his pants.  I need a clear picture of where I am heading and this outline had too many holes that I need to plug!
• Write up and prepare for writing in the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) Challenge in November — Book #3 will be my focus for NaNoWriMo! (50,000-word count goal!) –Partially successful.  26,000 words written…
• Do a book-signing event in Arizona — Did 2 so far and prepping for my 3rd on December 8th @ the Half-Priced Bookstore in Paradise Valley.  COME SEE ME IF YOU ARE LOCAL!!
• Craft a video book trailer for Consequences Within Chaos and The Bleeding Crown — Yeah… this may not happen for quite some time.
• Work up my booth design for comic-cons and book festivals. — Used my old setup for the book-signings which looks pretty amateurish. I definitely will have to invest to improve this if I am going to get back to the comic-cons/festivals.
• Send out Monthly Newsletters by 15th of the month. — Done
• Keep up The Hidden saga on the website every 2 weeks. — Done (roughly every two weeks! 🙂 )

Score = 6.5 out of 10  Hmmmm that’s pretty ugly.  Hopefully, the end of this year and the start of next year will be more successful.

December & January Goals:

• Complete Elude #3 book (30,000 to 40,000 words)
• Have Elude #3 self-edited by the end of January 2019.
• Professionally edited and published by the end of February 2019.
• Set up another couple book-signing events for 2019.
• Sign up for at least two comic-con/book festivals for 2019.
• Complete the last chapters for The Hidden web saga — we have started on Chapter 23, but then by mid-February we are scheduled to have our last Chapter 27 – The Path Again published on the website!  That’s right! The entire novel is out on the site…but not forever!
• Start another web saga?  May have to have a survey for which genre to pursue — fantasy or horror.
• Send out Monthly Newsletters by 15th of the month.
• Look into the options for booth setups for my book showings.
• Thinking about setting up a service to other authors for possible book cover design.  Maybe…

And while I have decided to keep my personal goals of weight loss and such out of this, I do hope that I make some headway there.  I am sure some of the issues with my back and knee is from the weight and not necessarily all due to the car accident from August.

One last thing — If any of you have had the chance to read any of my works, but have not had the opportunity to write a review, it would mean a great deal to me if you could.  Reviews really are critical to getting people’s notice online, especially on Amazon.  Thank you in advance if you already have!

Thank you all for your support and keeping my spirits up! Everyone have a safe and wondrous holiday season!