By The Numbers

I haven't started writing a new book yet, but I've been working on a lot of different things. Some of my work last week and this week is preparation for a board meeting of one of my writing groups. We only meet three time per year so there's a lot to cover. But there are other writing things I'm getting done before diving into a new WIP and looking back and forward to things happening and that have happened in my career.

By the numbers:

2 books I have a rough outlines and some plot completed.

3 online classes I've signed up to take over the next five months. Two have to do with marketing.

1 new contract for my most recent completed novel.

1 of my older titles available on KU for the first and limited time. The Marine's Queen was my first bestseller romance.

2,000 books on my TBR list. That's an estimate.

3 publishers who have closed their doors when they held my books under contract. Sigh.....

10.5 years since my very first book, The Greater Good was published. And it still earns some royalties every quarter.

23 books that I've written that have been published by various small presses. Still not rich or famous.

10 weeks until one of my favorite shows, The 100, returns to TV.

4 times I've re-watched season 7 of Game of Thrones. I embarrass myself.

This week I'm going to so some more plotting and next Sunday I'm going to start writing my next book.

Today is Abraham Lincoln's birthday. I remember when we used to have this day off of school and government offices would close. Then they made up that President's Day thing and robbed us of a day off.

Wednesday is Valentine's Day. Hope you have someone to share it with or at least, some great memories to warm the day.
"A good heart's worth gold." William Shakespeare

Do you have a good number to share this week? Do you celebrate Valentine's Day? Have you ever used KU? Good results for selling or reading?

IWSG: February 2018

Here we are again, joining together as writers to help each other through shared tears, woes, and victory cheers with our monthly IWSG posting. Thanks to Alex J. Cavanaugh for starting this group and all the administrators who help make it such an amazing group. Find the entire list of participants here.

The optional question of the day is:
What do you love most about the genre you write the most often in?

I write romance and fantasy. Though I've published more books as a romance writer, my true love is writing fantasy. The thing I love most about writing and reading fantasy is the wide-open scope of where the story can go. World-building is fun as a writer and fascinating as a reader. There are endless ideas on creating a magic system. Villains can be anything. The possibilities are endless.

This past weekend we had an awesome writers' meeting. Lots of good things happened. A few promotional opportunities were presented. A presentation from a local group that presents workshops gave us a mini-lesson on story premise. The group of instructors have put together a series of lessons that will take a novice writer from story idea to a completed novel. They call their workshop A Novel Idea. It's pretty great with all highly successful authors doing the teaching.

I also signed up for a three online classes my group is sponsoring over the next six months. I'm really excited to take advantage of what I might learn.

My publisher is trying a few twists to get some of my older titles more attention. I'll tell you more about that later, especially if it works.

I also created a profile on Library Thing. Not sure if I have any idea what I'm doing there. I can't keep Goodreads up-to-date so of course, I added something else to keep track of. Anyway, be my friend on Library Thing if you're there.