2025 Has Arrived!

2024 was quite a year. In fairness, I’ve felt most years since the pandemic started have been some kind of chaos. From the chaos of simply trying to fill the time to the chaos of resuming old hobbies while still maintaining new ones, the last few years have been an interesting mix. But no previous year has been as full of technological setbacks. I certainly didn’t anticipate that I would lose 2 hard drives and have to replace my computer unexpectedly in August. (It wasn’t even 5 years old!)

But here we are on the other side of all the insanity, ready say hello to a brand new year. I can’t say I’ll miss 2024, though the endless technological setbacks  taught me a lot. I may not have lost any of my hard work, thanks to my paranoid tendency to backup nearly obsessively. But I did lose a lot of time. And some aspects of my work certainly felt that absence (cough: marketing).

My biggest wish for the new year is, therefore, to make it through without anything major required for my work breaking. It’s beyond my control, really, whether or not that ends up happening. But I’m going to keep my fingers and toes crossed for some good luck. Otherwise, I might just lose my mind.

That said, I’m proud of what I accomplished in 2024. Because instead of simply throwing up my arms up and saying I need to deal with this dead hard drive thing before moving ahead, I didn’t let the losses slow down my productivity. And since I don’t usually deal with random chaos all too well, that feels like a pretty big accomplishment.

So as is tradition, let’s take a look back at the previous year’s goals before setting some new ones!

Writing Goals for 2024

~Finish Writing Frozen Within a Scream (the fifth and final installment of The Aruvalia Chronicles)
~Edit Beyond the Moon’s Beams (the fourth installment of The Aruvalia Chronicles)
~Polish Visions Unlike they Seem (the third installment of The Aruvalia Chronicles)
~Write Sonata of the Satellites (the fourth and final (FOR REAL) installment of The Celestial Serenade)
~Edit No One’s Beloved Sister (the third installment of Everyone’s Child)
~Write and (possibly) Edit Anyone’s Crazy Aunt (the fourth installment of Everyone’s Child)

In 2023, I set a goal to ‘catch up’ my schedule. I like to start the year with edits to my last major writing project. But somewhere along the line, I fell behind. So I’ve started the last several years with finishing writing my big project from the previous year.

I didn’t quite succeed at catching up in 2023. I still had a sliver of my big project left to finish in January. BUT I did catch up enough that I finally succeeded in finishing my major writing project at the end of 2024. So I will be able to start fresh with edits at the beginning of 2025.

My hope is that adjusting my schedule will allow me to work on the lightest of my edits during the summer, when my schedule needs the most flexibility. It also hopefully means I can continue to finish my major writing project for each year instead of having to split it up. While I do like taking time off to think about my projects, and while that sometimes results in spectacular changes, I don’t like stopping in the middle of something if I can avoid it. That is, after all, the reason I take a year off between edits. So I can look at it again with a fresh set of eyes.

How Did it Go

I’ve spent the last several years trying to figure out how much I can actually reasonably accomplish in a year. I have so many ideas knocking around in my head, I regularly feel like I need to increase my production schedule or I’ll never get through a fraction of them. But on the flip side, one can only fit so much creativity into a concentrated period. I definitely need breaks to spend time with my family and avoid burnout.

It’s also difficult to work on more than a small number of projects at once. Otherwise, my brain loses its ability to keep track of things. (The number of times I’ve written the wrong name in a project is A LOT. Luckily, I usually catch most of them before they make it to my betas).

So as usual, I planned a little too much for 2024. For once, though, it wasn’t my big project that set me back. That went more smoothly than I anticipated. So smoothly, I finished early!

But I can never quite build as much of a buffer for my side projects as I’d like. While I did manage to write all of Anyone’s Crazy Aunt, I only got halfway through the edits before the end of the year. I was aware that that might happen, especially since I can only estimate how long my big projects are going to be. But I’m still pretty happy with my progress. Especially when I add all the tech issues I dealt with into the mix!

I certainly feel like I’m honing in on the optimal number of goals and the best way to manage my schedule – which absolutely counts as a win!

In total, I did 1,448,613 words of work in 2024. 756,478 of that was new words.

Publishing Goals for 2024

~February: Eyes of a Stranger (Book 1 of The Aruvalia Chronicles)
~April: Each One’s Wayward Niece (Book 2 of Everyone’s Child)
~June: Key to All Doors (Book 2 of The Aruvalia Chronicles)
~August: No One’s Beloved Sister (Book 2 of Everyone’s Child)
~October: Heart of a Kingdom (Book 3 of The Aruvalia Chronicles)
~December: Once Upon a Dream (Book 1 of The Aruvalia Chronicles Collection) (a box set)

The most exciting thing about this schedule was that it meant I finally get to share The Aruvalia Chronicles with the world. And while it seemed like every single tech issue I experienced coincided with at least one release, I’m pleased that absolutely every one of these books made it out the door on time.

In the case of The Aruvalia Chronicles, each features a fantastic cover made by the lovely and fabulous Molly Phipps! I am seriously thinking about changing the covers for the Everyone’s Child series for the new year. Mostly because I’ve thought of a better way to execute my original concept, and I’m eager to try it.

Now it’s time to set some goals for 2025!

Writing Goals for 2025

~Edit Frozen Within a Scream (the fifth and final installment of The Aruvalia Chronicles)
~Polish Beyond the Moon’s Beams (the fourth installment of The Aruvalia Chronicles)
~Write Ghost Path (a brand new fantasy series – hopefully a stand-alone trilogy!)
~Finish Editing Anyone’s Crazy Aunt (the fourth installment of Everyone’s Child)
~Write and Edit Either One’s Devoted Grandmother (the fifth installment of Everyone’s Child)
~Write Everyone’s Celestial Mother (the sixth and final installment of Everyone’s Child)

It’s been a long time since I wrote a self-contained trilogy that wasn’t meant to be part of a larger series. So we’ll see how that goes. It’s rare I can avoid a story spawning several extra installments. But then Ghost Path technically attaches to several other ideas in my head, so maybe that will cure that particular itch.

It’s hard to believe this year will see the end to two of my projects. The Aruvalia Chronicles should be largely ready for publishing by the end of 2025. And I’m hoping to write the ending for Everyone’s Child. Which will mean getting to start TWO brand new projects in 2026!

One of my biggest non-writing goals for 2025 is also to get a better handle on my marketing. It largely fell by the wayside in 2024 because all of the time I would normally have devoted to it was invested in catching up after the hard drive crashes.

I think it’s clear that I’m fairly good at creating books, but I also need to devote some time to selling them if I want to keep doing this. There have been a lot of updates to marketing trends during the last few years as well, so I’m fairly far behind. It’s time to fix that!

Publishing Goals for 2025

Last, but certainly not least, here are my publishing goals for 2025. Which will also hopefully serve as my publishing schedule for the new year!

~February: Madness Beyond Control (Book 4 of The Aruvalia Chronicles)
~April: Everyone’s Child Part 1 (a box set containing Everyone’s Child Books 1-3)
~June: Words Beyond Reason (Book 5 of The Aruvalia Chronicles)
~August: Anyone’s Crazy Aunt (Book 4 of Everyone’s Child)
~October: Life Beyond Time (Book 6 of The Aruvalia Chronicles)
~December: The Beast’s Wicked Gleam (Book 2 of The Aruvalia Chronicles Collection) (a box set)

As you can see, there are 2 box sets on the docket for this year. Hopefully that will help me better establish my secondary project buffer as well as re-design the Everyone’s Child covers.

I will also continue to stream my work sessions on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays over on Twitch. Let’s see if we can make 2025 my best year yet!