Happy New Year! Let’s approach 2023 with caution, offer it treats, and hope only good things come of it. I’m home from my fantastic holiday vacation, both wishing I was back at the beach and looking forward to everything I get to do in the months to come.

Lots of authors have shared some truly amazing wrap-ups of their accomplishments in 2022 over the past few weeks, and I’m thrilled for all of them. I don’t have anything to “show,” but the best part of my 2022 was finally getting a handle on my mental health. It’s amazing what a correct diagnosis and realistic adaptive strategies can do for one’s overall life. So, while I did finish the draft of a book I’d been struggling with for years, and I’m already solidly working on another book, I view those as positive outcomes to my greatest success.

In place of a fancy graphic, here are a few pics from my vacation and the incredibly cool handmade book box my dad made me as a gift with the cover from my first novel, Steel Victory.

In other authorial news, I created a reader group on Facebook! With this blog being more of a focus on book review content anyway, I wanted a home for all the other random bits I want to shout about that don’t quite warrant individual blog posts. Join me and other readers for teaser posts, world-building information and inspiration from my various series, and other “behind-the-scenes” content.

JOIN US!

December Wrap-Up

  • Not only did I make solid progress on Earth & Water, but I even wrote while on my holiday vacation! I enjoyed getting super “meta” and writing scenes set on a cruise ship while on the balcony of my cruise ship stateroom. The draft is at about 23k, and I’m halfway through act 2. (This is where we once again pretend I never said this would be a novella.)
  • Real life delayed the feedback from my beta readers for Steel Legacy, but now I have their notes and am excited to dive into revisions for the final book in the Steel Empires series.
  • It turns out I was right to flee the country because I am not a cold-weather person! The spouse and I had a fantastic vacation, where the highlights were a private tour of the Miami Zoo, zip-lining in Honduras, surviving an escape room with my family, and most importantly — reading and relaxing.

January Goals

  1. Complete my first pass of Steel Legacy revisions and send it off to my editor.
  2. Continue my progress on the first draft of Earth & Water. I’ve shifted away from daily word count goals to scene goals, and that’s been working out really well for both my productivity and the tightness of my writing.

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