Ending the year with finished WIPs

Last week, I took some time to go over the works-in-progress I have had going on all year. They are listed on my website, on the “Current Projects” page. Some of those books are very close to being done, while others COULD be done if I worked on them enough. And there were others that I wanted to finish working on because I have plans for new books next year, and I want to make room for them.

In the end, I decided I would balance my workload out with writing and revising books. Since I am doing both, I figured I might as well get it done while I’m putting so much energy into wrapping things up this month. (Funny, people are wrapping up gifts this month, while I am wrapping up projects! Well, I won’t be doing any wrapping for Christmas presents this month; I finished up with that last month!)

So after reviewing my list of WIPs on my website, I decided to finish writing 3 books and finish revising 3 books. I am very, very close to wrapping up revisions on one book, and have just a little bit more work to do for revising two other books, so that’s doable! As to the writing: One of those books is a novel, the other is a novelette that I am halfway through, and the other is a poetry book that is easy for me to write. I can finish that one in a weekend! (And I am actually trying to finish it this weekend! LOL)

It will not be too difficult for me to finish writing those two novels. I CAN do it if I work on them every day this month – and that’s exactly what I started doing last week. Of course, this means that I have to cut down on some other things while being on the computer. I like to pop in at Twitter a few days a week in the early mornings and I also like to spend time on Pinterest. (It was actually 2 of my Pinterest boards that are no longer there now that gave me an idea for a short story!) I also like to log in at Facebook and do “Facebook stuff,” as well. But now I have to cut down on those things in order to have more time to finish working on the books. For the most part, I’ll be working on the books and doing any research needed for them.

And just so I don’t forget anything, I put together a schedule for working on these projects. It is divided into 3 sessions. I’ll be writing one book then revising another morning, noon and night. It all balances out to where I write one and revise another, so that’ll be just fine for me. After I am done working on books in one session, I’ll take a break to do other things, then I’ll get to work on the next session. One of those sessions is for the poetry book that I want to finish writing. It’s actually TWO poetry books, but I just have it as “poetry book” on the schedule because after I’m done with one, I’m going to finish another, because that one is almost done too.

Part of the revision work on one book is for the new edition of the haunted houses book. I am still trying to get some information Martha asked me to include in the book and hopefully I will have that information soon. After it’s done, and after I finish formatting it, I will be self-publishing this book this month. I am also self-publishing another poetry book this month, so I’ve been busy working on the “production stuff” for that book, too.

Of course, the BIG work-in-progress I plan to finish up this month is writing the remaining short stories for the year. I just checked my calendar and I have 4 weeks left. That’s 4 more short stories for me to write! That will be a total of 52 short stories written for every full week of 2016. Wow! And because I am putting together a type of collection of short stories, I went over my list of stories to see if I have that number of those types of stories. Unfortunately, I do not. I have 9 – well, 10, but I can’t count that story because I sold it. So, 9 of these short stories I can put into a book and I need a certain number more and I am glad that I can meet that number with the remaining weeks that I have left to write short stories. There is also going to be another short story collection that came out of this “write a short story for every week of the year” challenge that I took on in January, but that one is complete and those stories are now going through edits.

This change in my schedule – AND the writing gig that I may now have just gotten – will mean A LOT more time spent sitting at the desk and working at the computer, but it’s only for this month. (The gig, I hope, will last longer!) It is only so that I can finish these books. I WILL try to get away from the desk with every chance that I can grab – be a little more active and getting some fresh air – but for the most part, I will be kept busy working on these books. I will be in my writing cave! Fortunately, some of the work does not need to be done at the desk – I can do that work in my notebook or on my phone – but there will be a lot of sitting at the desk this month in order to get things done. It also means no sleeping in on Saturdays for me – but that’s okay! LOL I have talked with my family about this and I stressed how important it is to me to get this done. It does mean a lot to me to finish these books. I just have to keep reminding myself “this, too, shall pass” and just try to get through it to finish the work on those books AND those short stories.

The year 2016 is almost over. I know a lot of people who can’t wait for this year to end because of a lot of bad things that have happened this year. I feel the same way. I am hopeful that 2017 will be a better year. And I am also looking forward to when 2016 will done, because I am hoping I can have some of the books I have been working all year to finally be done, too.