How 2022 Was a Year of Doing Things Differently

Around this time of the year, a lot of writers and authors are reflecting on just what kind of progress they have made with their writing. While I’m one of those writers taking stock of just what kind of year 2022 was for my writing, I am also taking a real good look of how I managed another year as an author, and what kind of progress was made with my books

 

When thinking about this, I realized one important distinction: This year was certainly different from most other years when it came to my books!

 

For one thing, I challenged myself to write and self-publish an ebook every month. These ebooks would be available as free downloads. Unfortunately, I ran into a few issues with this particular challenge:

 

1. I lost BOTH of my editors

 

2. I ran into formatting problems

 

3. One of the books was a story based on a traumatic event from my past and it was VERY difficult to write. I DID finish writing it during that month, but I did not self-publish it because I didn’t have an editor. Fortunately, a fellow writer offered one of her ebooks as a freebie to my newsletter subscribers (thanks, Gloria!) so there was still a free ebook for that month. I did get the manuscript reviewed by an editor at a later time and then I self-published it. (Thanks, Julie!)

 

4. I started to have second thoughts about offering certain ebooks for free. They just required a lot of research and writing. So I then decided that I would offer ONLY the books that are easy to write as free downloads. Nevertheless, I also decided to start self-publishing a select group of poetry books as free downloads, only because they contain personal poems a publisher would probably not be interested in. (Those books are slated for next year.)

 

I still managed to make it work, though. I still wrote 12 ebooks in 12 months. I just didn’t self-publish all of them in the same month that I wrote them. Still, I was satisfied with writing 12 ebooks in 12 months.

 

I just changed the plan, but not the goal.

 

This was a fun experiment and I have a feeling I will continue to write 12 short ebooks for each year. In fact, I have more ebooks planned for the next two years. However, some of them require a lot of research and pre-writing, and I have been working on that as I move closer to their release dates. So I am not exactly writing them during those months per se, but getting them ready to be released during those months.

 

That’s one new thing that happened this year with my books. And this is one that I will keep.

 

Another new thing that happened was that I started entering poetry books into contests. I have quite a few complete poetry manuscripts, and I figured that instead of just allowing them to collect dust, why not enter them into contests?

 

This has had a mixed result. Some of the poetry books I have entered in contests did not win, but some of them are still being reviewed. So I don’t know yet if all of them lost or not.

 

My deaf poetry book did not win one of the contests I entered it in. However, I found a publisher of poetry books and submitted the manuscript to them. It is still under review.

 

After I did that, a light bulb went off in my head: Instead of entering poetry books in contests, why not just submit them to publishers?

 

I did actually attempt to do this when I first started writing poetry books. My first poetry book was self-published, but then I thought, why not submit the manuscripts to publishers? Gypsy Shadow Publishing accepted my poetry book, Love is Like a Rainbow: Poems of Love and Devotion, and I was thrilled. Unfortunately, they stopped publishing poetry books. (Otherwise, I would have likely buried them with more manuscripts!) So I started looking for another publisher. I connected with someone who hosted an online writing community and she created a publishing company out of that. I joined her team first as an editor then as a PR rep for authors, but meanwhile, she also published my poetry books through her company. Unfortunately, we had a falling out, and she removed my books from the market. I was so angry and incensed that I started self-publishing ALL future poetry books, as well as children’s books. I was just so hurt and I never again wanted to put myself into that situation.

 

However, that has changed. These days, I have thicker skin, and I know I can handle it better if I end up in that kind of situation again. (Though I hope not!)

 

So, yes, I am now back to submitting my poetry manuscripts to publishers. I am also submitting poems to magazines and websites.     

 

Even so, the more personal poetry books will likely be self-pubbed as ebooks.

 

Finally, another thing I did differently with my books is submit the ones I had on hand which fit with publishers’ calls for manuscripts. Interestingly, this habit helped me to FINALLY finish writing a psychological horror novella I started writing months ago, but struggled with and I couldn’t continue writing it. With one publisher asking for horror novella submissions, I knew THIS particular story was a good fit. So I pulled it out of the desk drawer and got to work on writing it again.

 

And I FINISHED writing it, too!! YAY!! I was so excited that I was not only writing the rest of that story, but because of that one call for submissions, I finished writing the WHOLE story! Yes!

 

Another awesome thing happened with my books this year: I FINALLY wrote a 50K-word novel for NaNoWriMo! YAY!! I FINALLY won NaNoWriMo! I was SO EXCITED! After many fails at this challenge, I finally succeeded.

 

Better still, I wrote most of that book on my laptop! That was also a new thing for me. I write most of my books on the PC, only because I type faster on that keyboard, but the NaNoWriMo novel was mostly written on my laptop. The laptop was just more convenient; I used it to write at the kitchen table, on the living room couch and at my writing desk in my bedroom. It just really helped a lot and I firmly believed I would not have succeeded at NaNoWriMo this year if it weren’t for my laptop!

 

Finally, one other different thing happened with my books this year. This year, I have submitted more manuscripts than I have in any other year for as long as I have been an author.

 

These are the manuscripts I have submitted:

 

1 Nonfiction book

2 Novellas

3 Children’s books

4 Poetry books

 

Of those submissions, I received a rejection on one of the poetry books. The others have sent me confirmation that the manuscripts were received. The waiting is agonizing but, meanwhile, I will just keep doing what I do best: Write!

 

And revise complete manuscripts, too. I am once again on the hunt for an agent. I am looking for an agent for my YA novels and I know of one particular YA manuscript I really SHOULD get started with revisions if I want to find an agent to represent me!

 

I have a feeling that 2023 will be the year of novels. It WILL be my 20^th anniversary as a novelist, so I am thinking that novels will be my primary focus for books in the new year. I’m looking forward to it!