2024 Fiction Word Count:
2024 ended so badly on a personal level for me, this is the gif that spoke to me to best sum up the change of the year.
Insights To Not Forget:
I had to create a new spreadsheet to track the amount of words written for the year since I couldn't trust the formulas on the one I had been using for years. According to it, I reached my goal of writing 600 words a day 100 days.
Focusing on a Single Project in a Month: This continues to be the best thing to actually completely finishing lingering WIPs. I will be putting the months with the same fandom much closer together in 2025, because I struggled to remember what I was doing with Strix: Forget the Sun.
Stories I Posted:
Star Wars: Rescue the Farmboy: Mission on Mimban: Word count = 61,218. Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade's exploration of Mimban is derailed by the unexpected Imperial presence on the planet and their way off-planet depends on finding the Kaiburr crystal before the Imperial do.
Star Wars: Sororal Lineality: Plans and High Command Word Count = 7408. Luke wakes up and plans must be made and High Command must be briefed about what happened on Bespin and what Luke and Leia are planning to do next.
Stories I Posted at Ao3 Finally: This got paused as I try to figure out what still needs to go up besides the fanmixes, and then I forgot about it.
Stories I Finished: I don't have any stories that I completed the editing on to say it is ready for publication but haven't published yet.
Stories Caught Up in Editing:
Trigun: Three of a Kind: Word count = 236,237 (20,838 written in 2022 + 182,470 written in 2023 + 32,929 written in 2024). I have finally gotten this novel to creating on the third draft. Crossing fingers that you can read it in 2025.
Evil Jack: Till Death Do We Part: Word count = 14,150. And here's a great example of the focus on one thing for a month works, I have returned to Biker Mice From Mars. I didn't get edits finished this year but I tried.
Stories I Didn't Finish:
Strix: Forget the Sun: Word count = 91,269 (26,588 written previously + 4279 written in 2019 + 279 written in 2020 + 15,328 written in 2021 + 5416 written in 2022 + 23,714 written in 2023 + 15,665 written in 2024). I finally got out of the last battle and into cleaning up and hiding the paranormal from the rest of the world. Can I finish it next year and start figuring out what I have written?
Wars Are Won: Sacrifice of Happiness: Word count = 5180. I thought I had finished the first draft of this story, but realized after reviewing it for the second draft that I had neglected adding any complications so I had to start over and add some.
Sororal Lineality: Kyber: Word count = 1491. So my last month focusing on Star Wars got spent on rereading Shadows of the Empire since I plan on using some of it in this series. So, the month finished before I finished a draft of this story.
What I Think About My Stories:
My favorite story this year: Evil Jack: Till Death Do We Part Fourteen years since I worked on any of my Biker Mice fanfics, but this story and details canon to the show flew out of me. Too bad all my writing projects don't move that fast.
Story most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: Sororal Lineality: Plans and High Command will probably get some more attention after I post it on Ao3 for May the Fourth in 2025.
Most fun story: Getting back into Biker Mice From Mars through Trigun and my own memories has been a trip, even if I had a hang-up in Sacrifice of Happiness.
Stories I wrote that I never thought I'd write: Wars Are Won: Sacrifice of Happiness. A whole story from a bad guy's POV, which I got into Karbunkle's head pretty well.
Hardest story to write: Wars Are Won: Sacrifice of Happiness. And then I proceeded to not give him any complications because it serves the whole series development, so that also makes this the hardest story to write since I have to not make it so darn easy for him.
Biggest disappointment: Strix: Forget the Sun. Why are you not done yet? If I had managed the same amount of words that I had last year, it might have a finished draft.
Biggest surprise: Did I mention remembering things after fourteen years away? Because wow, that blew my mind.
What's your favorite piece of dialogue you wrote this year? From Strix: Forget the Sun:
Sagara was gone. He ran his tongue over his teeth and scraped it against his fangs. He groaned in disappointment.Raven lifted herself partial off him. “Ferris? Did the light get you?”
“No, not that. Lost Boys was wrong.”
She raised herself up on her hands and knees and stared down at his face. “You pinche idiota bitched about me wanting holy water Super Soakers and you’re taking how to be a vampire from movies?”
“He got to be human after they staked the sire vampire. I didn’t think it would work that for me, not really. Let me up.”
Raven got up to her feet gracefully, and Ferris accepted the hand up she extended. They were in a library, that explained the books. “What did you think you would get?” she asked.
“My head torn off by Sagara or one of his loyal idiots.” He shrugged helplessly at her dismayed expression of disbelief. “You asked, and I swore to be honest with you.”
“As long as we’re being honest, you’re not as cute as Keifer Sutherland either.”
What's your favorite piece of description or narration you wrote this year? From Sororal Lineality: Kyber:
Light expanded out of the box and scattered different flashes of color over Luke’s face. Green, blue, yellow, orange, purple, and white tiny rectangles of light danced over his closed eyes and calm expression.
Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would, less, or about what you predicted? I ended up with 77 tracked projects, which honestly was far too many for focused attention. 63 were non-fiction and most of those were Six Sentence Sunday posts I started to advertise every story I have written. So I should have way fewer of those moving forward. Of the 14 fiction projects, seven are the versions for the BookWorm's Library and Ao3. It might be double dipping to count them in the same fiction word count, but novels not going on those sites will only be counted once.
Regardless, the new spreadsheet did handle that many projects but I don't want that many next year.
Number of Days I Wrote or Edited: 332 days. The count I thought I had set up in the spreadsheet doesn't work when I put a zero in because I did work on something like updating the BookWorm's Library but wasn't measuring the words. So next year, I need to measure the words even on those so it works without my having to count.
Number of Days Meeting or Exceeding the daily 600 word count: 100 days.
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them? I think it was less risk taking and more getting down to basics of writing. Do it every day and try to hit the 600 daily word count every day. I did notice that without outside accountability eyes (even if the group ultimately didn't care what my results are) my results on Strix: Forget the Sun decreased. So I think I need to be more public with that novel's progress next year.
Did you meet last year's goals? Let's find out. The goals from my 2024 one-page business plan are:
- Writing Strix series:
- April, September: Finish Strix: Forget the Sun first draft
- April, September: Edit Strix: Forget the Sun
- April, September: Send Strix: Forget the Sun to a developmental editor
- Writing Star Wars stories:
- May, October: Conlanging Honoghran = Finished enough to finish the scene I wanted in Mission on Mimban
- May, October: Edit Mission on Mimban to second draft = Finished
- May, October: Send Mission on Mimban to beta = Finished
- May, October: Edit Mission on Mimban to third draft = Finished
- May, October: Edit Sororal Lineality: Plans and High Command to second draft = Finished
- May, October: Send SL: Plans and High Command to beta = Finished
- May, October: Edit SL: Plans and High Command to third draft = Finished
- May, October: Finish Rescue the Farmboy: Extrication first draft
- May, October: Finish SL: Kyber first draft
- May, October: Outline Everybody Lives But Maul story = Finished
- Writing Biker Mice From Mars stories
- March, August: Finish Wars Are Won: Sacrifice of Happiness first draft
- March, August: Finish Evil Jack: 'Til Death Do We Part first draft = Finished
- Writing Trigun fanfics
- January, June, November: Finish Trigun: Three of a Kind first draft = Finished
- January, June, November: Edit Trigun: Three of a Kind to second draft = Finished
- January, June, November: Send Trigun: Three of a Kind to beta = Finished
- January, June, November: Edit Trigun: Three of a Kind to third draft
- BookWorm's Library maintenance
- July, December: Make sure software is up-to-date
- July, December: Add Sororal Lineality: Miha = Finished
- July, December: Add any other files that need adding
- July, December: Add recipes to Cookbook
- Ao3
- February: Upload already published stories
- February: Upload Mission on Mimban third draft = Finished
- February: Upload SL: Plans and High Command after Mission on Mimban = Holding this until May 4, 2025
- February: Upload thirteen fanmixes
Do you have any goals for the coming year? The goals from my 2025 one-page business plan are:
- Writing Strix series:
- August, September: Finish Strix: Forget the Sun first draft
- August, September: Edit Strix: Forget the Sun
- August, September: Send Strix: Forget the Sun to a developmental editor
- Writing Star Wars stories:
- April, May, July: Finish Rescue the Farmboy: Extrication first draft
- April, May, July: Edit Rescue the Farmboy: Extrication to second draft
- April, May, July: Send second draft of Rescue the Farmboy: Extrication to beta
- April, May, July: Edit Rescue the Farmboy: Extrication to third draft
- April, May, July: Finish SL: Kyber first draft
- April, May, July: Edit SL: Kyber to second draft
- April, May, July: Send second draft of SL: Kyber to beta
- April, May, July: Edit SL: Kyber to third draft
- April, May, July: Finish Rescue the Farmboy: Homecoming first draft
- April, May, July: Finish SL: Ord Mantell first draft
- Writing Biker Mice From Mars stories
- February, June: Finish Wars Are Won: Sacrifice of Happiness first draft
- February, June: Edit Evil Jack: Till Death Do We Part to third draft
- February, June: Edit Wars Are Won: Sacrifice of Happiness to second draft
- February, June: Send second draft of Wars Are Won: Sacrifice of Happiness to beta
- February, June: Edit Wars Are Won: Sacrifice of Happiness to third draft
- February, June: Finish Evil Jack: last story first draft
- February, June: Edit Evil Jack: last story to second draft
- February, June: Send second draft of Evil Jack: last story to beta
- February, June: Edit Evil Jack: last story to third draft
- Writing Trigun fanfics
- January: Edit Trigun: Three of a Kind to third draft
- Writing Zackverse stories
- March, October, November, December: Finish Hyrueliana first draft
- March, October, November, December: Edit Hyrueliana to second draft
- March, October, November, December: Send second draft of Hyrueliana to beta
- March, October, November, December: Edit Hyrueliana to third draft
- March, October, November, December: Finish Gargoyles: Caught in a Web first draft
- March, October, November, December: Edit Gargoyles: Caught in a Web to second draft
- March, October, November, December: Send second draft of Gargoyles: Caught in a Web to beta
- March, October, November, December: Edit Gargoyles: Caught in a Web to third draft
- March, October, November, December: Finish Gargoyles: Wild as a Swallow's Song first draft
- March, October, November, December: Edit Gargoyles: Wild as a Swallow's Song to second draft
- March, October, November, December: Send Gargoyles: Wild as a Swallow's Song to beta
- March, October, November, December: Edit Gargoyles: Wild as a Swallow's Song to third draft
- BookWorm's Library maintenance
- July, December: Make sure software is up-to-date
- July, December: Add any other files that need adding
- July, December: Add FanFiction Garret section to the site
- July, December: Add recipes to Cookbook
- Ao3
- June: Upload already published stories
- June: Upload SL: Plans and High Command on May 4, 2025
- June: Upload thirteen fanmixes
- June: Upload Trigun: Three of a Kind
- June: Upload Rescue the Farmboy: Extricition
- June: Upload Wars Are Won: Sacrifice of Happiness
- June: Upload Evil Jack: Till Death Do We Part
- June: Upload Evil Jack: last story
- June: Upload Zackverse: The Hyrueliana
- June: Upload Gargoyles: Caught in a Web
Here's to 2025.
