My Writing Calendar

So I know I said Monday that I was hoping to get Matt and Laura’s novella out soon…and then my editor called and said, “Um…did you forget about your December 1 deadline?” So…yeah, I had in fact let that slip my mind. See, we’d discussed a number of different dates, and the one my brain held onto was not 12/1. Ahem. So Joint Venture will be put off, probably until December, so I can focus on that deadline and hopefully still meet it. I’m way, way behind on it as of now. (I still think it’s doable, mind you, it’s just going to be a sprint rather than a leisurely stroll.)

I just explained to my husband why I was feeling a little stressed and actually took the time to work out the math. So if a novel is usually around 80,000 words (ballpark, of course. Mine have been as low as 75K and as high as 100K. But 80K is a pretty decent number to aim for) and I need to have a final version on 12/1, then I really need at least 2 weeks for editing and so forth, so if I make my first draft deadline 11/12, that puts it right at 5 weeks. That’s 35 days. 80K divided out over 35 days is roughly 2,300 words a day. And that’s totally doable in the time I usually have for writing each day. And having worked out that math makes me breathe just a little easier.

When that’s turned in, I’ll get back to putting Joint Venture (that’s the title of Matt and Laura’s novella) out for Kindle. So look for an early December release for that. And I am still planning two additional novellas based around minor characters from the first three books. We’ll see if I can nail down dates for those once I get the December deadline met! But once all three novellas are out on Kindle, then I’ll package them together as a 3-in-1 for a paperback. So if you’re a physical book only person, fear not, you’re not going to be left out in the cold forever! You’ll just have to wait a little while longer (but you’ll get them all in one lump, so there’s a tradeoff, right?)

And now, I really need to get busy – I have 2,300 words I need to write!