Whew. November. Am I right? It was such a whirlwind I totally forgot to share my accountability and goals, like I usually do on the first Friday of the month. So here’s some catch up.

October accountability

• Complete edits on & read aloud Spy for a Spy.—CHECK
• Proofread Spy for a Spy.—CHECK
• Pull together promo materials for Spy for a Spy. (sensing a theme?)—CHECK This spilled into November, but it got done in time!
• Research & plot Nano novel—I think this spilled over into November, too, but CHECK
• Maybe write another novella? Have to do something to stay sane amidst the marketing and editing 😉 Bahahaha. SANITY IS OVERRATED
• Edit the novella I wrote last week.—Totally lost heart after editing my brains out with Spy for a Spy. I’ll probably move this to next year.
• Edit Character Arcs & do all that pre-launch publicity stuff.—CHECK . . . ish. I did a little pre-launch publicity, including sending out ARCs to some lucky readers and reviewers, and I edited and re-edited Character Arcs, finally launching at the end of October. Whew!

November accountability

Goals reconstructed from memory . . . this is why I normally share these things here!

• Format Spy for a Spy in ePub, mobi & print. (Yes, I do this all myself. I’ve got mad skillz, and I’m cheap. It’s a great combination.) CHECK
• Launch publicity for Spy for a Spy: blog tour, launch party on Facebook & Twitter with Julie Coulter Bellon, giveaway with Julie, coordinating tons of generously donated prizes. CHECK. Again, I do this all myself (I mean, I did the blog tour. Julie & I worked together on the party & giveaway). It’s a lot of work, but it’s also a ton of fun.
• Sale on I, Spy along with a BookBub promo and the launch. CHECK. Along with the blog tour, this generated some fairly fantastic results sales-wise. You know what’s more important than sales numbers? Happy readers. I hope I’ll have some of those soon! If sales of Spy for a Spy are indicative, things are going pretty well. 🙂
• Once all that’s out of the way, win NaNoWriMo! CHECK, but you already know that.
• Finish my NaNo novel. No joy. Family visit, sickness, and some attacks of ennui sapped my writing energy like creativity kryptonite. Lamesauce.
• There were probably other goals in here. I forget what they were. Made my best turkey ever, though!

It felt pretty crazy, and there were days when I wrote absolutely nothing, but I’m pretty happy I was able to win NaNo (with tons of support from my family, of course!).

December goals

• Now finish my NaNo novel. I’m in the final quarter. Fingers crossed I can pound that out today and tomorrow. (Do-able word count-wise, but do I know enough of the plot to figure out how to get there? As a reminder, my previous outlines have sometimes detailed my final act as “They vanquish the bad guys and overcome their obstacles to find love against all odds.” True, but not very helpful in expanding that section to ~20,000 words.)
• Polish up the NaNo novel a bit. Spackle in the gaps, especially the entire sections of the main plot I skipped saying “Figure this out later” when I had to switch the timeline around, and the scene that was going to take too much darn research to write during Nano.
• Write up the 2014 business plan, goals and production schedule.
• Think about my conference presentations for next year. If I’m feeling really ambitious, outline them.
• Enjoy the holidays with my family. I’m working hard to make Christmas a family-centered, Jesus-centered celebration in our home, especially since this will be the first year ever we won’t be traveling to be with extended family during the holidays.

While it’s hard to beat the satisfaction of typing “The End,” I think my favorite goal for the month has to be that last one.

What’s up for you this month?

Photo by Celestine Chua