Monthly Report: August and September 2013

So once again, these monthly reports are delayed big time. They are just so onerous to write that sometimes I just don’t care really. But I do them regardless because they happen to serve as a good check on my writing, especially when I lose track of things, as I am often wont to do, for no reason really.

I still can’t seem to find the right frame of mind to work on anything fictional, while my non-fiction work and my editorials continue apace. Its really weird. You can find the June/July Report here.

Monthly Report: June and July 2013

At this point, its becoming more apparent to me that sometimes I just can’t be bothered to blog about certain things, and the last two months have kind of shown that. As did the April/May monthly report. I’ve been struggling to get these out on time for no real reason other than just a general procrastination-related disinterest. Which is bad. Productivity is down and I really need to step things up desperately.

June wasn’t actually that bad but there were far too many things going on in July for me to focus on my writing, especially fictional writing, as I detail below. You can find the April/May Report here.

Monthly Report: April and May 2013

And once again it appears that I have failed to get one of these (or two rather!) out on time. The first couple of weeks in May were pretty tight since I was both working on edits for the novella while also working on the prequel short story, so that never happened. And once again, I just go too lazy last weekend to work on this. Weekdays just aren’t that good for me generally to do one of these things. Takes too much time. But can’t putit off forever, either, so here it is.

Lots has happened in the last couple months and this is how the writing and reading went down in both April and May. You can find the March Report here.

Monthly Report – March 2013

Looks like I just might be getting the new report out almost on time! Three cheers for me! Well, sorta, but its the effort that counts, right?

March has been one of my busiest months of late, probably because a lot was happening throughout, and things are still extremely busy in light of some recent news that’s come my way with regards the publishing and comics industries. So expect to see a lot of content from me in April.

At least, that’s the plan!

So, this is how the writing and reading went down last month, and you can find the February Report here.

Monthly Report – January 2013

This is quite a bit late, and I apologise for the delay. Lots of things going on this month, and not all of it good, so things have been off-schedule for a while.

In my blogpost titled “2013 – What Now? Some Resolutions Maybe?” I mentioned that I was not going to set myself any individual project word-count goals, and that my big aim would be to do 450,000 words for the whole year. January, on the whole, wasn’t all that great since there were two trips to India involved (one coming back in the first week, and another going there in the last week), so that crimped by writing quite a bit, not to mention that my slump and procrastination continued.

Try as I might, I can’t fix this stupid procrastination. There’s always something that comes up, that totally screws with my writing moment and I end up doing nothing. I have no idea how to get it sorted. The reading progresses great, just not the writing.

Eh, whatever. It’s still better than doing absolutely nothing for a whole month! So here’s how my writing and reading in January went down.

February E-book Giveaway (Update)

As I mentioned here a couple days ago, if my February reading list poll hit 500 votes by midnight on January 31st, I would do a giveaway for a few eBooks. Since the polling hit that level a few short hours ago, the giveaway is live.

But first…

2013 – What Now? Some Resolutions Maybe?

So the New Year has come and gone. The end of the second week is almost upon us. And so far, it’s been a somewhat lazy, yet productive month. Also one that has been spectacular in a few ways. It’s also time to make some new resolutions and challenges. So let’s get to it.

2012 – A Bloody Fantastic Year Ends

So, the year 2012 ended a few days ago, and it’s been an absolute blast, to say the least.

Anyways, to do a small recap of my goals for the year,

1. Write ~420,000 words of both fiction (various submissions and novel projects) and non-fiction (reviews and blogposts).
2. Read 400 novels, comics, novellas, stand-alone short stories (still not sure if these SHOULD be included) and listen to some audio dramas and audiobooks.

At the end of October, I was very close to both of those goals, having crossed the ~472,000-word mark, and was still ahead on the reading goals, as I was at 352/400 on September 30th. You can find the November report here.

November Report

November ended a few days ago, and so far this year, it was my busiest month ever, in terms of writing; busiest by far, as you’ll see after the break.

Anyways, to do a small recap of my goals for the year,

1. Write ~420,000 words of both fiction (various submissions and novel projects) and non-fiction (reviews and blogposts).
2. Read 400 novels, comics, novellas, stand-alone short stories (still not sure if these SHOULD be included) and listen to some audio dramas and audiobooks.

At the end of October, I was very close to both of those goals, having crossed the ~377,100-word mark, and was still ahead on the reading goals, as I was at 304/400 on September 30th. You can find the October report here.

October Report

Well that was October, sort of a hellish month in some respects, and sort of quite awesome too in other respects. Time really does fly by so fast and my procrastination, as always, steals a hefty chunk of it.

Anyways, to do a small recap of my goals for the year,

1. Write ~420,000 words of both fiction (various submissions and novel projects) and non-fiction (reviews and blogposts).
2. Read 400 novels, comics, novellas, stand-alone short stories (still not sure if these SHOULD be included) and listen to some audio dramas and audiobooks.

At the end of September, I had made some serious progress towards both of those goals, having crossed the ~337,000-word mark, and was still ahead on the reading goals, as I was at 257/300 on September 30th. You can find the September report here.

Big, Big Smile On My Face

So, yesterday was kind of an awesome day. At least it began like that. I pushed through a 2000-word movie review for Dredd 3D where I was all praise for the film. It felt good to write a review like that, especially since I hadn’t realized I would have so much to talk about when I started it. And then, in the evening, I got the biggest surprise of all:

As you can see, The Founding Fields has a blurb in this book. Said book being Swords of Waar by Nathan Long and the blurb being from my review of Jane Carver of Waar, the first book in Nathan’s new series that is inspired in part from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter novels. You can find my review of the book here.

This happens to be the second published blurb for The Founding Fields, the other being from blog owner Commissar Ploss, and this is a huge, huge thing for us. Particularly for me, since that’s MY FREAKIN FIRST EVER REVIEW BLURB. *AHEM* There was much oooh-ing and aaaah-ing when Larry (co-blog owner) informed me about this yesterday and when he sent me that pic above. I’m super, super excited for this. This is like a validation for everything I’ve done in the 13 months that I’ve been reviewing and its all thanks to Ploss since he is the one who set me on this path, to being a more professional reviewer than I’d envisioned myself being when I wrote my first one for this very blog.

So yeah, thanks to Nathan Long for an excellent novel, thanks to Night Shade Books for publishing this piece of awesomeness, and thanks to everybody who’s supported me this far.

Did I also mention that Nathan Long is one of my top favourite authors? Yeah, that too!!

Now I can’t wait for my copy of Swords of Waar to arrive. Epic! I was so over-the-moon about this that I went ahead and bought Jane Carver of Waar then and there from the bookstore. It looks so epic and shiny and beautiful that words absolutely fail me.

And also, shoutout to my friend Justin Landon from the Staffer’s Musings blog who is quoted below me. Cheers man!

September Report

And so the third quarter ends and we finally move into the last 3 months of the year. I’m wondering where all the time has gone!!! Lots of good things happened in August and the morale-boosting effect of that lasted all through September, as you’ll see below.

To do a small recap of my goals for the year,,

1. Write ~420,000 words of both fiction (various submissions and novel projects) and non-fiction (reviews and blogposts).
2. Read 300 novels, comics, novellas, stand-alone short stories (still not sure if these SHOULD be included) and listen to some audio dramas and audiobooks.

At the end of August, I was quite a bit closer to my goals, having crossed the ~300,000-word mark, out of ~420,000 words and was still ahead on the reading goals, as I was at 207/300 on August 31st. You can find the August report here.