Did I reach 2013’s writing goals?
Last year, I wrote a post laying out my writing goals for 2013. Did I reach them? Let’s take a look!
-Finish the DEMONSOULED series. I’m in the final phases of SOUL OF SKULLS, which should come out in January or February. After that, there’s one book left to write – SOUL OF SWORDS. Hopefully I can get that done sometime in the summer.
Success! SOUL OF SWORDS came out in June.
-Continue THE GHOSTS series. As soon as I finish SOUL OF SKULLS, it’s time to start the next GHOSTS book, GHOST IN THE FORGE. I’d like to have that done by the end of April, after which I want to start SOUL of SWORDS.
Success! GHOST IN THE FORGE came out at the end of February.
-Start a new series. After I finish SOUL OF SWORDS, I would like to write the first book in a new series. More thoughts on that later.
Success! There are now three books in my new FROSTBORN series: FROSTBORN: THE FIRST QUEST, FROSTBORN: THE GRAY KNIGHT, and FROSTBORN: THE EIGHTFOLD KNIFE.
-Do a novel in THE THIRD SOUL series. I’ve been at a loss on how to continue the series, but the other night (while on the treadmill, appropriately enough) an idea came to me. I haven’t been able to figure out how to continue Rachaelis’s and Corthain’s character arcs. So the answer is to do a novel with new characters in the same setting, which would then link up with Rachaelis’s and Corthain’s plotline in the next installment. More information on this to come.
-Sort of halfway. I did THE OUTLAW ADEPT, THE BLACK PALADIN, and THE TOMB OF BALIGANT, but I had already written THE BLACK PALADIN and THE TOMB OF BALIGANT years ago, and THE OUTLAW ADEPT was a novella, so it doesn’t really count. I thought about doing a THE THIRD SOUL book at the end of the year, but I decided to work on GHOST IN THE SURGE instead. (To be fair, a lot more people were asking for the next THE GHOSTS book). Perhaps I’ll be able to come back to THE THIRD SOUL in 2014.
-Another GHOSTS book after GHOST IN THE FORGE. I’ll probably write that in in fall of 2013, and I haven’t decided on a title yet. I’m not sure what’s going to happen in that book, since I have to write GHOST IN THE FORGE first. 
Definite success! Not only did I write GHOST IN THE ASHES, I also wrote GHOST IN THE MASK and GHOST IN THE SURGE.
-Expand into paper books. It occurred to me in December that I had missed an opportunity by not having paper books available. People don’t buy ebooks as gifts. They buy ebooks for themselves. They do, however, buy paper books as gifts. So by 2013′s holiday season, I wanted to have at least some of my novels available in paper form. Consequently, I’ve been teaching myself CreateSpace. I suspect like ebook formatting, the first one is the hardest, and after that it’s easier because you have a template from which to work.
Success! I had a goal of having six paper books available by the holiday season of 2013, and I wound up with eight.
-More short stories. I used to write a lot of short fiction, but it’s fallen by the wayside in the last few years. But my book series take place in this big rambling fictional universes, and there’s a lot of room for short stories in them. So if there’s time, I’d like to do some $0.99 short stories in the DEMONSOULED, THE GHOSTS, and THE THIRD SOUL settings.
Success! In 2013 I wrote the short stories THE WANDERING KNIGHT, THE TOURNAMENT KNIGHT, GHOST ARIA, GHOST CLAWS, GHOST OMENS, and GHOST UNDYING.
-Additional tech books. But probably not until the second half of 2012, since I want to focus on fiction until SOUL OF SWORDS is done.
Didn’t happen – there just wasn’t time.
Tomorrow I’ll write out what I hope to accomplish with writing in 2014.
-JM