The Best Laid Plans… (Take Two)

So here we are in 2020, and I’m only just kind of stopping to catch up with myself after one of the busiest years I’ve ever had. What on earth happened?

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, but I certainly had goals for last year. I reached some of them, and fell short on others. That’s life, and it happens to most people.

But I really hoped to have at least the first book in my Atomic Goddess trilogy published, if not by October, then by December at latest. It’s not that I didn’t put the work in – I still had my writing routine, and I kept to it pretty well. Although my time was depleted a little by having to take paid work to help support us.

I still carried on with editing tasks, methodically sifting through each chapter, each scene, to weed out extraneous matter and pinpoint where to strengthen the story.

I made copious notes on a particular strand of the story I needed to work on more, added new content where needed, researched when necessary, and gave the whole story an overhaul to improve the pacing. This included taking my eleven rather longish, admittedly plodding chapters, and breaking them up into twenty chapters. I’m very pleased with the faster flow of the story now, although I am still working on streamlining them to their best lengths.

I’m actually quite excited, because – after all these years of working on this trilogy – I can see the light at the end of tunnel. This will definitely be THE year. Ideally, my goal is to have all three books finished and published by August, so they’re available at my town’s local pop culture convention. But even if I only have the first done, it will be great positive movement and forward momentum.

That said, I can’t help looking beyond this trilogy to what I will work on next. I have a Gaslamp fantasy trilogy that I’m keen to work on, and also my WWII zombie apocalypse stand-alone (not to mention various other Gaslamp fantasies, a couple of retro-fantasies set in the early 1900’s, and some that are more high fantasy. Enough about those!)

I still have to create a cover, and do all the formatting for publishing the ebooks and print versions, and I really, really want to do audiobooks of my work as well. As well as keeping up with regular blogs, and marketing plans, etc…

Soooooo… it looks like it will be another busy year!

Keep a smile on your dial until next time, and peace and love in your heart

From Lana Lea and her time-travelling muse