At what point in the month does the goals post become a retrospective? Hopefully not at the start of the second week. In any case, here we are in August. How did I do during July?

• Write weekly episodes of the Kindle Vella dragon serial. Oof. I think I wrote half of them. Not great.
• Create two digital bonuses for my awesome Patreon supporters. Did this!
• Finish the audiobook of Shift Happens and load it to the retailers. FINALLY!
• Get the next Portal Storms book to at least 50k. (It’s currently at 30k.) Didn’t touch it.
• Edits on the vampire book and potentially send out ARC copies? Working on it. Got the first chapter redone, which is the big thing.
• Foster some kittens! This. I did this. I’ll give a hint by saying I currently only have seven foster kittens, so things are calmer.

I’m giving myself a gold star for July purely because I finished the audiobook. (How’s is selling, you ask? Uh, I think it’s sold three whole copies, so possibly this is the lowest ROI for anything I’ve done in my life. But my mom said it it was good, so it was worth it. Also, I haven’t really done any marketing, so I am not shocked at the low sales. I’m working on it.)

August Goals

• Write weekly episodes of the Kindle Vella dragon serial.
• Create two digital bonuses for my awesome Patreon supporters.
• Start recording/editing the audiobook for Death Walks a Dog. This one is shorter and I learned a ton while recording the last one, so theoretically this should go quickly. Hubris, thy name is Theresa.
• Finish edits on the vampire book and send out ARC copies.
• Foster some kittens!

Obligatory Pet Picture

This is little Oscar the Grouch, who was found at the county landfill. He’s a good little chonk.

Somehow we are in the second half of the year already. How did that happen? Moving right along… How did I do in June?

• Write weekly episodes of the Kindle Vella dragon serial. Almost. I skipped one while I was trying to get other things done.
• Create two digital bonuses for my wonderful Patreon supporters. Did this!
• Finish the audiobook of Shift Happens and load it to the retailers. It’s not impossible, just improbable. Significant progress — I should have it done by the end of the week. I may throw a party.
• Get the next Portal Storms book to at least 50k. (It’s currently at 30k.) Ha. No.
• Structural edits on the vampire book. I think I’ve figured out what I need to do, which is a big step. Just have to rewrite the first chapter and then tweak a few things.
• Foster some kittens! Still have ten, so I am crushing this goal.

I’m giving myself a solid B purely because I’ve made so much progress on the audiobook. And for the ten foster kittens.

July Goals

• Write weekly episodes of the Kindle Vella dragon serial.
• Create two digital bonuses for my awesome Patreon supporters.
• Finish the audiobook of Shift Happens and load it to the retailers.
• Get the next Portal Storms book to at least 50k. (It’s currently at 30k.)
• Edits on the vampire book and potentially send out ARC copies?
• Foster some kittens!

Obligatory Pet Picture

Look at Tweetie! She’s adorable!

Last month I was laughing about not getting the post done until the 6th of the month, and this time I’ve managed to surpass that goal in a negative way. (That’s a phrase that was used back when I was in the corporate world.) But let’s not dwell on that and instead dwell on how I did last month.

• Write weekly episodes of the Kindle Vella dragon serial. I did this!
• Create two digital bonuses for my spiffy Patreon supporters. I did this, too!
• Finish the audiobook of Shift Happens and load it to the retailers. Eventually, it will happen. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
• Get the next Portal Storms book to at least 50k. (It’s currently at 25k.) Hm. Not so much.
• Foster some kittens! Hoo, boy, did I ever! I currently have THREE litters in my house. If only that generated revenue, I’d be set!

Honestly, looking at that list, I didn’t do so badly. Sure, the book I’m working on is still sitting at 30k and the audiobook is about 35% finished. But I made progress. Also, I worked on an outline for the next Penelope Standing novel, so that’s coming up someday soon.

June Goals

• Write weekly episodes of the Kindle Vella dragon serial.
• Create two digital bonuses for my wonderful Patreon supporters.
• Finish the audiobook of Shift Happens and load it to the retailers. It’s not impossible, just improbable.
• Get the next Portal Storms book to at least 50k. (It’s currently at 30k.)
• Structural edits on the vampire book.
• Foster some kittens!

Obligatory Pet Picture

These three adorable creatures are currently living in my bedroom.

Fair warning: I am sleep deprived and it is making me discouraged and grumpy.

It’s already the 6th of the month, which may say something about how I’m feeling about goals at the moment. But here we are. How did it go in April?

• Write weekly episodes of the Kindle Vella dragon serial. Did this.
• Create two digital bonuses for my spiffy Patreon supporters. Did this.
• Finish the audiobook of Shift Happens and load it to the retailers. Really, this time. Totally did NOT do this. I made some progress. Ugh. It’s the never-ending project. Why did I start this?
• Get the next Portal Storms book to at least 50k. (It’s currently at 15k, so this is not an unreasonable goal!) Didn’t do this. I added some words, but not anywhere close to that.
• Foster some kittens! Did a lot of this.

The other thing I did last month was start running Facebook ads again. In one way, they did great — the cost per click was around $0.10, and I had a bunch of downloads of book one of the Penelope Standing Mysteries. And if I’d ended up with the same read-through I get when advertising elsewhere, it would have more than paid for itself. But… Facebook seems to have optimized the ad for people who are willing to download a free book but not necessarily keep reading. So… Ugh.

We can agree that last month was not a huge success on the author business front. On the other hand, I kept three kittens alive, including one, who was a little touch-and-go for a while. That will have to do for now.

May Goals

• Write weekly episodes of the Kindle Vella dragon serial.
• Create two digital bonuses for my spiffy Patreon supporters.
• Finish the audiobook of Shift Happens and load it to the retailers. Eventually, it will happen.
• Get the next Portal Storms book to at least 50k. (It’s currently at 25k.)
• Foster some kittens!

Obligatory Pet Picture

This is Witch Hazel, who is tiny but mighty!

Hope you had a great November! How did I do on my goals?

• It’s NaNoWriMo time! I’m going to write 50k words on the urban fantasy novel. DID THIS!
• Two new stories/digital bonus things for my awesome Patreon supporters. DID THIS!
• Play with foster kittens! DID THIS!

Obviously, the message I should take from this stellar performance is to manage my goals properly. But will I learn that? Probably not. In any case, I give myself an A+.

December Goals

• Release Death Paints a Picture on 12/16/2023. I have the edits back, so I just need to make the changes and write the back matter. Then it’s just a matter of loading it to the retailers. (Marketing? What’s that?)
• Write weekly episodes on the Kindle Vella dragon serial.
• Create two digital bonus things for my awesome Patreon supporters.
• Finish the rough draft of the urban fantasy novel I started in November.
• Re-cover the Jackpot Drift series.
• Stretch goal: audio stuff. At the very least, figure out the voices.

I think I can do all that, despite the holiday madness.

Obligatory Pet Picture

Look how big Molly (of the Rivers of London Gang) is getting! She’s adorable and extra sweet. (Also, a troublemaker.)

Yes, somehow it is already November. I’m not sure how that happened either. But before we get to this month’s goals, let’s laugh at my performance during the last month, shall we?

• Two new stories/digital bonus things for my wonderful Patreon supporters. YES!
• Weekly space opera and dragon episodes. It would be nice to finish the space opera before November, but I’m not sure if it’s going to happen in four episodes. YES! The space opera serial is finished and I put a note in Dragon Fortune that I was taking November off.
• Write at least 20k in the next Portal Storm book. Totally did not do this. I think I got a couple thousand in.
• Record 10 chapters of audio for Shift Happens. I’m still trying to work out the best way to do different voices (Practice. The answer is practice. This isn’t a secret!) so I can’t swear what I record will be usable, but just the act of recording will force me to get better. Yeeeeaaahh, I didn’t do too much. I think I got maybe a chapter recorded.
• Do a bit more worldbuilding for NaNoWriMo. Sure, I did some thinking.
• Play with the foster kittens (when they get out of quarantine, if possible)! I got two new bunches of fosters (at the same time) and they have been played with.

It doesn’t sound too bad when I look at it, but I really should have been making more progress on the book. Oh well. There is room for improvement.

November Goals

• It’s NaNoWriMo time! I’m going to write 50k words on the urban fantasy novel.
• Two new stories/digital bonus things for my awesome Patreon supporters.
• Play with foster kittens!

I’ve simplified things this month. Let’s see if I can hit all my goals.

Obligatory Pet Picture

The younger fosters have all been named after pirates because of their unfortunate eye situation. (Actually, things have improved since this was taken — Blackbeard has two working eyes and even Anne Bonny has a little vision in one eye!)