February was pretty good for me. I’m about 100 pages from finishing Lionheart and have the makings of a draft review sitting in my dashboard. I realize that I did not meet either of those goals, but that’s mostly because I was focused on writing… and occasionally watching Justice League on Netflix.

The primary goal for February was an increased word count goal of 25k for “Jaed and Aston”. I did not write 25k words, but I did manage to break 22,000. So I wrote 12k more than last month, which is pretty sweet. My word count now sits a little above 130,000 total, which is sort of weird to think about. Not even eight months ago, I was stuck at 26k words and completely lost in my own ideas. Then, this story was just an unfinished idea. Now, I feel like I have a responsibility to finish it. Why else pour so much time into writing the damn thing?

March’s Goals

1. Write 30,000 words for “Jaed and Aston”: My tangible writing goal for this month is to break 150,000 words. In trying to project my final word count, I know that I will have at least that much for this story. From there, I think I will be within striking distance of finishing my first draft (say, 10-20k). I’m hoping that I’ll be more and more motivated as I inch closer to a completed story, and that will help me churn out an extra chunk this month.

I also may have a real title now. I’ve been mulling over one for a few weeks now (with a post-it note sitting on my writing desk so I have to look at it), and I have yet to come up with anything better. I don’t feel ready to reveal it until I have a solid manuscript. Do authors reveal titles like that? Is there such a thing as a title reveal? Maybe I’ll have to pair it with a cover reveal…

2. Actually finish Lionheart and write a review: Hopefully I’ll get to this one in the next week or so.

3. Write an album review: I don’t have anything in mind for this, I would just like to find some new music and write about it. I have a few ideas, but I need to actually buy the music first.

4. Get at least 2/3 through another book: I really do need to step up my reading game if I want to read somewhere between 15 and 26 books this year. I have a couple of books waiting in the wings, including an indie title, so I definitely want to get to those. I’ll probably try to write another review for the indie title once I get to it.

All in all, the writing is my focus, but I like that I can be flexible with music or book reviews when they come up.

So, back to my earlier question: does it make sense to reveal just the title of a book? The marketer in me says obviously, but the realist in me says nobody cares! What say you?

Steve D