Update | Did we make it?

“Envision, create, and believe in your own universe, and the universe will form around you.”

— Tony Hsieh

So… in the last post, I wrote that I *should* be able to make 350.000 words in 2022. I didn’t. I only wrote 5766 words in December, which gets me to 345.964 words. I kept looking for another story. Normally, when I get a monthly number that low, I’ve forgotten a story and find another 20-30k in another document. That’s not the case this time.

I did say I wouldn’t push, though, so I’m not too upset. What bothers me a little is that I’ve slipped down under averaging 1k a day. It wasn’t a goal as such, but now that I’m at an average of 948 words per day, I realise I want 1k a day. So new goal? *deep breath* Shit, can I do that? It would mean 365.000 words, that’s 19036 more than I did this year. Though, if the autumn had been a normal autumn, I think I would have managed that.

So, yeah, aim high, right?

Shall we summarise the year?

The goal was to publish 12 stories as Holly – one per month – and I did. 

• January – One Would Be Enough
• February – The Wingman
• March – The Blood Witch
• April – A Well-Functioning Cubicle
• May – Perfect Rows
• June – A Drop of Moonshine
• July – Love in an Elevator
• August – The Book Dragon’s Lair
• September – Dear Diary
• October – A Vampire Chew Toy
• November – Returning to the Werewolf
• December – Willow Road

As Ofelia, I was gonna do the either-or stories – I didn’t. I did The Cake Shop for the Rain or Shine call. Then I wrote Keep it Down! for JMS Books’ 12th anniversary, and then I wrote The Setup for the advent calendar.

The Drunken Dog was released in February, and it was for the Sugar or Spice call, but I submitted it in December 2021, so those words aren’t included in this year’s total even though the editing and marketing part fell on the 2022 side of the new year. 

So four releases on Ofelia. That’s what I aim for this year too. My goal is quarterly releases unless I suddenly find myself in a place where the words flow effortlessly. In that case, I might sneak in something extra.

Oh, and I forgot. We have the Naked Gardening Day box set and the 2022 Top Ten Gay Romance Anthology as well. So that’s two more releases – three if we’re gonna count the Top Ten on both Holly and Ofelia 😆 Oh-oh, I just realised, the 2021 Top Ten Gay Romance anthology was released on January 1st, 2022, so… that’s one more 🤣

Sales-wise 2022 has been my best year, but not word-count-wise. I wrote 377.038 words in 2020 courtesy of lockdowns and stuff. I might have been a bit frantic and tried to write myself out of the apocalypse then. 

I was so disappointed flipping through my bullet journal and realising I didn’t do a year-in-review spread last year. Why didn’t I? I love looking at those. So I have to do one before I publish this post, so I can include it. 

I scrolled back in my posts on here and saw that I wrote 289.333 words in 2021. 

So 2023…

The goal is 12 stories on Holly, though I’m already behind 😰, and four releases on Ofelia. That’s more a minimal limit than a goal. I want at least one release per quarter.

Then there is the word count goal. 365.000 words…. If I put that out there, I’m already behind. Sigh.

But let’s go!

Starting next month, I’ll do the update posts on Holly’s site. Most of the words are hers, so it feels a bit strange to post about them here 😊