Five Things I learned in 2020

For 2021, I’m gonna try to write more blogposts, so here we go. (1)

Here Are The Five (Writerly) Things I Learned in 2020.

1. Track My Word Count

I didn’t write at all in October, November, and only a little bit in December. Because my long-term memory sucks, I thought the whole year was a wash. Looking back at my extremely complicated excel word tracker that I spent way too much time tweeking over the past year, I actually wrote over 140,000 words and completed 3 novels! If it wasn’t for the tracker, I would have forgotten this accomplishment.

2. Writing full-time is not for me.

In 2020, I started working part-time, partly by choice, partly because of the pandemic. Thus, I had much more time to write. By the end of the year, I was burned out.

I don’t think I like writing more than a few hours a day. Also, I had to admit that I love engineering. Well, I love the emissions calculations and playing spreadsheets. The other parts can go kick rocks.

Since I could barely write part-time, I know I couldn’t write full-time.

3. Don’t Skip Books

I knew this already, but I let that nugget of knowledge slip in 2020. Yes, I finished three books in 2020, but they were all the first books in three different series. I’m trying to do a rapid release for my next series, so… skipping book series was a really, really bad idea.

I’d be ready to publish if I hadn’t skipped books whenever I got bored.

Next time I get bored or stuck with a book, I’ll skip ahead to the next book in the series, instead of changing the series completely.

4. Storyboarding and outlining on Trello is the bomb dot com.

I am horrible at keeping track of timelines and how my minor characters look. Trello has solved that problem for me.

For anyone curious. Here is a romance layout from romance author and editor @tashaharrison and Jael R. Bakari has a Youtube video here of her writing process using Trello.

5. It’s Okay To Be Inconsistent.

The most important thing I learned is that It’s okay to be inconsistent. If its important, I’ll come back to it. I’m over 40 years old. I’ve done all of the things ever set out to do. My Bucket List is Empty; I am happy and content. (2) Everything else I achieve is pure gravy.

Empty bucket List or not, I’m looking forward to 2021.

(1) It took over 3 hours to edit, write, and post this. This is why blogging is hard.

(2) I’m not very ambitious (shrug)