Monthly Check-in, May 2024

Tabatha

June 11

Whew, did anyone else feel their motivation fly out the window when summer temperatures showed up a little early? The news around here in the desert southwest is being REALLY CAREFUL to remind everyone that it's NOT summer yet … just Spring. Of course, they're also regularly reporting heat advisories and reminding people to quit hiking in the daytime. Oh, and they're making the signs of heat stroke a regular infographic. Fun times.

But, the heat didn't ground me completely. In fact, May was my third consecutive year at Phoenix Fan Fusion. We had a BLAST, met a lot of cool people, and sold a record number of books. In fact, we sold OUT of paperbacks of two titles and completely sold out of another title. Don't worry, we'll bring more next year!

In other news, it's time to look back on my May calendar and see how I did progress-wise because, as I've said before, there always needs to be new books on the horizon!

Let's get to it.

First up, Individual Projects

Let's update you on the Short Story Collection, which has had wonderful growth already in 2024. In May the cover team created one cover for me to look at and approve. The cover team took a look and unanimously agreed on the cover. That's BIG NEWS because it means we won't have to play the back-and-forth game. We also don't have to vote with my cover team between multiple good options. This one is simply a WINNER! That hasn't happened in a long time. I'm pretty excited about it!

The cover still needs me to finalize the blurb that will go on the back then I'll be able to officially mark that as done.

Then, in late May, the professional editor returned her edits. So now I get to wade through the editing notes and make those final changes. This one is coming along SO nicely! Here's how that progress page is looking at the end of May.

Meanwhile, the YA Contemporary story continues to give me headaches. I tried to focus on writing the scene I wanted to add, the one that keeps popping up as WANTED by readers. But I can't seem to get it right. The voice isn't right in one draft, the second draft makes it seem almost like a dream (which is not the point of the scene), the third draft makes it seem like a throwaway incident that I didn't need to include. It's all sort of frustrating. So that page remains only mildly different even after a lot of effort.

I'm tempted to hand it to the betas like it is and see what they think.

The rest of the projects have had no changes so far in 2024.

Next up, Monthly Progress

My monthly progress pages are designed to help give me focus in a given month. In May I decided I needed to take inventory of my future goals, which I actually did. I sort of recentered myself around what I want to accomplish and what rate I want to accomplish it at. Even if nothing else happened in May, I'm glad I had a chance to sort of reset that mindset.

I also had a goal to make some kind of progress every day. That is a sort of vague, up-in-the-air goal. It's hard to measure. So I let myself be subjective. Did I feel like I added value to my personal long-term goals on that day? If so, I marked it successful. Not all of them were writing or editing.

Even with that sort of lax methodology, I didn't hit the 100% mark. I counted 16/31 as being productive. Still, I felt better about it than I would have.

Here's that May progress.

Perfect? No. But I think, after all these years, I'm learning to be ok with that.

Wow, look at the number of book reviews I wrote. That leads me right into my final section …

Reading

I finished 12 books (about 126 pages per day) in May. I did push two that I was reading at the end of the month into June. Plus, one that I had promised to read as an ARC had delayed publication and is now coming out in July. I can't push it to June (WAY too full of a schedule) so I'm pushing it to July. Likely, I'll get it in before it is released. I did read the other two promised books, a whole bunch of audiobooks from the library, one that had been on my TBR forever, a sequel that I'd been DYING to make time for, and a mood read from the library.

Prefer covers? I got you.

This month was full of a lot of really niche reads. That's great if you happen to be in their niche! Like quirky and fun with your mystery? Try A Man With One of Those Faces. Like short stories, specifically monsters? Try Our Shadows Have Claws. Like retellings and happen to be a fan of Wonderland? Balancing Wonderland is a MUST read for you.