As always, I’d like to begin this week’s progress report by thanking all of you awesome people who’ve followed, liked and/or commented on my blog!

Here are this week’s stats:

Words Rewritten This Week: 5,953

Last Chapter of Second Draft Completed: 13

Chapters To Go (subject to change): 12

Days Until January 20th Goal Date: 50

Thoughts?

Not only did I manage to achieve my writing goal for the week, I’m also officially halfway through rewriting my book! Even though we’ve been much busier at the day job, I’m proud that I was still able to meet my writing goal and continue to press forward with my book. I also worked a little bit on an unrelated piece of writing for fun, and it was good to see that my brain can still produce fresh ideas even in the midst of everything else I have going on.

I haven’t yet finished Reflected in You by Sylvia Day. I’m about halfway through it as we speak. I did, however, manage to finish and review a short ARC read, Christmas Can Kiss My Dickens by Hunter Frost. If you think you’d be into a modern retelling of Charles Dicken’s Christmas Carol with an M/M twist, you should definitely pick it up!

All of that said, I definitely got overwhelmed this week thinking of the future. I’ve started planning my New Years resolutions (yes, I’m one of those people) and I realized that by this time next year if everything goes according to plan, my book will either be finishing up or completely through the professional edit process. Which means that I’ll have needed to come up with the money to pay for that (professional editing isn’t cheap). Which means it will have already been read by a few beta readers. Which means I’ll have had to finish the rewrite and second round of self-editing.

Can you see how I managed to spiral myself nearly into an anxiety attack?

But then, I reminded myself of everything I’ve done and achieved against the odds. I lost over 100 pounds and have kept it off. I’ve been vegan for nearly a year. I’ve come closer to reading 50 books in a year than I ever have. I’m finally making progress on paying off several debts that have been hanging over my head for sometime.

Why in the world is publishing this book any different from those things?

Goals For The Coming Week

This week, I want to rewrite Chapters 14 and 15. I’d like to finish Reflected in You by Sylvia Day, as well as another ARC read, Benjamin’s Gardens by J. Walther (no, I can’t read German; the author provided me with a copy in English). It’s hard for me to accept that I likely won’t make 50 books this year, as I’m so close (if I finish those 2 books this coming week, I will be sitting at 41 books read for 2017). But I do need to work, write, eat, sleep and maintain my sanity. Still, I feel like if I push just a little harder, I can do it all…famous last words.

Note to Self

All I need to do is buckle down, be brave, be thrifty, and focus. This book is going to happen and I’m going to do everything I can to make sure it’s done right.