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:

Word Count for Chapters Edited This Week: 9,927

Last Chapter of Third Draft Completed: 16

Chapters To Go (subject to change): 9

Days Until April 18th Goal Date: 26

Thoughts?

I’ve had a very productive week this week! I managed to self-edit the chapters I wanted to finish. I’m beginning to get the foundation for the book I’d like to work on for NaNoWriMo in November. Things are going great…but I think I have a problem.

ARCs.

As you know from my How to Get Into M/M series, one of the Facebook groups I’m a member of is the MM Romance ARC Club. In this FB group, authors post about their upcoming/new releases and offer up the opportunity for their book to be read for free in exchange for an honest review, usually to be posted on Goodreads and Amazon. I’ve been a member since last July and as I’ve stated before, I have found a few awesome books/authors this way.

But…I seem to have developed a problem. You see, anytime a new ARC opportunity passes through my FB feed that has a good cover, is by an author I like/have heard good things about, or has a premise that I love (gay princes seem to be my most glaring kryptonite), I can’t seem to stop myself. Of course I do all of my background checking first. If it’s an author I’ve never heard of, I first check them out on Goodreads to see how their other books have been received by readers/reviewers. I also check book length, as well as the time frame within which the author wants the review posted. But if all systems are a go…I usually sign up.

When I had my overwhelmed meltdown a couple of weeks ago, I made several rules for myself in order to regain my balance. One of the things I considered was severely limiting my ARC reading/reviewing. But…I haven’t done it. I currently have 2 ARCs to be read/reviewed. I just finished one (Dancing with Danny: Royally Gay book 1 by Alice Boyce) last night, as well as the one last week (Teaching Tenderness: Forever in Middlebury book 1 by Brittany Cournoyer).

ARCs are good for a number of reasons. First, they allow you to discover new books and new authors without the financial risk. Second, they come with a commitment to finish, as well as a firm deadline. This means that not only are you discovering new authors/books risk-free, but you are forced to finish what you start in a timely manner. Without a doubt, they are helping me get to my 50-book goal for 2018.

The downside is that, for someone like me with very little self-control when it comes to books, I will overdo it and have anywhere from 1-3 ARC commitments going at any given time.

Goals For The Coming Week

In the next week, I’d like to self-edit Chapters 17, 18 and 19.

I’d also like to finish ARC read Love in Overtime by Sloane Easton, as well as begin ARC read Consorting with Dragons by Sera Trevor.

Note to Self

Maybe when another migraine-meltdown rears it’s ugly head, I will calm down on the ARCs…until then…*turns another page*