Writing Wrapup (2020)

Posted on January 13, 2021 by Deborah O'Carroll

Well, I haven’t blogged regularly at ALL in quite awhile, but I wanted to post a wrapup of my writerly accomplishments this last year, if only so I’ll be able to look back on it one day.

It was definitely a slow year of writing, for me. I have difficulty writing when I’m stressed, so between that and spending a good deal of extra time on my copyediting business, the words were rather fewer than usual. But at least some writing happened!

2020 WRITING (ISH) ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Writing

Total words written: 76,160 (not my usual 100K+ but ah well)
53K of Tare/Kedran’s Wood books (starting book 3 for NaNo plus some edits on book 2)
12K of Operation Foxtail
11K on short stories — The Secret Piano (hopefully coming soon to a newsletter?), and three serial episodes of Girls, Spies, and Other Things the Faeries Stole. (I had written the first episode in 2019. The second was posted last January. So I have two more written, and one more planned, which would total 5 episodes. I hope to share them on here when I get the chance!)
I also did some plotting and editing on various works, including making some exciting breakthroughs in various books!

Blogging

I didn’t have home internet for the last 8 months of the year so any blogging that actually got done . . . I’ll take it. 😛

Blog posts in 2020: 49
Page Dreamer: 36
Here (Road of a Writer): 13

Faves:

Instagram

I also focused more on my Instagram in this last year, largely due to said issue of a lack of internet aside from my phone. I can’t really blog on my phone but I can Instagram on it, sooo…

285 Bookstagram posts (daily posts aside from a couple of hiatus months and breaks when I got busy)
Hit 800 followers
I finally did more with themes, even seasonal ones (which was fun) — and aaall the flowers!
Finally made a Linktree and some highlights. XD *is almost getting the hang of this Instagramming thing*

Copyediting Business

*(Some of the books I had the honor of copyediting last year.)*

Words copyedited or beta-read in 2020: 2.9 million words
Novels/novellas copyedited: 15
Short stories copyedited: 11
Beta projects (for friends etc.): 8
(Curious to know more about my freelance copyediting? Info is here! :))

Miscellaneous

Writing journal pages: 136
Won my 11th NaNoWriMo and 20th Camp NaNo (actually did two camp sessions this year)
Attended Hutchmoot: Homebound online (delightful), as well as a one-day writing conference in January, and read 6 books on writing
Sketched my character Teague
Was “in print” for the second time (I mean, just like the first time, it was a private bindup collection for authors of the Modern Bard blog stories, so it’s not like it’s… available? But it was still neat to see A Night in the Life of Glassman printed in a real book, personal collection though it may be!)
Set new word-sprinting records during November
Got a new laptop (after 9 years of writing adventures with my first laptop)

So there is a brief (?) look at my 2020 in writing! Although the wordcount was less than I’d hoped, and I didn’t finish any novels (two-thirds into both Operation Foxtail and Kedran’s Wood 3), it still wasn’t a bad writing year, apparently. I’m quite happy with a lot of these things. 🙂

I hope you enjoyed that! Thanks for reading — and let me know if there’s a writing-ish accomplishment you’re proud of from last year!

Ishness-ish + Snippets + Dragons

Posted on June 15, 2020 by Deborah O'Carroll

Li’l dragon sketch. Accurate representation of me waiting for bookmail.

Oh, hi, everyone! I’m back but also not back. XD

So, technically I ought to have been back from my blogging hiatus two weeks ago . . . but I’m not sure how often I’ll manage to blog since I suddenly find myself without home internet. And until that changes, it’s just a lot harder to keep up with blogging and all the social media on my very limited phone. *winces*

MAY-ISH STUFF

I feel a bit too scattered to do a proper Ishness post, so this is a less structured/complete-feeling post . . .

But I did have a lovely hiatus in May! Some things I did:

Having fun with a book about drawing dragons. Hadn’t sketched in years and really enjoyed this.

read a fair bit
drew some dragons
played Settlers of Catan

started a weekly-ish Star Wars re-watch
had a refreshing break from some online stuff (not realizing until later in May that this would go on rather longer than I’d planned)
had the chance to copyedit for some amazing authors ❤
generally kept busy

Book Shoutouts

Speaking of books I copyedited . . . shoutout to two books releasing later this month: Jenelle Leanne Schmidt’s upcoming novel An Echo of the Fae (June 21), and Midnight for a Curse by E.J. Kitchens (June 25)! I adored both books and y’all should totally check them out! 🙂

WRITING

I did keep up with a bit of writing early in May, following my successful April Camp NaNo. Though not in the way I’d hoped . . .

See, I had plans of continuing to write Operation Foxtail, but got derailed by Tare’s series wanting some attention/snippets/editing, and also by brainstorming possible new Glassman ideas.

And, mostly, working on a fantasy short story, The Secret Piano. I’m greatly enjoying that and should probably share it someday . . . if I ever finish it. *collapses*

Cover (for fun) of my fantasy short story WIP, The Secret Piano. ^_^

Current plan is to finish that as well as some some tweakings for KW2 (because Tare is still interested in me working on that).

And then to see what I can do about wrangling all the plot threads and notes and things that need to happen for the last third (hopefully??) of Operation Foxtail.

If I can get that together somehow, I’m hoping I can make some progress on that again for July Camp. (Never mind how busy I’m going to be. Leave me to my delusions. *cough*)

Snippets (because I haven’t shared any in ages)

I stared, transfixed by the music which twined around me and planted me where I stood. The boy played on for a few more moments until his gaze drifted up and snagged on me standing there to the side. The notes jarred and jangled to a startled halt, and silence crashed around us like a brick falling on the keys or on my heart.

***

I imagined Thomas reading the letter. I imagined it sitting on his nightstand, him looking over at it sometimes. I imagined him burning it.

Perhaps it had never reached him at all. Did Thomas even get letters? I imagined a servant throwing it away. I imagined it lost, languishing indefinitely in a stack of letters to his father.

(The Secret Piano, WIP)

***

“I’m just doing what you’d do.”

Tare’s voice was flinty. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“Maybe not now, but I did once.”

Tare narrowed his eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

(The Shadow of Kedran’s Wood, KW3, future WIP)

Anyway . . .

The Bookstagram addiction is real

Anyway, despite my planned good intentions of returning to regular blogging in June, I will probably be as sporadic on blogging as I have been (sorry!), but maybe I’ll get a few posts in here and there . . . And if I am behind on social media or emails or something, I sincerely apologize! Blame it on my vanishing internet. *shifty eyes*

Although, I am back to daily Instagram posts and having a blast with it!

Hope someone enjoys this mini post of semi-back-ness! Thanks for reading. ^_^

April Ishness + Hiatus Notice

Posted on May 4, 2020 by Deborah O'Carroll

Hey guys! It’s May and I’m here with an Ishness post to recap Camp NaNo and my reading/watching/listening of April . . . and also to announce a blogging/social media hiatus for the rest of May.

Firstly . . . Camp NaNo!

WRITING: Camp NaNo

I successfully completed my Camp NaNoWriMo goal with 10,336 words! *throws confetti*

This was a really interesting Camp NaNo. It wasn’t technically a very large goal, but I’d been really stuck all year before Camp, so I’m just really happy I was able to make it — and, more importantly, to write regularly a couple times per week.

I usually try to stay ahead, but I also tend to binge-write a bit and then miss a few days. It was very noticeable this time and I joked all month about the staircase I was building. XD

But the fact that I was able to regularly sit down just twice weekly and get 2K in every week, despite how busy I was . . . this was a huge boost to my writing confidence and just happiness in general. It’s given me hope that I might be able to keep that up sometimes in the future!

It also really helped that I had a list of the upcoming scenes, and between that and wordwars with amazing friends, I made serious progress on Operation Foxtail, which has now passed 60K words! I’m. so. excited.

I also had a short story attack my brain near the end of the month. This story made me frantically type up notes and snippets on my phone at 2 a.m. XD Here’s hoping I can get back to that and see what comes of it! And I’m hoping to continue on Operation Foxtail as well, but we shall see.

Shout-out to my amazing cabin-mates! I had so much fun hanging out with so many awesome writers on the NaNo site. And thanks, too, to all the people who cheered me on over on my social media. So encouraging!

Overall, Camp NaNo was wildly successful and I’m happy I got about three chapters written and started a short story.

READING

Not a lot of reading happened, but what there was, I found to be absolutely lovely! You can read my brief thoughts on these on my book blog’s post.

WATCHING

I re-watched a handful of fun things:

Captain America: The Winter Soldier — Always re-watch Bucky. 😀
The Dark Knight Rises — I’m fascinated to realize that I like this one better than The Dark Knight (even if Batman Begins is still my favorite). I always thought of this one as the dark one and kind of put off re-watching it, but the ending is actually fabulous and makes me happy. So it was just the memory of not knowing what was going to happen while watching it the first time, and how intense it was, that pegged this one as darker (to me). So I like it better than the Joker one, apparently. XD And Blake is awesome.
Despicable Me — This was fun to see again. XD (Not pictured.)
So . . . apparently superheroes, ish?

I also saw a DVD concert of Celtic Women, which was lovely! I’d picked it up at a library sale years ago and never watched it until now. It made me happy. 🙂

And a smidge of NCIS, also not pictured.

LISTENING

I did actually follow through with my plan to listen to Andrew Peterson music. Help, I’ve fallen into this amazingness and can’t get up. Actually, don’t help, because I’m happy here. I listened to a lot of his music across several albums, particularly for Easter, and I love it so much!
Brittany Jean’s new album All the Love was another delightful thing I listened to last month! More happiness. 🙂 Do check it out! ❤ (CD here. Links for online listening.) You can listen to the title song, All the Love, which is probably my favorite, on YouTube here! The songs are lovely and catchy and I often find them dancing through my head. 😀 (There’s even a gorgeous version of Never Enough from The Greatest Showman!) Brittany has a lovely voice and I’ve been enjoying her new songs muchly. ^_^
Also, Tide Lines had a new song, Innocent and Beautiful, and I listened to that several times. 🙂 Go give it a watch. I believe they have a new album releasing this month. :O
I meant to listen to audiobooks again but . . . entirely failed at that. Whoops. XD

APRIL BLOGGING

Book reviews:

LIFE

For me, April was one of the busiest months ever, actually. I was quite occupied with work and copyediting (yes, both from home), and throwing Camp NaNo on there meant that I felt terribly busy basically every day of April. I’m kind of exhausted. 😛

Since there’s not much to share in the life category, here, have a couple of photography attempts and some Easter cake!

A genuine yellow rose of Texas. 😉

Pretty!

Delicious.

MAY PLANS: HIATUS

I will leave you with today’s Instagram photo! I’m so glad I was able to get these lovely flowers the day before Hobby Lobby closed. o.o

Anyway, I’m really tired and just need to take a step back after running non-stop since basically September? I often end up taking hiatuses in May. XD

So I’ll be taking a break from blogging for the rest of May, and also getting off of social media — Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads . . .

But! You can absolutely still get in touch by email, and I’ll still be checking Messenger/Instagram DMs, etc.

(And there are a few book releases I’m super excited about . . . so I mayyyy pop back on for a couple of those; we’ll see how I’m feeling. XD)

Thanks for reading, and let me know in the comments how your April went! I love you all and I hope you have an amazing May, and I will see you on the other side!