Good morning, everyone! It’s officially November. Halloween has come and gone, the candy is handed out, and Thanksgiving preparations can begin for those of us in the USA. Soon it’ll be time to pull those Christmas decorations out of their hiding spots and setting them up around our houses. All that also means that it will soon be time to take stock of what I accomplished in 2024 (yikes) and set some goals for 2025.
But that’s not happening yet (even if my brain is starting to think about it a little in the background). Today is for taking a look back at the first month of the fourth quarter and seeing how I did.
Let’s dive in.
First up, Individual Projects
Let’s start with the best one, shall we?
Ladies and gentlefolk, fans of all ages … you’re seeing this page for the LAST TIME. My idea here was to take this story from idea (which is was on January 1) to fully edited and published before the year was out. I wanted to make sure I documented all the steps and I’ve done that.
Some day (not today) I will have a release that I document all the steps of on other social media (I’m looking at you, TikTok) but the time wasn’t right with this one.
Anyway, In Trust We Fall is available NOW and it’s a good one!
This goal page is officially being retired.
The Apocalypse Project continues to be on track.
Each of the little drafting boxes on this image represents 500 words, so as of today I’m at about
36,000 words. I am still on track, following the outline that I laid out for myself. I haven’t made any major changes or hit any major snags. I did have that “oh no, this will have to be fixed in editing” feeling when I was working on one scene this month, but I made the choice to move past it. I’ll come back at the end. Power through!
The rest of the projects remain in the same state they’ve been in for awhile. The idea was never really to get these all finished in 2024, only to keep track of them and make progress. They can carry into 2025 if that is necessary.
Next up, Monthly Progress
My monthly progress pages are designed to help give me focus in a given month. In October I wanted to focus on writing words in the Apocalypse Project. I knew I had lost focus on this project multiple times in the past and I needed to just power through it.
I wrote a total of 13,344 words in October. 8,191 of those were on the Apocalypse Project. I also edited two previous chapters of that story. I wrote another 4,007 words on book reviews (more on that in a minute).
According to my cute little smiley faces, I made what I would call progress on 17 of the days this month. I know that needs to be higher. I know that CAN be higher. I know it’s been higher in the past. I just have to focus, I guess.
Last but certainly never least, Reading
If you’ve seen my reading logs a time or two you already know some of these disclaimers so feel free to skip them.
- I still have a child who cannot drive. Therefore, I spend a decent amount of time driving solo in the car on the way to (or from) picking her up. I spend time in the parent pick-up and drop-off lane. I rely on audiobooks from my library to get me through that.
- I have a review schedule for All the Right Reads that varies from month-to-month. Those are the books you see at the top of the pages with check boxes beside them.
- I NEVER judge anyone for how much/little or how fast/slow they read in a month. Thank you to everyone who extends me the same courtesy.
- To see my reviews of EVERYTHING you see listed, check out our blog at https://alltherightreads.com/
I had 3 review titles to get to in October as well as 1 ARC coming out in November. I made my way through those, worked through some library audiobooks that had been on hold for me, read one of the oldest purchased books on my TBR and one of the oldest Kindle books on my TBR, read a few recommended by a friend, and then read on impulse new release I had my library ship over to me. All in all, I finished 14 books (about 152 pages per day)
Here’s all the covers and ratings.
Some standout recs from my October reads:
- If you’re a thriller fan OR a fan of books that put our society under a microscope, you NEED The Passengers in your reading list. This one was an EXCELLENT journey from start to finish.
- Unfixed is a tantalizing circus fantasy that was everything I wanted AND MORE. Dark, captivating, and beautiful. This one drops in November … and it’s DEFINITELY worth your time.
- Young Adult readers who enjoy an unlikely hero and magical realms will enjoy The Extraordinary Disappointments of Leopold Berry.
So that was my October.
- In Trust We Fall released
- 14 books read and reviewed
- Just over 13,000 words written (8,000 of which were on the Apocalypse Project)
Cruising on into November now. I recently joined 4thewords so we’ll see if that helps me make more progress!
See you all soon.
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