Happy December and happy holiday season! I don’t know about you, but my writing time takes a HUGE hit this time of year. Between Thanksgiving, gift shopping, cooking, cleaning, and planning I find myself too tired to get anything done when I do sit down to write. So, I’m managing my expectations this year and trying not to overly stress heading into December. Anyway, let’s take a little peek at how November went.
First up, Individual Projects
The Apocalypse Project hit 50,000 words in November. I’m still on track with the outline I laid out for myself. I’m into the meat of the story, the part that I had never written before in any drafts, and it’s still going quite well. Knowing myself and my process, this stuff will all be VERY rough and will need some serious edits when this is all done, but I’m pushing through.
I’m hoping to finish this draft before 2024 is over.
The Romance, Slasher WIP, and the YA Contemporary pages remain in the same state they were before the month started. Those three will likely carry into 2025. I do think I’d like to make actual goals related to at least one of those in 2025 … but I’m not supposed to be thinking about that yet.
Next up, Monthly Progress
My monthly progress pages are designed to help give me focus in a given month. In November I wanted to focus on writing the Apocalypse Project and not much else.
I wrote a total of 18,728 words in October. 13,720 of those were on the Apocalypse Project. I also wrote 2,952 words on book reviews (more on that in a minute).
According to my cute little fires, I made what I would call progress on 16 of the days this month.
Last but certainly never least, Reading
Before we jump in, a note. I’ve been posting complex book reviews to Amazon since 2022. There have been a handful of times when I’ve been caught by their filters for particular words used and asked to change a review. Usually, I could figure out what might have been the cause and make a few changes to get the review back up. ONE time in the past, I’d had a review yanked without being able to figure out why it was pulled. I am still unable to review that ONE title, for some reason.
Then, all of a sudden, about six months ago, the filter started catching a lot of my reviews. The first three, I didn’t bother to repost. The next two, I took a guess at what the problem might have been and reposted. The last three came in so close together, I never even had a chance to fix anything.
Suddenly, I was told my reviews had ALL BEEN PULLED and I was NO LONGER ABLE TO REVIEW. Looking at the newest three helped me figure out the pattern. Every single one of the reviews started off with content warnings in the first bubble. Now, I can’t be sure, because Amazon won’t tell you in detail what you “did wrong” but I’m guessing that was their problem. Am I willing to stop putting content warnings? No. Honestly, I’m not. Am I willing to filter my own language if that will help? Yes. I’ve told them as much.
Of course, this was well over two months ago now. I have emailed no less than a dozen times to various addresses they’ve given me. I’ve received NO response.
So, if you’re wondering where my reviews have gone … I am too. They’re on Goodreads, alltherightreads.com and bookbub. I will have to take the time to put them all back on Amazon if/when they allow me to do so.
For now, I remain frustrated with that but committed to reviewing on other platforms.
Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled check in.
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 2 review titles to get to in November as well as 1 ARC coming out in December. I made my way through those, worked through some library audiobooks that had been on hold for me, read a cute children’s book I had been gifted by the publisher, finally made time for 2 purchased books I’d been meaning to get to, and one of the oldest Kindle books on my TBR. All in all, I finished 13 books (about 154 pages per day)
Here’s all the covers and ratings.
Some standout recs from my November reads:
- Go add The Architect of Grayland to your TBR if you’re a dystopia fan. The BEAUTY of this book and the language was MESMERIZING. I expected good things and this one BLEW ME AWAY.
- 14 Ways to Die is a good thriller if you like things fast paced, shocking, and with a teenage protagonist.
- Mad Honey is, as always from Picoult, a MUST read if you’re into contemporary. This one is done with a cowriter as Picoult tackles trans rights.
- The Searcher is a recommended one if you prefer your mystery to be slow paced and let you spend a lot of time with the characters and the setting, moving slow and getting comfortable.
- If you have littles at home, Lost is a great wordless picture book to allow their creative storytelling to come out.
So that was my November.
- Hit 50k on the Apocalypse Project
- Read/reviewed another 13 books
- Managed to get myself banned from reviewing on Amazon (SIGH)
- Had an amazing Thanksgiving dinner
- Got my Christmas tree up
Not a bad month, overall! See you soon for my 2024 wrap up!
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