Hi everyone! 

If you’ve been following along all year, you already know what time it is … it’s time to look at my goals and my July progress.

First up, let’s all remember the goals from January 1 for this year. 

This is a big list so each month I have microfocuses so that I’m not trying to do everything all at once. In July those were:

• Preorders OPEN for Darkest Fears
• Place the initial order for those preorders
• Finish the 2nd edit of the YA Contemporary 
• Finish the proofread of the same story
• Check in with betas on that story
• Work on the Superhero Project outline

So, how did I do?

The short answer is good enough to make myself feel better about my lackluster June. 

The longer answer is:

1. Preorders opened without an issue. If you still need to snag your preorder of Darkest Fears, you can do so here. These SIGNED paperbacks come with swag … but only if you order them before release and only if you order from me. 
2. My copies are on their way! I actually got the notice that they shipped TODAY. This just means I have to finish acquiring the swag for the release and make sure I have enough envelopes or boxes for all of them. We’re on track to ship those out ON or BEFORE the release date. 

In fact, as you’ll note in the picture coming next, there’s ONE SINGLE CHECKMARK left before I can call Darkest Fears DONE. 

If you like thrillers, it’s officially time to get excited about this one! 

3. Onto the YA Contemporary. That, as you know, is with betas. Feedback has started to roll in. I fell behind on finishing the second round of edits in June. If I’m being brutally honest, this is partially because the betas needed more time and partially because I wasn’t in the right mindset to really give this one some love and attention. This is the FIRST TIME I’ve written something that is driven by a relationship instead of by major events. It’s a different vibe and I absolutely have to be in the right mindset. The good news is one of the betas and I were able to connect pretty extensively and it worked to get me moving. I DID finish the 2nd round of edits. 
4. I also finished the proofread.
5. And I checked in with the other beta readers. We’re back on track with this story about toxic friendship. 

6. Lastly, I was hoping to move the Superhero project PAST the brainstorm phase and into the outline phase. This was where the bulk of my work in July went, I think. This sometimes happens with a new story. I started with the rough idea, then the major plot points I wanted to hit, then the characters. It became clear pretty early into this process that I wasn’t dealing with a single book. I haven’t written a SERIES since Fraun. It looks like I may be tackling that again. I sat down to map out each chapter in outline format. Sometimes I really struggle with this. For this story, it just sort of flowed out. I outlined ALL THREE of the books in this trilogy. 

OK, full disclosure, there are four possible endings to book 3. I will deal with that later. I wrote them all down. I’m a planner, I’m not a monster. Things change when I start writing, it’s just part of my weird process.  

After all that, here’s what the 2025 Progress looked like at the end of July.

Realistically, things are looking GOOD by this point. I do have the romance to work on (and I’m saving that one for last because it’s the ROUGHEST BY FAR) and I need to keep up the blogging and poetry. But, I’m cautiously optimistic. Especially if I allow myself to count the trilogy as TWO new story ideas (I haven’t decided yet, but I’m considering it). 

I MAY even get some of the drafting done on that. Who knows!

Here’s some fun stats for you related to writing and my projects:

• 12,544 words written across all projects and platforms
  • 3,323 of those were book reviews
  • 2,881 were blog posts
  • 6,340 were spent on outlining this trilogy. That’s a LOT of words on outlining, even I was shocked.
• 34 Chapters Edited
  • That’s pretty close to the full count of chapters in the YA Contemporary so that checks out. 

Now, Reading. 

Remember, if you’re looking for the actual reviews those can be found over on alltherightreads.com where I’m a part of the review team. But, here’s the stats for you. 

The Graphic:

I read 12 books in July but only 9 of those were on the official TBR. 

This is going to happen a lot for the rest of the year, causing me an insane amount of inner turmoil if I’m honest. But, let me pause to explain what the heck I mean by “official TBR”. 

My goal this year was to read all 119 of the books that were on my TBR on January 1. So not just 119 books … those specific 119 books. I am still part of the review team at All the Right Reads. That means I’m taking on 2-3 books per month that I didn’t know anything about on January 1. Basically, this makes things a lot more complicated for me. 
As of the end of July there are 44 of those original TBR books remaining. 
There are also 65 new books on the TBR that do not count toward the challenge. 14 of those are books I have to read/review as part of the All the Right Reads team. That means I have to read 14 books NOT on the official TBR as well as the ones that are. 
I have only myself to blame on this one. 

Anyway, back to the regularly scheduled information. In July I read 12 books or 3,880 pages (about 119 pages per day). 58% of those were independently published. 

The Reading Journal:

The Stats:

Where did I get them all?

• 1.5 Borrowed from a person or the library (2 actually borrowed from the library but 1 I also had in paperback so we count it as a half)
• 3 ARC or Review copies provided by authors or publishers (those are the ones listed at the top of the first page)
• 7.5 purchased
  • 1 purchased on Kindle
  • 1.5 purchased from my favorite local used bookstore (1 of these is the one I also borrowed from the library in another format, so it counts as a half)
  • 1 purchased from the Friends of the Library sale
  • 4 purchased directly from the author’s website or from the author at an event

What formats were they all:

• 4.5 ebooks (really 5, I borrowed the ebook from the library but only read half that way)
• 0 audiobooks (There’s a serious lack of available “official TBR” books available on audio, in case you’re wondering why this keeps happening)
• 6 1/2 paperbacks (you’re getting the ½ concept by now)
• 1 hardcover

Star Ratings:

• 0 1-star books. That makes sense because this is RARE for me. At alltherightreads we say a book has to be one we cannot recommend to get this rating. 
• 1 2-star books. These are books that were problematic, for some reason. The full reviews would lay out why. Safe to say that something about them rubbed me the wrong way. 
• 5 3-star books. This is probably my most common rating. For me, these books are GOOD but they’re NICHE for some reason. I’d have to find out if you were in that particular niche before I’d recommend them to you. Sometimes it’s because of content warnings, sometimes it’s because they’re just for a really specific reader. If you happen to be in this niche, however, these could be your absolute favorite books!
• 5 4-star books. These are books that I’d recommend just based on the fact that you say you read this genre. They’re just GREAT examples of their genre. For this month those were:
  • The Last Days of Jack Sparks is a horror book. If you’re interested in The House of Leaves (or tried it) but are either afraid of it or found it too complicated, this might be for you! It’s another great concept of a story told in retrospect by someone else … but much easier to digest. Shocking, scary, and worth the read for horror fans. 
  • Fork in the Road is the conclusion to a YA Contemporary Romance trilogy that I recommend. Set in the 90s this cute romance has great characters and a fun idea. This conclusion went in a different direction than I was expecting, but I adored every second of it. Start with Eyes on the Road to get the full experience!
  • The Merry Maids is a science fiction set in space. This one had a solid premise and a unique concept all with a large cast who works together really well. Recommended for scifi fans. 
  • Murder off the Books is the conclusion to a cozy mystery set in a small town. If you like your mysteries to be almost silly and character driven, you’ll adore this series. Start with Buried in a Good Book to get the full experience of this series.
  • Dropping in with Andy Mac is a nonfiction story geared toward middle grade readers. If you are a teacher with skateboarding kiddos … this is a MUST for the classroom library. 
• 1 5-star book. These books are ones that CROSS GENRES. I’d recommend them to almost any reader but definitely to readers of at least 2 genres. Crossing genres can be difficult for any author because you have to do both well. These books do that. This month that rating went to:
  • Conviction by MC Hunton. This is the second book in a fantasy series for adults and it continued to exceed my expectations. This book offers a well written fantasy world that will appeal to urban fantasy fans but it also delivers a storyline that will appeal to dystopian readers, which is a branch of science fiction. It’s got solid characters, good relationships, and shocking events. Plus, it’s an incredibly well written book. Start with Resurrection and give this series some love.

So, that’s July. 

TLDR: Hit all of the goals, surprised myself by getting into outlining a series again, and kept myself on track for 2025.

See you again soon!