Did anyone else’s February really run away with them? I SWEAR the last time I looked I had WEEKS left to finish everything February related and then, suddenly, it’s MARCH. I hate when that happens. 

Anyway, let’s take a look at my February progress. As always, dive in with comments or questions because I’m an open book!

As a reminder, we began 2026 with these (lofty) goals in mind:

Each month, I take a look at that document (it’s on my home screen so I actually look at it DAILY) and get myself some focuses for the coming month. In February those focuses were:

1. Finish the proofread of the Romance
2. Fully schedule the Romance on that publishing schedule
3. Check in with the betas for the Romance
4. Add words to Superhero 2
5. Update the outline for Superhero 2
6. Check in with the Apocalypse Betas
7. Try (again) to outline that Magic Journal story

So, let’s take a look at how I did, shall we?

THE ROMANCE

First, let’s take a look at the project tracker sheet I use. 

PAUSE TO EXPLAIN THIS SHEET
You’ll see these for every one of my projects. They’re not all identical, although they are similar. Basically, these guide me through the important steps I have to complete to publish a book. Since I’m independent, all of this is on me. I use a crew or an expert for quite a few steps of this. But I need somewhere to track it all or I start to forget which project is on what step. This visual sort of helps me. 

Proofread is checked, Betas are checked, Beta changes are checked, Cover design options AND decisions are checked. Basically, I made up for all the progress I missed in January and went even further than I expected to. This one is a GO, people. Time to start getting the simmer of excitement.

SUPERHERO TRILOGY

Cue project tracker sheet … 

After finishing Superhero 1 in January, I knew I needed to tweak the outline of Superhero 2 a little. That’s not to say it was WRONG. I just normally write VERY detailed outlines and I needed to sort of beef it up after finishing book 1. I also wanted to actually start drafting. Well, I did both of those things. The outline is looking good (still on track to have a third book) and I wrote the first 8,705 words of the project. Good all the way around.

MAGIC JOURNAL

You may have noticed on the 2026 goals that I have 3 projects I need to either outline or abandon. One of the things I thought I’d try in February was to outline one of those projects, the Magic Journal project. 

Quick aside about the Magic Journal Project:
In October of 2020 I brainstormed ideas that might work for a NaNo project that same year (this was before NaNo showed who they really are and I stopped participating). The Magic Journal story was one of my top contenders. Ultimately, I ended up going a different route and the Magic Journal story got shelved. I’ve gone back to look at it over the years, but it’s never been fully outlined. 

Here’s the sad update for the end of February … this project may end up dying. My decision for 2026 was to either OUTLINE or ABANDON the project. This one may go the second route. Look, I REALLY like the idea in THEORY. But I’m hitting a wall on some MAJOR things in the story. I may have to let it go. I think I’ll put it back on sleeper mode and take one final look at it with fresh eyes in a few months and see if still feel the same way. 

APOCALYPSE PROJECT

I didn’t do much with this one in February. My betas have it (I checked) but they have a March deadline so I’m not worried. 

OTHER GOALS

• I only posted to the blog once (OOPS). Actually, I DRAFTED a second post and then February got away from me so I never posted it. I guess it’ll post in March. 
• I read all three of the required review books for All the Right Reads (and 10 other books) and wrote 4,062 words on their reviews
• I commissioned the cover design for the Romance (and I love it)
• I registered the ISBN for the Romance
• I attended (and had a blast at) an AuthorTalk at Scribbled Hollow
• I designed brand-new bookmarks AND stickers
• I commissioned the design of a new marketing image for my upcoming events calendar

All in all the February Progress pages in my journal look like THIS:

So What’s Next?

The next steps with the romance project are formatting the ebook and Kindle (started but needs to be finalized) and assembling the ARC team, so that’s up for March. I’d love to finish the Superhero 2 draft. I’d love to get the first round of edits done on the Apocalypse Project so I can finalize that publishing schedule. I think I’ll also turn my attention to the Future Project, just to see if I can outline that one. I also have two events in March: Spring MEADival market (free to attendees) and Bookstock (ticketed event). 

Wait, we didn’t talk about READING

True, we did not. I’m officially moving ALL of my reading content to All the Right Reads. Follow us on Instagram or TikTok to catch those updates! 

TLDR: Met 6 of the 7 mini goals for February and did 5 things that weren’t on the list. Cannot complain about that. 

STATS

For those who like numbers

• 8705 words added to the Superhero Project
• 1893 words written on blog posts
• 4062 words on book reviews
• For a grand total of 14,660 words in February
• Also 26 chapters of content edited and 4,262 pages read in February. 

See you in April!