ellenmillion

2021...was certainly a year.

I have a lot of complicated feelings, looking back on it, and the year was definitely not without its challenges. (*laughs in understatement*)

I spent most of the year feeling like I was getting nothing done, but I still somehow wrote more than 275,000 words.

I published four books, three collections, six novellas (some were reprints!), six short stories (mostly reprints), was in two anthologies, put Shifting Sands Resort in hardcover, ran and fulfilled a T-shirt kickstarter, drew 30 tiny unicorns for #junicorn, and designed several postcards and bookmarks (and a tattoo!).

I also designed covers for other people and taught a nine-year-old new math and past participles. (Which entailed LEARNING past participles.)

I feel like I've leveled up as a writer and an artist...maybe even as a person. I'm not sorry to see 2021 out the door, but ultimately, I'm proud of what I did with it.

(I can post this now because I am planning to do absolutely fuck all with the rest of the year. I'll do goals later.)



(PS: Sorry if this is repetitive from Facebook, but I know some people are understandably not there! I've updated the graphic a few times as I remembered things...)

Looking back at April:

This was the best writing month I’ve had since January of 2020. I wrote 38,075 words, most of it Wolf’s Instinct, a little on Hare Today, and absolutely none on the Flamingo novel that I am definitely not writing and have certainly not shared excerpts of.*

I released two things: Balance and Prompted 2. I had zero expectations for either (the former being a reprint of a short story, the latter being a collection of flash fiction that was free for readers for some time prior to launch) and was satisfied by their reception.

I did a little desultory sketching.

I took some photos.

Looking forward to May:

I plan to write 30k. I would like to write more.

I would like to finish Wolf’s Instinct and Hare Today. (AND NOT FLAMINGO)

I plan to publish Fire Control (revised and expanded!) and Project: Hug (for your pocket! And also with new outcomes!).

I would like to do a little artwork! I’m not going to bite off MerMay, though I am looking forward to doing Junicorn.


*This is a lie. I wrote close to 2k on it.

February in review:

February pretends to be a month, even though it’s short, and I did pretty well, considering. I wrote about 19k on The Dragon Prince’s Bride (finishing it!), then revised it and sent it off for first readers. I revised Fire Control to the tune of about 3k new words (also finished!), wrote eight pieces of flash fiction for Prompted 2 (4500 words in total, it is also done!), and instead of doing the next project that I probably ought to be working on, I dove directly into the next Suddenly Shifters novella, Abruptly a Bear and wrote 3750 on it, for a total word count of just over 30k.

March goals:

I want to continue my slow-and-steady rate of 1000 words/day, because it does (eventually) get the work done. After I’ve finished Abruptly a Bear, I plan to revise and expand a few novellas (Throw Me a Bone and All Manner of Hats in particular), revise The Dragon Prince’s Bride, and maybe start in on Firebird of Glass (this is going to be a helluva book). I also have a few releases penciled into my calendar: specifically Prompted 2 and Better Half... if I ever get my laptop back (day 8). I expect that The Dragon Prince’s Bride will release in late April (I’m braced for big edits).

I am pulling Shape Shifters down in order to put some of the individual stories up in Kindle Unlimited. I love this collection madly, but Amazon refuses to admit that someone may actually search for it and want to find it, and only some of the stories can be offered in KU. So I’ll be doing a polish run and re-release of several of the individual stories, in a new series of shorts and novellas I’m tentatively calling Birch Bits. After I’ve got enough out, I’ll collect them thematically.

I also plan to go for walks, woo the birbs (they will eat from my hand and stand on my head now), belly dance, do the Sketch Fest Blowout, set up Shifting Sands tees, and of course, homeschool. Many things are laptop dependent.

2020 was seriously weird, but I did some things:



That's five books published, and three solo short story collections. It's also the serious launch of a new pen name (two of those five books). It's about sixty art cards. Three short stories in two anthologies. Project: Hug (13 flash fictions).

I found my breaking point this year - the point at which I can't simply power forward and continue making things happen. I am grateful that I was in a position where I could step back and stop for a while to regroup, and I feel considerably better and more balanced and ready to do things again.

I found my goals for 2020:

*Write six books - I re-wrote Dragon Prince, wrote Unicorn of Glass, Broken Lynx, Dragon Prince's Librarian, and Gryphon of Glass (twice), plus a whole lot of short stories and several novellas. I ditched the Green Valley Christmas book. If you count re-writes, I made it, otherwise...no.

*Publish six books and two story collections (Is that crazy? Probably!) - Oh, sweet summer past self, you had no IDEA how crazy. I ended up dropping one book from this plan...and adding another collection.

*Submit to two anthologies - submitted to four, got into three, two were published this year, one scheduled for January.

*30 pieces of cat art in one month. #junikitty? #janucat? - I morphed this into magical pets, but I consider this a goal met. I also did #junicorn again and raised $1k for the food bank.

*Work on the sequel to the Alaska Animals Native Translation coloring book - I didn't so much as look at this and they haven't agitated. Definitely back-burnered.

Personal Goals:

*Work on my physical strength - Some...not as much as I'd like. I did keep up on belly dance, and the three of us kept each other sane during this crazy year.

*Avoid comparing myself with others and focus on self-confidence without outside validation - I actually did a fine job of this. By the end of the year, I simply didn't have the extra energy to waste on comparing myself to other people.

# # #

Obviously, 2020 was one of those years that no one really sees coming. My goals had been based on things like school and summer camp, and the husband being at work, not camped in my kitchen on video conferences. Instead of writing being a career I was pursuing, writing was something I shoved desperately into the corners of being a full-time teacher and care-giver. I canceled trips. I lost friends. I had triumphs. My faith in humans was badly shaken. Things I took for granted proved dangerous. I re-examined myself and didn't always like what I found. I learned. I broke and rebuilt. I shut down more major parts of EMG. It was a wild, wild rollercoaster with no seatbelts.

My goals for 2021 are hopefully gentler. They're definitely humbler.

I'm planning on writing four books: Dragon Prince's Bride, Firebird of Glass (concludes a series!), Green Valley Christmoose, and Shifting Sands Academy. Of these, the last is the least solid and might get replaced with another idea I've been toying with. I have some novellas in mind, too - three Kalikoi/Elva lesfics, and a Suddenly Shifters reprint. (These would be expanded from existing things.) In a perfect world, I would also write The Dragon Prince's Magic and some new novellas, and possibly start the last Green Valley book and also do the middle grade book I have in mind.

Artwise, I want to do another art card challenge this year. No idea what that will look like. I don't seem to be out of #junicorn ideas.

I'd also like to put together a new coloring book for print on demand. No one wants to buy from small press and ship from Alaska when they can get it from Amazon with free shipping, and if you can't beat them, join them! This would be a compilation of existing artwork and a few new pages.

In personal goals, my ambitions are minimal: stay healthy and maintain grace. I can't predict what 2021 is going to be like, but I do know that it's not going to be 'normal' again immediately. We're distance-learning at least until summer, and I'm not optimistic about summer camps. Teleworking might be a thing for a long while. I have to be patient, with myself and others. I have to be kind and remember to be grateful. I have so much to be thankful for.

July was a mixed bag, as most of them are.

I wrote just a little over 25,000 words, spread out over seven short stories (mostly Shifting Sands and one for Green Valley) and four novels. Most of that was on Gryphon of Glass, but I also finished adding scenes to The Dragon Prince's Librarian, started The Dragon Prince's Bride, and Shifting Sands Academy (possibly to be The Bear in the Library...and then the Dragon in the Science Lab and the Gryphon in the Gym, etc).

It wasn't my 30k goal, but it was a lot of words, and a lot of things FINISHED. I finished my personal round of revisions on DPL. I also revised the entire Tropical Tails collection, and the Christmas collection for Shifting Sands. I also did edits on a short lesfic for an anthology and outlined another.

I also got all of the #Junicorn artwork orders filled and paid the Food Bank $621, which delights me.

I started working on #magicalpets art cards mid-month, and have completed five (I expect the two on my desk will be finished today, bringing my total to 7)! I'm not making this a specific challenge like #junicorn - if I do 30, that's awesome, but I probably won't. I'll close off commissions at the end of the month, or sooner if I get swamped. You are welcome to send me photos of a pet you'd like to see with wings or magical trappings, no obligation to buy the finished product, but you get first dibs. Requests and prompts welcome.

This is, obviously, one of my August goals, to do more Magical Pets.

Also: 20k in various words. I have the first two readers' notes for DPL, and I suspect a chunk of this will be two or three new scenes in this book. The rest will be in Gryphon of Glass, which I hope to finish/revise in September and release in October. If I have spare energy or need a break, I want to finish the first chapter of The Dragon Prince's Bride, and write a short Royal Dragons prequel story as a reader magnet.

And...that's it? I may release a book this month, or they may go out in September. It depends on how smoothly edits on DPL and Tropical Tails go, and what the rest of the Zoe schedule is, and what airplanes fall out of the sky on the house...oh, and how the start of school goes, too.

We're signed up for distance learning, and I have no real idea what that's going to look like, like 90% of the parenting world right now. I am doing my best to be zen about this!

I guess that's it! Do you have big plans for August? Any accomplishments from July you'd like to share?

Last year was a roller-coaster. Definitely a roller-coaster.

It was the year I finally realized I could call myself a writer. I published six books, and I wrote five books, plus four short stories. And some of them made me money, astonishingly.

I printed a new solo coloring book. It also made me a little money.

I lost my beloved cat, Velcro. That did not make me money.

We had septic problems that make me appreciate my flush toilet greatly. That cost a lot of money.

I actually did a fair amount of artwork, too! I finished 9 sexy shifter coloring pages, plus Gizelle, two full color pieces: The Gathering and Seven of Cups for 78 Tarot Mythical. I did 30 unicorns for #junicorn. I painted a whole lot of ornaments for #inktober. (Plus an illustration that I still need to scan and submit to an anthology and two complete pages and two sketches for an NDA project.)

So what are my goals for 2019?

I have NDA artwork to finish, and I am hopeful that the project will be completed and released in March. I want to do some artwork in color. I want to do #junicorn again, and #inktober, and #NaNoWriMo. I want to write 5 books. I want to publish 5 books and a collection of short stories. I want to put Shifting Sands out in hardcopy. I have amorphous ideas about a unicorn oracle deck collected from my #junicorns.

I want to blog more.

I want to be healthier and more fit.

I want to be brave and honest and kind and creative.

Look out, world.

My 2015 Goals:

Many of the items on the checklist will overlap; things that will fulfill my art goals, for example, may also expand my personal career goals, etc. One thing to note is that none of my system items rely on anyone else... none of them include 'get a story published,' just 'submit a story for publication.'

( Read more... )

My 2014 Goals:

Many of the items on the checklist will overlap; things that will fulfill my art goals, for example, may also expand my personal career goals, etc. One thing to note is that none of my system items rely on anyone else... none of them include 'get a story published,' just 'submit a story for publication.'

Color codes: good progress, done!, not started (Last updated 12/31/14)

Writing Goals:

More exciting writing!
Less boring slice-of-life stuff.
More substance. (Stuff that MATTERS)

System:

At least 15 stories or serial installments that have really great 'hook.' - I have a few here, but I didn't do a great job with this.
At least one story that is a stand-alone. - Yes! It's short, and non-Torn World: Give up the Ghost
At least one piece of finished non-fiction. Kickstarter Clues
Read 10 books. (Novellas count.) 13 novels and 1 novella. (Nine of those novels in the space of 2 weeks...)
Revise the Upheaval novel. - Haven't touched it.


Art Goals:

Less static portraiture
Bolder color use
Improved hands

System:

1 Master's study.
12 pages of hands. (A page may be multiple sketches or one large detailed piece.) - I have a lot of pages of hands in the short comic I'm working on, but it doesn't really count
6 pieces in color. Installing the Lights, Farscout and Brightwood, and Skykittens (halfway!)
At least 2 sketches per Sketch Fest. Usually much more!


Personal Career Goals:

Take my own art and career more seriously.

System:

Submit at least one piece of writing to a publisher. - Script submission to New Worlds, rejected.
Submit at least one piece of artwork to a publisher. -Submission to Unlikely 3/1/14 - brushed off.
Complete four new coloring book pages. 2 (Colors of Change, Negotiations, Installing the Lights, Zombie Mom, Zombie Roommate, Zombie Artist, Zombie Pinup, Muse, Tam Lin)
Complete six new Portrait Adoption pieces. - Last one isn't scanned, but it's close enough to count.
Kickstart a project for ME. (Rails? Sea Monster Web? Torn World Postcards? Sketch Fest chapbooks? SO many ideas!) - It wasn't through Kickstarter, but I did crowdfund the Sea Monster Scale chart, and I've started the Sketch Tarot. That counts.
Work on a cohesive show collection. - I had a show in October, and pulled together a good display that was well-received. Sold no originals.


Business Goals:

Expand the reach of my coloring books
Reinvigorate Portrait Adoption
Continue Torn World
Re-examine Commission Control
Continue Sketch Fest

System:

Release at least two new coloring books. (Kickstarter?) - BOOYEAH.
Make promotional material for the coloring books and get it out to retailers and customers. I ran the Kickstarter too late to get this done this year.
Improve public documentation for coloring book submission, to attract more artists. - Done!
Make promotional material for Portrait Adoption, get it out to the audience.
Continue writing/releasing stories in the main Torn World storyline. - Fell on my face... but figured out why!
Do something fun for Sea Monster month. - Sea Monster Scale Chart! Yay!
Make a game plan for Commission Control. - I have actually poked this a bit. I evaluated what went wrong with the last release and have some good ideas for it.
Run at least 12 Sketch Fests. Continue to improve the site. - Still chugging along!


Personal Goals:

Mental health
Physical health
Household contribution

System:

Maintain downtime and pamper myself once in a while. I did okay with this, but not great.
Contribute financially to personal retirement. Made my goal.
Take a strengthening class (dance counts!) or a reliable gym regimen. I fell off this wagon, badly.
Be more mindful of my posture, especially while working. The standing desk I developed in response to the toddler's lengthening reach helped here, otherwise I was not at all mindful.
Listen to music. Lots and lots of Disney princess songs... which only gets me half-credit.
Keep the lists above from becoming overwhelming by cutting as is reasonable. I didn't cut anything deliberately, but I'm not letting the reds and blues above get me down. I felt like it was a fairly well-balanced year. I'm ready for the next one.

This is long! I will do my look-back in a new post.

This is the toast version: a little dry and plain. I hope to have a chance to put together a more interesting look at what I got done with thumbnails and story links to some of my favorites.

And then, it will be time for a fresh round of goals for 2014. It's always exciting, deciding what will go on the list!

good progress, done!, not started

Artwork:
(these goals may overlap)

*A least two sketches for each Sketch Fest - I did it! 99 (!!!) pieces in total, over 13 sketch fests for the year. A handful were even finished - or I went back and finished them.
*6 color pieces or paintings - More than! (I'm not exactly sure how many more, and most of them are small, but that's okay!)
*6 Portrait Adoption pieces, finished for submission
*6 stamp/card images, finished in ink
*6 Torn World pieces (sketches at least) - 37 pieces posted to the canon gallery alone, and there are more in the non-canon gallery... even before you include the 40ish pieces of old concept artwork I recently finished scanning.
*2 complex coloring book pages - Five completely done, plus one in the near-finished sketch stage! And these were challenging pieces. I really went all-out on them!

Writing:

*2 non-fiction pieces. One is drafted, a second one partly outlined.
*25 short stories - at least 15 of which should be Torn World Big Plot stories and 2 of which should NOT be Torn World stories. - 24 stories here, 19 of which were towards Big Plot things at Torn World. There's still a chance I make this goal by tomorrow...
*6 poems. - 9 finished!
*Revise the Upheaval novel with an eye towards either selling it, or releasing it as a serial in 2014. - no progress, though I have THOUGHT about it a few times. I need to sit and re-read it, figure out what worked (the middle!) and what didn't (the beginning) and what it was missing (an entire subplot with placefillers like 'sidestory for so-and-so here').

Personal Career:

*Submit at least 12 things to paying markets or licencors. Art, fiction or non-fiction, short, long... whatever. I'm a big chicken about submitting and I need to get over that already. - I've done this with art, but really should with some writing, too.
*Finish Rails (so very, very close!) and release it as an ebook. (Plus print copy?? Kickstarter?? Illustrate it if we meet stretch goals??) - Writing done, and released at the webpage! Though there may be a demand for some extras, depending on the Kickstarter. Still noodling about how/when/whether to do that Kickstarter.
*Finish my own coloring book, print it through Dateline, and decide whether or not I will continue publishing coloring books as a whole. Kickstart this? - Kickstarter was wildly successful. Like, crazy successful. And so much fun. I want to do it again, now that I've satisfied all the rewards.
*Continue with freelance programming. 4 hours a week is my goal here, including work sponsored via Sketch Fest, etc. - Some weeks I managed this. Some, I didn't. Considering I'm full-time mom for a not-quite-two-year-old, I did really awesome, though I don't think I actually made my goal. My clients are satisfied with what I could get done, and I have more work already on my plate as the new year starts.

EMG:

*Re-evaluate Commission-Control. - Still haven't given this more than a token of brainpower, though I do occasionally have ideas for it. I think it is marinating nicely, actually. I've learned SO much over the past few years, I'm getting kind of excited to apply some of the things I've figured out to this project.
*Expand and start advertising Portrait Adoption (big new feature upcoming!) - I got the worst of the updating done - the new login system is entirely in place. That was the ugliest and least rewarding of the updates to do, so I'm looking forward to working on some of the more fun features and pushing it out into the view of the public a little more. (Artists, there is a submitted description in the lilypad to be worked on! It's a fun one, with a 'live' customer! And we're getting a surprising number of adoptions out of the archives, too...)
*Set up EMG-Zine to be non-updating, purge out the login pages, feature some of the best. Kickstart Volume 4? Really need to see more interest here before I push that. - I'm calling this done. There is polish that could be added, but I don't think anyone would appreciate the effort it would be. There hasn't been enough interested to Kickstart Volume 4 of the print volumes.
*Evaluate coloring books. - I found my new printer! I'm sad it didn't happen in time for my Kickstarter, and probably I paid a good $300 more than I had to, but the new printer is SO awesome. I will be continuing with coloring books, and collecting work for several new ones. Many of the current titles will be discontinued; I've lost contact with the artists involved, or they haven't sold enough to make bulk reprints worthwhile.
*Get more active at Fantastic Portfolios as a critic. - I was spotty at this. Alas!
*Monthly Sketch Fests. Continue to improve the site. - I did awesome with this. Sales were all over the place, but participation was steady, and enthusiasm remains high.
*Get Torn World out of the meander it's currently in and start pushing the big North Meets South plotline. Release something that furthers that plot every week. By the end of the year, pass Pure on the timeline, at the VERY least. I'd prefer to be further along than that. - Okay, technically, we did not actually get to Pure in the timeline. I am still calling this a win - we got this big old story moving in a massive way; there were more than 25 main story segments posted (plus LOTS of other stuff), and Things Happened. I got burnout pretty badly on the story in October/November, but December has been rather inspiring as I dig back through some of my earliest Torn World art and remember what has kept me working on this project since 1996... and some new stories are starting to percolate and various subplots are beginning to weave together in beautiful and unexpected ways.

Despite spending far too long on Friday digging trenches in the rain (no, literally!), I did get some artwork done. I finished three pieces bound for Portrait Adoption in colored pencil, another colored pencil sketch, plus a fifth graphite-only sketch in a sketchbook I intend to keep together (ie: not selling the originals). I'm pretty happy with them, and I'm just one portrait from my PA art goal for the year... plus I'm keeping well ahead of my two-sketches-per-Sketch-Fest goal.

Here are my two favorites:


Adopt her here: http://portraitadoption.com/portrait.php?id=2499



The rest: http://www.ellenmilliongraphics.com/sketchfest/sketchfestartist.php?id=9

There are still 13.5 hours left of Sketch Fest! Leave us prompts! Pick a prompt and try a sketch! It's painless, I promise... but definitely addictive.

I took a long walk with Norway that hopefully worked some of the kinks out of my muscles, but I'm thinking I should still take some pain pills before bed. Which will be... about now.

ETA: Today's Guppy-word is peeeeaaaaas. Said exactly like zombies say braaaaaaains; a little bit flat and very drawn out. But she does love those peas. I've been feeding them to her raw - she gets the peas, I get the shells. Nom nom nom nom.