February 2025 Stats

In February, it felt like I had written practically nothing, so it was sort of a surprise to find out that I wrote 13,543 words. Of those words,

  • 353 were for this blog (three short posts),
  • 3536 were for my journal,
  • 7203 were for handouts, scripts, and slides for lessons (one for East Texas Writers Guild and one for the Open Door Writing Group),
  • 1629 were on various social media accounts,
  • 421 were poetry (one short poem and one long),
  • and 401 were in short stories (two pieces of flash fiction).

There were only four days that I didn’t write anything. I was sick for a lot of the month. So, I didn’t get any poems or short stories submitted anywhere.

As for reading, I read parts of:

  • Sound and Form in Modern Poetry by Harvey Gross (paperback; non-fiction)
  • Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman (hardcover; poetry)
  • Storyteller: 100 Poem Letters by Moran Harper Nichols (e-book; poetry)
  • A Poet’s Guide to Poetry by Mary Kinzie (paperback; non-fiction)
  • If Women Rose Rooted: The Power of the Celtic Woman by Sharon Blackie (audiobook; non-fiction)
  • The Sounds of Poetry: A Brief Guide by Robert Pinsky (paperback; non-fiction)

I finished reading:

  • The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest edited by Ellen Datlow (e-book; fiction short stories)
  • The Wonder Engine (Clocktaur War #2) by T. Kingfisher (audiobook; fantasy)
  • Legends & Lattes (Legends & Lattes #1) by Travis Baldree (paperback; fantasy)
  • On the Spectrum: Autism, Faith, and the Gifts of Neurodiversity by Daniel Bowman, Jr. (e-book; non-fiction)

PS. It is totally do-able to read Legends and Lattes #1 AFTER you’ve read Legends and Lattes #2 (Bookshelves and Bonedust) if, like me, you didn’t know it was a series.

January 2025 Stats

In January 2025, I wrote 9,847 words. Of those words,

  • 830 were for this blog (six posts)
  • 3121 were journal entries
  • 3149 were lessons, scripts, and slides (for one ODWG lesson)
  • 2045 were on various social media accounts
  • 151 were poetry (one poem)
  • and 651 were short stories (three pieces of flash fiction)

I sent off three poems and three short stories for publication, but haven’t heard back from any of them.

I also read parts of these books:

  • A Poet’s Guide to Poetry by Mary Kinzie (paperback; non-fiction)
  • Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman (hardcover; poetry)
  • The Wonder Engine (Clocktaur War #2) by T. Kingfisher (audiobook; fantasy)
  • The Green Man: Tales from the Mystic Forest edited by Ellen Datlow (e-book; fiction short stories)

And finished these books:

  • The Wonder Boy of Whistle Stop by Fannie Flag (e-book; fiction)
  • Just Dying to Glamp by April Nunn Coker (e-book; mystery)
  • When She Returned by Lucinda Berry (e-book; thriller)
  • Peace is a Practice by Morgan Harper Nichols (e-book; non-fiction).

January is always a tricky month, I think. The first couple weeks are still half-way holidays and then there are a few random at-home days for my school-age kiddo as well. Which means that you don’t get a full month of writing days, but I managed to write at least a little something for 26 out of 31 days in any case. I think that’s pretty good. 🙂

Happy 2025!

I know, I know…you almost forgot I worked here. I have the usual excuses, all tied up with string, sitting under a cat somewhere. Last year was a doozy of a year, filled with all manner of distractions, procrastinations, and other sundry explosions of my life.

I’ve spent the last couple of days thinking about what my writing goals are for this year. One is to make my usual chart of what all I wrote last year, but that isn’t done yet because the transcribing isn’t done. So no numbers today. Maybe tomorrow. After I’ve written, of course.

I’m on the schedule with an editor for September, so my big goal is to finish the latest draft of my big epic fantasy novel and polish it up. This is the novel y’all have heard me refer to as Caro’s Quest in the past. I still need a better name for it, but that will come. 🙂

Smaller goals include finding homes for my poetry and short stories, finishing putting together my first poetry anthology, finishing my research on the best time to release it, and then publishing that anthology. I’m aiming for sending off at least one poem and one short story a week. We’ll see if that’s a manageable goal as time goes on and reassess after the first quarter is over.

I’m no longer on the board for the East Texas Writing Guild, nor my UU church board. Those were positive decisions for me, based on me needing more time to write. I’m continuing on as a moderator for the Open Door Writing Group at the Tyler Public Library for the foreseeable future, which means writing and giving a presentation for a monthly lesson about writing.

That’s about it, y’all. It’s my first day back at the writing desk. I’m planning on starting off all my weekdays from here on out at my writing desk, working on stories or poetry for the first half of every day before moving on to social media, lesson writing, and marketing in the afternoons.

Yay 2025! I hope this year will be so much better than the last. 🙂