Tag: Writing Career

Acceptances, My Own Personal Weirdness, My Writing, Organizing, The Past Comes Back to Haunt Me, What I Love, Writing

January 2026 Stats

In January 2026, I wrote 6066 words. Of those words,
• 802 were for this blog (3 short posts),
• 1230 were for my journal,
• 2156 were for handouts, scripts, and slides for lessons (one for the Open Door Writing Group and one for Asher Point Independent Living Facility),
• 585 were on various social media accounts,
• 214 were poetry (2 short poems and 1 long),
• and 1079 were in short stories (4 pieces of flash fiction).
There were only 12 days that I didn’t write anything. Mostly weekends and holidays, but also a few sick days. I submitted one poem online and heard back from a couple of places, one of which accepted a piece for publication. I also had two speaking engagements, lots of physical therapy appointments, a trip with my family to see my youngest perform with NOVA Independent Guard, the Icepocalypse of 2026, the purchase of a cover for my first indie-published poetry anthology (of just my work), and attended a ReCraft & Co Zine Making Workshop.

As for reading, I read parts of:
Secrets of the First School by TL Huchu (audio book; fantasy), Braiding Sweetgrass by Robyn Kimmerer Walls (audio book; non-fiction), The Relaxed Author by Joanna Penn and Mark Leslie Lefebvre (trade paperback; non-fiction), How to Make a Living as a Poet by Gary Mex Glazner (trade paperback; non-fiction).

…and I finished reading:
• Bee Sting Cake by Victoria Goddard (e-book; cozy fantasy),
• Whiskey Fool by Victoria Goddard (e-book; cozy fantasy), • Plum Duff by Victoria Goddard (e-book; cozy fantasy),
• Blackcurrent Fool by Victoria Goddard (e-book; cozy fantasy),• Love in a Mist by Victoria Goddard (e-book; cozy fantasy),
• Olive and the Dragon by Victoria Goddard (e-book; cozy fantasy),• Seven Dials by Agatha Christie (e-book; mystery),

So I have finished 7 books so far this year (and read parts of another 4, mostly for research, but also a couple of things I’ve just not finished yet.).

Everywhere But Home, Speaking, Writing

Speaking Engagement at TPL on January 28, 2026

This week at 1pm in the Makerspace at the Tyler Public Library I will be speaking at the Open Door Writing Group on Planning Your Writing Life, including tips and tricks to help you live your best, most creative, productive writing life.

Acceptances, Books, Essays, Lifelong learning, My Own Personal Weirdness, My Writing, Organizing, poetry, Short Stories, Speaking, The Past Comes Back to Haunt Me, What I Love, Writing

Full 2025 Writing Stats

I’ve been very bad about tallying up all of last year’s writing, but I think I’m finally done with it.

  • In 2025, I wrote 104,303 words. Of those words,
    • 5559 were for this blog (29 short posts),
    • 3,660 were in 2 essays
    • 26,396 were for my journal,
    • 43,436 were for handouts, scripts, and slides for lessons (15 lessons),
    • 15,692 were on various social media accounts,
    • 12,094 were poetry (68 poems – a lifetime record),
    • and 7,566 were in short stories (36 pieces of flash fiction).
    • If you tally all those numbers up, I wrote 150 discrete items, not counting social media posts and journal entries because those don’t really get published. (So 150 items in 215 days, which means about 1 item every 1 and a quarter days)
  • There were only 120 days that I didn’t write anything, mostly due to illness, travel, or moving my kids from house to house. So I wrote on 2/3rds of the days of the year, which basically comes down to working on writing 5 days a week and leaving myself weekends for living, if I were the kind of person that followed a schedule like that. I mean, I try, but there were loads of weeks where I missed several weekdays and wrote straight through the weekends.
  • I only submitted about 5 items all year because it was just sooooo much chaos. I had 2 acceptances and the last 3 items are still well within their response timezones (there’s a better word for this, but the phone in the next room keeps ringing and ringing and I cannot think of it). The two acceptances will be published in early to mid 2026.
  • I had 15 speaking engagements last year. The vast majority did not pay, but were for a group that both feeds my soul and lets me practice my topics with them. Two were for free for the library (who I love and who graciously supports two of my writing groups), but I got several paid teaching side gigs out of them, so that about broke even in terms of payment, really.
  • As for reading, I finished 65 books and read parts of another 13, mostly for research, but also a couple of things I’ve had to mark DNF because I didn’t like their take on the topic or the writing style or something.

That’s it! One more year as a writer in the books. 🙂

Everywhere But Home, My Writing, Speaking, Writing

Speaking Engagement on January 21, 2026 at Asher Point

Asher Point reached out to me through the library to come speak to their book club about writing, books that I’ve written, and all things books and reading. I can’t wait to talk to their Book Club! 🙂

Available Now, Books, Lifelong learning, My Own Personal Weirdness, My Writing, What I Love, Writing

Reflections on the one-year anniversary of being published

Last month marked the anniversary of my first published work. Well, my first published work in over two decades, I should say, not counting unpaid blog posts and articles for local area newsletters. I had a few small bits published right after college, but then I had children and did not get back into writing for many years. Even then, I was too scared to send anything off to see if it was good enough for publication. Two years ago, I finally had enough positive feedback from other writers to get my courage up, and I got the ball rolling on submitting and by May last year, I had pieces published in four anthologies.

Click here for links to buy these books.

It’s been a good year, all told. I’ve had the chance to experience an anthology being built from the ground up, worked with several personalities of editors, set up Amazon Author Central and Goodreads Author pages, met a lot of fantastic and helpful new people, learned thousands of things about writing and marketing, attended my first book festival, changed my logo, and also discovered what the difference between people who had my best interests at heart and those who didn’t looked like.

2023 has been a hard year for me, logistically speaking. A prodigious number of things have gone wrong between the two houses I help maintain, my little family has had some big trials I’d rather not mention here, people and pets I love have passed away, my best friend had her whole life overturned, and groups that I help run have all had their own wacky disasters as well.

My word count is still really high compared to most years. My connections to other writers have grown stronger, and the number of writing opportunities I’ve had have multiplied exponentially, but I’m still struggling with time management. There’s just not enough of me to go around dealing with all the disasters and to get all the writing related activities done (so many of which are not, in fact, actually writing). Which is why my number of published works remains low – I just haven’t had time to submit anything anywhere with everything else that’s been going on.

That changed this morning. Despite a looming writing deadline for a short story that’s going in the back of someone else’s book, I sat down and made sure that I’d submitted at least a few poems and stories for publication in literary journals, anthologies, and zines. Just that little effort was enough – I’m feeling positive about writing again for the first time in a couple months. I can’t wait to see where my pieces end up. I’m looking forward to a fruitful second year of publishing.

Everywhere But Home, Speaking, What I Love, Writing

Speaking Engagement on 06/24/20

I am once again speaking at the Tyler Public Library’s Writer’s Club Facebook Group on June 24, 2020 at noon. My topic is “Building a Sustainable Career Through Managing Your Creative Assets.”