I’ve been pondering the theoretical physics of time recently, wondering how time applied to the 24-hour news cycle proceeds at such a glacially-slow slog, while time applied to my writing goals and deadlines moves at warp speed. Alas, my only conclusion is that time and the current universe in which we live are weird and unfathomable. Regardless, time waits for no one, so let’s get on with our accountability thread on this fine August Monday.

July Progress

1) Finish the Story Genius foundational work and revise/polish the first 50 pages of HFF Novel 2. Done! Plus, I’ve written the ‘aha! moment’ scenes (that’s a Story Genius term) and the final scenes from the POV of both the hero and heroine, so I have something like a quarter of the book out of my head and down on paper. Bonus: I’m having so much fun with this story! It’s a bit more of a romp than the other books in the series thus far.

2) Finish the back cover copy for the HFF novella and novel 1. Done!

3) Turn over the novella and novel 1 to my editor for a final pass. Kind of done. I’m now on her schedule, and will email one manuscript this week, the other in a couple of weeks.

4) Do the first-pass revisions on my WF manuscript. Done, and then some!  Unless and until I get notes for major revisions from one of the agents who requested to see this, I’m about to put Take the Money and Run to bed. Woot!

5) Finish my sneak peeks of the HFF novella, novel 1, and novel 2. Nope, nope, and nope. I need to tweak the  novel 2 opening based on feedback I’ve received, and to write the series prequel short story for this collection, now captured in my August goals. So…sneak peeks coming to a downloadable file near you sometime in September? Yeah, I’m going to say September. Definitely September. Maybe.

August (Totally Not Unrealistic) Goals

1) Write the short story prequel for the Harrow’s Finest Five series. This will be included in the Sneak Peeks book along with the first three chapters of the first three books of the series. For now, it will be my newsletter freebie. I’ll need the freebie to do a hard push for newsletter sign-ups in September and October, ahead of the November release date for the kickoff novella. I need to introduce each of the Five (heroes for novels 1-5) and their mentor of a sort (hero of the novella), define and differentiate these fine young men, and make readers want more of each and every one of them. No pressure, though, right?

2) Finalize the covers for the novella and novel 1. These covers are the hardest, because they’ll set the design for the entire series. I find the 75k words that will go inside the cover so much less daunting than the cover itself. But no more excuses! I’m officially out of time on this task. So August it is!

3) Deal with revisions per the editing letters for the novella and novel 1. I’m not only hoping this revision round will be much less intensive, I’m building that expectation into my schedule. This way lies madness, I know, but I rarely let that stop me.

4) Continue writing 20+ pages per week on novel 2. There are weeks when I’m really sweating this one, but I haven’t yet missed a deadline for submitting the 20 pages to my coach. Due to travel interruptions in September, though, I will have some 30-page weeks this month. Other things likely to happen this month: switching back to caffeinated coffee, sending library books back unread, finding some way to block Netflix on my TV.

5) Write the copy for my first Nancy Yeager, Author newsletter. It will no doubt be fun, flirty, scintillating, and fabulous! Or will, you know, at least contain a link to free stuff to read.

You know what happens now. It’s your turn. How’s by you? Share your accomplishments so we can celebrate with you! Outline your plans for a final summer push on your creative projects so we can cheer you on! If you have no specific August goals and plan to sip frozen cocktails by the pool, tell us all about that! (And PRETTY PLEASE let me trade places with you 🙂).