I'm celebrating Yule today. It's also known as the Winter Solstice. Yule is the longest night of the year and marks the rebirth of the sun. We celebrate rebirth and days becoming longer again, and it's a good time to plan for the future. A symbolic way to celebrate is by burning a Yule Log which represents the rebirth of the sun.

I am looking forward to learning more about being an author, and Jessica is looking forward to having her story published for everyone to join her on her Journey in Luminata.

What are you planning for the up coming year? Today's a good day to think about what you might want to accomplish in 2017.

Please share some of your goals for next year below. I'd love to hear from you!

I'm super excited to let everyone know that I was able to finish my first draft of Luminata in the writing goal that I gave myself. My work in progress is one step closer to reaching your hands.

For those of you that know me, I'm a little bit of an over achiever. (Gasp! Did I just admit that in a permanent place?) I'm constantly looking for what I can do and what I can do better. The harder the challenge the more satisfying completing it is. I really do love learning new things. 

Back in September I started to think about what I wanted to do until the end of the year. I just finished my specialty designation at my day job and wasn't starting my Bachelor's until January. So, in my world things were just too calm. (Sorry, honey, I know you'd like me to be a little more relaxed, but I just can't sit still.)

My thoughts drifted back to my novel. I love reading and have had the idea for Luminata percolating in my subconscious for a long time. How long? Over 10 years. FOREVER. I wrote the first 50 pages or so prior to my last document save March 6, 2009. Nothing was written in over 7 years. I decided to set myself a goal. I would finish my rough draft by December 12th. Why that day? It was before the holiday rush because I didn't want the additional stress during the holidays.

I broke my goal down into easier to handle pieces. First I had to figure out how many words or pages a typical fantasy novel was. After much researching I deduced that most fantasy novels were a minimum of 80,000 words and an epic fantasy was 100,000-150,000 words. Wait? What?! I had a mere 28,000 words written.

So, if I give myself nine weeks, that's an minimum of 5,700 words a week, or 20 pages a week. I laughed when I calculated that. How could I possibly write 20 pages in a week when I'd only written about 50 pages previously? 

Well, I gave myself the "perfect world goal" of 20 pages a week. Since I averaged 288 words per page then that would get me to the minimum of 80,000 words or 277 pages for a novel. I told myself that it was 100% ok to not make this goal. Why? Because anything I accomplished during that time was infinitely better than zero pages over seven years. But, if I made my goal? How satisfying would that be?

So, I worked at it weekly and kept my goal front and center above my laptop screen. Every Sunday I would write down how may words I was at. I was able to average about 5000 words a week! It was working.

Then life happened. I am in a choir and had a concert that took up my entire week. I wrote a whole whopping 300 words. But I'd make up for it the next week.

So Sunday December 11th came and I had my last chapter to write. It was truly cathartic. After everything that I put Jessi through to be able to write the final chapter summarizing her journey felt a lot like I was summarizing my own journey as a writer.

December 12th accomplishment: 88,383 words and a completed first draft.

Well, now that my rough draft is done I have to figure out the next steps.

As many of you have seen, I've created my author's platform and am working on creating something that has value for my readers. I learning about myself as an author and learning tons about the industry. I will keep creating this world for all of you.

For Luminata, I am learning what actual revision entails and will set up my next bite-sized goals to polish my manuscript. I'll share with you as soon as I have those goals laid out. I plan on having this by the end of the month.

My next "perfect world goal"? Publish Luminata in 2017. I'll keep you updated.