Can you believe it? In a few more days we will be at the end of June. Worse. The Messy Second Quarter of 2020 outdid the chaos of First Quarter.
If you’re a long time reader of this blog you know that I set Intentions not goals (though that’s mostly semantics). You’ll also recall that I divide my things to do into four buckets: Making, Managing, Marketing, and Home. And I analyze each month and quarter in terms of hits and misses.
MISSES
Make
Finish the first draft of If I Should Die. NOT DONE.
For me, writing and creating during the pandemic, the protests, and all the other shenanigans going on has been difficult. First Quarter fell far short of my projection. So did two-thirds of Second Quarter. But June has seen an improvement. If I Should Die is a little more than 77,000 words now. There are three scenes to write before the three quarters mark and, of course, the last act needs written. That means approximately 25,000 words to go.
Manage
Learn the new email service. NOT DONE. I haven’t had the time and the energy.
Home
Once a month I will remove one bag of items we wish to donate. NOT DONE In fact, I did the opposite. I had three bags of my husband’s clothing bagged up and re-sorted them so I have zero bags going to a donation site. SIGH. Two pack rats in the same house is a deadly combination.
HITS
Make
Blog two-to-three times a week. DONE
Produce a monthly newsletter. DONE Produced and sent out one each month. I hope that those of you who subscribe enjoyed them.
ADDED: Learn Dictation. Dictation increased my word count to near last year’s word count. I’ve learned that for me, dictation allows me to write a with very little interference from my editor self. And although I’m using Apple’s rather clunky speech-to-text program, this is a definite win.
Manage
Work with the new cover artist and have at least one new cover by the end of the quarter. DONE. Yay! The new covers for Fellowship and My Soul to Keep are ready but the reveal will be close to the time when I send If I Should Die to the editor.
ADDED: Read. I finally got back to some reading.
I read Martha Wells’ All Systems Red and thoroughly enjoyed it. I’ve started the next in the Murderbot series, Artificial Condition.
I also read Blurbs Unleashed by Robert Ryan and ReLaunch Your Novel by Chris Fox. Both books were well worth the time and money. I bet you can guess why I’m reading those two. *Smile*
Marketing
I had planned to let this go for second quarter. However, opportunities arose.
ADDED: I took Bryan Cohen’s free five-day course again. Another excellent learning situation.
And I took the Kindlepreneur Marketing Class and two webinars about Amazon Ads. As a result, I’ve changed my ad strategy. It’s made a difference, though it’s too early to tell if it’s profitable.
Home
My goal changed once the Pandemic was in full swing. My entire focus has become maintaining my husband’s health (he has a history of multiple hospitalizations each year) and keeping fairly strict isolation. I’m happy to report both have been a success. My husband is in better health than he has been in years. This will be a temporary situation we know. His conditions are progressive. But we’ll take and enjoy the moment.
Intentions for Third Quarter
MAKE
Finish If I Should Die and have the first draft to my first readers. This is definitely a rough draft so changes will I will do editing. That means I will not get this published in late fall as I had planned. I’ll wait on announcing a new pub date until I see how the next months go.
Begin detailed outline of When I Wake.
MANAGE
Revise blurb and possibly get a new title for Fellowship.
Continue the Newsletter (July, August, September) Stretch goal to do another subscriber growth push.
Make Plan for Revised Website. With new book covers and a new book coming out, this is a necessary thing but will probably take longer than three months.
MARKETING
I will keep ads running as they are for the next month. Then I will reduce spending on ads until relaunch day approaches.
I will relaunch Fellowship (or whatever its new name is) first. When I do, I’ll call on all of my readers for help. I did everything wrong the first time I launched my books. I will improve on that this time.
HOME
Continue to maintain isolation as long as the Pandemic remains at pandemic levels of infection. Attempt to maintain my husband’s health with telemedicine visits instead of office visits.
Conclusion
None of us knows what the next quarter of 2020 will bring us. Another challenge? The pandemic and the protests certainly will continue. Hopefully, the leaders of our country (without federal leadership that means the state level leadership) will wake up and give the leadership we need to beat this pandemic AND to make the social changes we MUST make to reach something close to “all men (people) are equal.” Until next time! Stay healthy. Keep reading. And thank the stars that the messy second quarter of 2020 is over.