Master List of Progress Reports - 2001

2001: Year In Review

I posted 60 chapters in 2000. In 2001, it was only 14 (though I did post multiple chapters at once, which I think should count for something).

Yet, I actually think I had a bit more of a handle on my writing than I did the previous year. Sure, the quantity was down, but I think the quality was up.

I was starting to get critical feedback from some of my readers (otherwise known as beta-readers, who I ended up calling my BetaWolves). Every new chapter went through BetaWolf and that added considerable time to the process of writing and posting, especially when a chapter ended up going through several rounds of critiquing and editing. So, not only did the amount of time I could set aside for writing dwindle to nearly nothing, the journey from writing the text to posting it online increased from hours to months.

The real kicker, though, was that on top of work and life and the stories I'd already posted online, I was also starting a bunch of new stories, only a few of which are listed on this site in the Uncharted section (the actual number of stories I have on the backburner is somewhere around a dozen, so factor that in when you don't see an update; I might've been working on a story I haven't listed on the site yet; that's also true for my fan fiction, which isn't tracked at all, except for when it's actually posted on my fanfic site).

I just kept coming up with ideas I couldn't leave alone. I started The Enchanted Queendom series (5 books). I kept getting pulled into working on The Kindari Saga (5 books, though I was contemplating 7 back then). There were others, but I mostly just dabbled in them. But all of that put together placed a huge strain on my ability to finish anything.

If you think of the time I had to write as a pie chart, with each story getting it's own equal share of the pie (unrealistic, I know, but let's go with it anyway), then as each new story is added, the individual slices get smaller and smaller to accommodate those new slices. While I might get a little work done on each story, it was rarely enough to complete an entire chapter, hence I only finished about a quarter of the chapters I had the previous year.

Moral of the Story

Sometimes, you just have to take what you can get.

While it sucks that I wasn't able to continue posting at the same pace as before, I'm proud of the balancing act I was able to manage. I only wish I'd been able to continue it through the rest of the decade. I think if I had, at least several of my stories would be finished by now. On the other hand, those stories wouldn't be the same as what I'm making them now, so maybe it comes back to my old motto: Everything happens for a reason. I can only hope my stories will be better for being completed after so long a time marinating and maturing along with my writing.