I set pretty lofty goals for February, and I failed miserably. There were a couple of weeks with a nasty cold and all I wanted to do was sleep. Most recently, the depression crept back in, and I’m trying to get receipts collected for 2022 taxes. I’m not a good recordkeeper and I hate tax season.

Let’s just lay them out and I’ll comment on them.

Finish copyediting The War Lord and make a decent cover, then publish it. This is the first novella in my Tarod the Nine-Fingered sword-and-sorcery fantasy series. February edit: I want all four novellas edited this month.

Nope. Nothing on the editing front. I did, however, make covers for the first four e-books in the series. I made several covers for the first book, but rejected all except the last one. I’ll reveal those later. So, not a total wash, but far from what I’d hoped.

Another round of edits on Sleeper, the young adult paranormal novel with Carrie Jones, a sequel to In the Woods.

Success! I finished my round of edits and sent it back to the super-busy Carrie (who had a birthday yesterday).

Record at least one episode of The Werewolf Saga Podcast. (I want to have three recorded before I launch; microphone issues are holding me back.)

Total fail. I don’t want to talk about it. Same as last month.

Judge my category in the OWFI contest by the deadline.

Didn’t happen. They are in my backpack and will be judged this weekend. I’m still okay on the dealine.

Edit my mainstream novel Yes or No. The beta reader feedback has been very positive on this one, so I’m hopeful it’ll find an audience. A stretch goal here would be to publish in February, but I’m not at all sure about that.

This one is done, too. They weren’t interested in the book, so I’m going to publish it myself. Look for it around the end of the year. It’ll make a great Christmas gift.

Begin writing Stamped, the fourth book in the First Kiss Romance series. I outlined a good deal of it the other day when inspiration hit suddenly.

Didn’t happen. I didn’t touch it at all. I haven’t written anything new since finishing Dust in the Wind.

Get my TikTok account up to 500 followers. Growth has slowed down, so this will take some work.

I made it to 437. I’ve kinda run out of ideas to post, too. TikTok hasn’t proven to be the fast track to high sales for me like it has for other authors.

Have at least 10 of my titles up on GumRoad (currently there are two).

Yeah, I went from two to three, so this is a fail. But if you’re reading this and want Yes or No early, you can buy it there.

Finish my airplane short story.

Nope, nope, nope. Not a word added.

Write the planned prequel story for Sleeper to be given away to newsletter subscribers.

See above entries about not writing anything new.

Learn more about Amazon ads.

I’ve learned Amazon ads is not a cash cow. I have tens of thousands of impressions, less than 20 clicks, and only three sales, which was one order of three erotica titles. After that sale, Amazon decided two of the covers in the ad were not appropriate for advertising and pulled them from the ad. So, yeah, I’ve learned, but not what I had in mind.

It’s late and I’m tired and have to face middle schoolers on a Friday, so I’ll set some more realistic March goals this weekend.