Category: Publishing

Goals Revisited

~ stephaniehaggarty ~ 1 Comment

Before I turned 30, I had the goal of 10 stories published. While I didn’t achieve it, I still hit that number before my 31st birthday.

So what was next?

As I write this, I can’t remember. And I’m too lazy to go back and check what I wrote about it. However, in the last month, I have been making myself think and decide on a goal for the rest of the year. There are five months left in 2022 and I’m going to make it count.

So I think my end-of-year goals will be;

  1. Self-publish one story.
  2. Have a completed first draft of a second story.
  3. Have the plan for a third story (mostly completed).

I’ve got a few ideas from back in 2020 that I still need to get around to. So maybe they can be the other stories. But I also have this one little gem from the beginning of this year that I’ve started.

One Month In

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Been in the UK for a full month now. In the meantime we got a new place, I got a new job and just had my first covid jab. In the next few days we’ll be moving our stuff into the new place and settling in. It’s hard to believe that in just under a month how much life has changed and not changed at the same time. I’m not sure where we’ll be in 6 or 12 months, maybe we’ll still be in Edinburgh, maybe we’ll be back in Australia.

I have a few goals that I want to compete by the 6 month mark. I want to:

  • Finish a new first draft.
  • I want to publish that story.
  • I want to build up savings of over a thousand pounds.
  • I want to hit the gym and get down to my goal of 55kg.

I am hoping to have all that done by January 1st 2022.

Last day of free short story

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Becoming stardust is on its last day as being a freebee. The short story prequel is under 10k words and you can read it in an afternoon. In fact, it’s currently listed as number 69 (hehehe) on the Best 45-minute Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Reads. After today the story will be 99 cents and be on exclusively on Kindle until June 9 before appearing on Smashwords.

Here is the synopsis if you’re interested.

Before Ilona took on the identity of a dead girl, she was a hunted girl. Her mother and she had known nothing but running until the bounty hunters finally caught them. Wounded and orphaned, Ilona sneaks her way onto a smuggling ship. Subsequently becoming part of the crew. This appears to be the break that finally gives her a safe upbringing. However, it is just the beginning.

Reminder Becoming Startdust is free

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Becoming Stardust is free for another two days. You can get it on Amazon here. It’ll then be on Kindle Select until June 9 before then appearing on Smashwords.

So download it and please leave a review. It can be just a star rating or you can leave a few words 🙂

This is the prequel story to ‘Stardust’, a YA sci-fi family drama that will follow. I intend to have this novel ready for publication in late 2022.

Becoming Stardust is free for 5 days

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If you’re on Kindle unlimited, Becoming Stardust is free on from the 13th to the 17th 🙂 So download it and give me a review 🙂

It is just under 10,000 words so it’s a quick read introducing some of the characters that’ll be appearing in Stardust. Here is the synopsis.

Before Ilona took on the identity of a dead girl, she was a hunted girl. Her mother and she had known nothing but running until the bounty hunters finally caught them. Wounded and orphaned, Ilona sneaks her way onto a smuggling ship. Subsequently becoming part of the crew. This appears to be the break that finally gives her a safe upbringing. However, it is just the beginning.

First Project of the New Year: Becoming Stardust

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I’ve got my first project underway. It’s related to my YA sci-fi that I had written in 2016/17. I’ve taken the first 7,000 words from it and turned it into a prequel short story. It’s called Becoming Stardust, and the novel is being re-titled Stardust as opposed to theThe Cadetship. It was always felt a little out of place with the rest of the novel because of a time jump. Anyway, I’m editing it now and holy moly, it’s all a sea of red. I must have leveled up somewhat since I last touched this piece. I know that Stardust is going to be needing the same level of input which is why it won’t be published for a long time. Becoming Stardust is going to be free and I’m hoping for it to generate interest for Stardust.

I making a hard date of having it done and dusted on April 30th. So that is 107 days or 3 months and 17 days 🙂

New Years Resolutions

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F-U-C-K I-T.

I’m going to aim high and release three stories this year. I haven’t made a concrete decision on what stories I’ll be focusing on but who cares? Currently, I have a ton of novellas and novelettes more than novels so it’ll probs be those stories instead of actual novels. It’s been a while since I worked on my sci-fi stories (there are quite a few) so I might look over those.

I completed my 2020 goal :)

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I made myself the goal of self-publishing twice this year and I have 🙂 My novella The Dragon’s Mate came out in August and the novelette Matt and Rose dropped only a few days ago. Both are a $1.99 and are available through Amazon and Smashwords plus their networks.

I was worrying about not having Matt and Rose out in time because I seem to be going through a writing/editing slump despite having ample content to produce.

Next year I want to release three stories of any size. I think I can definitely get two out, but I should aim for the stars shouldn’t I.