Writing is my Part-Time Job: 2015, a Year in Review

I failed at every single one of my writing goals this year. But I did spend a lot of time writing (over 600 hours) and consider the year a great success. The goals I made and fell short of motivated me to keep moving forward. And during 2015, one of my stories was published in a print book, which was a longer-term goal that I hadn’t anticipated reaching this year.

600 Hours

600 hours means I spent, on average, an hour and forty minutes every single day writing. That’s 11.5 hours per week. Here’s the break-down of how I spent my time:

• I spent 53% of my time revising words, making chapters, scenes, and sentences better. Revising is painful, but it’s also one of my favorite parts of writing, because I can see my writing getting better at doing what I want it to do for the reader.
• During 2015 I critiqued 7 novels and a number of small pieces (also known as grad school applications).
• I wrote relatively little new content—in total, I wrote 46,000 entirely new words (compared to 135,700 during 2014). Of those 46,000 words, a lot of them were on my blog or personal/family writing. However, I did write two new short stories and a 10,000 word brainstorm on a new novel idea.

Project Focus

• I spent most of my year revising my steampunk novel, writing approximately one and a half drafts. It’s getting close to being ready for submission.
• At the beginning of the year, my novelette “The Clockwork Seer” was accepted for publication. Between the editor and the copy editor, it went through five more drafts. It was an amazing experience to work with an editor, and to learn about publishing and marketing. And now I have a book with my name on it sitting on my bookshelf.

I would like to point out that being published in print has instantly made me wealthy and famous. To prove this, a picture of my first royalty check:

Other Publications During 2015

In addition to “The Clockwork Seer,” I had three other publications during 2015.

• “Yongrui and the Tree of Life” won first place in Segullah’s 2015 fiction contest.
• “Breastfeeding Mama” was a first place winner in the Tempe Community Writing Contest.
• “The Five Year Journal” was published as a finalist in the 2015 Mormon Lit Blitz.

During 2015, I reaped a lot of benefits from previous years’ work. Both “Yongrui” and “The Clockwork Seer” were originally written during 2014. “Breastfeeding Mama” was written in 2012, and then suffered major revamps in both 2013 and 2014.

A Part-Time Job

Many people ask me when (and how) I write as a stay-at-home mother. But the same can be asked of anyone who has another job and is unable to devote all their time to writing. Basically, you treat it as a part-time job on top of your normal job, spending an hour here, an hour there, and setting a minimum for how much time you will spend, no matter how tired or busy you are or what other things you are doing. Writing has become like brushing my teeth before sleeping: I will do it no matter what happens.

If there is a goal you want, learn how to build a habit (I recommend the book The Power of Habit) and then work for it every single day. Yes, I have those magical moments where writing just flows. It happens a handful of times every year. But most of the time, I don’t know where the muse is and I sit down and treat it like a work project, something that gets done. And, slowly but surely, I make progress.