End Of Year Review

Tomorrow will be a special day. Two years ago my first post went online on Narratess. Since then I’ve tried my hardest to upload at least one post a week, on Friday. Only a few times I couldn’t make it due to other responsibilities or illness. This year I managed a post every Friday and sometimes even twice a week. Book reviews became more frequent and some authors and publishers were kind enough to let me read their books for a review. Blaugust and Blogmas were two blogging events I joined and completed both of them (that’s 57 posts!).

Blogs

I’ve written a total of 72k words on my blogs. 55k on Narratess and 17k on Princess in a Castle. Participating in the blogging events helped me getting these numbers. The views and visits also skyrocketed, and the follower count on either blogs and Twitter went up significantly. The goals I had set for myself were blown away in August, on all levels. Blaugust, and the other participants, helped with that. Daily posts drew people back while I had the support of others in promoting or linking to my posts in theirs.

Posting daily definitely helped skyrocket my views. People came back and new people found me via the hashtags. It confirmed that having more content on your site makes it easier for people to stay and check out more posts. Narratess now has more than a hundred posts. There is more than enough for people to browse, whether they are interested in book reviews, writing advice or experience, or general posts about stories. I’m considering adjusting my posting schedule and content based on the feedback I received through comments, likes and views these past months.

The daily posting schedule has taken time from writing fiction and I want to get that time back. So I won’t do any daily blogging events in 2019. I want to spend that time working on my fiction and posting more short fiction on Narratess.

Fiction

I managed a total of 84k words in first drafts, written and edited. The 84k words are separated over two drafts, with 57k for my first novel (A Devil’s Deal), and 27k for my short story collection. The novel isn’t done yet, but finishing my short stories felt amazing. It was the first time in years since I felt that winners’ high. The satisfaction of completing a project. It was only the first phase, the writing, and I still have some steps to do before I can publish, but it’s still an accomplishment.

I’ve written three short stories by hand. I might have worked on more in between things. By focussing on all the larger projects, I forgot about the small ones. Short stories shouldn’t be forgotten in a writing portfolio and I hope to add more to it next year. These short stories might need another round of editing, but they’re good to send off. One of them was an entry for a contest that I didn’t win. I might give it another round of edits so I’m completely satisfied with the story (and no word limit) before I publish it somewhere else. It might have potential.

The biggest change this year was on social media. Halfway through the year, I decided that I needed to be more assertive. Instead of just liking status updates, I left a comment. I joined in when people asked for comments or blogs to read. It allowed me to connect with a wonderful group of supportive bloggers, meet new people and find like-minded friends.

2018 was an amazing year for me. Thank you for your support and sticking with me, and I hope you’ll come back next year as well. Let’s make 2019 even better.

Happy New Year!

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