Focus, Creative, and Completion
This post includes affiliate links to Sarra Cannon’s courses, which I’ve taken multiple times. I mention them because I finished one course and plan to take her June quarterly course. If you buy through these links I earn a commission, but you pay the same price.
May had a lot going on. Many fronts of my life, creative, medical, and personal. Medically, so many appointments. Both my husband and I are at the point where we want our projects to make money for us. To finance our lives through our creative endeavors. My friend and I are even moving forward with a business plan for a micro-bakery. A business for the two of us to sell at fairs and farmers’ markets.
We are making large life plan changes and would much rather be home more and spend our days making money for ourselves instead of for someone else. Everything right now has lit a fuse under us in our perspective creative areas. We even had a board meeting to discuss goals and intent. It was called a board meeting because we rolled out the large whiteboard and with foot table.
Recently, our household has maintained a strong focus.
This month I have tried to concentrate on only four projects. #ProjectForgotten is my debut novel that I have been working on for years, and I am determined to have it published this fall. Publish and Thrive, course by Sarra Cannon, that goes through the publishing and business aspects of indie publishing. I have taken every course she offers and love them all. A quarterly course I run through is HB90, which goes through how to plan appropriately for 90 days. Highly recommend all of them. My website, I switched my publishing website from Bluehost and WordPress to Squarespace. The upkeep of the widgets, there was too much behind-the - scenes stuff I could keep up with, and I broke my website and had to rebuild. However, this change is for the better because Squarespace provides an easier drag-and-drop option for individuals lacking website building or coding education. My fourth project was #ProjectSG9, a nonfiction series I have worked on for two years, and this is the last in that series.
Publish and Thrive - I completed the course, and every time I go through the course, my mind goes into overdrive with ideas and plans that need my attention. As I get further into my writing and publishing journey, the “next thing” always pops up as the next priority. I absolutely love the class, and anyone publishing or thinking about publishing should take it.
StellarWolfPublishing.com, the website - I apparently posted my March post so late. So I skipped a month, but I am here now and ready to stay on track. I hope. I wrote my Disclosure page and then published it on the site. There is still lots of work I need to do, but it exists and is public.
#ProjectForgotten - I have finished proofreading this book. For a book that I have been working on for years, I am tired of reading it and ready to move on to its companion novel, which is all written and in need of self-edits. I have contacted an editor I’ve used before for another round of line edits prior to publication. I sat down and worked out a 12-week posting schedule leading up to the release of my book, as I am not at all good with social media. The back matter is mostly done. I even have a landing page for the book’s back matter. Fancy, right? I have an account with Mailer lite with two automations set up, all set. One is from my website in the sign-up form at the bottom of the page and the one at the back of the book. In order to have a newsletter and for future things like LLC were a physical address in needed, but I am not at all about to give out my personal address, but I now have a mailbox. I am putting this on the back burner for this project. I am going to submit this to my editor in July. I need to be better with my future projects, know how long editing will take me to complete and make deadline to stick to, so that in the future I can book editors without worrying I won’t make a deadline or have to hope they have an opening.
Anyone who wants to send mail can send it to: J. C. Dumas
61 North Plains Industrial Road,
Suite 108
Wallingford, CT 06492
#ProjectSG9 - This is a nonfiction diving into my nursing experience. This is the ninth and final book, and book I use loosely as they all are closer to novella length. I finished the first draft. I formatted it on Vellum and printed a copy to add to my “To-be-Edited” pile.
May was a month of completion, but what’s next for June?
HB90 - The course by Sara Cannon will start with a kickoff call on Sunday, June 14th. I am all ready to prepare for the third quarter of the year: July, August, and September. Now, if anyone is interested in joining or looking into any of Sarra Cannon’s class I will leave my affiliate links at the bottom. Clicking the link earns me a percentage of sales, but the prices remain the same.
#ProjectLost - The companion book to #ProjectForgotten I will continue to self-edit, at least finish one chapter a week, chapters 4, 5, 6, and 7.
#ProjectCamp - A short story that follows the characters in #ProjectForgotten. My goal is a word count of 5,000 words; as of right now, I have 1,235. I have an estimate of 11 sprints to finish the short story if I reach the 5k mark.
StellarWolfPublishing - As with each month I try to update the blog to make goals, sometimes I make them and sometimes, I don’t but instead of being down on yourself I like to make sure I look at the list of stuff that I have completed. Always making progress. As I was about to publish this post I found the one from last month and finally hit the publish the button. Next blog post will be set to publish on Sunday June 5, 2026.
