12 Years of Writing: Hours Spent Writing Per Year. A Bar Graph. 2014 -515. 2015 - 600. 2016 - 530. 2017 - 400. 2018 - 675. 2019 - 734. 2020 - 909. 2021 - 1000. 2022 - 937. 2023 - 880. 2024 - 711. 2025 - 949.

The Year of Hyperfocus: 2025, A Writing Year in Review

It’s the end of the year, that time when I do writing math!!! And, you know, reflect on what I did as a writer over the course of the year. I may have published a book and guest edited a literary journal, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

This year I spent:

949 hours writing

That’s not bad. Not bad at all. In fact, it’s the second-most hours I have ever put into writing over the course of a year.

Here’s my time spent writing per year (since I started tabulating hours in 2014).

Click here to add your own text

12 Years of Writing: Hours Spent Writing Per Year. A Bar Graph. 2014 -515. 2015 - 600. 2016 - 530. 2017 - 400. 2018 - 675. 2019 - 734. 2020 - 909. 2021 - 1000. 2022 - 937. 2023 - 880. 2024 - 711. 2025 - 949.

And for those of you who prefer hard numbers over visual approximates:

12 Years of Writing: Hours Spent Writing Per Year. A Bar Graph. 2014 -515. 2015 - 600. 2016 - 530. 2017 - 400. 2018 - 675. 2019 - 734. 2020 - 909. 2021 - 1000. 2022 - 937. 2023 - 880. 2024 - 711. 2025 - 949.

If you look at the colorful chart above, my hours spent writing per year definitely appears as a wave. And as I skim through my previous Year in Review posts, I can’t help but noting that I have had a lot of writing ups and downs. 2023 was definitely a low point, as was the first half of 2024. In 2017, the image I selected for the year was firefighters putting out a car fire. Contrast that with 2020, when I got a three-book deal, 2021, when my first novel was released, and 2022, when I was one of five nominees for the Mary Higgins Clark Award.

There’s something about being able to look back on over a decade of my career that puts it in perspective. And when I have those days or weeks or months where I wonder why I’m doing this, or if I should keep doing this, I can see the bigger picture.

Lows will be followed by highs.

2023 and 2024 were rather low (that’s an understatement, friends), but they were followed by this year’s high, my new nonfiction book:

This book happened because I had a goal: to release a book about Jane Austen’s writing before Jane Austen’s 250th birthday. And I made it. But mostly because of the hyperfocus on the project.

Here’s how many hours I spent on writing per month:

Jan. - 77. Feb. 63. Mar. 123. Apr. 72. May. 93. Jun. 59. Jul. 83. Aug. 108. Sept. 79. Oct. 87. Nov. 68. Dec. 29.

And you can see how much of that time was spent on Write with Jane Austen:

A pie chart showing Write with Jane Austen taking up almost the entirety of the chart.

And a bar graph, which in some ways emphasizes it even more:

And yet again, the bar graph shows the same thing.

I spent 70% of my writing time on Write with Jane Austen. I have never, in the 12 years that I’ve been tracking, spent nearly that high a percentage on a single project.

665.83 hours.

Other things I did this year:

  • “Development.” That’s my catch-all category that includes critiquing writing, writing group, reading books about writing craft, and networking.
  • I taught writing classes. I taught several Lifelong Learning Classes at Kellogg Community college, and I taught at a writing conference.
  • Contract work: this year it was doing a touch of work helping my friend Jeanna run a Kickstarter for her book Unsightly
  • I guest edited a special mystery issue of the literary journal Irreantum. This was both challenging and delightful.

Because I my hyperfocus, I spent only a handful of hours working on short stories, most of which I did not complete. (An hour and a half on a short story is more of a brainstorm than a writing session…). I spent a handful of hours on novels—six, to be precise. In essence, I did no other projects.

But I met my goal.

Write with Jane Austen is my first (and perhaps my only?) nonfiction project, and it was my first project that I launched through Kickstarter, so the process looked rather different than for my Mary Bennet novels.

Here’s an infographic about the writing of Write with Jane Austen, which occurred over the course of six years, from 2020 to 2025:

The Writing Itself: 871 hours. Original Blog Posts: 290 hours. From 2020 to 2025 I wrote 70 (or so) blog posts about what Jane Austen can teach us about writing. Most of these were published between 2020 and 2022. Writing and Revising the Book: 430 hours. I scrapped over 50,000 words, and wrote over 75,000 new words as I created a complete draft of Write with Jane Austen. Then I revised multiple times, and then did copy edits and proofreads. Nonfiction Writing Tasks: 111 hours. There were a number of tasks for this book that were due to it being nonfiction: footnotes, citations, a works cited, checking quote spellings; creating an index and an index locorum; and finding images. Publication Tasks: 337 hours. Formatting: 160 hours. I used InDesign to format the print book, the ebook, and the workbook. This takes a lot of time, especially when your formatting includes dozens of charts, 100 images, subtitles, and footnotes. Publication and Kickstarter Tasks: 177 hours. This umbrella included endless tasks: commission-ing a cover, setting up and running a Kickstarter, uploading books to various platforms, ordering books, signing books, and more.

The 831 hours spent on the writing itself is definitely longer than the time it took to write each individual Mary Bennet novel (The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet took 612.5). But I am immensely pleased with Write with Jane Austen and don’t regret working on it. (Though if I had realized it would take 1168 hours total, I probably would have shied away from the project.)

So that is 2025 in charts galore. I still haven’t fully decided what my 2026 will look like, but I do want to spread myself across more projects rather than focusing on a single one.

***

A few additional notes:

-People always ask, so a few years ago I wrote about how I track my writing time. Read all about it there!

-For those who would like to get their own copy of Write with Jane Austen, on Amazon US, you can get the paperback and hardcover, or the ebook. It’s also available through Barnes and NobleBookshop.orgKoboSmashwordsWaterstones (in the UK), various Amazon websites throughout the world, etc. Your indie bookstore or your library should be able to get ahold of a copy if you request it.

The Year of the Pivot: 2024, A Writing Year in Review

It’s the final day of 2024, which means it’s time for my annual Writing Year in Review post—highlights, lowlights, charts, and insights into my writing process. And at the end of the post, there’s an announcement about a new book I have coming out next year!!!

First, let’s look at how many hours I spent writing in 2024:

A chart showing the number of hours Katherine spent writing per month in 2024. January: 58. February: 55. March: 54. April: 60. May: 61. June: 41. July: 22. August 53. September: 92. October: 69. November: 84. December: 62.

(Note: I use Toggl to track my time—if you’d like to learn more, I wrote a post about how and why I use a time tracker for writing.)

As you can see, July was a rather low month at 22 hours—however, I did spend three weeks in Europe (I went to Paris for the first time, and I visited my parents in Vienna). The highest month was September, where I felt the back-to-school energy (despite not currently being a student/teacher). And the total for the year was:

711 hours writing

That’s fewer yearly hours than in recent years, but it’s been a tricky full year on many fronts, and it’s still a respectable showing.

And now, you ask, how did I spend my time?

Here’s a chart of how many hours I spent on each writing project over the course of the year:

A few insights into this chart:

Development – this is an umbrella I use to include critiquing other people’s writing, attending my writing group, participating in writing conferences, learning about writing craft, and networking.

Volunteer work – I’m on the board of directors for a writing nonprofit. It’s nice to do a little to give back to the writing community, and this year I guest edited the Holiday Lit Blitz.

Short stories – short stories are great to stretch my writing muscles, and some stories just belong in a short form. I also cheated this year and included a personal essay in this category, which leads to one of this year’s highlights:

A personal essay I wrote was nominated for a Pushcart Prize!

Red, blue, and yellow book cover which reads

Teaching writing – I taught a two-week writing class for the Lifelong Learning program at Kellogg Community College, and it was delightful. I’ll be teaching a class in March about writing adaptations and retellings, so if you live in West Michigan, watch for when their Spring catalogue drops.

Regency mystery novel – I’ve played a little with a new novel, that will likely be one of my major focuses for 2025.

One thing that didn’t end up on this chart…I gave up my writing office. Due to a variety of circumstances, one of my kids needed it as a bedroom. As I moved out of the space and into the edge of a different room, I definitely felt the loss. It’s hard not to read into the symbolism of giving up your creative space.

However, I learned something new last week: when Frank Lloyd Wright lived in Oak Park, he gave up his architecture studio so his kids could have a bedroom. A few years later he ended up designing and building an incredible new studio. So I’m sure good writing spaces will again be in my future.

Kathy outside a sign for the Frank Lloyd Wright house in Oak Park

Me outside of the Frank Lloyd Wright house

Part of Frank Lloyd Wright's new studio -- there's an octagon dome roof, chain supports, and lots of light.

A small part of Frank Lloyd Wright’s new studio in Oak Park


An architecture cabinet that’s also a partial column. Also, it can move.

And now, we come to the title of this blog post…

The Year of the Pivot

In the middle of 2024, I had a bit of a writing crisis. My family would argue that calling it “a bit of a crisis” is a gross understatement. My husband bought me a pot of succulents for my desk, which is a true indication of the gravity of the situation.

During the first half of the year, I spent 165 hours revising an 1870s mystery novel, bringing the three-year total for the book to 800 hours.

It’s doing a lot of cool things, but it’s a really tricky, complicated book. Due to a variety of factors, I realized that I needed to step away from the project. (As a note: I will be coming back to this book, but it may be a year or two before I figure out how to make it work. Fortunately, books are like soup—time stewing is almost always beneficial for enhancing the flavors and depth. I spent years thinking about The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet before writing it, and it really helped me figure out Mary’s character.)

Fortunately, about two weeks before I stepped away from the book, I had already decided on an Exciting New Book that I wanted to write/finish.

Pivoting was difficult, but it was also exhilarating. The new project—which for the moment, we’re still calling the Exciting New Book—brought me so much joy.

I ended up spending 213 hours on the Exciting New Book. And the book will actually be coming out in 2025.

It was a year of ups and downs, with lots of twists and turns, but it’s ending on a high note. Thanks for joining me on my writing journey, and Happy New Year!

And if you’d like a little more details, my new book is titled Write with Jane Austen: Masterclasses from the Master Storyteller.

And you can read more about this new book in this post:

An intriguing snippet which has Jane Austen's portrait and a mysterious gray box with the words, "Cover Coming Soon"

2023, A Writing Year in Review: Bulbs and Beavers (and Pie!)

2023: A Writing Year in Review. With a picture of a tree, barely standing as it has been gnawed by a beaver, and tulips next to a mailbox.

Last year, in 2022, I had two novels and two short stories published, wore fancy dresses and attended two awards ceremonies, ran a successful Kickstarter for a nonprofit, spent 937 hours writing, and had what is, for writing, a rather glamorous year.

This year was very different.

A hipster writer. He looks at you instead of his page. He might be pensive, but he might be sadness. Perhaps writing requires a certain weight of sadness, at least in 2023.

Above: Peak 2023 writing energy. Deposit photos says he is “hipster.” If I owned that hat, maybe I would be hipster too.

In 2023, I had no books published. I attended no award ceremonies. I spent 880 hours writing (which is lower than the amount spent in 2020, 2021, and 2022). I hit a point in the revisions process where my confidence (as a writer) decided to indulge in clichés and completely shatter, like a Corelle soup bowl on the kitchen floor, shards of glass scattering across two full rooms. (Corelle is made of tempered glass, so it’s not supposed to break easily, but in my house, we’ve broken at least four bowls and plates this year.)

Yet right now, as I look back on another year of writing, I feel good about 2023.

Hours Spent Writing Per Month in 2023, by Katherine Cowley. January: 68. February: 59. March: 82. April: 104. May: 59. June: 85. July: 67. August: 82. September: 68. October: 71. November: 83. December: 50.

This year of writing was like planting bulbs in the fall with the hope that they’ll come up in the spring. Yes, despite the spicy hot pepper-based deer repellant, the deer might still eat all of them, but chances are, next year I’ll have tulips.

A small garden bed of brightly colored tulips.

A picture of my tulips from this spring. Unlike in 2022, when the deer ate all my tulips a few days before they blossomed, in 2023 my tulips survived so they could act as a positive metaphor.

This year of writing was also like a beaver, gnawing on trees. There are lots of trees to gnaw on. There’s a lodge to maintain. There’s pesky, flowing water that must be stopped. Sometimes people put up metal netting so you can’t get to the best trees. Sometimes you take down a whole tree at once, but most of the time, that’s not possible. So you start on a few trees and make some progress, knowing that you’ll have time to do the rest later.

A tree in a marshy area of a pond. It has been gnawed on on both sides by a beaver, yet somehow it stays standing.

These are pictures that I took that show the efforts of the local beavers at the Asylum Lake Nature Preserve in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Every few months, I check on the beavers’ progress.

What trees did I gnaw on this year? Well, there’s a chart for that.

I love charts, I love pie, and I love writing. This collision of all three interests was meant to be.

And now, in classic bar graph form:

Hours Spent Per Writing Project in 2023. New Murder Mystery: 437. Development: 200. Website, etc.: 97. Personal Writing: 50. Short Stories and Essays: 30. Writing Nonprofit: 26. Translations: 18. Submissions: 17. Other Projects: 5.

And, because I like writing, some written details for a few of the categories:

New Murder Mystery (437 hours)

These 437 hours are on top of the 227 hours I spent on this book last year, bringing the total up to 664. This is the most research-intensive, complicated, and challenging book I’ve written. It’s also been like making soup—the components have needed time to stew together, so the flavors develop properly.

Development (200 hours)

  • Conferences: Malice Domestic and the Midwest Mystery Conference
  • Critiquing and writing group
  • Networking
  • Writing craft and mystery genre research
  • Accounting, taxes, and business stuff
  • Planning and considering goals

Website, etc. (97 hours)

Website, newsletters, blog posts, and a few book events! My most popular blog post for the year was on Mary Bennet and Mr. Collins.

Mary Bennet and Mr. Collins. Why didn't they marry? Would they have made a good match?

Submissions (17 hours)

Most of this time was spent applying to an art residency. I didn’t get selected, but I was on the short list, and now I have a very solid concept for a future book that I plan to write.

Looking to 2024

Me with my 2024 planner, which matches my sweater. Maybe I am hipster after all.

I often have a 2-year writing plan, with all my upcoming projects figured out. I don’t right now, and that’s both terrifying and liberating.

I do know that I’ll need to do more revisions on my current mystery novel. I want to write some short stories, and spend a few weeks focusing on reading and doing other things to refill my creative well. I suspect I will start a new book. Will that be a sequel to my current novel or to Mary Bennet? Or something entirely new? Only time will tell.

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Hours Spent Writing Per Month in 2022. January: 103 hours 39 minutes. February: 80 hours 59 minutes. March: 84 hours 4 minutes. April: 58 hours 12 minutes. May: 108 hours 44 minutes. June 66 hours 52 minutes. July 57 hours 21 minutes. August: 47 hours 30 minutes. September: 108 hours 49 minutes. October: 93 hours 28 minutes. November: 77 hours 5 minutes. December: 49 hours 58 minutes.

Big Mary Bennet Energy: 2022, A Year in Review

And now, as we reach the final day of 2022, it is time for my annual writing year in review.

I spent 937 hours writing in 2022, and my year looks like a series of waves.

Hours Spent Writing Per Month in 2022. January: 103 hours 39 minutes. February: 80 hours 59 minutes. March: 84 hours 4 minutes. April: 58 hours 12 minutes. May: 108 hours 44 minutes. June 66 hours 52 minutes. July 57 hours 21 minutes. August: 47 hours 30 minutes. September: 108 hours 49 minutes. October: 93 hours 28 minutes. November: 77 hours 5 minutes. December: 49 hours 58 minutes.

Due to a variety of outside factors, my writing time varied from 47 to 109 hours each month, but it did so in an aesthetically pleasing way, which is definitely a win.

(Note: 937 hours is less time than I spent writing in 2021, when I wrote for 1000 hours, but more than I spent writing in any previous year.)

Which leads us to the next chart: how did I spend my time?

Hours Spent Per Writing Project in 2022. Website, Guest Posts, Book Launches, Presentations, Marketing 309 New Murder Mystery 227 Development 148 Board of Directors for Writing Nonprofit 75.5 Jane Austen Writing Lessons 54.5 Journal Writing 49 Mary Bennet Book 3 32 Novel I'm abandoning 24 Other 18

This year had big Mary Bennet energy, and that determined a lot of my writing hours. True, I only spent 32 hours doing final revisions on my third Mary Bennet novel. But the second and third books in the Mary Bennet spy series were both released:

The True Confessions of a London Spy in March 2022

The Lady’s Guide to Death and Deception in September 2022

Katherine Cowley at This is a Bookstore/Bookbug with Ladys Guide to Death and Deception

I had my launch party for The Lady’s Guide to Death and Deception at This is a Bookstore/Bookbug in Kalamazoo, MI.

It was exciting to have these books released in close proximity, because then readers could enjoy the full story arc without having to wait very long. As you’d expect, two book releases takes up a lot of time, and I spent 309 hours on everything from my website to guest blog posts to presentations to marketing tasks.

This year was also thrilling for the first book in the series, The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet, which had several award wins and nominations:

-Winner of the LDSPMA Praiseworthy Award for Best Suspense/Mystery novel

LDSPMA Praiseworthy Award 2021.

-One of five nominees for the Mary Higgins Clark Award

At the Edgar Awards: me with three of the other finalists for the Mary Higgins Clark Award

-One of five finalists for the Whitney Award for Best Mystery/Suspense novel

The Big Question: Will we see more of Mary Bennet?

I have had so many readers finish the third book and ask, “Will we see more of Mary Bennet?” Others have asked if I will write a Kitty Bennet series.

The series was originally conceived as a trilogy. I wanted it to feel complete and have a satisfying resolution for Mary (and company) by the end of the third book.

However, there are other stories that I would love to tell about Mary and her sisters. So I think it’s fair to say that there will very likely be more books in Mary and/or Kitty’s futures.

That said, I have been working on this series non-stop from 2017 to 2022. Five full years. That’s a lot of time to spend in one story world, with one set of characters. A book takes me at least a year or two to write, and it’s very all-consuming. So I decided that the time had come to work on a brand new murder mystery.

The New Murder Mystery:

I’m still keeping this largely under wraps, but I will say that my new murder mystery is set in Paris in the late 1800s, with a number of fascinating historical figures. The main character of the book is a determined woman in her thirties trying to make her way in the world. But then there is a theft and a murder, and she is drawn into solving the mystery.

I spent 227 hours on this book in 2022. While I had to do a lot of research for the Mary Bennet novels, I already had a strong background on Jane Austen and Regency England. I did not have that same background for my new murder mystery, so I’ve had to do a lot of additional research on everything from politics to architecture. Fortunately, I love research. One thing I didn’t count towards writing time was studying French. I’m fluent in Portuguese, and reading Portuguese definitely helps with reading French, but knew I needed to study French itself to help me read some of the sources (including newspapers and a few biographies) that are only available in French.

A few of the research books I’ve read for my current novel

While I love research, one cannot research forever. One of the things that I am most happy about for this year is that I found my main character’s voice, I found my narrator voice, and I found the voices of many of my other characters.

I’m now at the 60% mark on the first draft. In the new year, I plan to finish the first draft and then revise, revise, revise.

What Else Counted as Writing:

There are endless other things that counted as writing this year, but here’s a few of note:

-Choosing out formal gowns. I rented dresses for both the Edgar Awards and the Whitney Awards, and I definitely counted the dress search as writing time. (Under my Development category, which includes all writing and career development.)

Katherine Cowley in her dress for the Whitney Awards

My dress for the Whitney Awards. Both my dress for the Edgars and the Whitneys were from Rent the Runway.

-I ran a successful Kickstarter for a writing nonprofit and helped publish an anthology.

-I abandoned a novel. I went back and began another revision on an old mystery novel I wrote in the mid-2010s. And then I decided it’s not the right book, so I am officially abandoning it. We’re all better off.

-I wrote 17 new Jane Austen Writing Lessons, focusing on what Jane Austen can teach us about writing dialogue and writing emotions.

-I worked on a few short stories. And I had two short stories published, both with a bit of a religious bent: “The Gift of Undoing” in Saints, Spells, and Spaceships, and the darkest story I’ve ever written, “Burdens,” in Irreantum.

My Writing Plans for 2023:

I have a number of goals, including setting up bookstore and library visits (note: if you’re a bookseller or librarian, I am available for both in-person and virtual visits).

Mostly though, I’m going to buckle down and write, so you can read more of my short stories and novels in the future.

1000 Hours of Writing. 2021: A Year in Review

1000 Hours of Writing in 2021: A Year in Review

1000 Hours of Writing. 2021: A Year in Review

In 2021, I spent 1000 hours writing.

1000.

A few weeks ago I realized how close I was to 1000 hours of writing for the year, so I decided to go for it and get in the last few hours.

1,000 hours 1,000 hours

If you look back on previous years, there were a number of years when I was firmly in the 400 to 600 hours a year range (so writing on average 60 to 100 minutes a day). Last year was my most writing time ever, with 909 hours total–so an average of 150 minutes or 2.5 hours a day. 1000 hours per day is an average of 165 minutes a day, or 2.75 hours.

Of course, I was not actually writing 2.75 hours a day–some months I wrote a lot more than that, some months a lot less:

Bar Graph. Hours Spent Writing in 2021. January 98 Feburary 90 March 93 April 106 May 88 June 79 July 31 August 80 September 91 October 99 November 84 December 61

Now, a qualifier. I did not spend 1000 hours typing. I’ve talked about this in previous year-in-review posts, but I believe in being pretty expansive in my definition of writing. Daydreaming about story ideas counts as writing. Listening to writing podcasts counts as writing. Submitting stories for publication counts as writing. That said…

What specifically did I work on in 2021?

Katherine Cowley and the Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet

First off, my debut novel was published!

When I was five years old, I decided that I wanted to be an author and publish books. While I have had a number of shorter works published, this year was my first to publish a book.

Having my book out in the world has been thrilling and tiring and exciting and overwhelming and wonderful all at once. Most of all, I’m grateful to have a story that I wanted to tell out in the world. And I’m grateful to everyone who has read and shared and reviewed my book–I truly appreciate all of your support for my stories!

While The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet was a huge milestone for my year, it actually didn’t take up most of my writing time. (The time that it did use was sharing the word about the book on social media, blog posts, sending out my newsletter, being a guest on podcasts, updating my website, etc.–aka marketing.)

Here’s a snapshot that shows how I spent my writing time throughout the year:

Book 2 in my Mary Bennet seriesThe True Confessions of a London Spy–comes out in a little over two months, on March 1, 2022. However, this past year I only spent 30 hours on it, and that was for final revisions. (Most of the time for that book came in 2020, when I spent 347 hours on it, and from 2018, when I wrote a very rough first draft.)

What I did spend most of my time on in 2021 was Book 3 in the Mary Bennet series, The Lady’s Guide to Death and Deception. I spent 387 hours on the book. This included brainstorming, research, outlining, reading newspapers from the time, and four drafts. The book is still not finished–I still have 3-4 revision passes on it with the publisher that will happen in early 2022.

Other things I worked on:

Jane Austen Writing Lessons. This has been a project of joy, as I’ve deep dived into writing through the lens of Jane Austen. Basically, this is everything I know about writing in a series of blog posts, and it was actually selected by the Write Life as one of the 100 Best Websites for Writers in 2021.

Jane Austen Writing Lessons. With an image of the original cover page of Pride and Prejudice; a color image of Jane Austen; an image of tea and pastries with an open book, and an early cover of Sense and Sensiblity.

The 97 hours spent on development included my monthly writing group, critiquing the writing of others, accounting, networking, goal setting and tracking, and learning about writing through listening to writing podcasts and reading books about writing. Developing yourself as a writer is so essential at every stage of the writing or publishing process you are at, and so it’s something that I continue to prioritize.

It’s also important to do writing that’s just for yourself, and that’s where my 52 hours of journal writing came in. And then there were all sorts of other smaller writing projects and writing-related tasks that I worked on throughout the year.

How much of the thousand hours was spent actually outlining, writing new words, or revising? I have no idea, and I absolutely refuse to go through every entry in my time tracker to figure that out. My guess is at least 500. But that number doesn’t really matter to me, because all of the writing-related things are important for me as a writer.

How in the world did I get in 1000 hours?

In years when I was writing 400 hours per year, it was because I fought tooth and nail to spend a solid hour a day working on my writing. It took sacrifices–reading less, watching less, cleaning less, waking up early or staying up late, and sometimes insane life-juggling to carve out that hour.

Writing 1000 hours this year was actually easier than writing 400 those years, because of a very particular set of life circumstances:

  • In September, my youngest child entered full-day kindergarten, but I did not start working full-time. Instead I got a 10-hour-a-week part-time job.
  • From January to June, I was a stay-at-home parent with one 5-year-old at home. She was rather independent. I also gave her movie time for 2 hours every afternoon, and I always used it for writing time.
  • Our family finances work on only my husband’s salary, which is a privilege that many incredible writers don’t have. I can put 1000 hours into writing even if I’m not going to make much from it.

If life has taught me anything, it’s that I can’t guarantee what my life circumstances will look like in any given year. Maybe I will have years in the future where I can spend 1000 hours writing, maybe I won’t. But it was fun to achieve that completely arbitrary benchmark this year.

What to Look for From Me in 2022

  • March 1: The True Confessions of a London Spy (Mary Bennet 2) will be released
  • May 13-14: I will be teaching a class called “In Defense of Writing Slowly” at the Storymakers conference in Utah
  • September: The Lady’s Guide to Death and Deception (Mary Bennet 3) will be released

Hopefully I will be able to add some more in-person events to this list

The Secret Life of Mary Bennet Series: The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet and The True Confessions of a London Spy. Mary Bennet, Spy. "Beautifully written, masterfully plotted, meet a Mary Bennet every bit as fascinating and twice as daring as her more famous sisters." -Gretchen Archer, USA Today bestselling author

My Goals for 2022

  • Finish revisions on The Lady’s Guide to Death and Deception
  • Actually finish revisions on an old steampunk novel (this is a goal I had for 2021 that I didn’t meet)
  • Write at least the first draft of a new book (I have a few ideas for this)

I may add or subtract goals from this list as the year progresses.

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