June 2nd marks the halfway point of 2025. It’s time to take a look at what I’ve done so far and where I plan on going for the second half. And if the first half is any indication, I might be in for some great things on the horizon. That is as long as I continue to see them through.
As I’ve said in many a blog post, goals and plans mean nothing without action to back them up.
This is a great lesson for developing confidence and battling impostor syndrome. The trick is to look back at your progress objectively, meaning you try to remove the emotional component from the experience and focus purely on raw data.
It’s not the easiest thing to accomplish for a lot of people. In some ways, I still struggle myself. However, objectivity has made a huge impact on how I view myself and my writing career.
Major Accomplishments for the First Half
First, let’s start with the things that stood out most to me so far. These are the major accomplishments of the year, and a few of them were things I wasn’t even looking to achieve. That just goes to show that sometimes, great things can happen when you least expect them.
At least, they do when you keep an open mind and have a positive outlook regarding your career path.
In today’s world, things can change in an instant. And if you want to survive the onslaught, you need to be adaptive. Not everything is going to work out as planned, but good things can happen instead of what you expected.
Attended My First Author Panel
In January, I attended my first panel as an author. It was Worldbuilding 101 at Tattered Cover where I talked about creating realistic dialogue and the things I do to keep a reader’s attention.
It was quite fun, and there were a lot more people in attendance than I would have thought. In fact, I was so nervous that I was shaking while trying to read my notes.
It’s kind of funny, really. I spend every Monday talking to an audience while interviewing authors of all kinds. But when so many eyes were on me, I almost choked.
Still, I was able to relax after a few minutes and wound up being quite interactive during the Q&A portion of the talk. I’m sure the more interactive I become in general while in person, the smoother these kinds of events will go.
Awaiting Feedback for the Next Book
A few months ago, I finished the final edits for Shadows of Atlantic City. Well, at least the edits while using AutoCrit. Now, I’m just awaiting feedback from the beta readers to see if it’s truly finished or if anything else needs to be added or removed before publishing.
In the meantime, I finished up the concept for the book cover, and everyone loved it thus far. It’s a bit different than what I imagined in the beginning, but it was a lot of fun designing in Photoshop.
I even turned the antagonist into a character for the online shop. The image of the wraith came out very nice, and I’m working on getting it on more merch before the book comes out.
Unfortunately, I made the initial design much too small to put it on larger products without graphic degradation. So, I have to make a much larger pic so I can put him on tote bags, blankets, and other fun things.
Anyway, as soon as my betas wrap up their feedback, I should have Shadows published. I’m trying to save up to buy ISBNs in bulk, but I’ve had to cover a lot of hospital and vet bills recently.
Started the Fourth Wall Storefront
Speaking of merch, I finally set up the Fourth Wall store that I’ve been talking about for years. Although I don’t have a lot of things to buy just yet, I have scheduled blocks of time every week to work on designs and whatnot.
So far, I haven’t really sold much. But that’s probably because I only have a few glasses and coffee mugs. Not to mention that print-on-demand services are pretty expensive, especially when you consider the shipping.
Nonetheless, a lot of creators have found a great deal of success using Fourth Wall. I just need to be more vigilant with fun designs and marketing.
I’m not sure if I’ll run membership content through the platform, though. The fees are extremely low compared to others like Buy Me a Coffee. However, I just didn’t have a lot of interest from membership subscribers.
In any case, I am quite proud that I got the store up and running. Now, I just need some goodies to sell.
Dialed Back Side Projects In Lieu of WriterSanctuary
A couple of months ago, I decided to dial back the projects for Crossing Colorado and ColoradoPlays so I could dump more time into my flagship brand, WriterSanctuary. And so far, the decision has resulted in some amazing and fun things.
It’s partly why I’m able to put so much time into the Fourth Wall store, the blog, the YouTube channel, and being an author. I miss working on the gaming content, but I would love WriterSanctuary to meet some of the things on the roadmap.
It’s not like I totally abandoned all of the other brands, mind you. Essentially, I’ve relegated them to hobbies while putting more emphasis on my writing content. As soon as I can afford some assistance, I’ll dive back into them one by one.
I tried to balance everything for the longest time. What wound up happening is that nothing got the quality time it needed in order to succeed. When you spread yourself that thin, no one can taste your goodness.
Well, that sounded better in my head, but you get the point.
Set Up the After Hours Podcast Outside of YouTube
One thing I’ve always been curious about doing is branching the After Hours podcast outside of YouTube. I spent some time recently exploring those options and created a few accounts on various platforms.
The hard part is getting all of the shows up on Spotify. I have a lot of author interviews and a few quality episodes that may get a few listens. The problem is the sheer volume of content.
I’m going to try to upload two or three per week, including the new Monday shows. But that’s still going to take months to get all of the episodes up on all of those platforms.
I also get the fun task of figuring out the best way to market the podcast. I would like to reach as many people as possible, but writing content just isn’t as popular as stuff that is more controversial, rage-baiting, or political.
Then again, I didn’t think the topics I covered were interesting enough, and the YouTube channel has more than 3,100 subscribers.
More Words On Average than 2024
Every year, I attempt to write one million words. Of course, a lot of the work I schedule for myself nowadays doesn’t involve writing. Still, it’s a fun goal for me to reach toward every year.
The primary writing goal is to just write more this year than I did in the last. And thus far, I’m surpassing the number ever so slightly. Even if I surpass last year’s total by one word, it’s still a victory.
Last year was easily my least productive. The chaos was exceptionally ripe and made a mess across everything I was trying to build. Blogging, publishing, and freelancing all slowed dramatically throughout the year.
So, it’s nice to see that my average for 2025 is well beyond what it was in 2024. If I can keep the momentum going that I had in June, I’ll easily hit the best year to date for word count. I won’t hit a million, but it’ll be beyond the 742,745 words I wrote back in 2023.
Succeed or fail, it’s all in my hands. And I’m taking steps to see what I can do to keep myself moving forward, despite Google and YouTube’s algorithms.
What’s Next in 2025?
I’ll admit, the first half was a tad slower than I would have liked. Although I accomplished a bit thus far, I haven’t been able to tackle several projects I wanted completed by now.
For instance, I’ve only been to one author event thus far, and I only have a handful of items in the store. However, I’m motivated to make something more out of the last half of the year.
There’s a running joke in my family; I play better on the back nine. This is a golf reference, as my score is always about ten strokes better during the last half of an 18-hole game.
In other words, I just got warmed up. Now, it’s time to play.
Going to College (Hopefully)
Initially, I was accepted at Southern New Hampshire University to finish my bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing. That was until we saw how much cheaper it would be for me to attend the University of Colorado here in Denver. It was about half the price.
Besides, I think it would be kind of fun to go back to college on a campus. I haven’t sat in a school room since 2002, and CU is about 15 minutes from here.
If CU uses the same credits I accrued from Westwood, I am about 27% of the way through to get my bachelor’s degree. At which point, I move on to the master’s program. Then, I am still debating on getting a PhD just for the hell of it.
Though, that really depends on how much money I’ll need to continue my education. I’m trying to do as much as I can without taking loans, as I have enough monthly payments for other things as it is.
In any case, and a tad bit of luck, I should be attending classes in August. And yes, I’ll be making some content out of the experience.
Two Book Signing Events – Looking for More
Currently, I am signed up to attend BrewDog on July 19th and Read Between the Stars on October 3rd. I suppose if you include the Worldbuilding 101 panel back in January, I’ve hit my goal of attending at least three author events this year.
I’m still going to look for a few more in the Denver area. I know a few acquaintances who seem to have a new event every weekend, so I might reach out to them to figure out how they find so many fun places to visit.
When I looked through Eventbrite, I found one that was happening at a swanky hotel in July. But when I inquired about attending as an author, the organizer replied that it would cost $220 and would run from 11 am to 4 pm on a Friday. That is insane!
Unless Stephen King himself is headlining that event, it’s outrageous. I would have to sell more than 50 books just to break even – on a Friday when everyone is at work and no apparent marketing?
Anyway, I’m sure there are more affordable and realistic author events in town.
Publishing Three Books
I am currently awaiting feedback for Shadows of Atlantic City before publishing. So, that book is literally on the verge of going live. I might make a few tweaks to the cover, but it’s happening in the very near future.
Fury is almost done, sitting at just over 90,000 words. I figure it would take about another two weeks before I can start edits. With any luck, it’ll be published before November.
VII is another book that I’m trying to finish. And although it’s on Wattpad, I still consider it an actual book – because it is. It’s just not going to have the care and concentrated effort to polish as the other books. I’m still feeding it through AutoCrit, but it’ll be done before the year’s end.
At least, that’s the plan.
I have so many stories I’d love to get to soon. But I made a promise to myself to work on one project at a time until it’s complete. That’s because I have a terrible reputation for not finishing what I started writing while bouncing from one story to another.
YouTube Publishing Stability
I would love to get YouTube on a regular schedule. That means three videos per week, three live writing sprints per week, the Monday night After Hours show, and the Friday night Members Only video.
I know, that sounds like an awful lot. But when you consider that I’m working on books, blogs, and clients during the writing sprints, it’s not that much. I’m working on those projects anyway; I might as well hit the “Go Live” button on OBS.
YouTube helps pay for a few things around the house, and I’d love to get to a point where it could cover the mortgage. I would also love to save up a few bucks to pay for various writing services and tools. However, that won’t happen unless I can make videos that people want to watch.
Creating a writing channel like mine is ultra difficult compared to other types of video content. The premise of WriterSanctuary is to help people follow their paths to become writers. That’s just not a very popular topic when compared to gaming, fitness, or, God forbid, reaction videos.
Nonetheless, I’m thankful the channel is at least monetized now and has maintained enough watch time to keep the $50 to $60 per month coming. I just need to dial it up a notch.
Return of the Despair Audiobook
Once VII and Skeletal are completed on Wattpad and Inkitt (respectively), I am turning my attention back to the Despair audiobook. The plan is to rewrite and re-record the series. Think of the first 20+ episodes as a dry run.
I’ve come a long way since the first days of producing Despair and feel I could do a much better job, especially when it comes to the voice acting. I’m still looking for a way to incorporate other actors, but I don’t have the funds to pay anyone.
I’ve also been asked if Despair will be available on Spotify. I thought it was a decent idea, but I don’t know if it should warrant its own channel or be a part of the WriterSanctuary podcast episodes.
Something else I could do instead is write and record an ever-advancing series, kind of like how Kindle Vella stories were produced on Amazon. Instead of reading a book aloud, it could be a weekly story without an actual ending.
If Doctor Who can run for decades, why not an audiobook on Spotify with yearly seasons?
Regardless of the extra recording, Despair will be making a comeback within the next couple of months. And I’m truly excited to get back into writing and recording the episodes. They were so much fun to create.
What Are You Hoping to Achieve?
So, there we have it. I have several big plans I would love to accomplish before the end of the year. The best part is that none of them are outside the scope of possibility. All it takes is a serious mindset to make things happen.
How do I plan to achieve all of these things? It starts with making sure I am setting aside adequate time. Using a project management app like Asana helps organize my days in advance.
However, planning alone isn’t going to make these things come to fruition. No, that takes action in addition to the planning. By making sure I am checking everything off my lists, I can achieve all of the above and a dash extra.
You can’t sit and wait for awesome things to happen.
- Moving to an External Office Space and Why It’s Important - April 24, 2026
- My Morning Routine as a Writer to Boost Motivation - April 15, 2026
- No, Metaphors and Similes ARE NOT Proof of AI Writing - April 6, 2026