Quarterly wrap: July – October 2023
This “quarter” was INCREDIBLE to say the least! Between an overseas adventure, finishing a WIP and starting more beta reading, and getting through a stack of great books, there was a lot going on. All the details can be found within my third quarterly update of 2023!! →
What’s new in my life
Hello again! Before you ask: yes, this wrap-up post does cover a third of the year rather than a quarter, but with good reason. Who wants to work while they’re travelling, right? But now the time has come for this third quarterly update of 2023, where two months of hard work was followed by two months of pure joy. These are some of the highlights from July to October:
Going on my overseas trip. After planning since the start of the year, I got to go on an incredible adventure to Europe and the UK. I visited 9 countries in 7 weeks and had the time of my life. If you’d like to see some photos, sign up to my author newsletter, where I’ll be sharing a selection of the best!
Dealing with medical stuff. Nothing too serious, don’t worry! But the first half of this quarter as taken up by a frustrating number of medical appointments. Damn last year’s bout of COVID for messing me up! Things seem a lot better now, so fingers crossed the worst is behind me… 😅
Making my first “public” appearance. I made my first semi-public appearance as Rebecca Alasdair back in July when I went to speak at my high school. It was an honour to be invited to talk to the students about writing and indie publishing, and I loved meeting the group of budding writers present!
Holding my first book sale. In August, I put my contemporary YA novel Holding Up the Sky on sale for the first time to celebrate “Wear It Purple Day”. I haven’t closely reviewed my stats yet, and I’m not sure it really made that much difference to my book sales, but I learned a lot logistically from the process.
Platform updates
Since my last update, I’ve published 2x new blog posts (in addition to this one). They cover an exciting development in the writing process for my fantasy series and the next in a series of posts about the indie publishing journey. To read these posts, just click on the tiles below!
Otherwise, there’s not much else to report on the platform front this quarter. It was nice to take a break from social media and everything else while I was on my trip. But it’s time to get back into it! 😀
Writing progress
Blood of Old (Graceborn #1)
Status: Beta reading (round 2)
Word count: 192,392
What’s new:
It’s been a massive few months for Blood of Old, book 1 in the Graceborn series. After finishing off the 3rd draft and doing a full read-through and follow-up edits, it was straight into preparing things for a second round of beta reading. I’ve recruited an incredible new team of readers who started in early September and are finishing up around now. Feedback has been very promising, and I’m excited to dive into the next round of revisions!
Books I’ve read
Not a bad effort on the reading side of things over the last four months! While I’m STILL behind on my Goodreads challenge goal, I did read and finish 8 books, ~5 of which were devoured during my trip. Gotta love having a Kindle for travel purposes, right? We’ll see how I go with reaching that magic number by the end of the year, but the books I read in this “quarter” were…
What have you been up to over the last few months? Did you progress your writing projects or read any good books? Is any type of travel on the cards for you?
Rebecca Alasdair
I'm an Australian indie author who hoards books, loves dogs and coffee, and has a tendency of staying up all night!
6 Comments
Andrew McDowell
Congratulations on everything, Rebecca. Last month, I finished a draft for my second fantasy novel, and Fae Corps wants to bring it out next August! There’s still a lot of editing to be done, though. This month I attended the Maryland Writers’ Conference and sold twice as many copies of my work as I was expecting (in the case of Mystical Greenwood, four out of five)! And right after that, I gave a presentation on manuscript and book formatting, which is now up on my YouTube channel! I also had a short story published in a Christmas anthology.
Rebecca Alasdair
So many exciting things happening for you, Andrew! That’s amazing. Thanks for reading 😊
Andrew McDowell
You’re welcome, Rebecca, and thank you!
Alex
Hi Rebecca!!
Great to hear from you! I think it’s great how you took time off. Always important to take time to relax and I’m glad you had a wonderful holiday. 9 countries in 7 weeks? Wow! That’s cool! I am signed up for your newsletter. I’m stoked!! :). I hope to travel again in the near future.
I’m so sorry to hear about how there were so many appointments. Also sorry to hear about how you had COVID last year. Glad things are much better now. Sending you my support! Best wishes.
I remember you mentioned about meeting the group of students and making a semi-public appearance as Rebecca Alasdair. That’s wonderful 🙂 YOU ROCK :).
Glad you learned a lot from the book sale 🙂 :).
Your posts rock!
I’m excited for you. 🙂 Best wishes with Blood of Old. You got this. 🙂 I believe in you!
Great job on reading 8 books 🙂 You got this. Go Rebecca :]
I’d love to visit Germany. I also want to visit France again as well as Chile and Brazil. In addition, I hope to visit Los Angeles again along with Chicago (and NYC for a 3rd time). As for projects, I’ve been feeling burnt out. However, I do have a short story I’d like to finish. I made an outline for it (I never really outlined before, so this is something new). I also hope to draw more. 🙂 Have a nice week.
Rebecca Alasdair
Thanks so much Alex! We all get burnt out at times, and it’s never a good feeling. I hope you get some time to chill out. Definitely stay tuned for the newsletter; we can talk all things travel then! 😁
Alex
You’re welcome, Rebecca 🙂 Thanks so much! I need to take more time to relax. I hope to soon.
I’m excited for your newsletter! I’ll reply to it after you email it and we’ll talk travel 🙂 Looking forward to this :).
Have a great day!