This past year was an interesting one on the writing front. I finally closed down my old pen names and started devoting all my writing time to this one, which involved a lot of changes in the way I handle my writing business.
Let's start with productivity.
Solid Wins
Most of the fiction writers I know generally use two metrics to measure productivity: word count and publications. Because of where I'm at in my writing career (at a transition point, as discussed below), I'm going to discuss both.
I've been tracking my word counts since the latter part of 2014, roughly a year after I began writing fiction.[1] While I don't set daily word count goals,[2] I do record daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly word count totals in a physical planner, and monthly and yearly word counts in a digital spreadsheet.
My two highest annual first-draft-fiction word count totals were in 2014 (about 674k to 800k) and 2015 (448k). "First-draft fiction" means exactly what it sounds like. These word count totals do not count any nonfiction writing or blogging.
2025 is my third highest yearly word count. This year, I hit about 383k first-draft fiction words.[3] Roughly 62% of those words were written in the first half of the year. I'll discuss that further in the next section.
As far as publications go, this year I published three novels and a hefty novella under an old pen name (which closed it out), as well as six short stories for this pen name, two in anthologies and four in a short story collection. The publications for this pen name:
-- "The Long-Unburied Dead," published in Hypersleep Nightmares (Propaganda Press)
-- "Blades of a Dying Sun," published in Running with Sharp Objects (Theogony Books)
-- Night Shadows, a self-published reader magnet which contains "A Good Demon Hunter Is Hard to Find," a finalist in the 2025 Baen Fantasy Adventure Award (a huge win, in my book)
I didn't set a publication or word count goal for 2025 as I knew I'd have to make some allowances for the transition between pen names. I'm satisfied with what I accomplished, mid-year slow down or not.
Shifting Pen Names
As I've discussed elsewhere, I've been planning the transition from old pen names to this one for a while, mainly due to burnout and a deep dissatisfaction with my writing career's direction.
In 2024, I finished out two series for my old Urban/Contemporary Fantasy pen name. That was supposed to be the moment when I moved over to this one.
Things did not go as planned, and I ended up stalling out. I decided to take some time to just write for fun, with zero pressure attached to the stories. That's when I turned back to my first pen name (SciFi and Fantasy Romance) and why the first half of 2025 saw such a huge word count: I was writing zero-pressure stories that I really enjoyed writing.
Once I got back into the writing groove, I started making the actual shift. That included deciding which stories to focus on first (which took a while), how to encourage my existing fan base to make the transition with me, and what to do with the websites for all my pen names.
For the latter, I set up dedicated author pages on my publishing website and let the domain names for my other pen names expire.
To encourage readers to move with me, I compiled Night Shadows and offered it as a reader magnet, first to existing newsletter subscribers and Facebook group members for my old pen names, and then to readers at large.
Shutting down the old pen names is an ongoing process. I'm still occasionally marketing stand alone novels and completed series, and even writing newsletters for those pen names. But in 2026, I hope to fully transition readers over so I can focus solely on building this pen name. Focusing on one pen name will help me deliver more consistent releases and better content to readers across the board.
Social Media and Blogging
In the past eighteen months or so, I've been experimenting wildly with social media and blogging. I've done time at X, Substack, TikTok, Instagram, and Bluesky, trying to figure out which one would work for me. None of them really suited my purposes, so I quit all of them and decided to focus on Facebook and blogging for two reasons.
First, I'd rather be writing fiction. And since I'm essentially starting from scratch with this pen name, it's critical that I build a backlist as quickly as possible. Plus, most readers would rather their favorite authors produce more fiction than spend time hanging out with them on social media. My readers would anyway, and that's who I'm concerned with pleasing.
Second, the internet is currently not a great place to be. I'd like to do my part to remedy that situation by not contributing to the homogenization and, as Cory Doctorow calls it, the enshittification of digital spaces.
So. I'm trying to focus on creating meaningful content. I'm slowly testing content ideas here, on Facebook, and in my newsletter. My hope is that by focusing on these three core components of my digital platform, I can create a space readers enjoy being in.
2026 Progress Benchmarks
In 2025, I averaged roughly 32k first-draft words per month. However, my word counts on a month-to-month basis swung wildly up and down, with some months much lower and a couple much higher.
In 2026, I'm aiming for a more stable monthly word count, a minimum of 30k-35k every single month, then to gradually increase that to 40k-50k per month, or roughly 10k-12k per week.[4]
This shift will come less from working longer hours (I already work really long hours) and more from gradually increasing per-hour word counts. In 2025, I went from writing roughly 500 to 700 words per hour to averaging roughly 800 to 1,000 words per hour; whereas during 2014 and 2015, I was writing (not typing) roughly 1,500 to 1,800 words per hour.
That's the per hour word count I'm ultimately aiming for. This is part of rebuilding my writing process after years spent tackling burnout. But, if I'm consistently doing a minimum of 30k-35k every month at the end of 2026, I'll still be satisfied as I will have nailed the consistency part and can build on that foundation going forward.
My main goal is to work toward re-aligning my writing process with my personality and life situation, and also leaning into my strengths as an individual and a writer. Alignment is the key. That's how 2026's benchmarks will be reached.
Specific Stories (Sort of)
As far as what I'd like to work on, my plan is to finish the first novel in the Jupiter Skye Series (almost there!) and then dive into writing the second book, which I've already started.[5]
Beyond that, I'm not going to be more specific about particular stories. If the past decade or so of writing fiction has taught me anything, it's that what I'd like to do right now and what I end up doing may be two very different things, depending on what happens throughout the year.
There are, however, two elephants I'd like to address as exceptions: I've been asked if I'm developing novel-length spinoffs of "A Good Demon Hunter Is Hard to Find" and "Blades of a Dying Sun."
The short answer is maybe. The longer answer is it depends. That "depends" comes with a long list of possibilities. If Jupiter Skye develops into a full series. If I can get my writing process whipped into shape so that I can go back to juggling projects without risking splitting or stalling my process. If I can finish an important side project. If the "Demon Hunter" and "Blades" stories develop to the point that they're ready to be written. If I don't backslide into burnout. And so on.
This is why I'm not naming specific projects I'd like to work on in 2026, aside from finishing the first Jupiter novel and diving into the second one. What I work on after that depends on a lot of different factors.
Conclusion
If 2025 was my year to move forward boldly into this pen name, then 2026 is my year to rebuild my writing process through alignment. Getting back to a more stable process will pretty much guarantee that I'm delivering quality stories to readers in a timely manner.
The past twelve months have been a great writing year in a lot of ways. I'm working to make the new year an even better one, for me and for my readers.
Have a safe and happy New Year, and as always, happy reading.
Footnotes:
- I measured my word counts before then, but they were in a different format and I've since lost them. However, I reconstructed 2014's word counts based on publications and other notes.
- Generally speaking, I set scene goals, usually two scenes per writing session, or "finish" goals. As in, this story has to be finished by [deadline], so I'll focus on it until it's done.
- Please note that I wrote and published this post prior to the year's end. The final word count total for 2025 may vary slightly.
- Do I really need to address the quantity vs quality debate here, or can we be adults, acknowledge that writers are different and speed and quality aren't mutually exclusive, and move on?
- My general rule is to write the ideas while they're hot, if possible. The first few scenes for the second Jupiter Skye novel were already in my head, so I worked on them while they were fresh.
