Going back to this and do a self-evaluation. Mostly good, but some big misses.
Easily my biggest success this year. All goals met and I couldn’t be happier with my results.
- Edit The Europan Deception
- Send The Europan Deception to the Pentagon
- Purchase a cover for The Europan Deception
- Proofread The Europan Deception
- Develop a pre-launch campaign for The Europan Deception
- Release The Europan Deception
Partial success. I did write a version of Crush Depth and got feedback on it but ended up junking it after editing it based on beta reader feedback. But I’m 60,000 words into the next version. I am confident that I’ll get it done and released next year, but it’s just not getting to the Pentagon this year.
- Draft Crush Depth
- Get feedback on Crush Depth from my beta readers
- Edit Crush Depth
- Send Crush Depth to the Pentagon
Journey
Huge miss here. I got 5,000 words into it but never really got time to work on it. Probably pushed into 2027 with the rest of that series.
- Draft Journey
Memento Vivere
Another huge miss. I got 60,000 words in and stalled out. I did some evaluating and I think I’ll be ready to pick it back up late in 2026. Like Crush Depth, more on that when I set my 2026 goals.
- Draft Memento Vivere
Outlining
I killed it here – outlined all 3 books I had planned and knocked out another 3 while I was at it.
- Outline The Apophis Contingency
- Outline Sensor Overload
- Outline Hero
- Outline The Saturn Anomaly
- Outline The Kuiper Dominion
- Outline The Gliese Vendetta
Dynamic goal addition! I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about it – this book went from an idea in the back of my head to a full-fledged, complete The Martian Incident sequel in the span of 6 months. It’s currently at the Pentagon in a security review and I’ll set a release date once I hear back.
- Draft The Saturn Anomaly
- Send The Saturn Anomaly to beta readers for feedback
- Edit The Saturn Anomaly
- Send The Saturn Anomaly to the Pentagon
Short Stories
Partial success – I did write 3 short stories (and get one of them published!) but not these four.
- Quantum Computer short drafted
- City on the Hill short drafted
- The Last Signal short drafted
- Sirens short drafted
- Gargoyles drafted
- Singularity Seed drafted
- The Painted Dark drafted
2025 has been a very mixed bag.
Moral of the story? I need to be better about clearly defining a project, whether that’s in terms of scope or outlining or whatever, before I start it. I have a 100,000 word draft of Crush Depth that is mostly worthless and a 60,000 word draft of Memento Vivere (not to mention some half-complete short stories) that I have no plans to finish any time soon. That’s 160,000 words – almost two complete books! I could be much more judicious about my writing time and get more completed projects done. And I think I will be moving forward. It’s a learning experience and I am still figuring it all out.
I’ll do 2026 planning over Christmas break and post that sometime in early January. My real goal is to get two books published in 2026 – I’ve done 1 per year in 2023, 2024, and 2025 – but I have a lot of smaller ones as well.
Ryan M. Patrick 
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