Audely Bensen Writes

 2020 may have ruined a lot of things--one thing it helped was my book count. For the first time since I started tracking in 2013, I broke 100 books over the year. I read 105 books and 37,000 pages.  This year I made an effort to read a lot more fantasy, and to focus on reading newer fantasy. Forty-four percent of the fantasy books I read were published in the last 5 years. I also re-read a lot of old comfort favorites, which makes sense, given everything else that happened.  I also tried to incorporate a solid non-fiction habit in my day. For a good six months I read non-fiction during my former afternoon commute time. This helped me get through a lot of my non-fiction backlog. The book I'm proudest of finishing is A People's History of the United States, which I read cover to cover in April, after reading chapters in fits and starts over the last decade.  My reading statistics were also skewed by reading the entire Virgin River series. I enjoy the Netflix show but ...

2020 Recap:  January-February: I zero-drafted a 15,000 middle grade story and edited my 2019 Nano book during the Winter Writing Festival. I finished the editing pass in time to enter Author Mentor Match. I didn’t get in, but I started participating in online CP-groups.  March-April : I blew through 2 more drafts of my 2019 Nano novel—now referred to as Monster Girls. I thought it was in good shape, so I sent out a handful of queries.  May-June : I participated in 20Kin5days again. In the first week of May I wrote the first 20,000 words of the zero-draft of my Brigadoon-book. Over the next 7 weeks I finished the 67,000 word zero-draft.  July : I joined an online writing retreat that spiraled into the most amazing group of writing friends. I’ve learned so much from this group in the last 6 months, and I can’t imagine writing without them now. I also joined a monthly CP group that has taught me a new way to look at my work, and I started learning how to give a better ...