Reviewing my writing before going forward. 

What mistakes might I have made.

1.) Too many books, too fast.

2.) Too many genres and subjects.

3.) Not enough planning or outlining in advance,

4. Not writing a "serious" book. No trauma drama for me.

5.) Not writing enough short stories.

But even if these are mistakes, they are what I would call career mistakes. That is, they could be considered mistakes if I was trying to make a paying career out of my writing.

The irony is, these are also exactly the terms of writing that I set out before starting.

Rule #1: Write the book without going backward, or without too much pre-planning. Let the book go where it goes. 

The reason for Rule #1, was that in my previous career, I'd fallen into a pernicious writing cycle. I'd research and plan and then never write the book. I'd start a book, and then restart a book, then restart a books, then restart a book....

Rule #2: Write what I want, when I want. 

For me, there were only two reasons to write:

A). For fun and personal fulfillment.

B.) For money and fame.

I realized ahead of time that the latter was very unlikely. Besides, I figured if I wrote for the reasons in the former, I'd have a better chance of reaching the latter.

Rule #3: Write for fun.

I have no interest in what I see in the literary field. I read to be entertained, and so I decided to write to be entertained. I'll let others write about trauma drama, I want my books to be an adventure.

In other words, what could be considered mistakes from a career aspect are the very reasons I was writing in the first place. I really can't see how I could have done it differently.

The last possible mistake was not writing short stories. But I can only now see this because I didn't even try until my last two efforts. Both were short stories, and both were immediately accepted by anthologies. 

Live and learn.  

So, if I'm just going to do what I was doing, then I have to figure I'm writing for fun and personal fulfillment. In that, I've already succeeded beyond anything I could have imagined.