New Year Resolutions

I’ve been thinking lately about where I want to take my authorship. I love writing and I plan to keep writing. That’s not the problem. My problem is what to do with my writing once it’s done. I love sharing it, so I’m making some New Year’s Resolutions with that in mind.

1. I want to release three books this year. Yes, three. They’re already written in vomit draft, I just need to finish editing them. (Okay, maybe four. But who’s counting?)

2. I want to send those on my newsletter complimentary short story or two. I haven’t outlined them yet, but I have a pretty good idea of what they’ll be. Eventually, they will be made available to the public, but those on my list will get first crack at them.

3. I want to give those on my newsletter a Christmas present! Considering I’m an author, you can probably bet it will be a free story of some sort. ;) (Okay, I’m totally planning to write Ashtiv’s story. Hope you don’t mind me ruining the surprise.)

4. I want to purchase 25 bags from Together We Rise to donate to my local foster care agency. This is only possible because of all of you. So that donation is as much from you as me. If you want to see what they’re all about, you can find them at togetherwerise.org. It’s a non-profit organization.

5. I want to send out monthly newsletters and write monthly blog posts to keep you informed of what’s going on. Those who have signed up for my newsletter will be privy to insider information (like sales or freebies from me and other authors) while the blog will cover more general news or random thoughts.

6. I want to revamp my web page, which means that I may move it in the near future. Purchase my own domain name and everything. :) It makes me nervous, but I think it would be more professional. And I want to offer professional quality to my readers.

7. I want to divide my time using the 80/20 rule. This means I have to figure out how often I’m going to write each day so that I have a known number to work with. Then I want to devote 80% of that time to writing and 20% to marketing, newsletters, and blog posts.

These are my New Year’s Resolutions. I hereby resolve to get these things done in 2017! I understand that resolutions don’t always happen, which is why some people don’t like to make them. What’s the point when you always fail? I don’t see making and attempting and failing resolutions as failure, I see it as progress. If I can improve myself a little bit today, even if I don’t make the big improvement that I wanted, then I’ll be that much better than yesterday.

*You'll notice a lot of good things are geared toward those on my newsletter list. That's because they took the time to sign up for my newsletter, so I want to make sure to treat them right. They've made a commitment with me and I want to show them I appreciate that. Anyone can sign up for the list. ;)

Keeping Resolutions

And we're about half way through the first month of the new year! Congratulations, you've survived another two weeks. ;) But what about the resolutions you've made?

Resolution shares a root with the word resolve. It's a powerful promise that you make. And when you make a promise to yourself, you need all the resolve you can muster because no one will call you out on backing out. It's between you and you. So what can you do to really keep that promise to yourself?

1. Make sure it really matters to you.
2. Set a reminder in your phone, your e-mail, somewhere that will pop up monthly.
3. Stop making excuses and do it.

I personally have enjoyed following Denise Duffield-Thomas's approach (her website: http://www.luckybitch.com/). She uses the "Be, Do, Have" for setting goals. Check out her book for more detailed approach, "Get Rich, Lucky Bitch." No, I do not get anything for promoting her book. There are just parts that I really like.

Essentially, the Be, Do, Have approach looks like this:

Be: In one year, what do you want to be?
Do: In one year, what do you want to be doing?
Have: In one year, what do you want to have?

I have found that I am able to get down to what I really want when I ask myself these questions. I whittle away the "rich, famous, and beautiful" thoughts that I think would be fun, and get down to the ones that I really know will make me happy.

And We're Back!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I hope we've all had a good time with the holidays. I hope you even took time off of work to enjoy the holidays. I know I did. :)

Status Updates on books: Totems: The Sword and the Shield is sitting still. I believe it's complete, although I will read through one more time just to check. Bernie's character needs a little tweeking, I think. Also, I'm considering changing the title to Totems: The King's Treasure. I believe The Sword and the Shield will work better for book 2.

Guardians: Revenge is about 8,000 words shy of being complete. Then it will sit for about a week before I begin serious editing. After the rough draft, I tend to edit as I go so editing should be relatively quick. Then it's to Beta Readers. I hope to have it published by the end of March. Also, Guardians: Gateways may receive a slight revision. There are a few typos that I would like to fix.

Publish Guardians: Revenge by the end of March happens to be one of my New Year's goals. I would say resolutions, but that does not fit. As one author has stated, a resolution is something you do to better yourself. A goal is how you might reach your resolution. For example: I want to be healthier in 2014 is a resolution. The goals might be based on eating habits or exercise or weight loss.

My second goal is to submit my work to a writing contest. I've found a local one and I think I'm going with the short story category. They have not updated rules for 2014, but last year submission was from April through June.

All in all, I'm very excited for this year. There's a lot of promise for things to be done. A lot of excitement. It's going to be great!

Do you have any writing goals (or other goals) that you want to share? Comment below!