Why...oh nevermind why...(And 2008 writing goals)

And it’s 2008!

I had a wonderful holiday and a fabulous New Year; I hope everyone else did too!

Every so often when I’m reading stuff on the net, I wonder, “Where do these authors get this from?” We’ve all seen major grammatical infractions and I’m sure we’ve all wondered, “Why?”

When I’m reading a print book and the author shoves a conversation between two characters in one paragraph, I no longer wonder why.

A print book.

Yes, print.

I think I’ll carry this book with me and use it to slap anyone who regards e-books as being lesser publishing than print books.

Anyway…

So, 2007 was a bit of a publishing roller coaster for me. I had three e-book contracts and one series contract. Full Circle was finally released after the umpteenth delay…just to have the publisher close. By year end, I’d found home for two of my three Chip orphans and gained a new e-book contract. I have one story in submissions right now and I finished About to Sin by my self-imposed deadline. Woo-hoo!

So, in 2008 here are my writing goals.

1)Sign with an agent. (Pretty lofty goal, huh?)
2)Get About to Sin print published.
3)Finish Full Circle’s sequel.
4)Gain four book contracts (e-pub or print pub).

The agent search will start in February. Can I do it? I don’t know, but you’ll have to keep watching over the next year to find out. I’ll be sure to share my successes and failures on my blogs.

It’s that time of year again…

It’s that time of year again…

I gave up doing New Year’s Resolutions many, many moons ago. I do like to take a moment and reflect upon my mistakes and successes of the past year and set goals.

Looking back on it, I failed most of my goals this year. Maybe that’s an ominous warning I should heed. Nonetheless, I will make new goals.

Mistakes:

The largest mistake I made this last year was losing a friendship. At one time, I had three friendships falter and I managed to mend two of them. One is gone and sadly, I think that one is gone forever. During my 31 years of life, I have lost one friend to argument/disagreement/misunderstanding. I think this one is the result of misunderstanding. I’m still not sure which one of us had the misunderstanding, if it was my fault, her fault or a general breakdown with equal blame on both sides. I’ve spent a great deal of time looking back on my behavior and the accusations thrown at me and, for the sake of my sanity, I still don’t see what I did to cause what happened. I do see where a few times, I may have been a bit self-centered and perhaps what I see as a little thing wasn’t so little on her end.

Either way, I’m done beating myself up for it, officially, come Jan. 1st. I will not let this baggage taint my new year.

The second largest mistake I made the last year is self-evident with my hospital visit. At times I pushed myself too hard, didn’t take care of myself properly, and didn’t get the medical attention I needed. I’m no longer a spring chicken and need to learn that medical problems won’t go away if ignored.

I also think I goofed off a bit too much during the year. There’s nothing wrong with taking breaks, but I think, at times, I slid a little too much into the Type B parts of my personality and squelched the Type A.

Goals:

I earned three writing contracts in 2006. In 2007, I’d like to see a minimum of six.

Do not lose another friendship.

Take better care of myself.

Work more diligently with a writing career. Now that I know that this is a real option for me, I need to make it work and work to make it.

Take more time for friends and family.

All in all, I think those are good goals. Sure, some of them are vague and perhaps, I should have specified something like “write a minimum of 3k words every day,” but I’m going to go with what I have.

I hope you all have a wonderful New Year and may 2007 be more productive and prosperous for all of us than 2006!