Disappointments & Drive

I’ll be the first to admit it’s taken me some time to get back into the swing of writing after the holidays.

Truth be told, after NaNoWriMo, I was spent, and didn’t even look at my book until January. I KNOW! How dare I?! But, after the dizzying madness of trying to get at least a good chunk of it written, I needed to step away from the computer for a while.

That doesn’t mean I haven’t been thinking about writing. Trust me, I’m never not thinking about my books, stories and ideas.

Case in point, here are some of my plans for 2015.

WRITE MORE!
It’d be safe to say that’s a goal I have every day of the year but it doesn’t hurt to say it out loud.

And really, it’s a win-win situation, since I’ll have more stories for my readers while also improving my writing as I go. Score!

First on the list is to finish the book I started in November (another Lockwood story!).  About half of it is written and after spending the last week going over my original outline, fleshing out the plot a bit more, and reorganizing scenes, I’m ready to write the 2nd half. I’m getting into the meat of the book now too, so hopefully it will flow well and I can knock it out in a month or so.

SHARE MORE
Some things I just don’t share (like bacon…), but this year, I want to make a concerted effort to get my writing in front of as many new people as possible.

One of the ways I intend to do that is through serials!

I’ve been playing with a few serial ideas for some time now but I’m hoping things will come together soon (i.e. after brainstorming on the 3 different ideas, seeing which one grabs me the most) so I can get started writing episodes and hopefully have things ready for public eyes in the Spring.

I’m still debating how I’ll get those episodes out as well, so stay tuned for more info (or feel free to join my Newsletter for the announcement!).

FINISH THINGS
Okay, so I admit it – I get easily distracted by Bright Shiny New Ideas so this year, my goal is to get some of these novels finished edited and ultimately…published!

Seeing my fellow authors sending their autographed books out to Christmas shoppers made me realize I want to do that! So, with a lot of hard work, I hope to have a book out by the end of 2015!

NEVER GIVE UP
So, I know I never really talked about it publicly, but toward the end of the year, I decided to put my Patreon campaign on hold.

I hated to do it. I felt a little like a failure having to do it. But it had to be done.

I was stressing myself out trying to write all this extra content and also getting 1 new ebook out every month (which included book formatting, cover design, promotion, etc.) and always wondering if anyone was even seeing my work.

Since most of the extra content was for patrons, and I only had a grand total of 2, I knew that all this cool stuff was just hidden from inquiring minds.

I loved writing the little extras, though. The behind-the-scenes content, the inspirations, the mini videos. The coolest thing was getting feedback directly from my contest winners and getting their help choosing covers for the ebooks.

And if it wasn’t for trying Patreon, I may not have finally dipped my toes into self-publishing. I think that’s the biggest regret – I’ve fallen out of the routine of having that new ebook out every month.

So, although I’ve had to retreat & regroup, I still intend to resurrect that idea of the patron rewards in 2015.

I’m still pondering the details but the gist of it is I’ll probably be doing it all via my own website, and some of the perks (like Altered Words, to name but 1), I’ll probably be bringing back to my blog (which was how it started in the first place).

I don’t want to put barriers up between myself & readers. And I certainly don’t want to give up just because 1 avenue didn’t pan out for me. I just need to look at things and find a way to do them better

SO THERE!
So, yeah…those are some of my writing plans for 2015. Much of my work this year will be editing, but don’t worry – I’ll have new words, new stories, and new tales to tell as well. You can’t get rid of me that easy!