2014 New Year Plan!

Happy 2014, readers! Here's hoping for a fantastic year of reading and writing. :)

Because I'm an obsessive list-maker, I've decided to take a look back at my resolutions for 2013, and look ahead at the coming year!

My 2013 resolutions were to:

• Find a home for Darkness Watching (I did, yay! :D)
• Prepare for the publication of my first novel, The Puppet Spell (I did that, too!)
• Work on the sequel (that fell through...)
• Make a post-graduation plan (kind of did that)
• ...and believe in myself. Well, I'm still learning to do that, but I'm further ahead than I used to be!

I actually achieved a lot more than that - I drafted 5 books, edited 6 (most more than once, with feedback from beta readers, publishers etc), published 2 and entered my first writing contest. Wow!

This year, I'm going to be a bit more specific! I've made a list of general goals on this awesome site, so I'm picking out a few...

• Draft at least 3 books. (This depends on edits on my other books!)
• Fully edit and publish Walking Shadow (Darkworld #2) and hopefully Darkworld Book 3, as well. (This depends on the Emails of Doom currently messing with my sanity!)
• Get Darkworld books 4 and 5 ready to send to publishers.
• Decide on the publication path for Beneath the Waves.
• Read 250+ books (trying to maintain my 2013 goal!)
• Try not to stress out so much about not being able to plan ahead! (This is the bane of my existence. I'm an obsessive planner, but pretty much everything in my life is virtually impossible to plan ahead of time because it's always open to change. Publishing is a notoriously unpredictable business, so I'm trying to learn to be patient!)
• Make a marketing action plan, and try not to get too obsessive about it! Mostly, I'm going to try to be more active - I tend to go through phases of trying to do ALL THE THINGS - comment on every blog, participate in every contest - and then suffer from being overwhelmed. So I'm going to try and be active and engaged in the online writing community without overdoing the social media and ending up despairing over random internet articles on the publishing industry and not being able to write.
• Linked to the above: find balance! Specifically, between writing and non-writing-related things! Spend less time freaking out.
• Do something challenging
• Apply for new opportunities, and don't let fear hold me back!
• Get a tattoo
• Go travelling (depends on budget, but there a LOT of places I want to go!)
• Go on a research trip (see above)

Mostly, I'm hoping for a year of adventure, surprises, and lots of WORDS.