2010...it's a wrap

2010 was an amazing year for me. I became published for one, realizing a dream, even if it was a fairly new one :). I gained a tremendous amount of experience with the craft of writing as well as understanding how the publishing industry works. Sort of LOL. And I made wonderful friends, some I've never even met in person!

So...2010, what did you teach me?

• Writers are just so friendly & supportive towards other writers. It really is an amazing community to be a part of.
• I really can tell people that I write hot & steamy romance and the sky won't fall in. Really :).
• I'm a bit lazy. Yep, I can term it being a perfectionist, I can call it procrastinating, but I have a tendency to be lazy if I can get away with it. There. I said it. The first step is recognizing the problem, right LOL?
• I actually like blogging and social networking. Who would ever have guessed that?
• Publishing is a changing and evolving industry and it doesn't look like that's going to stop anytime soon.
• Marketing and promotion is a bit of a crap shoot. You never really know what works or doesn't. You kinda make the best educated choices you can and hope for the best!
• Sadly, the romance genre is still looked down on by people in the 'literary world' and the public in general, despite the incredible sales figures.
• Writing is hard and it's work and it's solitary. Even though I love it and intellectually I knew it was hard, I think you have to live it to really get that on an emotional and spiritual level. It's not for everyone.
• Being published feels just as amazing as I thought it would.

I haven't firmed up all of my goals for 2011 yet, but thought I'd share the highlights of my thinking for the coming year:

• Read more! My reading has really dropped off lately and I feel like it could have an impact longer term. I'd like to get back to my favorite authors. I've missed them. The good news is that there is a huge backlog waiting for me.
• Attend the RWA Nationals conference in NY, possibly RT and probably RomantiCon. There's nothing quite like networking (aka partying) with other romance authors.
• Turn in 4 - 5 ebooks - hot & steamy contemporaries!!
• Finish 2 category length manuscripts that are in progress.
• Flesh out the outline for my first paranormal series and draft the first book. This story just won't give me any peace, so I have no choice.
• Revamp the look & feel of my website and blog. It's long overdue, right?
• Add new segments on my blog. Stay tuned!
• Query agents.
• Stop dicking around so much on the Internet :).
• Become Twitter Queen. Well, perhaps not queen, but at least use it more effectively. See point above ;).

Happy New Year to everyone!! Wishing you a year filled with good health and happiness and much reading--romance, of course!

OMG! I'm going to be published...

They finally put me out of my misery!  I've been excited, distracted and just about bursting with this news for two weeks, but wanted to make sure everything was finalized and official before I announced it. I'm going to be published! PUBLISHED! Another milestone for 2010! OK, so it's a biggie milestone, but it's one I didn't think would necessarily happen in the first part of this year. At the beginning of 2010, I didn't plan to write a novella and I hadn't planned on submitting to an epublisher. Not yet anyway. I've written about this before, but when I was browsing the publisher sites, I saw a call for submission and was immediately hit with an idea. Even then, I shrugged it off but the characters and the story just wouldn't let go. So, over the course of about a week I sat down and just wrote it. I sent it in and moved on and the voices in my head stopped (well those particuar voices anyway) LOL. I went through a round of revisions and about two weeks ago, they let me know they'd like to contract it! It's under 15,000 words, but my first published work Picture This, will be released from Ellora's Cave (hopefully soon!) and stays true to my 'heat with feeling' approach to writing. My editor, Grace (wow, not sure I'm going to get used to saying that anytime soon) has been very professional, responsive and oh so kind and understanding. So far! I haven't received my final edits yet, though :). I can't wait to get to know her better and learn as much as I can from her. Lots of happy dancing going on here!

So, how did I celebrate? Well, I did what any other woman would do, of course. I went out and bought a new pair of shoes. :)

So ... goals

Yeah, goals. I decided this year I was going to get stuff done - really get stuff done. I started to break my goals down by month and post it out on the blog. I have writing goals of course (and they're the highest priority), but there are other things I want to learn and do on the road to publication. I don't want to suddenly find myself on the brink of being published (oh, man!) and have no idea about social networking or marketing or how publishing actually works or contract terms or any number of a hundred areas I should be familiar with as an author. So, I couple writing goals with other things I think are important about the business of writing. I figured if I put these goals in writing, I'd feel more accountable. Plus, there would be others (i.e. YOU) who would see them and perhaps I'd feel more accountable because of that. I have to say it does seem to be working. I'm reminded of my goals whenever I see/update my blog. It forces me to plan out my month ahead of time so that I can really accomplish all of them. It propels me to set goals which stretch me, but which are totally doable. In fact, I'm thinking I might need to be more aggressive. It gives me something concrete and productive to flip over to if I need a break from writing or if it just aint happening for some reason. I can do something different for awhile and I’ll still be working towards my ‘big picture’ plan.

Last month, I had a goal to find out more about guest blogging. I’ve really enjoyed my blogging experience so far and would love to contribute to another blog as well. Looking into that was fascinating and people are so helpful and supportive. I’ve proceeded with the mantra ‘you don’t get what you don’t ask for’ and it seemed to work. I don’t have a regular gig (yet!), but I’m going to be featured on another blog! Sarah Simas has a wonderful blog http://thelovestrucknovice.blogspot.com/ called The Lovestruck Novice and I’m going to be A Novice to Watch on April 12! I’m so excited!!

I also had mentioned launching a new feature on my blog. I wanted to make my blog not just more interesting, but really useful to those you have bothered to stop by. I wanted it to be of value. I thought about the things I’ve struggled with on this journey. I wrote down the things I always wanted to know about being published. The idea for my new feature was born from that! I’m being vague I know, but I want to finalize some remaining details before I announce it officially, but it will start THIS MONTH! Stay tuned….

1 down, 3 to go

Goals that is. For January. I've revised my Linda Howard Award of Excellence finalist entry, polished an accompanying synopsis and sent it off. One day early (for a procrastinator like me, that's a big deal)! I'm so glad it's done with. I found it really difficult to work the synopsis on this one for a number of reasons. Firstly, I just hate to do them. I know a lot of people say that but I really, truly HATE to do them. Secondly, I wrote this manuscript in at the end of 2008 into early 2009 so it's kind of a long time ago. I found it hard to connect back with the characters, their motivations and their conflict to easily pluck those themes out so that they came through clearly in the synopsis. Thirdly, I felt my voice had changed since I wrote the manuscript. A lot!! Sometimes as I was reading it, it felt as if someone else had written it. That added to the challenge. It was an interesting process. Now I can forget about it until March!

My other goals? I may have been a bit ambitious considering it's already the 13th, but I like to work under pressure, so we'll see. I'm ready to sink my teeth into something brand spanking (no pun intended) new :).