2024 is Coming

To piggyback off Kit’s post (because I have no creativity whatsoever this week), I’ve been doing some noodling about 2024 and what I want to accomplish. This year has been a bit of a mixed bag writing-wise, some good, some not-so-good, and I’d like to ramp it up a bit, assuming there are no horrific crises or emergencies or general ongoing unpleasantness that makes things, well, unpleasant. So let’s talk about how things went this year first, shall we?

I had a few goals. They were:

To publish an erotic contemporary romance novella on Radish (similar to Kindle Vella), which was a pivot/experiment to see how readers would respond to my writing in a different genre. Result: The novella, BAV, as I am calling it, is about 1/3rd done. It’s on hold a bit while I figure some stuff out. It ended up being a bit deeper than I’d intended, delving into subjects like parental control, religious cults, and BDSM. Sooo I am deciding if I want to go all in, or if I want to rein it in some.

To finish my anthology story. Result: I rewrote it twice, and started yet another rewrite which I believe will be the last. It just wasn’t working the first two times. It’s about 5,000 words now. Again, on hold, but I have full intentions of finishing. This antho has had a floating deadline, so I’ve been sort of waiting for the muse to get back on board with this one.

To tackle a languishing story and make progress. Result: I have three novels I call “languishing;” that is, novels sitting on my hard drive awaiting finishing, revision, or rewriting. They are the three that if I had only so many books left to write in my lifetime, these are the three I would finish for sure, no ifs, ands, or buts. So I chose Survivor, from twenty — yes, twenty — years ago and started working on the rewrite again. And…stopped. Had a crisis of confidence. Currently working through that. It’s a priority for next year.

To continue writing poetry/to start publishing poetry again. Result: Yes, baby, this has been the BIGGEST win this year! Not only have I still been regularly writing poetry, but I have also started getting published again! Started submitting in June and was first published by September!

To write (and hopefully finish) a long work for TDP. Result: This one was to be Soulless, a fairytale retelling I’d originally started writing for an anthology a few years back, but then I got this wild idea a few weeks ago for a unicorn shifter/vampire novel based on a Tarot reading (it makes sense, I promise!) and a premade cover I’d bought with no matching story at the time (as one does) and started writing immediately as the muse was, well, excited. This might be it. Then again, I don’t really know. This long work thing has been nebulous. I’m hoping.

So, along with all that, I’ve had a lot of health upheaval. Still dealing with extreme fatigue, a cancer scare, a pinched nerve (plus four disc herniations in my neck) which resulted in a painful and basically useless right arm/two fingers and I ended up needing an epidural (and now I am due for another one, yay) along with my usual every-three-month nerve blocks for the occipital neuralgia and did I mention the once-a-month injections also I give myself as well? I feel like a damn pincushion, but without all of this I am in extreme pain and I wouldn’t be able to function. I used to be scared of needles, yo. Now? I’m snickering because well, I don’t even think about it anymore. Just freaking poke me and let’s move on.

My business is still thriving, which I am so grateful for. However, it does take a great deal of energy and time, and that’s another thing that needs to be considered when thinking about goals. Practically speaking, how much time and energy do I really, truly have?

So here’s what I’d like to accomplish in 2024:

~Finish something, anything. Maybe even publish.

~Finish the draft of BAV (Radish novel).

~Finish anthology story (assuming there’s a deadline attached. I’m assuming we’ll try to publish it in 2024).

~Progress on Survivor

~Progress on unicorn shifter/vampire novel

~Write more poetry/publish more poetry

~Start on Dark Song and/or Bound sequel. These are two novels I outlined for NanoWriMo this year that I ended up not writing a word on. I had some personal stuff going on and just wasn’t feeling it. Both would be good, especially the Bound sequel, as Bound is going into an anthology next year and I wanted to have another book to follow if the readers enjoyed Bound. I’d be working on it now if I could pin down a plot. I had one, but scrapped it due to feeling too derivative and ambitious. I need something I can bang out in a few months. Not an epic, lol.

~And the biggest, which has eluded me for a LONG time: get on a consistent writing schedule. So far, nothing’s really stuck since I started my business. So, that needs to be #1 on the priority list. Get it figured out, and the rest will hopefully follow!

Yeah, kinda a lot, and I doubt I’ll get to it all, but I always believe it at least putting it out there. You never know, right? Maybe I’ll suddenly feel super great and I’ll get super productive and boom! I’ll just…have another 400k year like 2006.

One can dream, right?

Anyway, hope everyone has an awesome, safe, healthy, perfect, drama free, happy, fun-filled holiday and New Year.

And we will see you on the flip side.