We’ve been talking a lot about planning for our goals. Now it’s time for the big reveal: Wickeds, what goals do you want to hit this year? What’s on your must-do list, writing or otherwise?
Edith: I WILL meet three (gulp) deadlines and promote four books at release time: Charity’s Burden, Strangled Eggs and Ham, Christmas Cocoa Murder, and Judge Thee Not. But I also have a freshly born inspiration. I think I figured out a new historical mystery, riffing on my grandmother’s automobile drive with her younger brother across the country in 1917. I really want to write it. It involves a whole new set of research, and it’s a stretch goal. We’ll see if I make it!
Julie: Edith, that idea sounds wonderful! Why am I not surprised you’re related to someone who drove across the country in 1917? I am SO excited about launching Julia Henry’s new series next week, and Pruning the Dead finally getting in the hands of readers. My goals are to write a wonderful third book for that series, to launch Pruning the Dead, With a Kiss I Die (Theater Cop #2), and Tilling the Truth (Garden Squad #2) well. I’d like to have another series started as well. I am also doing a new launch for Your Ladders, my online business school for performing artists. My goal there is huge success!
Barb: This year will be one of teaming back and thinking about my priorities–in life and in my writing. Once I hand in the book I’m working on, I will only have one book under contract for the first time in a long time. I want to think about what I’m doing and what I want to achieve.
Jessie: I am working on the fourth Beryl and Edwina mystery. I also am noodling on a couple of new book ideas that are bringing me joy. My theme for the year is Level Up and I hope to do that with many of the things I already have under way like better attention to my social media presence and a more organized approach to things like my email and filing protocols. I also want to be sure to make time for the sorts of little things that make life more fun like knitting myself more handknit socks and lighting a scented candle in my office each day when I start to work.
Liz: I am working on the first book in a new series and my goal is to make it awesome! I’m also looking forward to a successful launch of my seventh Pawsitively Organic Mystery, Murder She Meowed, and the third book in my Cat Cafe series, Tell Tail Heart. Like Julie, I’m also launching a new business venture, and my goal is to attract my soul clients – women who need to regain their creative selves and need help doing so – and I’m also intending great success. And I want to focus on doing things that have meaning – and enjoying the year.
Sherry: We all seem to have a lot of overlapping threads. Like Edith, I’m writing three books this year. Like Barb I want to pull back and look at my life. I’m sharing a launch date with Julie. Like Liz one of the books I’m writing is the first in a new series — the Chloe Jackson Redneck Riviera mysteries. It’s going to be a challenging and fun year.
Readers, what are your goals for the year? Let us know!
Get ahead of the 16,492 (down from 17k) emails and 50+ past-due ARCs.
Surviving! I’ve got books coming out in March (Museum Mystery, no title yet), June (had a title, plot changed, hunting for new title), September (Orchard Mystery, not written yet), and January (County Cork Mystery, draft completed but no title yet). Hmm, hard to promote no-name books! That should keep me busy. Plus I’m planning to sell my current house (too big, too much work to take care of), assuming I clear out an awful lot of stuff, and I’m seriously considering moving to Ireland, or at least spending a lot more time there–it’s a perfect place to write and just relax.
In general, to enjoy life, to do the things that make me happy and to not let the little stuff get to me. To enjoy life means to take the trips we have planned and enjoy them to the fullest and to look on each day as a new adventure. Doing the things that make me happy would be baking, reading and photography and sharing those things with hubby makes me very happy. And last but not least, to not let the daily annoyances like the aches and pains get to me but to keep moving as much as I can, to remember that others are much worse off than I so I need to realize how blessed I am and to forget a bad day because morning brings a fresh start and the chance to have a great day. 🙂
2clowns at arkansas dot net
My goal this year-in addition to writing, of course- is to visit at least one coffee shop in every state along the east coast. In February I’m doing 28 coffee shops in 28 days for my Baltimore blog I’m resurrecting.
What, Edith? No second Cozy Capers this year? I’m bummed!! Looking forward to the others, of course.
Sorry, Mark! Summer 2020…
My goals match Kay’s almost exactly. And to reach those goals, I have one more. To learn to say “No” more often. As I get older, I have to admit I can’t do as much as I used to or want to. It’s time to sit back and reap the joys of retirement that I earned.
My goal is to write and edit my first cozy mystery over the summer! 🙂
Kay, I agree with you. I’m trying to be more grateful this year for all of the good things in my life. Like you, Grace, my writerly goal is to draft the first cozy in my Massachusetts-set series.
My goal is to stay off Facebook more and get the next book in my series written. I go into Facebook and Twitter, and it is like going down a rabbit hole–once I get into it, I find myself surfacing in the next county.
I really hope to attend Malice Domestic for the first time. I have mobility problems but my husband of 48 years today really wants to make it happen with mobility can rental. I am looking forward to meeting some of you and so is he
My year goal, is my goal every year, surviving the year! 🙂