Yesterday, I posted an article on “How to Practice Intentional Writing.” This goes together with my 2020 theme of being mindful and intentional this year. You can find the article here.
Tag Archives: blogging
2019 Goals Final Review
Welcome to January 2020! My, my how quickly the last year passed. I hope everyone enjoyed the holiday season. We loved spending time with our family and friends. Today is back to work for me, so I wanted to write out my final 2019 goals review.
GOAL 1: Submit Clever Tom to an agent
As I mentioned in November, I reconsidered this goal. With my real estate goals and caregiving duties, I simply can’t commit to an agent right now. In mid-December, I submitted this to one of my publishers. Fingers crossed.
GOAL 2: Participate in STORYSTORM
Knocked this out of the park. Ended up with more ideas than required and took less than 30 days to finish.
GOAL 3: Contribute to Guardian Angel Kids
This goal will be added to my 2020 list.
GOAL 4: Write 10 chapters of Amelia’s Mission
Ended up writing three new chapters due to editing a few manuscripts this year. However, I spent the last two days reading all the chapters I have, editing them, and preparing to get more written in January.
GOAL 5: Maintain my blogs
Never an issue, because I love blogging. I see 2020 as a year to consolidate some of them, so I’ll consider that over the next couple of weeks.
I’m satisfied with my progress in 2019. I’m approaching the new year with high hopes and determination to make even greater strides.
Christmas Titles at 4RV Publishing
Today, on the 4RV blog, I share our Christmas titles. These make perfect gifts for your little readers. Check out my post at https://4rvreading-writingnewsletter.blogspot.com/2019/12/christmas-titles-from-4rv-publishing.html to read more about each one of these.
2019 Goals Review
It’s that wonderful time of year again where I review goals and put together a business plan for the next year. I’ve been a bit of a slacker in staying on track with my 2019 goals. It has been an interesting year.
Here were my overall goals for the year.
- My calendar will be time blocked better this year, making me more effective and efficient
- I will submit at least one finished project to an agent
- I will actually take a vacation this year where I don’t do work–well, real estate work anyway
How did I do?
On the time blocking front, I did well until April. Then life got busy with work and family and it went by the wayside. Honestly, I’ve never been a time blocking fan, so I am not surprised. I also made it a bit complicated by having two calendars. I’m going to look at using a theme for each day like Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter and Square.
I submitted one finished project to an agent at the WriteAngles Conference, but that wasn’t the intention of the goal when I wrote it. I’ll give myself half credit for that.
Totally bombed on the non-working vacation part, but I did work less than usual. Half credit again.
These were my writing goals listed in January. How did I perform on this front?
GOAL 1: Submit Clever Tom to an agent
I researched agents and pitched it during a couple of online events, but didn’t submit it the way I intended. I plan to see if one of my current publishers will accept it. Not a cop out as much as realizing securing an agent is most likely a longer term goal considering what I want to accomplish with real estate in 2020.
GOAL 2: Participate in STORYSTORM
Not only did I win STORYSTORM in 2019, I finished early. Tara Lazar does a phenomenal job of running this every year. I’m thinking 2020 will be a skip year for me. I have plenty of ideas to work from over the last few years worth of wins, so creating those stories is my focus.
GOAL 3: Contribute to Guardian Angel Kids
Never happened and I feel so bad. I’m just really not a short story kind of person (says the person who writes picture books for children). This will remain a goal into the new year.
GOAL 4: Write 10 chapters of Amelia’s Mission
This year saw three additional chapters written for Amelia’s Mission. I completed an editing project that took up a good deal of writing time, but it was worth every minute. I can’t wait to see Dust of Lies released at the beginning of 2020.
GOAL 5: Maintain my blogs
This is always where I excel, because I love blogging. Even though there were weeks when things didn’t go as planned, overall, I stuck with it and posted to my blogs and contributed to the two blogs where I am a member. I’ve decided to talk more about books at An Imperfect Christian Mom so I can reduce the number of blogs I am maintaining. Other than that, I think I’ll be able to stay the course into 2020.
What goals did you set this year? What are some of your accomplishments?
Blogging at 4RV – Tips to Bust through Holiday Stress and Keep Writing
Isn’t this a great piece of clip art? I probably look like this around December 23. Today, at the 4RV Reading, Writing, & Art News I am sharing tips to bust through holiday stress and keep writing. Hope you’ll check it out by clicking here.
Blogging at 4RV – Taking Your Time and Doing it Right
I missed my first week of blog at the 4RV Blog this month, so I wanted to make sure I posted this week. Today, I am speaking about the importance of not rushing editing and taking the time to do it right. You can find that article at https://4rvreading-writingnewsletter.blogspot.com/2019/10/take-your-time-and-do-it-right.html
Blogging at 4RV Blog about Effective Book Promotion
As many of you know, before I became a REALTOR, I worked in online book promotion. Thanks to this experience and the effort put into marketing my own work, our local library asked me to hold a workshop for self-published authors on ways to promote their books. This week’s article at the 4RV Reading, Writing, & Art News blog talks about how effective marketing is about building relationships. You can read my article at https://4rvreading-writingnewsletter.blogspot.com/2019/09/effective-book-promotion-is-about.html
