Happy New Year!

What are your plans for 2019? Every new year I try to plan out my goals for the upcoming 12 months.

But first I like to review how I did the year before.

How was 2018?

For 2018, I broke my goals down into business and personal, and even added a wish list.

The goals that didn’t work out are in red.

Business

• Publish Book 4 in my Sons of the Spy Lord Series [Released The Counterfeit Lady April 3, 2018]
• Finish and publish Book 5 in my Sons of the Spy Lord Series [Released Avenging the Earl’s Lady Nov. 12, 2018]
• Finish and publish my Leap Year story (Okay, I know it’s not a leap year, but who knows where I’ll be in 2020? And this story has been eating at me since 2016!) This project is looking pretty iffy. [But I did it! A Leap Into Love came out Feb. 22, 2018.]
• Finish a project for Kindle Worlds  [I was too late! Amazon scrapped Kindle Worlds in 2018]
• Work on one more writing project for a possible anthology [Just back from a developmental edit, this story will be part of the Common Elements Romance project for an October 2019 release.]
• Master Amazon Ads, or whatever the next big thing is in advertising. 
• Manage my promoting time better

Personal

• Spend more time with my family [accomplished this one, but due to illness rather than fun reasons]
• Eat less and better
• Exercise more [by a tiny increment toward the end of the year]
• Take a shovel to my garage, shelves, and closets—just kidding, but it’s past time for one of those periodic haul-aways. [Oh boy. My sister moved across country and many of her good things came my way and wound up in my garage. Then my son moved out in a gradual process. Then my husband got sick. I’ve made a dent in the garage, but I have a ways to go!]
• Do more knitting and sewing 
• Say no to all new volunteer “opportunities”. [This one I’ve achieved, however, I’m still working through multi-year commitments made in 2017.]

My 2018 Wish List:

Aside from these resolutions, my Polish/American hubby and I are talking about trying to swing a visit to Poland. I have two conferences in my sights also, the 20 to 50K conference in November, and the Historical Romance Retreat at the Mission Inn in Riverside, CA. Keeping my fingers crossed on these!

There was no trip to Poland. I paid for two conferences, InD’Scribe in October, and 20 to 50K in November and had to cancel attending both. My husband fell ill at the beginning of summer. What we thought was pneumonia turned out to be heart failure with a cascade of side effects and a struggle to find a surgeon to treat him.

What I learned:

I learned what it is to be a caretaker to a family member this year, a valuable and humbling lesson. Thankfully, my guy received a new heart valve and pacemaker just before Thanksgiving, and is on the mend. Thank you to Dr. Asad Shah and Dr. Jorge Castellanos for saving his life.

For 2019

Business:

• Finish a short novel for a Christmas anthology project
• Finish revisions and publish my Common Elements Romance Project short novel
• Research and plan my next series
• Marketing! I have a bunch of resources and projects to dive into to optimize my book marketing
• Keep saying No to volunteer projects. I have one last project I’m working on, a local conference, and then I am done. No more boards, no more committees, no more organizing special events.

Personal:

These are a bit “woo-woo”, and might be hard to measure, but I know what I have to do to achieve them!

• Treasure moments with family and friends. Have more of them.
• Take care of my health.
• Recognize other people’s feelings and be kinder.
• Seek peace. Walk away from/change the channel on the haters. (I’m seeing more harsh rhetoric in the publishing world also, so this is a business goal too.)

That’s it! Here’s to a peaceful, productive New Year for us all! Thank you to everyone who offered friendship, kindness, and support in 2018, and a special thank you to my lovely readers!

What are your goals, plans, dreams, for 2019?