Happy New Year!

Well here we are, another year drawing to a close, and a time when we take stock of our lives and look toward a New Year.

2013 brought another whirlwind of excitement for me. My first book, Landing the Big Ones, released on January 8 (and nominated for Book of the Year at The Talent Cave Reviews!). It was followed by The Art of Love in February, and Training the Help in April. I had set a goal for myself of releasing one book per quarter and it looked like I'd be able to do that and then some. But another alter ego ran into some trouble with a book that required extensive rewrites and that pulled me out of the headspace I needed to be in to write erotic romance. Getting back on track proved more difficult than I had anticipated. And I found too many stories clamoring to be told, which distracted me a lot! What should have been Hedon Falls 3 got pushed back to #4, and then to #5 when a certain character kept begging me to write his story. In the end, I managed to finish Hedon Falls 4 and get it submitted, and accepted! My scheduled release is February 13. So I met my goal of 4 books last year, but one of them happened to be for a different pen name.

With all the craziness going on in my personal life as well (started a new EDJ, Dad has been diagnosed with cancer, hubby was out of work for a few months, kids are struggling in school) I've become much more withdrawn. I love interacting with readers, but I found myself with less time to devote to blogging and other social media.

So what's next for me?

I submitted a short story to Decadent and was rejected, but I have plans to revise that one and submit to another publisher. In addition, I'm halfway through another short for the same publisher, and I'm overrun with ideas for other shorts. My other self is working on a follow-up, and I have just started what I'm hoping will be a significant work for me (Michelle Graham).

My resolution is to devote more time to my writing career, both the actual writing, and the social media, though I'm going to start small. Here's my 2014 To Do list:

1. Check in on Facebook at least every other day, even just for a quick peek.
2. Ditto for Twitter.
3. Do at least one blog post each week, in addition to blog hops, hosting blog tours, promo blitzes, and doing reviews.
4. Finish and submit Hedon Falls 5.
5. Finish and submit 4 short stories for another publisher (Siren doesn't do short ones).
6. Finish and submit my alter ego's second book.
7. Finish a first draft of my big, secret project.

That looks like a lot of writing, but I did the math and if I reach my word count targets for all of those writing projects, it's only 727 words every day. When it's put like that, it seems totally doable.

So friends and lovelies, I'd love to hear about your 2013 accomplishments, and plans for 2014. And I wish you all the best!