A year ago I set myself the target to publish at least my dragon shifter book this year. I also choose Focus as my word of the year, and wanted especially to apply that to routines, words, clearing, and togetherness.
Well, this year was not the year that most of us anticipated as we have been hit by a global pandemic and all the restrictions and lockdowns that came as a result of trying to slow the spread.
On the positive side I did publish my book, and a novella in the Realms of Fae and Shadow anthology, as well as writing the first drafts of both Fae fair and Dragon’s Heir. So I did manage a semi-focus on words, though doing that while home-schooling in Dutch was hard for all of us. And everyone being at home all the time was a boon for developing more of a sense of togetherness and shared family experiences, which was what I had hoped for this year, even if it wasn’t in the way I had anticipated.
With all the upheaval and things changing we had to be flexible with our routines, but I think we found a way that mostly worked for us. The one thing that I made no progress on was having a sort out of stuff. Our house is still just as full as it was a year ago, if not fuller now. So that is something that needs to roll over into next year. Hopefully now that we have (very very nearly) finished painting all the window frames and door frames we will be able to de clutter and sort out what we have.
One task I did this year which I had thought about, but not written into my plans, was to change website hosting. I am very pleased to be self-hosted and have all this flexibility in how I display things on my site, but I do need to go back and optimise some of the older content and improve how it looks in this new template. There are also a few other things I need to sort out and improve on the back end as well.
My main focus for next year will be to publish Fae Fair and Dragon’s Heir. These are both on preorder and I have the drafts written, so I need to edit them both and then get them ready to publish. I also want to draft the next book in each of those series so they are ready to publish in 2022. How is that for advance planning!
My word for the 2021 is going to be build: building the backlist of books I have available, as well as building my audience and relationships.
I want to make building my newsletter list a priority, as well as my engagement on social media. I’m also involved in a podcast that is going to launch in the New Year, so that is an exciting project to be part of and I’m looking forward to seeing how that will go.
Given where we are starting this year, with schools shut and a lockdown in place, I have no doubt that there will be many challenges in 2021 as well. I am equally sure that we will find a way through them.