No. I’m not writing a goals post. I refuse. Not even the most persuasive chocolate bearing sweet-talker can talk me into one. So there. Ha.

Why? No one wants to read a goals post. Yes, I totally have a few (hundred) goals that I’m making plans to make happen, but waxing all poetic about it all over the blog feels, well, pretentious.

That – and of the hoard of goals I put into writing, I’ll probably completely forget about 70% of them before January ends. It took forty years to figure out that when it comes to personal goals, I tend to go a little crazy – and I can’t handle crazy right now.

Does this all sound a bit familiar? Yeah… I totally did it last year with my whole power word campaign.

Here’s a review of 2019

I really liked the idea of power words, but the idea faded out after the first few months. I still have two words posted here at my desk and I wouldn’t be able to tell you what they were. Note to self – don’t pick nine power words. Instead of digging deep into one idea, I was all over the place with a constantly shifting focus. It was an interesting experiment and if I did it again, I would approach it differently.

As a family, 2019 was busy. With all the kids in school but none of them driving, it means lots of being a mom taxi for me. We traveled quite a bit in our travel trailer, including heading down to the Grand Canyon and Hoover Dam. Currently, the kids love video games, board games, and exploring new places.

At the beginning of 2019 I’d just barely survived putting my first book into the world and was already on the edge of a significant burnout. Most of January of 2019 consisted of 6-8 hour days contacting reviewers and learning how to best market a new product, all while being a mom to young kids and also maintaining a home. What made me more tired than anything was not knowing what needed to be done and and trying to do all the things anyway. I’ve learned a lot this year and going forward I have a better plan for future releases.

Which leads me to my most significant moment of 2019, the decision to request back my rights to my first book back and create my own publishing label – Stone Orchid Press. This was not a decision I entered into lightly. I agonized for months over the pros and cons of staying with traditional publishing vs taking up the banner on my own. In the end, the flexibility of setting my own deadlines combined with having more control over the quality of the finished project and the production schedule helped me make my decision.

Going into 2020

My big focus for 2020 will be to find balance between my career as an author, taking care of myself, caring for my family, and keeping the household in order. As we left 2019, I worked actively to find a way to handle my schedule in such a way that I could do all four things in a very intentional way.

My big kick off announcement for 2020 is the rerelease of Stonebearer’s Betrayal in preparation for the release of the sequel novel, Stonebearer’s Apprentice, coming later in the Spring.

You can totally order it RIGHT NOW.

Head here for the newly branded ebook

Or … here for the brand new shiny paperback (Note – the cover is still in the process of loading into Amazon, but this is the correct link)

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