Looking Back and Looking Ahead

As I’ve written in the past, I’m not big on making New Year’s resolutions, but I do have goals. To me, a resolution and a goal aren’t quite the same thing. Resolutions involve one or two firm decisions to make a change or improvement no matter what. Goals are less stringent and don’t necessarily mean making a big change, but rather tweaking things here and there.

In a way, it’s also an odd contradiction for me. Looking back on my year-in-review this time last year, my plan was to cut back for 2016, as I’d taken on too much in the two previous years. And I did cutback. I gave fewer workshops, which required a fair bit of prep time, and reduced the amount the number of blogs I wrote.

Although I didn’t publish any new work this year, 2016 was still a year for goal achieving. I finally obtained my rights back to my Casey Holland novels and reissued five of six novels in multiple ebook platforms. This project is nearly complete, as I work on the last Casey novel now.

I’ve also been working on five different writing projects: two novellas and three novels. One of them is a fantasy which has been new and interesting challenge. It’s something I’d put off for years, but started last January. Now, I’m almost finished the first draft.

Despite the cutbacks on workshops, I still participated in 18 writing-related events this year; many of which were bookselling opportunities at a wide variety of locales. Have you ever sold books at a winery? It’s great fun. You get to drink, your customers drink, and everyone is friendly and chatty.

While book sales chugged along, I also managed to read and review 47 books, and write about the same number of blogs. So, will I cutback a little more this year? Perhaps. I’m still doing my part-time day job and enjoying it. My mother’s dementia becomes an increasing challenge for our family, but that’s life. In 2017, I also hope to publish another Casey Holland mystery and one novella.

If had to make a resolution for 2017, it would be to continue to do my best with whatever time, energy, and skill I have. We’ll see how it goes a year from now. Meanwhile, I wish all of you a creative, productive, and healthy new year!