New Year’s Resolutions? Well, maybe if I don’t call them that, I may actually be successful. Last year, I had three simple resolutions: Market, Write, and Clean. I don’t think I did too badly–except the “clean” part. I still need to clean the house–clean it up and clean it out. Before we move, I’d like to have half the stuff we have now. But that’s a long-term plan.

I usually suffer from “New Year Enthusiasm,” promising myself all sorts of changes and goals. This year, however, I’m going to make it easy on myself. My priority is to finish and publish Riding Herd before the Blueberry Festival in June. This is the sequel to Give the Lady a Ride, so you can expect me to be pushing that one again too. Probably giving a freebie so folks can read the first before the second comes out.

I’d really like to get it out this year. We’ll see.

Another goal is to write a devotional/study, and still another is to write more short stories. I enjoyed writing “Slider,” and my Christmas short story (which I never published) may make a great novella for this December.

Along with all these are the hopes of writing more magazine articles and blog posts. I’ve been toying with the idea of starting a new blog, Minding Mom, designed for women with elderly parents. Dad never got to achieve the “elderly” status, but I still have Mom, so most of the posts will pertain to her and the challenges we face. I also rediscovered Christian Women [dot com], so I may post more devotionals there. Writers write, right? I need to write more this year, and no one said I was limited to novels–a little something I learned from Sally Stuart at the ETBU conference last October.

A necessary evil, just like last year, is to keep up with my marketing and promotions. The bank teller laughed at my last royalty deposit. The look she gave me had “Don’t quit your day job” written all over it. Little does she know that this is my day job. Sigh.

I also intend to keep better track of what I read and to read more of a variety this year. We’ll see how that goes! I tend to disappear behind the covers of genres I most prefer–mystery/suspense, literary–but I really need to read more books on marketing and promotions, and I have a couple about writing mysteries that I’d love to dive into. I have plans, you see. I’m not going to write Romance/Women’s Fiction forever.

But I do know what’s on my book list for now because I’ve already started. You can expect book reviews on these in the not too distant future (they’re in no particular order, since I wasn’t capable of putting them in the order I wanted for some reason):

Writing more, marketing better, reading often. Pretty much the same as last year. I have other plans and dreams, but it’s time to stop listing them. The more I publicize, the more pressure I feel. The world’s watching, ready to point the cosmic finger at me if I fail.

Or not.

Either way, some resolutions–goals–need to remain a mystery to my readers.