Over the weekend, I read The Naked Truth About Self-Publishing by The Indie Voice, a group of wildly successful indie romance authors. I’ve been in awe of their success over the past few months, and also a little frustrated because I can’t imagine achieving those sorts of numbers. And then I finally read the book and realized those ladies worked their asses off. Like everything in life, to be successful, you have to put in the time. I’ve been pretty productive over the past year as a while, but the last couple of months sort of fell apart. Reading The Naked Truth was exactly the kick in the pants I needed. Everyone’s life and pace is different, and we have to stop comparing ourselves to others (a big Achilles heel for me). We (meaning I) need to work as hard as our individual schedules allow, and if we’ve given our endeavors everything we have, that’s something to be proud of. Kind of a “well, duh,” life mantra that applies to everything, isn’t it?

So here’s my public list of goals this year:

• I will make the best use of my time as possible without putting my family on the back burner.
• I will publish five books: ASHES and BONE (Delta Crossroads Trilogy #3), and the entire four book Lucy Kendall Series (titles still in flux). ASHES and BONE releases in February!
• I will focus on my own writing and production. Quality will always come first, but I recognize that to achieve the level of success I want, I’ve got to WRITE A LOT.
• I will take better care of my health. In order to fight off my sleepy spells, I will do at least 20 minutes of yoga in the morning (on day three of that, and it’s making a huge difference), and 15 minutes of cardio in the mid day.
• I will use relaxation techniques to help quiet my mind and sleep.
• I will be proud of my achievements and own them.

I decided to post this list because I wanted to own it, and I wanted to account for my blogging silence. I also wanted to thank all of my readers who’ve taken the time to review and let me know how much they’ve enjoyed the books. Building an audience is challenging, but the one on one interaction with readers makes it worth it. I’ve very lucky to have started my publishing career in the digital age with so many avenues available to authors.

Thanks for reading, and be on the look out for some cool posts in the next couple of weeks about the stories behind ASHES and BONE (Delta Crossroads Trilogy #3)

Time’s ticking away on 2011, and I’m vowing to push hard on my goals for the next few weeks. I really want to begin the query process, but I want to be completely organized before I do it. I’m working on it, but still have a ways to go.

This week has been pretty productive. Wednesdays list was a big one. I did get through INTO THE DARK. I hadn’t read it in a few weeks and was surprised to see how much I really enjoy it. It’s a good book, and I’m proud of it. I also managed to cut out another 3K or so, getting rid of unneeded clauses and extra language.

I also got some more research done on e-publishers and agents, but not as much as I wanted to.

I haven’t worked on THE PROPHET yet. My mind has been focused on INTO THE DARK. I’m just not great at going back and forth.

Thriller Thursday went well, but it still doesn’t get the traffic I’d like it to. I think one of the issues is that the posts are long, so I’m going to work on cutting them down to about 1500 words.

I did get my crit partner’s pages read. Catie Rhodes has a very good book on her hands:)

All in all, a productive several days. Lists do work!

Here are my goals for the next check in:

1) Make final changes on first three chapters of INTO THE DARK.

2) Finalize list of e-publishers. Continue to work on agents.

3) Write a minimum of 500 words on THE PROPHET.

4) Get back into yoga. I’ve been utterly fail since we got back from Indy. I’m tired and lazy, and I know yoga will help. I just have to do it:)

How’s your week been? Are you all ready for Halloween?

Random, but now you’re beginning to see how my brain works!

Onto Row80 Update:

On Sunday I mentioned how the Snowflake Method helped me with my plotting. I was able to take my list of ideas and get about half the book plotted. I had the first turning point and the midpoint; all I was missing was the second turning point. I have to give a huge shout out to Kait Nolan here—she very graciously has several of her writing worksheets available for download. I tried her plotting blueprint, and by the end of the day, I had my final turning point as well as several more important details. So after feeling stalled on the writing of The Prophet for a while, I’m finally ready to dig into it.

And thanks to the Snowflake methods and Kait’s worksheets, I was able to come up with a rough synopsis for The Prophet, which led to a blurb for the blog. Check it out here. I’m ready to write today, and I hope to report a few thousand words by Sunday.

As for Light and Dark, I’m going to be working on an updated blurb for it as well, and my query letters are getting close to being finished. I’ve sent out another 50 pages to my final critique partner, and I’m slowly assembling the list of agents I want to query. Still on track to get started in a few weeks.

On the personal front, Grace and I painted pumpkins last night. As you can see, we’re serious artists. Don’t you wish these babies were on your front porch?

Quick blogging update: I’ve decided to shelve Tempting Tuesdays for now. They usually get low traffic, and I’m not sure if that’s because of the day or topic. Anything I’d talk about on Tuesdays could easily be moved to Monday, and I want to focus on getting Thriller Thursdays more exposure. With Row80 updates, I’ll still be blogging 4 times a week. Speaking of Thriller Thursdays, I have something special planned for next week, so mark your calendars!

Discussion question of the day: what do you do to get your butt in the writing chair and achieve your daily goals?

Hope you’re having a great Row80 week!