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)