S.J. Pajonas's Blog, page 39

Sunday Update – January 17, 2021

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog.

So, first of all, it’s my birthday tomorrow, and I’m turning 45! So yay! Happy birthday to me! My plan is to spend the day reading, knitting, and eating after doing a Peloton ride and workout in the morning.

Second piece of news, I am switching servers at my website host to a virtual private server this week. I have been on the same shared webhosting plan for over 20 years, and it was time to finally bite the bullet and go for the better plan. I will have more drive space, my more transfer data, and most of all, more PHP memory. There are lots of sites I want to build that use plugins that require more PHP memory and it was just becoming a pain to not have access to more memory. So, this site may be down or a little jacked up Tuesday and maybe Wednesday too. Hopefully I can post to the blog on Thursday. I am a little nervous about this! All of my email needs to be moved over too. But the migration team at my host is top-notch and I’m going to put my faith in them to get it done.

Otherwise, it was a usual week around here. The kids did their school, and I worked on edits to AN UNFORGIVING DESERT. Edits are almost complete! I should be done with them sometime today. I am also reading the novella submissions to the anthology that I’m co-editing, which makes a nice change of pace from my other work.

I did a lot of workouts this week including lots of core classes, pilates, yoga, and strength. I rode the Peloton Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. Saturday was the first time I’ve ever done a 60 minute class! It was great! I love that I can see and feel my endurance and strength building with every ride.

Lulu continues to amaze us with the positions she’ll sleep in.

Speaking of pets, here’s a photo of me as a baby trying to make friends with Bozo the cat. Now, you must know that Bozo had an evil streak. He loved to attack my parents, but he was a cool cat with me. (Yes, he was named after the clown.) (Yes, your eyes do not deceive you, he is outside on a leash.)

This week was all about editing.

I got my Pelton Century Club t-shirt! You get this shirt from Peloton for free when you complete 100 classes in any of their specialties (Bike, Strength, Yoga, whatever). I got an email from them when I completed my 100 rides, I filled out a form for the t-shirt, and it arrived within a week!

Speaking of rides, I did my first ever 60 minute ride on Saturday. I’m wearing bandanas when I ride now to keep the sweat out of my eyes and ears (and AirPods). I have bandanas in a million colors. Time to put them to use.

We made tacos with Impossible Burger meat and they were the closest to Taco Bell tacos I’ve ever had. So good. I didn’t want it to end!

Lulu and me, prior to our walk.

A funny photo I found in my Prime Photos memories today… This is my oldest child, 12 years ago, in her box of playtime stuff. Lol. Yes, I would put her in the box to keep her occupied while I tried to do stuff. Trust me, she loved it.

And cheers to another week finished, complete with another impeachment.

Have a fantastic week everyone! Stay safe and stay healthy.

The post Sunday Update – January 17, 2021 appeared first on S. J. Pajonas.

Top 5 Animals That Would Make Great Companions on a Spaceship

Imagine me sitting down to write these books and deciding that the Amagi, Vivian’s spaceship in the Flyght Series, needs to have animals on board. Who doesn’t love those scenes of all the cattle on Serenity in Firefly? Or tribbles on the Starship Enterprise? Let’s face it, animals make everything better, including a good sci-fi romance.

Farm and Aquatic Animals – Depositphotos

When it came time for me to choose the animals to feature, I gave the topic some thought and then polled my awesome friends on Facebook for some inspiration.

Chickens and Ducks – Birds seemed like the obvious choice as our top pick. Chickens and geese, when not too stressed, will lay eggs, offering an easy protein source. Of course, those eggs will end up on the inside of the cargo bay should things go a little crazy. Chickens and ducks can also be slaughtered for meat if life gets rough. (Note: the harming of animals does not occur in the Flyght Series.) Plus, these birds are just cute when they get out of the cargo bay and find themselves roaming in the darnedest of places.Sheep and Goats – When considering slightly larger farm animals, I skipped pigs and went straight to sheep and goats. First, sheep and goats can provide milk if you purchase female ones who had babies recently. They also can provide wool for yarn or barter. They are also food sources should things get rough. The only problem with goats is that they’ll eat just about anything! Sally, the goat, is often seen running through the ship having stolen something from poor Carlos.Rabbits/Bunnies – These furry little creatures are great additions to a spaceship! Not only are they adorable, but if you choose the right breed, you can trim them for their hair and make yarn. Have you ever seen a mohair rabbit? OMG, PURE FLUFF. In general, rabbits and bunnies don’t take up much space and they’re fairly easy to take care of. Easy peasy.Fish – Assuming you’re not going to worry too much about the mass of water moving around in star flight (let’s wave our hand and pretend it’s all good), fish are an easy animal to care for. In Vivian’s case, she uses the fish in her aquaponics setup to keep her plants fertilized and the fish fed and the oxygen/carbon dioxide cycle moving. There’s a great scene in one of the books concerning the fish, but I don’t want to spoil that! Let’s just say that they come in VERY HANDY.Cats and Dogs – And obviously, if you are a person who has pets, you’ll totally want to take your canine or feline friends along with you. Vivian’s dog, Frogger, is a constant, easy companion on the ship. Skylar, Vivian’s cousin and pilot of the Amagi, is a cat lover, though she doesn’t have a cat in this series (she will when she stars in her own series that’s upcoming). Cats and dogs can play a vital role in intruder detection or just sussing out whether a person is good or bad. They have instincts that are always worth listening to.

Not to forget that a lot of these animals can be trained to do their business in designated areas (easy cleanup) and several of them have the perfect poop for fertilizing plants! A very important thing since that’s what Vivian does throughout the series.

So, all in all, maybe it’s not a good time to choose something big like cattle or elephants for your spaceship! Hopefully these are all better choices. Want more to read on this subject? Here are some links for you to check out!

6 Best Farm Animals to Raise (and 1 Not to) When You’re Just Starting out
https://morningchores.com/best-farm-animals/

Space Farming: The Final Frontier
https://modernfarmer.com/2013/09/starship-salad-bar/

Don’t forget to download FIRST FLYGHT for free during the month of January, 2021! You can start this series now and enjoy your adventures with Vivian and the crew of the Amagi!

Download FIRST FLYGHT for FREE!

The post Top 5 Animals That Would Make Great Companions on a Spaceship appeared first on S. J. Pajonas.

Sunday Update – January 10, 2021

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog.

What a week. With the attempted coup at the capitol and all the craziness surrounding it, I am tapped out, as I know most of you must be too. It won’t be a stretch to say that I spent most of the week following the news instead of doing something more productive. But there were a few other things that happened around here.

The kids went back to remote schooling. The whole school district is remote until the 25th of January, so it wasn’t weird or anything for my kids. We also have decided to keep them home again through the end of March, and we’ve indicated to school that that’s what we have planned to do. I wish they could go back, but it’s just not safe here yet, and both kids also feel it’s safer to stay home.

I finished up my first round edits on AN UNFORGIVING DESERT, the novella prequel to Skylar’s Series, the Amagi Series! I really love this novella, and I think you’ll love it too! Now, it’s on to copy edits and I expect those to be done within a week as well.

I had my 100th ride on Peloton! Called the “Century” ride, I got it done on Saturday morning and had a great time. Peloton kept me sane this whole week. It was good stress release with all the chaos in the world. I’m excited now to go into this next week of Power Zone training and see how I do!

I barely took any photos this week! I think I was just distracted by getting back into the swing of things and world events…

Here I am about to take my 100th ride on Peloton! And I hope to take many more into the future.

We mounted an old TV in the basement and bought a FireStick for it so that we can cast from the bike to the TV for bootcamps and strength workouts. Works like a charm!

Lulu loves to totally kill her toys. Poor Sloth!

And finally, purple martinis using Empress 1908 gin. Yes, the gin itself is purple. It was very nice, and I think I want another! :)

Have a great week everyone! Stay healthy and stay safe.

The post Sunday Update – January 10, 2021 appeared first on S. J. Pajonas.

Uber in Space – Inspiration for the Flyght Series

Every author will tell you that inspiration for their stories can come from the strangest of places. I have a whole folder in Evernote just for ideas I’ve had over the years, things that have intrigued me enough to write them down. Sometimes they come from news stories or chats with friends or something I’ve heard in passing.

When I decided to write the Flyght Series, I knew I wanted to do something fun and different. I wanted a gender-flipped Firefly type of novel where the main characters were all women and they were flying around, getting into trouble and having adventures. Little bits of ideas came to me along the way but it was when I came across a note in my Evernote folder entitled “Uber in space” that I finally had the last piece of the puzzle.

At the time, my husband was working a job that required a lot of travel. He was on the road several weeks a year, and I had been listening to him tell me about all his Uber drivers and the interesting conversations he had with them. I always thought this was funny because when I get into an Uber, I very rarely talk to the driver unless I’m really feeling it. I’m more of a quiet, look out the window type of passenger. But not my husband. He talks to every single one, and it gave me a great idea.

Traveling Photos – Depositphotos

I thought it would be fun to apply that to a sci-fi space opera! An Uber-in-space story device would make continual adventures easy enough. It would bring in income for my flight crew, and it would deliver them to parts of the universe they wouldn’t normally fly to. Much like the Star Trek Enterprise heading off on one mission after another, this could lead to a lot of exciting times. I decided to run with it!

This is how the name “Flyght” came into being, and it’s why the name is spelled this way. I took my inspiration from Lyft. The name Lyft is great because they just changed the I to a Y in their name. Hence Flyght! And if you pay attention while reading the series, there is a Flyght competitor too which is only ever mentioned in the books named Ampla, which means “big” in Portuguese like Uber means “big” in German. See what I did there?

But just having the company exist wasn’t enough for the story. I knew I would have to make it interesting in a way that would impact my heroine, Vivian, and her crew. That was when I got the inspiration to have Flyght run by her ex-boyfriend who she was still in love with. I love a good “second chances” romance! Especially if it’s also “friends to lovers.” And that’s how Ken Mata came back into Vivian’s life.

The nice thing about building this world and having Flyght be a part of it is that I can use it for the all the other series that I hope to write in this same universe. When Vivian’s cousin, Skylar gets her own series soon enough, she’ll be flying for Flyght too. What new adventures will she be up to then? We’ll have to see!

Don’t forget to download FIRST FLYGHT for free during the month of January, 2021! You can start this series now and enjoy your adventures with Vivian and the crew of the Amagi!

Download FIRST FLYGHT for FREE!

The post Uber in Space – Inspiration for the Flyght Series appeared first on S. J. Pajonas.

Check Out These Sci-fi Romances In The Otherworldly Mates Promo!

It’s a new year! So it’s time to find some new authors to read. Be sure to check out these books in the Otherworldy Mates BookFunnel promo!

Check out this Otherworldly Mates promo!

I hope you find something new to read and enjoy!

The post Check Out These Sci-fi Romances In The Otherworldly Mates Promo! appeared first on S. J. Pajonas.

Sunday Update – January 3, 2021

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog.

Almost wrote 2020! Which is strange seeing as how I wanted 2020 to just be over already. Lol.

Lots happened around here the last two weeks, and yet still, it wasn’t much of anything. The kids had school all the way up to the day before Christmas Eve, so that week was still more of the usual. I spent FOUR DAYS in the afternoons helping my youngest clean out her room. It was a disaster of huge proportions, junk everywhere. We worked on a different area each day until it was all done, and I think we threw away about four trash bags worth of stuff. Had to make room for Christmas gifts! Then on Christmas Eve we made our usual Christmas cookies and had a nice dinner together.

We celebrated Christmas Day at home and zoomed with our families. Everyone was happy with their gifts, even Lulu. She got some stuffed sloth that’s really cute and she loves playing with. Unfortunately, I was tasked with getting a new iPad and a new iPhone moved over, and that was an exercise in frustration. As a note for the future, NEVER DO THIS ON CHRISTMAS DAY. Literally EVERYONE is doing this with Christmas gifts and the Apple servers were unhappy. I have learned my lesson to wait a few days. But now every iPad and iPhone in the house are running smoothly and up to date.

Exercise-wise, I had a great week with Peloton. I’ve been doing the Power Zone bike rides and working on training. Plus I add-on strength, pilates, or yoga most days. Things are going well there!

I spent most of this past week just chilling. I did a little work Tuesday, but otherwise, I knit, read, and watched TV, along with my regular workouts. Nothing worth noting, really, except the eternal struggle to make FIRST FLYGHT free on Amazon. They have a ridiculous system where you can’t just set the book to “free” $0.00. Oh no. You have to set it free everywhere else and ask them to price match! How fucking stupid is that? I’ve done it half a dozen times in my career, and it always sucks to have to beg to have your book free. But eventually, they did make it free in every market but Mexico. Not sure why Mexico doesn’t get free books, but I don’t feel like writing them again about it. I wake up every morning and check to make sure it’s still free because I have ads coming up for it.

Tomorrow I start edits on AN UNFORGIVING DESERT! Woo! I can’t wait to get that done.

Just a peek at some of the work I did on the youngest child’s room. This book case took us two hours to organize and purge. We gave away a lot of books!

Christmas Eve cookies before decorating.

Christmas Day started with presents. Here’s what I got! Can’t wait to switch over to my new Hello Kitty Lesportsac today.

Then I made pancakes and did the Peloton Beatles ride after with my favorite instructor, Leanne.

Out for a walk with Lulu. All this snow melted on Christmas!

We’ve been making a lot of good food. My husband made homemade pita bread and I ate it with a giant salad.

My fortune cookie fortune was weird.

New Year’s Eve and my youngest fell asleep on the couch with the dog. Lol.

New Year’s Day smoked fish appetizers and rosé Bollinger. Plus, reading on the couch!

And a peek at Power Zone training. I took the FTP test (Functional Threshold Power) to get my “zones” to train in and then these graphs are made by Power Zone Pack. As I get better, I’ll stick to my zones without those wobbly lines and endurance will get easier too! Looking forward to seeing progress here!

Have a great week everyone! Stay healthy and safe.

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January 2021 Goals

We’re solidly into 2021 now, so it’s time to set some goals for January!

What happened with December’s Goals

Finish Hikoboshi 4. Done! It needs lots of revisions, but it’s done.

Send out a newsletter for my pen name. Did this, twice actually, because of another promotion I was in.

Finish scheduling all of my promotion ads for January and February. Done! All set for January and February.

Comment on all the blogs and social media posts from people who participate in the Flyght Series Blog Tour. Done!

Send out all of our holiday cards. Done!

Continue with my Apple Watch exercise streak! Done! I had a perfect month!

Continue my Peloton riding. Done! I’m up to riding 4 times per week and walking/strength training the other days.

Continue with my weight loss. Meh. I maintained. Better than nothing!

Take off the last two weeks of December for SFR Station. Done! It was good to take the time off but now it’s back to work!

Take some time off. Also done! I wish I could have more time off, but shit needs to get done.

Audiobooks, reading, and knitting. I did all of this.

January Goals

Revise Skylar’s Novella, AN UNFORGIVING DESERT. This needs a few story tweaks and then I can go right into copyedits. I think it’ll take the first 2-3 weeks of the month.

Post about FIRST FLYGHT all month. I have blog posts set up to promote FIRST FLYGHT all this month while it’s free. Just need to schedule them!

Continue on with SFR Station. The usual needs doing here.

Setup blog posts for my pen name for the January and February. I plan to blog ahead here as much as possible.

Read the novellas for the anthology I’m co-editing. Submissions are in! So I need to sit down and read them all.

Celebrate my birthday on the 18th. It’s a Monday and also MLK Jr Day here so I think I’ll be able to just hang out and not have to worry about the kids’ school. We can order in from our favorite Italian place too.

Start the Power Zone Pack Challenge. Starting also on my birthday is the next Power Zone Pack challenge which I’ll participate in for 8 weeks. It’s a schedule of Power Zone rides on the Peloton that I have to complete 3 times per week. My team I’m assigned to will be counting on me!

Back on My Fitness Pal every day. I gave myself December off from tracking my calories, but I’ll be back on and low-carb too. Gotta keep losing weight to stay healthy.

Audiobooks, reading, and knitting. I made a commitment to read every single day this year, so I plan to start this month strong. Audiobooks for walks, and knitting every evening too.

That’s it! Have a great month everyone!

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FIRST FLYGHT Is FREE For January 2021! Download This Sci-Fi Space Adventure Romance Today!

Yes, you heard me right! FIRST FLYGHT is free on all stores for the whole month! For January 2021, I have set this book to free so everyone can try out this series and enjoy adventures with Vivian and the crew of the Amagi. So if you haven’t tried this one out yet, now is the time to get in there and check it out.

Download FIRST FLYGHT for FREE! See all the store links HERE!

I’m so excited to be bringing you this book for free for a limited time. Hopefully Amazon doesn’t give me any hassles about keeping it free in all countries like I asked for, but please drop me a line if it’s not free for you. I can always send you a copy. I will try to keep it free in the US, CA, AU, and UK at the VERY least, though I see it’s free in even more countries than that (at the time of this post).

In the meantime, I have a bunch of posts scheduled for the blog about FIRST FLYGHT and the Flyght Series so be sure to check back here often to learn more about the inspiration for this exciting series.

To kick things off, check out this interview I did for a fellow blogger!

How did you come up with the idea for the Flyght Series?

This is always such a hard question to answer! Because a ton of ideas led to the ultimate idea that became the series. First, I wanted to write about a captain, on the run, doing things her way. Kind of like Mal from Firefly. Taking jobs where she could and scraping by. Then I thought it would be cool if she was running errands for people like Uber and Lyft do here on Earth. Then I really liked the idea of a family betrayal that led to having to make money and buy the lost property back. Ultimately, all of these ideas became the Flyght Series. I held onto the ideas for over a year until they finally made sense in my head. Sometimes it takes a lot for a really good idea to make it to the page!

Vivian has such a love for agriculture. What made you choose this passion for her?

Here’s a little secret. I have a black thumb. I’m terrible with plants! But in my dreams, I’m a horticulturalist extraordinaire. I’ve been fascinated with “farming of the future” and how we’ll handle farming once the environment turns on us (it will eventually). So when it came time to choose an occupation for Vivian, I went straight to farming because wish-fulfillment, naturally. Then farming led to the family farm idea which led to LOSING the family farm. The story grew from there, and my own wish to be an awesome farmer. Maybe when I retire I can grow that green thumb?

Why did you choose to use the reverse harem trope in this series?

When I first heard about “reverse harem” I was skeptical that anyone could really pull it off. One woman with a harem/group of men that she’s romantically involved with? It seems a little outrageous, right? But once I started reading them, I saw the appeal. If you love characters and seeing the chemistry between different pairings, like in a love triangle, but don’t want to HAVE to choose, then reverse harem is for you! She doesn’t have to choose! The trick for me was finding the right circumstances for a harem to happen and be normalized. In this case, there was a rampant gene anomaly, invented by the original settlers, that would allow for more men to be born than women. In their eyes, more men meant a bigger workforce for colonization, since androids/robots were outlawed. But the gene mutated and caused problems. Women became the minority but managed to take over the government and military. So “relationship networks” were developed to give more men a chance to be with women and for women to have control over their relationships. Problem solved! Or maybe not…

Who is your favorite character, or what character was the most fun to write?

Of course, my favorite character of the novels is the heroine, Vivian. I fell in love with her right away. I knew she would be a fun one to write, and she didn’t disappoint me! But I also really loved Jinzo, her main number one mate in the books. I had to come up with the right personality for him, and he continually surprised me with his strength and flexibility.

Let’s talk about how you wrote the Flyght Series. Did you do any outlining? Did it take you in any unexpected directions?

I originally started with an idea for the first book, and then I knew how I wanted to end the series. Once I had a beginning and an end, I tried to figure out how many books the series would have. I originally thought the series would be 9 books, but eventually, I went with 6, and I think that was the right decision. With that in mind, I came up with a loose adventure for each book, and then discovered the rest along the way! I’m a horrible outliner but I try to do what I can as I write.

Using settlers from the western United States and Brazil was an interesting choice. What made you choose these regions in particular?

When I decided to write the Flyght Series, I chose to use the same universe as both the Nogiku Series and the Hikoboshi Series. In the Nogiku Series, I explain that after a period of wars and then an Environmental Decline, ships from all over the world took off from different countries for different solar systems. They called this the Exodus, and they left behind only a small population on Earth. So my thought was, “What if ships that left from California and Brazil happened to go to two close solar systems and developed a partnership?” And that’s how I came up with the Duo Systems. Two connected systems, the Brazilianos and the Californikus Systems, have a symbiotic relationship that includes trade and culture. For me, choosing these systems was all about the culture and extrapolating it out to a starry diaspora. I gave a lot of thought to who would be on these ships and the culture they would take with them. It was a fun experiment and led to some great creative leaps.

People have this fantasy of what it’s like to be a novelist. But what’s a normal day for you really like?

Normally, my days start with exercising. I’m pretty abnormal in this because so many authors get up and get in their words right away! I am so not a morning person. Getting exercise is a better idea for me in the morning. I exercise almost every day between my Peloton bike, walking, and yoga. Then I get some work admin stuff done, shower, and eat lunch. In the afternoon, I write and run errands. In the evening, I’ll take care of blog writing or maintenance, and then try to enjoy some downtime from 8PM until bed. It’s definitely not very glamorous, but it gets the job done!

Photos of my knitting, writing on my computer, walking my dog Lulu, riding my Peloton bike, my yoga setup, and eating! – S. J. Pajonas

Getting things done is about having daily or weekly habits and practices to keep working on your project. Tell us about your writing rituals!

I only actively write when I’m working on a first draft of a project. I know people who feel like they HAVE to write every day to be an author, but that doesn’t work for me. When I start a new project, I set daily goals for word counts, and I keep going, taking minimal time off, until the book is completed. I try not to stop and go back to edit or re-read unless I’m REALLY stuck. Forward momentum is the most important thing for me! Recently, I’ve found that sprinting has been working out great for me. If I sprint for 20 min, I can usually write 600-700 words. Then I take 10 min off and go again. If I do three of these sessions, I can get in about 2000 words! That’s a good day’s work for me especially since I do so many other things around home for my family and kids.

What’s your definition of success in your writing business?

Success has been hard for me to define! And it has changed many times over the last seven years. At first, my definition relied on sales. Was I selling books? How many? And how much money was I making to offset my initial costs? But that’s an unreliable metric for success because many people would consider publishing the books AT ALL success. Does the number of reviews indicate success? Or how many books I’ve published? It’s hard to define! But over the years my idea of success has become publishing more books that I enjoyed writing. Each book I work on and enjoy, then move towards publication, is another success. The ultimate goal is to have a dedicated audience for my work. Success is more readers who have enjoyed my books, like I have enjoyed writing them.

Tell us about a TV series you loved recently!

There are so many great shows on TV right now, and with a number of streaming services pumping out new content, it’s hard to fit them all in! In the last six months, my husband and I have loved The Mandalorian, Ozark, Schitt’s Creek, Kim’s Convenience, The Crown, Killjoys, The Expanse, and many, many more.

And finally tell us about the last book you read…

Funny enough, I just re-read DUNE, which I haven’t read in at least 15 years. It was one of my favorite books as a teen, and I’m excited for the upcoming movie, which is now delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was great to re-read this classic and enjoy it again.

Don’t forget to download FIRST FLYGHT for free during the month of January, 2021! You can start this series now and enjoy your adventures with Vivian and the crew of the Amagi!

Download FIRST FLYGHT for FREE!

The post FIRST FLYGHT Is FREE For January 2021! Download This Sci-Fi Space Adventure Romance Today! appeared first on S. J. Pajonas.

2021: The Year I Develop My Systems

Happy New Year everyone! And welcome to 2021! Well, I can’t say that I’m unhappy to see the backside of 2020. I think a lot of us hoped this would be the year to kick butt and take names, but it turned into something entirely different. I know that I had high hopes for 2020 after spending most of 2019 recovering from a broken leg. So, now we’re going to try our best to make 2021 even better than we hoped!

As usual, I am declaring a theme for this year.

2015 was The Year I Say No.

2016 was The Year I Give No F*cks.

2017 was The Year I Have Fun.

2018 was The Year I Don’t Compete.

2019 was The Year I Improve Myself and My Business

2020 was The Year I Lead A Happy Creative Life

2021 will be…

The Year I Develop My Systems

Yes, it’s time to take things to the next level for me, both at home and in my health and at work and in my writing. This is the year that I make better plans and I stick to them, something I’m already quite good at but I seem to lack follow-through for the truly hard things. I drag my feet on a lot of tasks that I just don’t want to do, but ultimately, they need to get done. This is the year I put them in my Things app, and I either do them or I delete them. I find I delay these things for too long and then I feel guilty for not doing them. (“Bill my freelance client” to-do task, I’m looking at you.)

Now that I’m living a happy, creative life thanks to last year’s goal, I want to live that life with fewer things hanging over my head on a daily basis. It’s time to streamline and develop. It’s time to make my habits into systems. I love systems! I’m looking forward to making it my theme for 2021.

I have a lot of goals this year, mostly health and fitness related, so let’s get to them!

Writing and Publishing Goals

I will write and publish the first 2 books in The Amagi Series. Yes, you heard it here first! Skylar’s series will be called the Amagi Series and I plan to write AND publish the first two books in it THIS YEAR. I have a stretch goal of THREE books in this series, but that’s only if things do not go haywire with the pandemic. The prequel, featuring Skylar in flight school, will publish this year (summer, I think) in an anthology, so you’ll have a lead-in to the series, too. I’m super excited about this series, and I hope to really get it off and running in 2021.

I will write a novella for an anthology. Sorry this one is so vague. I was invited to write for an anthology this year, and I might write about a side character in the Flyght Series world for it. I’m still working on ideas. But this one will also need to be written this year.

I will publish Book 4 in the Hikoboshi Series, THE RISE OF SHIROI NAMI. This is already written and will go through revisions in February. I’m aiming to publish in late April. Cover reveal and pre-order links coming soon!

I will write Book 5 in the Hikoboshi Series. I think this may be my NaNoWriMo book again! My goal is to write this book late in 2021 and then have it ready for publication in 2022.

Business Goals

I will continue to advertise my free books every month. I will hopefully be adding free books to my catalog this year too, and that will give me more to advertise as well. I will set up a schedule for advertising these free books, and at the beginning of each month, I will make sure those ads are scheduled for the following one to two months.

I will continue to publish my ebooks as widely as possible. This means finding more channels worthy of uploading my books to. In 2020, I added Eden Books. This year, I hope to add another channel.

I will spend more time on Instagram. I plan to work harder on my presence there. It fell by the wayside a bit in 2020, but so I’d like to focus more on posting every day and using the Stories more.

Blogging Goals

I will continue to update my blog on a regular basis. I did well with this in 2019 and 2020. I will endeavor to continue on with this!

I will continue to update my pen name’s website as well. I am not writing cozy mysteries in 2021, so I need to keep my pen name’s blog and website up-to-date with content for that audience. (Just a note, that I will not be writing cozy mysteries until I can visit Japan again, after the pandemic.)

Creativity Goals

I will read 20 books and listen to 20 audiobooks. I plan to set this challenge on my Kindle and read read read this year. I know it doesn’t sound like a lot of books, but for me, and all the writing I do, it is a lot. I need to set aside the time to just read. My stretch goal for this is to read EVERY SINGLE DAY in 2021, even if it’s only for 5 minutes. I want it to register in my Kindle that I read that day.

I will watch more TV and movies. I had this goal last year and I’m repeating it this year. This time I will keep better track of what I’m watching and blog more about it too.

I will knit more. This was a good goal for 2020, and I did knit a lot more! I plan to finish my current shawl, start and finish another.

Bring all my Pinterest recipes into Paprika. This is more busy work than anything, but I think it will inspire me to cook more too. We shall see!

Personal Fitness Goals

This is where the bulk of my goals are this year due to the Peloton! And this is also where my systems and schedules will come in most handy…

I will bike 1800 miles on Peloton. 150 miles x 12 months is 1800 miles. I biked ALMOST 150 miles in December, so I think this goal will be doable. My stretch goal for this will be 2000 miles.

I will complete Power Zone Training and 2 Power Zone Challenges. I’m in Power Zone Training now, and I already did my FTP test to figure out my zones (hardest 20 minutes of exercise in my life). I start my first Power Zone Challenge on January 18th, my birthday! I would like to do one more this year, if at all possible.

I will complete the Crush Your Core Training on Peloton. This looks really hard, but my core muscles could use some work. Strengthening them will help with my posture a lot. So I would like to start this training in March.

I will complete the Tabata with Robin Training on Peloton. Tabata is HARD, y’all. But Robin insists that “intervals make athletes” and I believe her. I would like to do this training late in 2021.

I will drop another 10 lbs. I am very close to my ultimate weight goal. Honestly, I’m pretty happy with where I am, but another 10 lbs would be ideal and I would be at the weight I was before I had my youngest child. As I continue to lose weight, I see MASSIVE benefits in my health including less hip and knee pain. I think 10 lbs in a year is more than doable, especially with all the exercise I have planned.

I will hit 300 rides. Considering how much riding I’m planning, this one should be a walk in the park. I will re-evaluate this goal mid-year and see if I need to adjust it upward.

I will continue with the Low Carb life. I am so much clearer headed and happy when I’m low carb, as this holiday has taught me. I’m also going to eat less gluten as I think that it contributes to my nasal congestion that I have struggled with my entire life.

I will get a new GP this year. I need a new general practitioner/doctor. I fired my old one three years ago and I’ve just used the urgent care since then. I was going to get one in 2020 but then the pandemic happened. This year, I am going to make it happen. I want my titers done so I can see which immunizations I need boosters for and check my blood work, just to make sure everything is tip-top. I also hope that this will lead to getting the COVID-19 vaccine as well, but I will research how to get that one on its own. I don’t want to delay on that.

And that’s it!

And that’s a lot, right? I’m going to do my best, and I’m PUMPED to get going. I’ve never felt so energized and excited about a new year, mostly thanks to the Peloton! But it’s all going to lead to a happy creative life full of systems and habits that will carry me through.

Want to share your 2021 goals with me?

Comment and let me know what you’ll be up to in the new year!

The post 2021: The Year I Develop My Systems appeared first on S. J. Pajonas.

A Look Back At 2020 – What I Accomplished, Set Aside, or Changed

It’s finally the END of 2020! And I bet pretty much everyone is glad about that, right? Phew. I am happy to see the backside of this year, and I’m ready to move on to 2021. I thought 2019 was bad with breaking my leg and gaining a ton of weight. But it turns out that a global pandemic is worse. Much worse.

Let’s look back at this year…

We started off January fairly easy with my birthday, plenty of indoor time with Lulu, some pottery, and the publication of LOST FLYGHT. I started my weight loss journey in January by tracking my calories and macros and cutting out lots of carbs and sugars.

In February, we got a vacation in! We went to Jamaica and spent a glorious 4 days there, sitting in the sun, swimming, eating good food, and drinking anything we wanted. Thank goodness, too, because the pandemic was just reaching the Americas at this point. When we went to Jamaica, no one said a thing. When we were returning, we were asked if we had visited mainland China in the last month.

March was when shit got real. I took my youngest to Girl Scout camp the first weekend, and that was the last time I was around a ton of people without a mask on. We had a great time! But it’s “camping” and I’m not really a camping person, so I was happy to be back home when it was all over. By the next weekend, we were all home. March 13th, Friday the 13th. Anyone who says it isn’t bad luck is wrong. That was the last time my husband went into the city. Within a week, I was sewing masks and making surgical caps for local nurses. My daughter’s birthday got the ax, so we made a cake and celebrated at home. I did manage to publish SILENT FLYGHT though!

April was more of the same. Lots of at-home time. I was still losing weight and walking a lot, either walking Lulu or just by myself. I got back into baking bread, the town thawed, and the cherry blossoms came out. I also finished a big knit!

In May and June, we were just getting by. Everything was in bloom, which was nice! I published STOLEN FLYGHT, the last book of the series, in June. I moved my cozy mystery books over to my pen name, and we started construction on our new bathroom! The kids finished school remote, and we bought a giant pool for our backyard because we decided not to join the town pool.

July and August was high summer and absolutely gorgeous. I think this was the first summer in a long time where we had very little rain and lots of great hot days. The kids played outside with their bubble of friends, and COVID numbers were really low here. The pool got a lot of use, and we had a very small birthday party for my youngest’s 10th birthday. We went to the pool as guests a few times and I wrote a prequel novella for Skylar’s series. It had been a long time since I wrote and it was good to get back into it again. Construction continued on the bathroom almost every day.

September came and it was back to school, but not IN SCHOOL. I chose to keep my kids home, remote learning, and I’m glad I did. The transition to hybrid has been rocky in my district and I’m glad I didn’t have to deal with any of that. I got my pottery back from the studio and it all turned out nice. I hope to get into a class again in 2022. We had our last trip to the pool, and I finished writing the novella. Construction on the bathroom finished! We love the new space, and we’re so happy it’s all done.

In October, the Peloton bike came and changed my whole world. That’s not an exaggeration. It has revolutionized the way I exercise, and it will be a significant part of my life going forward. I had no idea getting the bike would be so life-changing, but here we are. In other news, the kids did a distanced Halloween and had a great time!

November was NaNoWriMo, and I wrote the majority of Hikoboshi 4 during it. I continued with the Peloton, and I really started getting into the classes and the stats. We had Thanksgiving at home, and we tried to take advantage of the good weather outside as much as possible. COVID numbers here rose, and our hospitals got overwhelmed again.

December has been short with all the holidays. It’s been filled with lots of Peloton biking, a Christmas at home, and trying to avoid all the sweets here! The kids finished up school and now they’re enjoying some time off.

Favorite Part of This Year

All in all, my favorite part of this year was starting the weekly Zooms with my knitting friends. I missed them so much! And now we see each other almost every Friday. It is the best thing to come out of this pandemic.

Least Favorite Part of This Year

The pandemic, obviously, and the lack of alone time, which for me, is really important.

Let’s look back at my goals from the year…

2020: The Year I Lead A Happy Creative Life

This was the year I was going to lead a Happy Creative Life, and in a lot of ways, I still did that. I just focused more on web design and programming than I did on my writing. I rebuilt this website, my publisher website, and SFR Station. Then I also built a site for my pen name, and I built a website for a friend. All in all, it was good downtime from writing. Writing was just so hard to do during the pandemic, and I needed to not stress about it. Still, I did manage to get some writing done, and I’m happy with my effort. I also concentrated more on knitting and reading which are both good for a happy creative life!

Writing and Publishing Goals

I will finish the Flyght Series. Done! I’m so glad I managed to get this done, even in the midst of a pandemic.

I will finish the Hikoboshi Series. Nope. I realized as soon as I started plotting out Book 4 that, really, the Hikoboshi Series is 6 books long. So, it’s not finished and probably won’t be until 2023, but I wrote Book 4!

I will plan out the final book to the Miso Cozy Mystery Series. I made an executive decision and decided to just be done with this series. I felt like it ended on a good note, and I don’t want to write any more books in the series. So, it’s done.

Added Goals

I stopped offering paperbacks. This was a hard decision for me, but ultimately, I had been planning on it for years, and 2020 just broke me. I decided to become a digital only author, and though that has not sat well with some people, it’s what’s best for me and my business. I will revisit this later when more eco-friendly options become available to me.

Business Goals

I only had two goals and they were…

Continue to periodically advertise my books. Did this. I got on a schedule and I kept with it. I also got involved in a bunch of Bookfunnel promotions too. This led me to have a great year of sales!

Continue to build my readership. Little by little this got done. I abandoned Booksprout after a while, but I did other things to build my readership like start a Facebook group with Carysa Locke and continue to recommend my books in reader groups.

Blogging Goals

I will continue to update my blog on a regular basis. I did well with this again! I only took a short time off here and there, but otherwise there was content on my blog every week.

I will continue to update the back posts of the blog. This did not happen again and I am going to abandon the goal. I will fix things as I come across them and that will be about it.

Creativity Goals

I will continue with pottery. This was scuttled because of the pandemic.

I will watch more TV and movies. Done! And I tried to blog about them all here. Next year, I will keep better track of what we watch in a note in Evernote.

I will attend my Masterclasses! I thought I would watch more of these on my own, but I have not. Instead my husband and I watched several of the classes together. Mostly cooking classes.

I will read and listen to more books this year. I’m going to make a plan to read at least 25 ebooks and listen to 20 audiobooks. I missed the mark on this a little. I ended up reading 13 books (I’m reading the 14th now), and I listened to 21 audiobooks.

I will knit more. I feel like I knit more this year because I took on a new technique and I’m actually almost done with the shawl. Usually they take me more than a year to get through. I think I’ll be done with this in February!

I will try one new recipe each month. I didn’t keep track but I think I did end up trying out many new recipes this year because I went low-carb.

Personal Fitness Goals

I will learn to speedwalk/racewalk. Nope. I was going to try this out and then the pandemic hit, and my park closed, and meh. I decided I didn’t want to do it anymore. That’s okay. The Peloton bike took its place late in the year!

I will pay attention to my goals on my Apple Watch. Oh man, did I ever double down on this. About halfway through the year, I became obsessed with Perfect Weeks and Perfect Months and Monthly Challenges on my Apple Watch. It’s been sooooo good for me.

I will start stretching daily. I’m stretching and exercising daily!

I will work on my posture. This is actually being helped along by my Peloton bike!

I did not go through and revise my goals for the year in June like I usually do, and that’s okay. I was just trying to get by.

And That’s It For The Year!

On the 1st, I’ll be back with my goals post for 2021! I hope you all have a safe, healthy, and happy new year!

The post A Look Back At 2020 – What I Accomplished, Set Aside, or Changed appeared first on S. J. Pajonas.