I Did WHAT? An Assessment of my 2014 Goals

The first thing I note in this supposed PLAN of mine is how pathetically unplanned it was compared to prior years. Maybe THIS is why I felt like my wheels spun much of the year. If anyone is curious, they are here, assessment of 2013 and plans for 2014 all in one...





Well... even before Christmas, really...

So how did I DO?



Fitness plans? I SUCKED. I had a bad year on that front. I really tried twice, but I have reached that age where I need to really REALLY try and maybe get a bit of formal help. I will call this a big fat fail. And I mean that literally. Okay, maybe a D. And I am only not failing myself totally because I DID have about 4 months of real effort in there... It just didn't help. At all.



Family Stuff... hmmm... it went okay, not fabulous, but not horrible... I will give this a B.



Reading: I read 22 out of 26 letters for my goal with Escape with Dollycas... I got sidetracked with rereading Song of Ice and Fire and Harry Potter, which I do occasionally, and there are some letters with very few books (I was missing Q, X, Y and Z)—here at the end the Library failed me on a couple. My Q book never came in. Had I been more diligent up front I would have made it, but I left the hard letters to the end and I just couldn't quite pull it out. I DID read probably 30 books (in addition to all the rereads of my own as part of editing rounds) but there were letters missing from the goal. I give it a B-.''



And the Writing...





The real trouble is building the darned boat...

A Shot in the Light ALL got out and is finally into anthologies, too (final paperback pending), but I have NOT gotten it into other formats and forums as planned (Nook, iTunes, Kobo). I am still just on CreateSpace and Amazon. That is sort of a failure, but I am looking at it more as a lesson learned. As a full time worker I just don't have time for all this formatting and editing stuff. I don't think I was meant to self publish... so this little detour for me was like doing 30 credits then changing majors. I am wiser and more rounded for it... it wasn't a WASTE of time, but I have sorted my priorities and think that isn't the track for me. At least not at this time.



That detour cost me in terms of some of my other goals, too. The one that I regret is not putting in the time I needed for releasing Keeping Mum . I have not been invited for a fourth in my series and I suspect it is because I have not been the go-getter marketer they needed me to be. Reviews for it were the best of all the books, but I just couldn't seem to do all the things to create the buzz and get more reviews and I suspect that was because I was trying to do too much (and substantially burned out).





In addition to finishing A Shot in the Light this year I wrote about 2/3 of the first book in my Undoing series and the first in the Corset Cop Series: Teddy Trouble. Both are very first drafty. I revised What Ales Me substantially and Ellen has it once again. And I am almost done with first revisions of Also Appearing which will be my ABNA Entry this year.



I am not sure how to grade my writing year... I did a lot of work, but a lot of it was maybe in the wrong direction and caused distractions to what is going to progress my career. I'd probably give it a B because those were lessons I needed to learn, but I consider the year a bit of a setback on my path.





The next few days I will work out my goals for 2015... Probably non-writing tomorrow and writing on Wednesday.