Happy New Year!

Happy New everyone!! Wow! 2019 is really over... 2020 is here. A new year... a new decade. I'm trying not to think about the whole new decade thing too much. It hurts my brain to think too far ahead like that haha

I'm excited to see what God has in store for me this year. After last year, which was full of so many unexpected twists and turns when it came to my writing, I feel like anything is possible, like God can really do anything. I started 2019 with an entirely different plan than what actually happened and I really think that was God guiding me and showing me the way He wanted me to go instead of the way I wanted to go. And in the end, it's really paid off. In 2020 I want to continue to trust Him, even more so than I did in 2019. Give him my whole year, lay it out in front of Him and let Him take control because while I may have some plans, His are, and always will be, way better than mine. That's my plan for not just 2020 but for this entire next decade. I know I will fall short more often than not... I like having control and I would like it if my plans went the way I wanted them to, but I'm going to try my hardest to give it all to Him in this decade. To worry less about the future because there's nothing to worry about if God's got it all.

2019 felt like a year of reflection and exploration. Exploring the self-publishing industry, figuring out marketing and writing to make money. How to use social media and ads and all these different things for my books. I started a newsletter, I bought my own author website, I published two books, I tried out Amazon ads, went to my first author event and learned how to use Kindle Unlimited to my advantage.

2020 is going to be a year of continuing what I started in 2019. It'll be figuring out how to market better, growing in my writing (I will never stop growing in my writing), writing on this blog more, how to better use social media, how to use ads to my advantage, learn my self-publishing process (much like learning my writing process), growing in my knowledge of using newsletters. To sum it all up, 2020 is a continuation of what I learned in 2019. It's a year of using everything I learned in 2019 and putting it all into practice.

I know I already talked about my 2020 goals in the last post but there's one more than I didn't add that's been on my mind and my heart. I want to write something different this year. Yes, I want to write my paranormal romances and my fun YA books. But I also want to try something new. I want to write something faith-based. I want to write something where I talk about God and my faith and all that good stuff. I don't know what that will look like or how it will come to be but... I really want to try it this year.

Also... I really want to be committed to this blog and to the blogger community. I'm kind of tired of all my posts being only about writing... I want to talk about other things. Things about faith, life, family, what I've been thinking about lately. I want to try new things on here and see what happens. And I definitely want to get back to checking up on some of my favorite blogs because I have become a ghost in the blogger community over the past few months.

As for the more concrete things, I said in my last post that I want to publish at least three to four books this year. I talked about it on my January newsletter too. If you aren't getting that you can sign up (add link here) for exclusive writing updates, book sales and promos and so much every Monday and the first of every month. I plan to publish every three months or so. Cursed will be published in March. I plan to revise the blurb and the cover will be done around February-March-ish. Book 3 in the St. Croix Falls series will be out June-July and book 4 will be out September-October. Somewhere among all those three books (probably in the summer), I plan to publish a fourth book. I'm not sure which one yet though. Maybe the sequel to Sterling Silver. 

This is my first year committing one hundred percent to full-time authorship and self-publishing. It's kind of scary because I've never planned this far ahead into a year writing-wise. I don't know if I've ever put this sort of pressure on myself, but I also think I've made them manageable goals to achieve. A good timeline to work with. And honestly, who knows what will happen this year? I had a plan in 2019 and it was completely derailed for the better. So who knows? I'm trying to give myself some room to be flexible with whatever mig
ht be thrown in my path. 

So, yeah, that's what I want to happen in 2020. I really am excited to see how the year turns out and everything God has planned for me.

What are you most excited for this year?