The unpredictability of winter is a certainty. It may bring months and months of gray skies and perpetual showers. It can take the thermometer down so far and so suddenly that pipes burst just thinking about it. Snow teases with its potential blanketing. The chaos of winter weather conditions necessitates the focus of its inhabitants.

Winter is planning season. At least once the holidays have passed. The fresh slate of a new year brings with it the instinct to get your act together and make some realistic goals. This includes short-term planning – write 2,000 words today – and long-term planning – finish a certain manuscript, get it to a beta reader.

Last winter I did a lot of business planning. I worked on my author website and launched social media accounts. These were all planned steps in creating the foundation of a fully formed author business.

This winter, I plan to focus on project completion. The rest doesn’t matter if there’s no product to promote.

Beyond this, I have been holding out hope that an agent would represent The Contest but that is looking less and less likely. I haven’t cast a wide net in the querying process for the express purpose of moving on and moving forward. I’ve gotten good feedback and plan to proceed down a self-publishing path. I ultimately was prepared to go this route but the logistics of it all is overwhelming.

Planning helps make it a little less overwhelming.

Plan: 1. Complete project. 2. Self-edit. 3. Get input from beta readers. 4. Self-edit again. 5. Send to an editor. 6. Promote. 7. Launch. 8. Promote some more. 9. Repeat.

I also plan to expand my writing community in 2024. I tend to flail when left to my own devices. I am more inspired when I am consistently touching base with writers in similar circumstances.

So that’s a lot of plans. A lot to work on. The fresh year is a motivator. The possibilities are endless. I hope this year to rise to the occasion and birth these figurative babies I’ve been incubating for so long.

So to you, world of potential readers, I hope you can make plans to support achieving all your goals. I also hope you plan on giving my books a chance.