2009 Accomplishments!

Yeah, yeah, it's January 15 and I'm just now posting this. I'm always late to the party, but at least I show up. Like showing up to my keyboard every day to do the writing thing and quit reading 300 of my favorite blogs. Just get my derriere in the chair and open the dang file already! I swear, that's two of the hardest tasks of each day.

I usually write out a yearly list of goals and even delineate by month when I'm going to accomplish each goal, but I never make all my goals because STUFF HAPPENS.
Not just family or personal *stuff* but things change as you work and write.
New ideas happen, crits that change your direction, new writing friends with blasts of fun email flurries, new information about publishing and agents and editors so my writing goals often change during the course of a year. 

Or I decide to rewrite something in a whole new way that often takes half a year which throws off my goals. 

Or I get a new idea that's much more exciting and promising and I swear I'm *in love* and everything else gets pushed aside.

Or I sell a book on synopsis that I hadn't put into my goals for the year and I suddenly have to write this new book NOW. Wow! I've always dreamed of that happening to me and it actually happened this last year! Still trying to figure out if it's a good thing or not . . . I'll let you know if I fall on my keister and my editor hates it and I start completely over and go back to the proverbial drawing board and my book is pushed back a year.

Don't go there! No bad vibes! Banish them!

Drum roll please:

ACCOMPLISHMENTS FOR 2009:

1. Signed three book contract for two MG's and one YA to Scholastic Press. Go here for signing highlights and pics

2. Finished a major revision on Murdering the Dead, my ancient Egyptian YA novel. Got two more critiques from a crit buddy and hubby. Do a last revision and polish. Send to my agent.

3. Back and forth revisions with my editor for The Healing Spell.

4. Production work with my editor for The Healing Spell., ie. copy edits, Jacket art, biography, synopsis, dedication and acknowledgments, First Pass Pages, etc.

5. Planning and execution of 2 research trips to Louisiana - one with girlfriend and one with hubby. Spring and Fall, nearly two weeks apiece. Fun, fascinating and fruitful!!!

6. Hired web designer for revamping my website and wrote a bunch of new content.

7. Hired book trailer people for: images, voice-over and music company for original music

8. Become a photographer when I need to create some of my own specialized book trailer images that cannot be found on places like Istock and Getty and Stock Exchange. Funny stories about sneaking around hospitals and graveyards and Hobby Lobby.

9. Creation of SPELLBINDERS, an educational newsletter with Carolee Dean and Lois Ruby. The three of us design SPELLBINDERS, create the content, write and distribute. January issue has been delayed due to a death in one of the co-writers family over New Year's. Stay tuned. www.spellbindersbooknews.blogspot.com

10. Spoke at the New Mexico Library Association conference.

11. Finished outlining new novel, The Traiteur's Daughter (TTBC = Title To Be Changed).

12. Complete a first draft of The Traiteur's Daughter (77,000 words).

13. Begin the first revision of The Traiteur's Daughter

Personal Stuff: 

14. Help my sisters and mother complete a Life History in pictures and stories for my father, Keith Knowles Griffiths, 1929 - 1973. He died when I was growing up in an airplane crash. The book is turning out beautiful with all my siblings writing their memories of Dad.

15. My son's new little family came to live with us while he and his wife go to college full-time. (They are only 21!) They had a toddler, Tristan, and then another baby girl, Sera, in August. I am now cooking for lots more people and tending babies and playing with babies and bathing babies and reading to babies and cuddling babies and kissing babies! All the things I love to do!

Writing goals and family and memories and babies, what more can I ask for?