Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour: July – Mid-Year Check-In – how you’re doing on your January goals

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Goal, oscarsnapshotter

Goal, oscarsnapshotter

I haven’t checked on my annual goals for awhile so this is a great chance for me to check out where I am!

1. Upgrade my blog site to a real website: I’ve been poking at this for awhile but at the end of June I went into WordPress and poked around until I figured out I needed to do a domain mapping to make everything work correctly. This $13 dollar per year fix seems to have been the final step. Yay. Up to this point I’d been double posting my posts on both the WordPress site and the GoDaddy site. Not convenient at all. I’m so happy!

2. Research the pros and cons of selling my books from my own website. If it seems good, get that page set up: Umm, nope. Nothing done on that but, to be honest, just got the website going. I still have some time before the end of the year.

3. Publish 6 books in 2015: This goal seems extremely unlikely. I’ve only just put up my 2nd book of the year, Mystery at the Fair. I might get 2 more in, if they’re collections of flashes or short stories and I hustle.

4. Participate in the April and July Camp NaNo’s and in the November NaNo: April Camp NaNo was a win. I’m in the middle of the July Camp NaNo. So far, I’m on track.

5. Produce a Christmas Book this year: Another one that will probably not happen unless I get some sort of magical inspiration and a whole lot of get up and go before November. My Mrs. Claus story, started 3 years ago now, is languishing. Something is wrong with it and I don’t know what it is but despite a good outline and liking my characters, it’s not right and I have to drag myself to it to work on it. Not a good sign.

6. Submit a story to the 2015 FM Anthology: Ah, that’s the first project for my July NaNo. It’s based on a flash story I posted a few weeks ago called Betrayal Moon. I may stick with that title for the short story or change it. It remains to be seen.

7. Complete the Holly Lisle World Building class and the How to Write A Series Expanded class: The World building class and the Series class are both on hold. The first because I’m working on the 2nd. The second because Holly has been ill and the class is on hold. So, there you have it. I’ll keep on top of them, for sure.

8. Develop a schedule of contests for short story submission process: Completed. Not submitting though. Too deep into editing and volunteer work.

9. Participate in May Story A Day: Done. I completed 9 short stories.

10. Increase speaking appearances and opportunities to sell my books: In progress. I did a book signing in March. In June I was on web radio, the January Jones show, and was interviewed for both my books and the Payson Book Festival. You can listen to my interviewhere with USA Today best-selling author D’Elen McClain. In July I’m signing at the Payson Book Festival. www.PaysonBookFestival.org. In September I’m going to my very first conference. The In’DTale conference in Palm Springs, CA. https://conniesrandomthoughts.com/where-will-i-be

11. Participate in the Payson Book Festival as an author: Scheduled.

So there you have it. Some wins, some losses, some ties. I’m happy with where I am right now. Hope to see you at one of my appearances!

The Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour is sponsored by the website Forward Motion (http://www.fmwriters.com). The tour is you, the reader, travelling the world from author’s blog to author’s blog. There are all sorts of writers at all stages in their writing career, so there’s always something new and different to enjoy. If you want to get to know the nearly twenty other writers check out the rest of the tour at http://merrygoroundtour.blogspot.com!  Up next: Jean Schara