Author on the Couch: 2019 Roundup

I had lunch yesterday with a dear friend who is also an author. It wasn’t just a lovely New Year’s Eve meeting, but also an opportunity for us to look back at our careers and figure out how to best support each other moving into 2020.

We started with giving ourselves credit for all we’ve accomplished in 2019. Of course my big thing was making the USA Today bestseller list as part of the Rogue Skies box set in September…

Yeah, that was pretty awesome, and I’m so grateful to everyone who helped us to achieve this major and difficult goal.

I also got new covers for my Aether Psychics and Lycanthropy Files series. As a result, the Aether Psychics have been selling much better. The Lycanthropy Files, not so much, but I’ve definitely been more focused on promoting the Aether Psychics, so we’ll see what happens as I give the Lycanthropy Files more marketing love…

This year wasn’t all about promotion, however. I did write some stuff including Unlucky in Love, a follow-up to Always a Bridesmaid, in my Fire Dancer series. I also revised Always a Bridesmaid.

Then, of course, there was The Art of Piracy, which was my box set book. And – finally – I finished Mission: Nutcracker, which comes after Art of Piracy. I’ve been working on Mission: Nutcracker off and on for a few years, so it was nice to finally release it into the world.

Our next topic was, what have we learned? Not gonna lie – this has been a tough year for me for several reasons, and for a while it felt like everything was falling apart. A major business relationship failed (related – I’ll be moving my day job office in February). I wasn’t prepared for the emotional fallout of my hysterectomy, which I don’t regret, but it’s still been tough. The oven in my kitchen broke over the summer, so I haven’t been able to engage in one of my favorite coping strategies – baking. Then the year ended with some family drama, a cold that won’t go away, and a car accident (not my fault).

What I’ve learned is that even with all the difficulties, I can keep writing. I may have to shove marketing aside and cut back on newsletters and other commitments, but at the heart of it all, my creative process is still there. Writing stories has always been a way I escape from stress, and I need to remember I’m allowed to still use it for that.

I’ve also learned that I need to pay less attention to internal and external pressures and to define my writing career as I want it to be. There’s that whole “marathon, not a sprint” thing, but for an overachiever like me, that doesn’t make sense. I’ve learned that I can’t sustain sprint-level attempts at production and effort. I end up accomplishing less when I push myself too hard for too long.

That said, I’m very much a work-in-progress in that respect.

Finally, I’ve learned the value in focusing on one thing at a time. I have to thank Bryan Cohen for being the conduit that brought me that message. Duality is in my astrology – I’m a Pisces with Gemini as my moon sign, so maybe it’s definitely my tendency to say, “Yes, I’ll focus on this AND this.”

Then, finally, goals. I met most of them, which were as stated above. The big one I didn’t accomplish was learning to sew, but I recognize that one will take time.

What will 2020 bring? I’ll do a post about my goals for the coming year next week once I clarify some things.

How about you? What did you learn in 2019? Please leave me a comment below and let me know. 🙂