writing goals

I’ll just have to admit to myself that I will NOT have another book finished this year. That doesn’t mean I won’t be writing in December. It just means I don’t expect to FINISH anything, which is a bit disappointing.

In November, my work schedule became saturated, although I still managed to complete more chapters on La Yacata Insurrection. As a side note, in case you aren’t aware, the first book in the series, La Yacata Revolution: How NOT to Buy a Piece of Heaven in Mexico, is FREE today. If you are curious about how I got embroiled in some complicated community advancement projects, well, that’s the book to start with.

As for December, I expect some downtime over the holidays, but that may be a fool’s dream since just when I think things are calming down, disaster strikes. Well, it is what it is. I also hope to reassess my writing goals for 2025 this month. I believe I set my sights too high this year. Stay tuned for those.

How is your writing going?

After a stellar start to the year, February was a flop. I did not get any of the writing projects I had in the lineup completed.

I started working on the Shopping in Rural Mexico editing and found that I will need to retake a good portion of the pictures again. What was good enough for a blog post is certainly not clear enough for a print book. So I’m moving this project to the simmer setting on the stove. I didn’t even look at the other books in the series.

Instead, I’ve been revamping my website. My goal is to get everything under one roof, so to speak. Teachable raised its prices to use the platform to the point where it’s not profitable for me to continue using it. Teachers Pay Teachers blacklisted some of my Women of the Bible printables because someone found them offensive. So I’ve taken my toys and gone home, literally. And now I need a new place to display my wares.

It has been a frustrating experience with the WooCommerce and PayPal plug-ins so far. I hope to finish up in March. You can see the new storefront on the homepage. Pardon the dust while I get it all set up.

I also spent part of the month trying my hand at networking. As an introvert, this is waaaayyy out of my comfort zone, but if I want to find the right readers for my books, well, I’m going to have to come out of my shell a bit more. Of course, networking is a long game, so I don’t know if my efforts will bear fruit for a bit. I guess it’s a start, though, right?

I am also going to switch back to the herb books as a focus for March. I have four herbs to research to finish the first draft of Herb book #4. And hey, it’s my writing challenge, so I can do what I want to (It’s also my birthday month, and I can’t think of a better way to celebrate my 50th than by researching a new plant.)