Monday, January 02, 2012

A New Year

Chase Marchand, My Step-Grandson
Sydney Jean Shoenke, 12-06-11
It seems the older you get, the faster time flies.  To a three year-old, a five minute time out takes forever.  To his grandma, he’s growing up way too fast.  How did it get to be 2012 and how is it that my sixty-first birthday is a week from today?  Except for a few aches and pains, I still feel like an eighteen year old.  And yet my kids are now complaining about being middle-aged and my eldest stayed home on New Year’s Eve baby-sitting her granddaughter!  Well, almost.  Her fiancĂ© has older kids.  But to Sydney, we’re Grandma Lizzie and Great-Grandma Rochelle.

So, at the start of the year, it’s customary to make resolutions.  I’ve sort of given that up.  I will, however, set a few goals, personal and professional:

PERSONAL:  At some point this year I will stop losing weight and go on maintenance.  I haven’t determined an exact weight goal.  It’s somewhere in the vicinity of 135/140 maybe.  I at least want to be able to shop in the Misses section at a regular store.  So far, I’ve lost 130 pounds, but that was as of early December.  I may have lost more since then.

October 2004  Had to dig for 300# Photos
Last Summer.  Still Camera Shy















PROFESSIONAL:

1.     Promote more.  My publisher suggests we either set aside one hour a day or one day a week for promotion and I have not been very good about that.  We have four company Yahoo groups:  one for authors to support each other with promotional ideas, one to communicate with readers, one for us to chat amongst ourselves so we don’t clutter our support group with jokes and off-topic stuff, and a business loop for official announcements from our publisher so they don’t get lost amongst the chatter.  That’s because on any given day there are a couple hundred e-mails on each of the other groups combined.  By the time I get through those groups, there’s little time or patience left for the other chat loops or forums out there where I should be promoting my work.  I’m not really complaining.  I love the fact that MuseItUp Publishing, Inc. is so supportive.  There’s also a Google spreadsheet I can check any time to see how well my book is selling and where—a reaction to less scrupulous publishers.

2.    Publish at least one fifty thousand word book,

3.    Have a fifty thousand word book ready to submit by the end of next year in addition to the one I publish.  I’m a slow writer.  Each of my books (including my current WIP) was started over a decade ago.  I even cheated and did a rewrite from scratch using the characters in my WIP for NaNoWriMo and due to illness didn’t even manage to come up with fifty thousand words.  I reset my goal for thirty and barely managed that.

4.    So, next NaNoWriMo:  fifty thousand words!

As the British say, I think that should be enough to be getting on with.

Be here next week for a double birthday bash.  My publisher, Lea Shizas shares her birthday with Elvis on January 8, and I share mine with Judith Krantz on the 9th!  Check in and comment to win copies of both my books.


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Rochelle’s Reviews:  http://rochellesreviews.blogspot.com

8 comments:

  1. Rochelle, oh to be a kid again where five minutes seems such a long time. I barely had to admit to being sixty-five before I turned sixty-six. I still have Halloween candy, picked up a piece of tinsel from the recently decorated tree, and before I know it, I'll be turning sixty-seven. I can't believe I'm that old. I enjoyed your post, and I wish you well in meeting all your goals. How great that you've lost so much weight. I did that once. :)

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  2. Oh...and I forgot to thank you for having my Banner on your site. You're a rockstar with me. :)

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  3. Roseanne Dowell5:58 PM

    Great goals and wishing you much success, both with the goals and your books. I often wonder the same thing as you, where did the time go?

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  4. Rochelle, so glad to see how you look without the weight, wish I could do the same. Great baby pics and it's nice to know I'm not the only one who has to 'revise'. Thanks for sharing.

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  5. WOW! You've had a lot going on...I don't even know where to start in congratulating you. Your weight loss is inspiring to those of us (me) who are trying. Sydney is precious! What a beautiful baby.

    Good luck with the goals for 2012...I know you can do it. :)

    And happy early birthday!
    Michelle
    Author of Concilium, available July 2012
    Concilium: The Departure, November 2012

    www.Michelle-Pickett.com
    www.Conciliumbooks.com

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  6. Thanks everyone for the good thoughts. Of course your banner's here, Ginger! Didn't you put it out on the author's list last year or in 2010? I'm sure that's where I grabbed it. And thanks for the early happy birthday, Michelle. I should be at Lea's party. The grandkids will have gone home by then.

    Hugs,
    Rochelle

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  7. Rochelle, sounds like a house full of love! I also don't feel my age and I'm 6 years older than you will be.:) Age is relative and you have to realize that what you do is way more important than how old you are. No one believes my age, but I'm beginning to feel it sometimes.

    Also thank you for continuing to display my photo and cover and the covers of all the Muse writers.

    Happy Birthday, early and enjoy yourself. Your granddaughter is so cute!!

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  8. wow you have done alot and be proud and then have great birthday the kid look great wo ho HAPPY BIRTHDAY

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