Breaking in the New Year
January 9, 2014
We’re at the end of our first full week of 2014 but it seems like more than a week and a half has passed since we rang in the New Year. This was a long week for me, especially since it’s only the second full week of work I’ve put in at my day job for over two months. However, it is nice to finally get back on track with a regular routine, even if I still hate the alarm in the morning as much as I always have.
The New Year means the busy holiday season is over, traffic is not as stressful and I can run errands during my lunch break without swimming against large crowds. It means way too many weight-loss commercials during re-runs which are showing in place of the continued long breaks from our regular shows. It means catching glimpses of Valentine’s Day cards and other trinkets for your loved ones right next to decorations for St. Patrick’s Day. And for some, it also means getting more serious about whatever weight loss resolution you may have made when you see the skinny-mini bikinis already on sale.
What the New Year means for me is getting back to my regularly scheduled program of my life as a writer. I’ll admit life does get busy off and on throughout the year so that my writing schedule might suffer but the holiday months are definitely the worst. There are too many distractions with no true schedule so that the time I get to write is more random and less fulfilling. While the months of January through March are more quiet than most (except for those nasty storms), it’s a good quiet which allows me to savor the moments as I brace myself for what needs to be done to break in the New Year.
And I’m certainly ready. As I’ve already said, I believe this is going to be a great year. There are so many more opportunities for indie authors and it’s just going to get better, even if it does get more competitive. I’ve been reading a few of the predictions other writers have made for the year 2014: Joe Konrath’s version is here and another recent article by Mark Coker on HuffPost Books is here. While these predictions may or may not come true and they may or may not affect me, what I do agree with is that the world of publishing is changing very quickly, in good ways and especially for self-published authors, and I am thrilled to be a part of it.
So let’s bring on the New Year!
