stacy benedict

2017 was a better year for me than 2016.  Of my personal goals, I’d wanted to:

Run shirtless in a field.

Done!

Lounge sexily by a window during the day and flash my neighbors.

Check!

Grow out my eyelashes.

Nailed it!

Perfect my floating on a pineapple pose.

Being arrested at that hotel was totally worth it.

With my writing goals, the results were not as overwhelmingly successful. The 2017 goals were:

Write everyday, even if it’s just 5 words.

Result: Frowny face. I didn’t come close to writing every day. I won’t bother to bore you with excuses.  This is one area I want to improve upon in 2018.

Read more novels.

Result: Yes! I didn’t keep a count of the books I read in 2016, but I definitely know I read much more in 2017. Reading shouldn’t be about the number of books, but about the quality of books read. Even though I plan to keep reading more in 2018, I want to improve upon the quality of novels I consume.

Finish the editing and publish the first two novels in my urban fantasy series, Hound Dog Confidential and Through the Villain’s Eyes.

Result: Woohoo! This was a huge feat for me. Both novels are out in eBook format. Getting them ready for publication through multiple edits and beta readers took longer than I’d anticipated. At times, I thought it would never get done and was so sick of both books that I couldn’t stand to read them one more time.

Write at least six short stories and six flash fiction pieces.

Result: Meh… I wrote seven flash fiction pieces, so I got this goal half way accomplished. I started writing two short stories, but never finished them. Little stories are much harder to write than they would seem.

Finish the outline and first draft of the third novel in the Primordial Realms series.

Result: Womp, womp, womp, trombone sound effect here. I’m almost done writing the first draft, but almost isn’t finished.

Have third novel edited and prepared for 2018 publication.

Result: Obviously, this didn’t happen. To complete the goal I would’ve needed to finish the first draft.

Commission artwork for the third novel’s book cover.

Result: This was done early last year. The art won’t be for the cover, but will be inside of the novel.

Hire someone to design the third novel’s book cover.

Result: I’ll be using the designer of the covers for my first two books. Check out Cover Mint if you need a book cover.

Update my website, social media headers, and create Amazon and Goodreads author pages.

Result: As you can see, my site has been updated (squeaked by in late December) and so has my social media accounts.  I did create an Amazon author page after publishing Hound Dog Confidential, but I decided not to do one for Goodreads.

Next week I’ll do a 2018 writing goals blog post.

How did you do with your 2017 resolutions?

I hope you liked this week’s blog post. The first two books in my urban fantasy series are still free for a limited time.

Available at:   Barnes & Noble   Kobo     iBooks and Instafreebie

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