Year of the Writer 2013; Year of the Published Author, 2014?

2013 was a great year for my writing. It was in is year that I got more serious about my craft. In the first part of the year, I worked diligently on the marriage kit book, and in the fall, I began getting back into fiction. I entered Harlequin’s writing contest, So You Think You Can Write, joined the Harlequin online writing community, successfully completed NaNoWriMo for the first time, found critique partners and began exchanging chapters and just wrote like crazy.

I wanted to start 2014 off building a writing network closer to home. I went to my first meeting of the Central Florida Romance Writers, an affiliate of Romance Writers of America. I learned so much from this meeting! It was good to sit in a room full of writers, people who “get” the drive to write. I think joining RWA and the local chapter will be a big step in my journey to getting my romantic fiction published. I’m glad I didn’t let the setbacks and foibles of the day to cause me to miss the meeting.

I’m still pursuing self-publication for the relationship book that I’ve calling the marriage kit book here. I think that self-publishing is the way to go with this one because I don’t want the content to be watered down, toned down, or elementally changed by an editor, nor do I want to wait another 12-18 months for it to be available (even though if I keep adding sections and chapters, it may take that long anyway!). I feel much more comfortable choosing the people involved in each step of the publication process with this book.

I haven’t thought much about Some College but there’s a contest coming up that I may want to get started on it to enter. Right now, I’m enjoying revisions with my critique partners and trying to get some new words written each day. My writing new year’s resolutions are as follows:

• Join RWA & the local chapter
• Submit, submit, submit–get my work out there as often as possible.
• enter more contests and pitches.
• get my hands on more writing craft books and magazines.
• Write first draft of Always the Girlfriend.
• Finish Pleasure’s Payne (Read the first chapter here).
• Finish revisions to Delivering Justice and submit.
• Outline and write synopses for the three follow ups to Delivering Justice (Series tentatively titled The Bartolucci Brides).
• Outline and write synopses for the seven (o_O!!!) other books in the “Always” series.
• Start a proposal for Some College memoir.
• Start the other short stories for the Love Addicts Anonymous short story collection.
• Not die or become a hermit.

I have a lot of work to do in 2014 if I want to have contracts in my hot little hands before I’m ringing in yet another year. I’ll keep you all posted on my progress.

XOXO,

Erica

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