Well December has come and gone and with it the December Close Out plan has ended as well. Or you could say closed.

As anticipated once I left home for the holidays and started to spend time with my family I got very little work done. As I said in my blogs about Thanksgiving, now that I have to actually stay with my family the whole time we are together (appose to being able to drive back to my own home) it’s become increasingly harder to get work done during vacations. But I’m not going to let that be an excuse. I still wrote some and tried to focus on my goals when possible.

I was able to finish the first draft of Owned Forever. It’s a little rough, like all first drafts, but it clocked in at just under 38,000 words. I’m hoping to flesh it out a bit more with edits, maybe add another scene but it definitely will give all those readers who loved Grant, Daniel and Kate a good meaty bite of what’s happened to them since Christmas.

I had hoped to get done, or at least start, revisions on my upcoming free read, Hot-N-Ready, but that didn’t happen. It’s a short story, just 3,000 words so I plan to bang it out early this month and then turn back to Owned Forever revisions. I’m planning to get Owned Forever into my editor by the end of the month. It will be tight, but I think I can do it. Cross your fingers for me.

As you all know, this December Close Out Plan being a great example of it. I like goals. So you can imagine I love New Year’s resolutions. But unlike most, I don’t take them lightly and I don’t rush into making them. I don’t give up my resolutions by January 5th like most, because I usually don’t make them until much later in the month and I take them very seriously. Though I haven’t completely decided on what my resolutions will be for this year I know a few things will be included, getting healthier and losing weight (like most of the world, or at least the US, I gained way to much over the holidays that I want to lose), writing more and publishing more. But I’ll write another blog once I have all the details worked out.

Hope you all had a fantastic holiday and have a wonderful 2015!

Wow I can’t believe it’s already less than a week till Christmas. It seems like just last week it was September. Where is the time going?

Time is moving so fast I almost forgot to post about my December Close Out Plan.

Every year I do a December Close Out Plan. It was originally started with an inspiration from a previous job where they did a December Close Out to get rid of older product and start the year off with a nice clean slate. I think this idea is fantastic. Not only to start of the year with a clean slate (which we could all use every once and a while), but I love having the final deadline of getting some stories out by the end of the year (see my previous blogs about deadlines to see why I love that idea ;D).

In previous years it had a week or more off from the evil day job that made this time of year perfect to dedicate to my writing. Unfortunately this year I don’t think it will be as easy. Due to my move this year, I’m traveling and staying with family for the holiday week, and given how my thanksgiving experience went, I don’t think I’ll get a lot of work done this Christmas season.

That doesn’t mean I’m completely abandoning the December close out plan, but this year won’t be the huge push I’ve had in previous years. Also having three works released between December and January, which means I’ve been more involved with edits and promotional activities than starting new stories and discovering new characters. But I do want to use my time off this year wisely and even with a few new works available I still have a few deadlines I’m working towards.

My goals this December Close Out Plan are to finish the first draft on Owned Forever (the sequel to Owned for Christmas). I want to get this story to my editor by the end of January to release sometime this summer. My second goal is to edit and submit Hot-N-Ready, a fun little free read I wrote for my publisher Romance Divine. These goals seem reasonable and attainable and in line with the deadlines I have. If I can get this done by the end of the December I’ll be doing really well. And if I can do more, even better.

How about you guys out there? Do you have any end of year goals? Any projects you have to get done before the ball drops? Leave a comment below and we can cheer each other on to the finish.

I know it’s late but I wanted to let you all know how my December close out plan ended. Unfortunately I didn’t get as much done as I would have liked. Due to a few factors, including family commitments, a funk and the flu. You know, the three Fs. J

I did manager to fix up and submit a short story, Jack the Bodice Ripper. I spent some of my December time, that I had set aside of new works, editing that story and working with the publisher to get it ready for release in less than a month. A feat impossible with most publishers, which is one of the reasons I love Romance Divine. I announced the release a few weeks ago on this blog, though it was in the middle of my flu ridden haze, so I wasn’t capable of much more. It was definitely time well spent, though it cut into my other plans.

I also revised Valentine Next Door and submitted it to Totally Bound. They accepted it this week. I don’t know yet when it will be released, I’ll let you all know as soon as I have more information, but I’m happy dancing all over the place about this one. I can’t wait to see how people react to Miranda and Jeremy. I know I love them, and I hope other people will too.

I’ve also been working hard to finish Second Chance at a Cheerleader. I’ve added another 5,000 words, putting me well above my original goal for the story. And I still have another 10,000 words or so to finish the book. And the last bit is usually the hardest for me to write. I’m hoping to finish the first draft this month. I have so many great Snowedin Stories I want to tell, but I need to complete this one to move on to the others. Not to mention any of the other stories I running around in my head.

As for New Year resolutions. Unlike some previous years, I’m not going to set any goals for myself as far as numbers. I have way too much going on this year and I don’t know yet what I’ll be capable of handling. But I do want to focus on writing as well as I can and finishing as many works as possible in my limited time. I need to get as many of the characters running through my head down on paper as I can. Not to mention bring more reading material for all you fantastic readers.

Other than that, I just want to keep moving forward. I have a lot to accomplish in 2014 personally, and I want to get better at just taking everything one moment at a time, one task at a time, and one red hot romance at a time.

It’s that time of year again. No not Christmas time. It’s December close out time.

I’ve been having a relaxing week. After I finished nano I tried to write some more and keep up the pace, but between all the Thanksgiving stuff and then going back to work after having a week off, it was just too hard. But now, I’ve had a week to rest up and think about what I want to do, and I’m ready to start moving forward on my December close out plan.

This year I had a really hard time figuring out what to take care of during my December close out plan. Not only will I not get as much time of this year as years past, due to my change in employer, but I also don’t feel like I have a lot of works that are close to finish. After Nanowrimo I feel as though I have a bunch of works started but nothing close enough to completion to finish it this month. It took some real searching and thinking to figure out what I wanted to focus on this month. But I hope, now that I’ve figure out what I want to focus on, I should be able to complete my goals.

My first goal is to revise and resubmit Valentine Next Door. I received a few
comments on it from my editor, of what I need to improve and I want to make those changes and send it back.

My second goal is to finish Second Chance at a Cheerleader. I’ve been working on this story since February or March, way too long, though I did have several long breaks in between that time. Either way, I really want to get this story finished, so I can give it a little while to sit before revisions. Even though its currently 41k and my goal was 45k, I believe it will probably take more than 4k to finish it (I still have two whole sex scenes to write). It will probably be closer to 60k. And the closer I get to the end the harder it is to write. This will by far be my hardest goal.

My third goal is to write and submit a short story I’ve had in mind for some time, a sequel to Serving Madame. It will be another quick hot work, of Ada and her Madame, with maybe a little help from someone else. 

And if I have any time left, I’d like to try and finish up a new ménage I started during Nanowrimo, right now entitled Home for the Holidays, though I might change the title later. I don’t plan to sub it for several months, but it would be a nice change of pace to actually write a holiday story during that actual holiday time, instead of months ahead of time like I usually have
to.

I’d also love to finish the bathroom painting project I started during labor day (to be fair I finished the walls, I just have trim to do) and get started on some of my other house projects to get my place ready to go on the market next
year.

It definitively sounds like a lot. I better get started right away. 

Anybody else have any goals for this December? Anything you want to finish up before the New Year starts?