New Year's Resolutions? Me? Yep. It's Time.

I've never done New Year's resolutions before. I thought them rather silly. Now, however, the time seems right. First a look backward.

I started in the spring of 2011 self-publishing my works of fiction, knowing nothing about how to move forward on cover designs, formatting, pricing, marketing. Here it is the end of 2012 and I have 16 works live on Amazon and other platforms. Just a couple of months ago I completed my seventh paperback POD: five novels and two collections of stories. I've had two signings of these physical books here in Kansas City (both at bars: the famous Kelly's in Westport and the infamous Chez Charlie's in Midtown). They went very well. The books are available at Prospero's new bookstore location near the Uptown Theater. And I have one work that is not self-published, Blow Up the Roses brought out by Curiosity Quills.

The works have found a small, but appreciative audience. They received 32 five-star and 7 four-star reviews on Amazon. These are honest reviews: not purchased, not traded for, not from relatives nor close friends, but from people I don't know from Adam.

But I have found myself spending way too much time on Facebook and other social media and just generally on the internet. I also check my sales and rankings way too often. Time for discipline. Time to pledge to check those numbers twice a month at most.

Time to devote serious blocks of time examining past projects that stalled to see if they have any life in them, seriously pursuing some new ideas, staring into space and pondering, and then, yes, writing. Enter again that lonely place where your only companion is self doubt.