Jeri Smith-Ready

Happy New Year!

Welcome back, all you lazy sods relaxed folk who took off the entire holiday season. Here's what you've almost missed:

My latest Aspect of Crow tie-in short story is now live in its entirety! All eight weekly chapters are posted on my publisher's site, so grab a cup of cocoa and read all of "Storm Reaper" at once.

- The first in a series of booze-soaked mutual interviews between Dante Baptiste and Ciara Griffin, along with a chance to win a signed copy of Adrian Phoenix's fabulous new release, In the Blood (and possibly an Amazon gift certificate, too!) You can read my review and find out more about the subsequent giveaways in the previous post.

- On Friday, Justin Gustainis gave us an entertaining look at The Future of Urban Fantasy. Comment on his post and enter to win his newest Quincey Morris Supernatural Investigations release, Evil Ways.

Now, for my 2009 goals. They're pretty much a knockoff of my 2008 goals, which I reviewed last week. The only difference is they're a little bit more attainable.

1. Write and rewrite Book One in YA series.
1a. If YA Book One sells, write first draft of Book Two (maybe as NaNoWriMo project)
2. If publisher buys more vampire books, write and rewrite Book Three.
3. Write at least 10K words of vampire Book Four (contingent on #2).
3a. If publisher doesn't buy more vampire books, write proposal for new series.
4. Write three more tie-in stories for Wicked Game (Noah, Regina, Shane)
5. Write 1000 words/week on new adult urban fantasy novel/series (unless #3a comes to pass, in which case, faster!)
6. Brainstorm with potential collaborator (you know who you are) about that paranormal romantic comedy
7. Blog at least once every other week on WVMPradio.com (or replace the blog with something better, like...I don't know. Suggestions, anyone?)
8. Have Ciara and Shane blog at least once every other week on their MySpaces
9. Start Twitter account for Ciara
10. Start Facebook fan page and Ning social networking site (only if I can get someone else--maybe a couple of Street Team members?--to maintain them)
11. Attend 5 conferences/conventions/book festivals and 5 non-conference appearances (signings, talks)
12. Sign stock at 25 bookstores
13. Do 20 online interviews/guest blogs
14. Read 50 books
15. Watch 50 movies
16. Foster 2 cats (not at the same time)

Overall, more writing and less not-writing, which makes everyone happier. And of course, much of 7-10 depends on #2 coming to pass. Hopefully I'll know about that in the next couple of months, and I'll shout it from the virtual rooftops if it happens.

What are your goals for this year? Are they like mine, simply tweaks and updates from last year, or are you doing a major overhaul of priorities? How do you measure your progress? Do you see goals as a chance to stretch yourself, or as a way to set yourself up for failure? Or both?

Have a great 2009! I'll see you back here next year! (Just kidding. I think I'll be back tomorrow with another guest, but I have to check with them.)

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Now playing: The Newlydeads - Cities In Dust
via FoxyTunes

Labels: Contests, guests, interview, short stories, vampire series, writing life

• posted by Jeri @ 2:34 PM
• 1 comments