It’s the last Sunday of March, so it’s time to talk about goals. From the title of post, I’m pretty sure everyone knows how well I did, but that’s the point of doing these goals in the first place. It’s been a rough few months in terms of my writing, but we’ll try to get better.

• Finish my first draft of Corruption of Blood. This is a big one, since I’m hoping to release that this year.

I got this done, which is awesome. It was the biggest goal on my list, so having my first draft is huge.

• Put together my marketing plan for my publishing business.

I didn’t get this done.

• Alpha read Corruption of Blood. I need to get that done, including my edits to get it to my beta readers.

I only got done with my first draft a little while ago, so doing my alpha read was out of the question.

• Read Wit’ch Fire by James Clemens.

Done. It’s an interesting book. I’d give it a B.

• Read Wit’ch Storm by James Clemens.

I’m almost done with this, but I don’t think it’s as good as the first book. I’ve been listening to A Song of Ice and Fire, and have completed A Game of Thrones and am most of the way through A Clash of Kings. These weren’t technically on my list of goals, so I’m still counting this as a fail.

• Post write ups for three Arcana on the web site.

Uh, I actually forgot to do this. Sorry about that.

• Create my e-mail list signup.

Nope.

• Create my monthly newsletter.

I’m struggling to figure this out. I’m really not sure what anyone would want to know, so I haven’t done anything with it. This has been the biggest struggle with doing the e-mail list.

• Post an article weekly on the web site.

So close! I missed a week or two because of illness and just being busy with my job. I’ll try to do better.

• Increase visibility with recommended videos to the blog.

I’ve done a couple of these, but I haven’t been as good at it as I wanted. For one thing, I haven’t found any videos that helped me make my point. For another, I’ve noticed that some of the people I subscribe to on YouTube are posting very similar things. I’m not sure why that’s going on, but there it is.

So, out of ten goals, I’ve completed two. Big fail. So, what did I learn from this? First, getting sick sucks. Second, things take way longer than you think they will. It was naive to think that I could put together AND implement a marketing plan in three months while drafting a novel and keeping up my web site. If I was doing this full time, perhaps, but there’s no way I could do all that. So, for this next quarter, I need to set more realistic goals.

Without further ado, here are my goals for the next quarter (April through June):

1. Finish my first draft of Arena of Night. I need some time away from Corruption of Blood to do my alpha read, so I might as well keep the writing train going with my fourth novel in the series.
2. Alpha read Corruption of Blood. I still want to publish it this year, so I need to get it going. Once I have my next draft done, I’ll do this.
3. Create my e-mail list sign in sheet.
4. Figure out what should be in my monthly newsletter for my e-mail list.
5. Finish A Clash of Kings.
6. Finish Wit’ch Storm.
7. Post an article every week on my web page.
8. Include a video every month in my postings.

This is a big challenge, even though there are only eight goals. Here’s hoping things go as planned!

Next week, I’ll post about more unusual fantasy governments. If you’ve never heard of a doulocracy or the difference between a plutarchy and an aristocracy, stay tuned!