How the Year Wore me Down by Paty Jager

2022 is ending and for the first time since I began self-publishing, I didn't write as many books as I'd set up as my goal. 

To say this year was a failure doesn't fit. 

But I can say, I have never had such a disjointed year since becoming an author as I did in 2022.

I started out with the goal of writing 2 Gabriel Hawke books and 2 Spotted Pony Casino books and my short story for the Crime Never Takes a Holiday anthology. I also planned a research trip to Montana and my usual two book-selling trips to Sumpter OR Flea Market.

What I didn't factor in was having our high school graduating granddaughter living with us. She participated in volleyball and track. I went to all her games and meets.

My monthly trips to visit my dad stopped in May, when he passed. 

Then a trip to CA to attend a memorial for one of my mom's cousins, a family we were close with when my brothers and I were young.

And I needed to make two trips to the coast, one to get a writing project done and the other to spend time with family, not to mention a family reunion and my dad's memorial thrown in the mix. 

Then as fall approached and I thought, "Now I can settle in and get writing done," I signed up to help sell books at events 6 hours from where I live. That meant a day to get there, however many days I helped at the events, and a day home. No writing. 

I just last week finished a book that was to be published by now. Now it won't be published until January. which starts 2023 off already behind on my "perceived" schedule. 

The good thing about being self-published is that I set my publishing dates. So the only person I'm disappointing is myself. And I do a really good job of beating myself up. 

So, knowing already that I plan to attend the Sumpter Flea, several of the NIWA book events, my book tour with Dwight Holing in May, two weeks in Hawaii with two of my best friends in August, and a trip to Alaska to attend a grandson's graduation, I have pared back my usual expectations for 2023 goals. 

I don't want to feel like I'm behind most of the year like I did all of 2022.  I would like some wiggle room to work on another project I hinted at to some readers and they were very receptive. When I see an opening in my schedule to work on the project, I'll tell you more about it. 

For now, I just want to say, I wish you all a wonderful Holiday Season and a prosperous and happy New Year!

Paty Jager is an award-winning author of 50+ novels, 8 novellas, and numerous anthologies of murder mystery and western romance. All her work has Western or Native American elements in them along with hints of humor and engaging characters. Paty and her husband raise alfalfa hay in rural eastern Oregon. 

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I Could Write a Book by Eleri Grace

 

What's new for you in 2022? 

Well, as my title says, hopefully I'll write a(nother) book! 

The tune from Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1940 hit "Pal Joey" is a love song of course, but a few lines from the lyrics speak to my mindset:

But my busy mind is burning to use what learning I've got
I won't waste any time
I'll strike while the iron is hot

Those are my hopes for 2022: not wasting time and striking while the iron is hot so to speak. 

Maybe I would have developed writer's block anyway, who knows, but I can conveniently blame Covid-19 and its destructive siblings Alpha, Delta, and Omicron for my lack of output and motivation over much of 2020 and 2021. 

I'm once again using the Cultivate What Matters goal-setting system. Even though I wasn't filling out all the reflection work each month or quarter as the system urges one to do, I bought it again this year because my goals I had set were always in my mind, even if I wasn't always faithful about recording it all. My goals for 2022 are more similar to 2021 than not. This could be read as an indication that I failed 2021, that I didn't accomplish all that much. But the truth is that some of my goals don't lend themselves to being checked off or completed in full over the course of a single year. 

The one writing goal that could have been completed but wasn't is the publication of my third full Clubmobile Girls novel. My intention is to finish and publish it this year, come what may. But I'm celebrating that I learned how to write a novelette and published it in 2021 (and I now have the barebones start on 3 other novelettes to complete a quartet of stories). I've also got new branding in the form of new cover-art that will be released this year. I'm waiting until I can reveal the cover for Book 3 before then announcing the new cover-art for my first 2 novels -- but truthfully I'm so excited by the new look of my covers that I may not wait much longer. My hope is that these new covers will speak to a wider network of readers as they are more in keeping with the look and feel of other WWII fiction released in the last couple of years. Watch my social media and blog for my new cover-art reveals in the coming months! 

My goals for 2022 are varied, as Cultivate What Matters encourages people to evaluate many facets of their personal, working, and leisure lives. Whatever your goals are for 2022, I hope you find joy, peace, fulfillment, and pride in all that you do!

You can find my Clubmobile Girls series on Amazon. Learn more about me on my website, or on my social media accounts through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.