Growth

With each new year, one of the ideas that gets tossed around is, instead of making resolutions, to pick a word the embodies what you want to accomplish in the coming twelve months and figure out how to accomplish it. So, in the spirit of things, I've selected my word–GROWTH–and have begun to set things in motion.

The first item to take care of was to take inventory of what I want to apply the word to. Certainly not to my body. We don't need any more growth there. I'm continuing my three-times-a-week workouts at the health club to keep growth from happening. No, what I want to apply the word to is my writing career. I took a workshop last week that helps in that regard and am wrapping up the filling in the blanks and gaining perspective on where the career has been. Now, I need to implement a plan for where the career is headed.

To help with my forward progress, I hired an author coach to help me strategize. Already, I can see a way forward. When I regain the rights to Winning Violet, the first book in my Regency Flower Girl series, I will have books two and three finished and be able to present them as a package to a publisher. And, as a kind of offshoot on these stories, I am working on another story that takes place in the same time period, but in America. I'd like to work in some of the culture of my new home state, North Carolina. If for no other reason than an excuse to take some road trips.

And speaking of road trips–providing things move forward during the year, I am poised to take my first-ever European vacation late in the year. Can't believe it's taken me this long to cross the pond, but fingers crossed, this will be just the beginning of my growth there. You can do all the research you want, but nothing will add spice to your story line more than actually walking the streets you are describing, visiting the battlefields, or, for that matter, being on a ship in the middle of a vast ocean.

Stay tuned!