New Year Update ~ 2020
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Happy New Year, friends! What a year 2019 was 😁🤔😭😂😳😱😏😒😞😅😜😳🤦♀️. That pretty much sums it up. I’m not generally great at reflection. I’m like an over-caffeinated draft horse most of the time—powering through, probably too fast, and looking for my next fix—but I’m trying to be better about it. Those who forget the past are doomed to make the same mistakes in the future and all that, right? Well, I would even extend that to say not refelcting on why past mistakes happened is also a surefire way to repeat them. And, as always with this blog, hopefully looking at my mistakes cane help you avoid some of the same. And we’re gonna look at some stuff that went well too—same principle.
Where I Went Wrong ~ I have to say, of all the places I biffed it in 2019, my budgeting (or lack thereof) is probably the most spectacular. The fact that the hubs is the one that handles the finances in our house has nothing to do with gender roles and everything to do with the fact that I’m crap at it. Utter crap. I have the capability, of course, but no desire or even a feeling of urgency. If I dislike something as much as I dislike budgeting, it often takes the pain of hardship to convince me to take steps to do it. Taxes are a great example. A few years back, it only took one year’s worth of “filing” (read: throwing with nary a care in the world) my business receipts at the bottom of a drawer to learn that is not, not, NOT something I cared to repeat. And so I vastly improved my method for the next year.
This isn’t to say I had absolutely nothing for my budgeting, but what I had doesn’t even come close to cutting it. The rest of my skin is saved by the fact that the hubs keeps a great eye on all things money-related in our house. This is my responsibility, though; I need to step up and start being as savvy as I encourage others to be when it comes to their businesses.
So here’s what I’m doing to fix it. Google Sheets has a ton of great premade templates, and I’ve started using the one called “Financial Statements” by Xero. This is the same template my older sister uses for her athletic apparel company, 5th Gen Apparel, and she, unlike her baby sister here, is an absolute whiz with budgeting. All the formulas are preprogrammed, so you (and I) just need to plug in the data that applies to our businesses.
I also found out what it was like to get burned out on social media in 2019. I adore my Bookstagram community, but this past year, I started putting way too much pressure on myself to keep up with everyone and all the things and ran my social media self into the ground. So I’ve started using Later again for my IG planning and am having great success so far!
What I’m Proud Of ~ I’m honestly impressed with how much work traveling I did in 2019, and I made so, so many awesome new friends and met so many amazing people. I got to visit seven cities I’d never been to before, several of them more than once throughout the year. The map below is just the farthest extremes of where I went since I could only include so many locations. I’ve done the math, though (for tax purposes). 165.5 hours of driving over 10,680 miles. Whew!
And all while I put out a new book! I’m extra proud of that, especially since Across the Ice was so complicated to write. I ended up using a spreadsheet for that baby, to ensure no little threads got forgotten about. And I managed to keep my blog on track all year as well. Woohoo! That deserves a hot cocoa. Y’all didn’t realize you were getting real-time snack updates, did you? 😏☕️
What I’ve Learned ~ Ah, hot cocoa acquired. Which works for the first big thing I learned this year—take time to reward yourself, really. I did an interview with Kenny Sonney (AKA a truly kind and wonderful human being) of the podcast Productivity Alchemy. Kevin always asks the same questions of his guests, one of which being, “How do you celebrate your successes?”. If you listen to the interview, which you can do by clicking here, you’ll hear I didn’t have a great answer to this question. And I had time to prepare ahead of time, y’all! I didn’t have a good answer because, despite all the times I tell others to reward themselves, I rarely take the time to do so myself. It really bothered me, so I started thinking really hard on how I could do this. I realized part of the issue was that most of my goals are attached to finite resources (time, health, etc.) that the rewards I enjoy will also draw from. For instance, if I want to reward myself with two days of video games, that’s two days I’m not working to write or edit a new book. This ties into the second big thing I learned in 2019…
I cannot be doing all the things all the time. Remember the draft-horse-on-caffeine example from earlier? Yup. Work harder, faster, more, all the time. That’s my usual MO. But no one can do that because we don’t have infinite energy. This has been especially evident in my life this week, as I’m currently getting over my worst cold of recent memory. I don’t generally get sick beyond a bit of sinus trouble, but at my lowest point this week, I barely had it in me to make tea. 😱 To say nothing of doing any work. So yeah, I’m learning to let go 1) so I can take time to reward myself and 2) because I have to. It’s slow and it’s difficult. More on that later.
What I’m Looking Forward To ~ So now that 2020 is here, what’s on the horizon? I’m currently editing a book that I want to query for traditional publishing. It’s really different from anything I’ve put out so far, but I’m really excited. It’s proved difficult for a couple of reasons (none that I’m willing to share at this juncture, sorry), but the challenge is stretching me. I like being stretched. I like tackling new challenges.
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Unfortunately, that means the book a certain Broken Gears character has been bugging me to write will have to wait. That means I won’t be adding to my income stream this year with a new book, but I have an answer for that. Besides what I’m calling the hopefully-trad-book (or HTB), I have a plan to put out two new audiobooks this year. I have narrator auditions waiting for me to listen to right now, so I hope to have someone booked by the end of next week. Squeeeeee!
Oh, and of course, there’s more travel on the horizon too. You can see the full schedule on my Homepage (scroll down past the intro), but I’m especially keen to visit Charleston, SC, New Orleans, LA, and more for the first time.
What I’m Afraid Of ~ Of course, not putting out a new book this year makes me feel extremely uncomfortable. 😬 I’ve put out a new book each year for the past four years. Plus, I’m putting off doing it for something that’s a total gamble. I like neatly outlined plans with known results at the end of them. Those sorts of plans make me feel all warm and cozy and safe. Enter the aforementioned lesson about learning to let go. I might end up investing the next six months (or more!) into the HTB, send it out for queries, and get nothing back.
And my writing/editing time is more scarce now than it was previously. I picked up a really great part-time job to help pay for the two most expensive part of my writing career—travel and the aforementioned audiobook projects. I love the PT job and it’s relieved a huge financial burden, so I’m over the moon about it. Plus, again, I know what I’m getting with the PT job. No matter what comes of the HTB, I know I’ll learn a lot (I already have), but I really, really want one very specific result from all that effort. One very specific, very, very difficult-to-attain result. Nothing for it but to go for it, though, right? There’s that bullheadedness of mine again 😏.
So there you have it. Last year in review and 2020 coming up. What are you excited for in 2020? Let me know in the comments below 👇.
Thanks for reading!
Next Time’s Entry: Networking for Authors (and Everyone Else Too).
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