My Goals for 2012

I started thinking about what I want to accomplish this year. After reading J.A. Konrath's blog and about how he's earning a fine living with his books, I realized I need to get my butt in gear and write a lot more. I am woefully thin in the shelf space department. Just two books. So, with this in mind, I've come up with some goals for 2012.

1. Finish Deeds of Mercy--I am SO close, I know I'll finish this one very soon. Possibly in the next week or so.

2. Finish a romantic suspense I started 2 years ago! I keep putting it on hold to write more Mark Taylor books, but no matter what happens with DOM, I need to finish this unrelated book. My reasoning is that most series dwindle in sales the farther they go. The first book is almost always the best seller, but not every single person who buys it will go on to buy the second book, and even fewer will buy the third. However, those that do are my most loyal readers and if they want more books about Mark Taylor, I'll do my best to keep writing them, no matter how few people there are still buying them. Thing is, I still want to expand my reader base. I know that there are readers out there who might buy a romantic suspense, but shy away from typical thrillers because most thrillers are less about the characters and more about the plot, and romance readers love great characters and interaction. I think if I can get them to read a romantic suspense (that strays more into the No Good Deed type of characterization than typical romance books), I might get some of them to try the series. Even if they don't, the book allows me to go in a direction I don't feel comfortable taking the Mark Taylor series.

3. Write a fourth Mark Taylor book--See? I'm not going to abandon the series, but I haven't decided whether to do one that follows Deeds of Mercy, or a pre-quel to the series so we can see Mark before he's had all of this heaped on him. Maybe I'll do both books, but not sure I can do both in one year.

4. If all of the above works out, I'd love to go part-time at my day job. Right now, I'm between a rock and a hard place. I work full-time and have a family, so that leaves me less time to write, and when I do have time, I'm often exhausted from work. (Every week, I  do 2 days with back to back 12 hour shifts--I'm useless those evenings.). I'm not quite at that place where my writing income is steady enough to take the plunge of cutting back my hours. The main thing is insurance. My cost for that will double when I go part-time, otherwise I'd go part-time right now. I won't complain too much though because I feel very fortunate that in my profession, I can still get insurance while working part-time, and that I can also pick up extra hours pretty much whenever I'd need them if the book sales are slumping. (the catch is the hours might be night shift, and I'm not too eager to work that.)

A camera store I spotted in Chicago a few years ago. I immediately knew it was where Mark worked in No Good Deed. Just thought I'd share even though this has nothing to do with my blog post!