Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving. It's a tendency in the blogging world to take off major holidays (as blog traffic drops significantly, and... well, we'd like a day off too). However, as I thought about it this week, I realized I have so much to be thankful for, there's truly no excuse for me not to post.

1. I am thankful for my family. They gave me the love of books that has brought me to where I am today, and to a person, every one of them has loved me and believed in me in a way I know is rare and precious.
2. I am thankful for Chris Baty and National Novel Writing Month for giving me the years of practice it takes to become successful at anything.
3. I am thankful to all the people who've read my fanfiction over the years. Thanks to you, I wasn't nearly as nervous when I published my first book. 
4. I'm thankful for the amazing team of beta readers and editors who helped me improve His Good Opinion this year: Jessica, Kaydee, Mom, Rebecca, Haley, Jaymi, and Carissa. 
5. I'm thankful to Jess (again) for all the formatting help she gave over the last two weeks--right in the middle of moving and doing NaNoWriMo. 
6. I'm thankful for the amazing cover, designed for me by Ed Melendez.
7. I'm thankful for the tremendous amounts of help Jennifer Becton has offered as I traversed the unknown waters of self-publishing for the first time.

And I am so very thankful to everyone who has purchased His Good Opinion in the last week. It's an absolute thrill to know my book is in the hands of readers. You have made my dream come true--thank you so very much.

His Good Opinion can be purchased from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, Amazon UK, Amazon DE, and Amazon FR. 

Funny Thing About Goals...

NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day, 6/12/05

I'm sure you've heard the clichés: "Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars."  "If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time." Classic sayings, designed to get us off our duff and out there trying new things.


I'm hear to tell you, they work. Last month I set the goal of accomplishing a few of the FiNancy tasks on my 101 list. I... didn't accomplish any of them, I don't think.


However! I am pleased to announce that by midnight tomorrow, I will finish my pre-critique draft. Until I get notes back from my readers, I am done. Finito. At an end. And boy, does that feel good!


I'm also starting to look forward to the goals I'd like to reach with my published novel--sales levels, ways I want to use that money, things along those lines. I don't have anything concrete yet, but those are the thoughts going through my mind.


So if I seem insanely driven, this is why. I constantly have a list of goals hanging in front of me, and I know that if I don't keep moving, I won't accomplish any of them.


Which brings me to the obvious question: What goals have you set for yourself? When do you want to finish your current progress? What kind of success would you like to see? Separate your dreams out into ones that are small and accomplishable in the short term, dreams that will take a bit more work and luck, and the shoot-for-the-moon type dreams.


You can do it!