Last week, I updated my reading goals—and I’m doing better than I’d thought. So this weekend, I’m going to revisit my Writing Goals for 2008:

1. Send in four applications to teach at the ACFW conference: Showing vs. Telling, Critical Reading, Critiquing, and either POV or Setting. DONE

2. Turn in revisions on Happy Endings Inc. Stand-In Groom early. I learned I will not receive changes from Barbour until around March 1. But I have printed the full ms and will start copy editing it this weekend. I have already made changes to the scenes where Major and Meredith (the hero/heroine in Menu for Romance) appear.

3. Volunteer as a judge in the ACFW Genesis contest. DONE. I’ll be judging in the contemporary and historical romance categories.

4. Complete A Major Event Inc. by June 30, 2008 to submit to Barbour by the first week of July. Yikes. Need to get to work on this. So far, all I’ve completed are the first three chapters. I did do some brainstorming this past week to nail down some important plot points, so hopefully, since this is a long weekend for me, I’ll be able to meet my goal of getting chapters 4–6 out to the crit partners this coming week.

5. Complete revisions on Ransome’s Honor; begin work on Ransome’s Crossing. The second draft of RH is complete and has been critiqued, and the proposal went to Chip at the beginning of February. Now I need to stitch together the chapter files, make a few more minor revisions, and the ms. will be in a good enough condition that I’ll be confident in sending it out to editors who request the full. I have made a couple of attempts at starting RC, but nothing that has led me to a point where I feel like it’s a strong opening.

6. Develop and implement pre-release marketing plan for HEI. Still in the “thinking about it” phase on this.

7. Attend Alumni weekend at SHU—possibly co-teach a workshop. I know the co-teaching of the workshop isn’t going to happen. I’m not sure this is the wisest way to spend my money (or vacation time) this year, so I’m still praying about it. But I’ll need to make a decision soon if I’m going to get a hotel room anywhere within about 10-20 miles of Greensburg.

8. Pitch the Ransome Trilogy to at least four editors at ACFW conference. As mentioned above, I sent the proposal to Chip a couple of weeks ago. If it hasn’t sold by time of the conference, I’ll be sure to do this then.

9. Sell the Ransome Trilogy. See #8

10. Schedule at least one book signing event for January 2009 (yes, I realize that’s next year, but the work will have to be done this year). See #6