Saturday 3 January 2015

Taking a great big leap into 2015

It's here, whether we like it or not - 2015.

Sounds really odd to me. 2015 seems like a date that should be way off in the future, with flying cars and robots everywhere and people dressed up in Star Trek suits. Hard to believe that it's actually today.

As a new year starts, so I like to lay out my plans (hey, I can't help it - it's just the sort of guy I am). So, whether you call them new year resolutions or just a rough road map to the year ahead, here are my writing and publishing goals for 2015:
  1. The detective novel (current title A Fate Worse than Death) - we're well advanced on the editing front here so I'm hoping to have it released some time around March/April.
  2. Two picture books (Maddie's Monsters and Bella and the Blue Genie) are both scheduled for release later this year - Maddie in April and Bella in November.
  3. Last year I made good progress on my YA/MG fantasy novel (tentative title Through the Flame). Depending on how quickly I can get the detective novel going, there's a not unreasonable chance I can also have this released before the end of the year.
  4. As mentioned last week, I've just started work on my dinosaur story (tentative title Dinosaurs - maybe not so original but I like it). This is most likely going to be a novella-ish thing, in the same style as Doodling and Flidderbugs. Given the three goals above, I'm not sure if I'll have it ready for release this year but we'll see how we go.
  5. I'd like to keep developing picture book ideas for future publication. As with last year, I plan to produce at least two new picture book texts.
  6. Anything else? Given how long it takes me to get a novel into publishable form (at least 2 years) I feel like I should at least be trying to make a start on something - otherwise, 2016 is going to be a much quieter year publishing-wise. I have a few rough ideas in my head at the moment.
So those are the plans. I like to at least try and set achievable goals for myself, but in this case...Well I suppose I'll find out at the end of the year.

Hope you achieve all your goals and 2015 is a fabulous year for you. And watch out for those flying cars.