Goodbye 2014!

See my What To Expect in 2014 post > https://www.spajonas.com/2013/12/31/what-to-expect-in-2014/

2014 is coming to a close and I officially dub it “The Year of Change” for me. I made a lot of changes in my life and how I live, and my writing and how I write. I took this year to get serious about writing as a craft, not just putting words on the page and hoping a real story would come out. I listened to days worth of writing podcasts (Writing Excuses being my favorite of the bunch), read books on writing, and went back my old screenwriting books from college to familiarize myself with story techniques for the screen. I analyzed all the books I read for pleasure and learned a lot about how they were constructed and what I would do better or what they did amazingly well. This is the year that changed the way I looked at stories completely.

Let's go back and take a look at some of the things that went well this past year!

We went on a trip To Charleston to escape the snow.

Published FACE TIME, REUNITED, and several parts of REVEALED.

I redesigned all the covers for the Nogiku Series.

I posted to Instagram almost every single day.

Had an awesome summer vacation starting with the Outer Banks in June.

I kept knitting, even if I didn't knit a whole lot.

I wrote the fourth and final book in the Nogiku Series.

I started writing a new contemporary romance.

I published The Nogiku Series Guidebook just for newsletter subscribers.

I joined the gym and love going (they have babysitting).

I got a flat tire and changed it all by myself.

Went to Atlantic City for my 10 year anniversary.

And…

I celebrated one year in publishing and had my best month ever.
January and February was the Nogiku Series blog tour.
I made learning more about Facebook my priority in 2014 (after I gave up on it and then came back).
I helped out in a million cover reveals and release days.
I stopped using Goodreads and writing reviews of books.
I started a bunch of new features on my blog like The Sunday Update, The Full Moon Report, From My Desk To Yours, and Book Chat, and wrote many helpful posts.
I was on #NALitChat several times.
I became a board member at New Adult Alley.
I redesigned the FACE TIME cover.
I left Kobo and came back.
I tried Kindle Select and I will not do that again.
Found the religion of yoga pants everyday.

Wow, lots of stuff happened this past year!

What about the bad stuff?

Last winter was really tough on me and my SAD was extremely difficult. I had trouble getting out of bed most days and napped almost every single day. This winter I've taken steps to help combat the SAD and so far they're working.

I never got around to working on my Japanese fluency, but by writing the last book in the Nogiku Series and the current contemporary romance I'm working on, they gave me a chance to learn more Japanese history, culture, and language.

I don't know if I'll ever learn Korean at this point. Sigh.

I have had to work hard to get back in shape after last winter. Being depressed and in bed most days did not do great things for my body. Now that I have the gym and babysitting at the gym, though, I'm working hard on lifting weights and being active as much as possible. I hope I can keep this up come February. I did advance my yoga somewhat until the fall when I couldn't go anymore because of my youngest's school schedule.

I stopped using Flickr altogether this year. I'm upset with the direction Yahoo took it in, and I kept getting friended by complete perverts. Done.

I struggled with constant sinus infections, and now I know to just go to urgent care and get antibiotics.

I've wrestled with a lot of doubts this past year…
https://www.spajonas.com/2014/03/21/dealing-with-it/
https://www.spajonas.com/2014/02/10/my-style-is-my-style/

My Favorite Blog Posts

I wrote about my writing process twice and wow did it change in a small amount of time…
https://www.spajonas.com/2014/10/16/writing-routine/
https://www.spajonas.com/2014/12/16/from-my-desk-to-yours-writing-process/

I wrote a few opinion pieces…
https://www.spajonas.com/2014/10/22/gauging-popularity-an-authors-dilemma/
https://www.spajonas.com/2014/10/28/authors-what-if-amazon-went-out-of-business-tomorrow/
https://www.spajonas.com/2014/11/11/the-curse-of-a-serial-monogamist/
https://www.spajonas.com/2014/12/14/sunday-update-december-14-2014/

And I kept my blog fresh with some other favorite posts…
https://www.spajonas.com/2014/11/06/guest-post-new-adults-in-classic-science-fiction/
https://www.spajonas.com/2014/12/23/5-lessons-i-learned-from-making-my-book-free/

The End of a Great Year

I'm spending the last few days of 2014 with family, eating, writing, and being happy. I hope you had a wonderful year! And I'll be back soon with my look ahead to 2015. xo