I’m always so excited when a new year starts. I can’t help but be positive and forward thinking about my career, health, and family. But sometimes my dreams get away from me and I think I have a lot more time (and capital) than I really do.

It only took me two months to realize that I put too much on my plate this year! Which is better than making it to June and saying, “Oops, what did I get myself into?”

So, remembering that my goals for this year are to focus on me and my writing career, I’ve decided on a few things.

1. I will not be starting any new websites this year. My original intention to put together a website that focuses on Japanese fiction and another website I had planned to give other author’s manuscript critiques are being set aside until 2019 at least. I just do not have time for them.
2. I will not be doing anymore giveaways this year. No more Rafflecopters. No more free runs of my books for 2018. This includes my paperback giveaways which I started in 2017. First, they go largely unappreciated. Winners don’t return my emails. None of them even say thank you. I can think of better ways to spend my money than shipping them books I feel certain they will never read. Instead I have decided to donate all the books to local Little Free Libraries. More on that in a future post.

And that’s it for now. So far everything else I want to do is still on the table. I started writing a brand new book yesterday and I feel confident that I’ll be able to publish Fukusha Model Eight in May before I leave for another trip to Japan. That means my obligation of publishing 3 books this year will be 2/3rds complete!

Onward!