Changes To The Blog In 2018

Happy New Year! Many would say that 2017 has been a questionable year on multiple levels, so here’s hoping that 2018 brings prosperity, safety, and peace to all.

As we move into 2018, I’m looking ahead to my work schedule for the coming months and how to manage both my day job and my writing. My goal for 2018 is to negotiate for additional contacted books in Kensington’s FBI K-9 series, but also to sell a couple of new proposals that I’ll be working on early in the year. I’m not a full-time writer, so figuring out how to manage this on top of my 40 hour/week job as a lab manager always involves a lot of juggling (the goal being, as my husband has stated in the past, to not end up in the hospital after burning out). I want to be able to manage two, if not three, projects a year, so that means I need to be more intentional about my writing time. Schedules and self-imposed deadlines have always been my go-to method, including charted weekly goals when drafting, which is often the hardest part of the process for me. But this also means I’m going to ease back from weekly blogging as that can involve hours of research and writing time that I could dedicate instead to my manuscript.

Does that mean you won’t hear from me at all? Absolutely not. All publishing news, and cover reveals, and early sneak peeks will come through my newsletter  and the blog. And I’ll be sure to blog any hot and interesting related stories that come across my desk. But, at least for the short term, I want to concentrate on my upcoming fiction projects, so that means you’ll hear from me less often.

However, there is still lots to come this year. Ann and I turned in the third FBI K-9s book, STORM RISING, at the end of November, so we expect developmental edits to arrive any day now as we prepare for a fall release. And my daughter Jess, the creative skills behind the cover for LAMENT THE COMMON BONES, and I are working on the new covers for DEAD, WITHOUT A STONE TO TELL IT, A FLAME IN THE WIND OF DEATH and TWO PARTS BLOODY MURDER as we prepare for their re-release (hopefully in February), making the Abbott and Lowell Forensic Mysteries a complete series in trade paperback format. And hopefully there will some announcements over the year concerning new projects.

Lots to look forward to in 2018, so hang onto your hat, here we go!

Photo credit: DaPuglet