Author: admin

It’s the last day of 2021, which means it’s time to make my goals for 2022 official! I always have a few (okay fine, more than a few) goals at the start of each year, so I can focus my spare time, my savings, etc. This year I still have a TON of goals, and I’ve grouped them into 3 categories. Although I would love to accomplish all of these goals, and will work hard to do it, I will be beyond happy if I reach even half of them.

Business Goals

Publish 3 children’s books and one short story compilation. I have one children’s book, Waiting For You, thiiiis close to being ready to launch. But I’m taking my time as it’s my first ever venture into publishing. I’m hoping for a late Match early April release date. As for the other two children’s books, I have some favorite drafts picked out for those projects and will be full steam ahead. I also have three short stories that take place around the holidays, so I hope to polish up and release those as one short ebook towards the end of the year.

Read more than 100 children’s books. This goal is two-fold. First, it will encourage me to read more with Sam and the next little one. Second, it will allow me to see what kinds of books are out there, what I like, what I don’t like, and I can use that “research” in my own children’s books.

Learn more about publishing. I have so much to learn about all aspects of this journey. I want to do a lot of reading, webinars, podcasts, and probably some trial and error to learn as much as I can.

Reading Goals

Read 12 adult books. Gone are the years where I have goals of 50 plus books. But that’s what happens when you have little ones. So this year, I have a modest goal of one book a month.

Read at least one book in Spanish. I didn’t read anything in Spanish in 2021, so I want to make sure at least one of the 12 books mentioned above is in Spanish.

Listen to audiobooks. I feel like my commute is wasted time these days, so I want to use that time to work on my gigantic TBR list and get through some audiobooks.

Personal Goals

More family time, less phone time. Mostly this means to stop the mindless social media scrolling. Especially when it comes to book work. I want to focus on working smarter and more efficiently, not longer. I tend to hop on facebook or instagram to check a few notifications (book business or personal) and next thing I know I’ve half played with Sam and half scrolled through my phone for over an hour. I want to only play with Sam for that hour this year.

Eat healthier and be more active. These goals are also two-fold. First, there are the obvious health benefits to myself. But more importantly, I want to set an example for my two boys. Sam goes through periods where he doesn’t eat well (like I’m sure every toddler does) but I want to make sure I am giving him the best example of healthy eating to set him up for future success!

Wish me luck this year! It will definitely be interesting trying to balance a full-time job, two young boys, and getting my book business off the ground.

The initial sketches are in, and I cannot explain how excited I am! It is so great to see all my illustrator’s ideas sketched out and see my book starting to come to life. Some of the sketches are perfect – exactly how I imagined they would be. Others are even better than what had been floating around in my brain. Of course, there are some minor changes we will be working out over the next few days, but hopefully very soon she will start the next step: all the artsy things that I know nothing about. The coloring, the textures, the shading, I’m not even sure what she all has planned, but based on her previous work I know it will be amazing!

If you read my last blog post, you might remember the one line that really started everything…

We had his room all set up, we were just waiting for him to arrive.

This line has since undergone revisions at least a half dozen times, but the idea remains the same. I want to give everyone a little taste of what is to come and share the first, rough sketch for this idea of the nursery being complete and just waiting for baby…Enjoy!

After contacting about a dozen illustrators, I have chosen one to work on my very first Children’s book! She is still finishing up another project, so I am patiently waiting for us to start. In the meantime, we have been chatting here and there. About the book, the illustration plan, and just our daily lives – she is very talented and a genuinely nice person and I am so excited to work with her. While we all wait for some sketches, let me fill you in on how this story came about in the first place.

When I was 8 months pregnant with Sam, I started my maternity leave. Around that time, I heard a lot of variations of “Are you ready?” Of course, there are a million answers to that question. I was definitely ready to NOT be pregnant. I was over the big belly, over the constant heart burn, over getting up to pee 87 times every night. I was ready to meet the little guy I had been housing for the last 8 months, see his face for the first time, hold his little fingers. As far as I could tell, we had all the supplies we needed, at least to last the first couple months. I was not looking forward to the promised sleepless nights (which, luckily for us, only lasted about a week). And of course, no one is ever fully prepared to be in charge of a helpless baby. Twenty-four hours a day. Seven days a week. Who can’t articulate why he’s upset. Or control when he pees (or, more specifically, who he pees on). I could go on.

But most people who asked weren’t looking for a monologue on if I was ready or not. So, I kept my answer short and sweet: “We’re ready, we’ve got everything we need. All we are missing now is the baby!” I said some variation of that so many times, it got stuck in my brain. I had done quite a bit of writing in my time off work by that point, so I jotted down some lines, in case it went somewhere. We were just waiting for baby. We had his room all set up, we were just waiting for him to arrive. The next day, I jotted down another line, about going to the doctor for the first ultrasound. But just waiting for baby. And then there was another milestone with another line. And another. And another. And the next thing I knew, I had the entire journey of pregnancy, from finding out to baby’s arrival, with the common thread of always waiting for baby to arrive.

I tweaked this story until I thought it was pretty good, then I sent it out to my personal editing team: Mom, Grandma Sandy, and Nancy – always happy to read anything I write and give me feedback. I put the finishing touches on, printed it out, framed it, and hung it above Sam’s crib. And that was that. Except it wasn’t.

The story hung there for weeks. Months. Always on my mind. I had briefly mentioned maybe trying to publish after my editing crew looked at it, and I finally got the guts to start taking some action. I contacted a couple of professional editors and ended up sending the story to one of them, just to see what she would suggest. With a few well-selected words she took my manuscript to the next level, while still keeping it mine. After reading my new and improved story, I had to take the next step and research illustrators. Hours of Facebook group searches and dozens of Instagram profile views later, I had my list of illustrators I wanted to contact. Now I have selected the one I want to work with and, just like 13 months ago when I was waiting for Sam, I am currently waiting for my illustrator, to see what this next stage will bring!