Change of Plans – Veering Off Course At The Start Of The New Year

I had big plans for the start of the year.

I published my second book at the start of December, and as soon as that was done I was going to revise two projects, break for Christmas, get feedback from my beta readers, and then initiate Big February Plan #1.

You see, someone pointed me in the direction of someone who might want some of my work. It’s a thing I like to do with short stories and novellas, in-between self-publishing my novels. Try to find different homes for some of the stuff that comes out of this head. And when I saw an opportunity to do so, I got excited. Really excited. I mean, both my projects seemed to be a good fit. They seemed to be just the stuff they were looking for. So I jotted down February 1 in my calendar, and set to work.

I made it. I got it done – and I have to say I’m proud of where I managed to take these two stories. They were ready to go. But when I looked a bit closer at where I was sending them, I hesitated…

I realized I couldn’t send them off to this place after all

In hindsight, I should have looked into things better two months ago – not that working through my projects have been extremely valuable regardless, but I got overexcited. After delving deeper into things, who they were, what they were looking for, and what they had done in the past, I realized it wasn’t as good a fit as I was hoping. In fact, it wasn’t a fit at all.

Here I am, two months later, with both projects on hold again. I’m unsure where to take them now – not because I can’t self publish them or submit them to other places, but… I had a plan. And now that plan is gone. I feel like I was invited to a party, but was left standing in the cold.

It’ll be fine of course – I’m happy about my decision. I wouldn’t – as I’m sure no one would – want to send my stuff off to somewhere I wasn’t 100% sure I’d want it to be. At the same time, it sucks that plans change. It makes me feel off course, and it makes me doubt myself.

I’m sure 2021 will be a great year for my writing, nonetheless, I just need to get my head back in the game. In the meantime, I’ll just keep writing.

How’s your new year been so far? Working on anything exciting? Have any big plans? Let me know!