My 2025 Resolutions

I know we’re nearly a full month into 2025, but I started this year off in the best way possible, on a vacation with my favorite people, then had to turn in my latest manuscript to a developmental editor on Sunday.

Now I am getting back to my regular programming and figuring out what I need to focus on to get to the life I want to lead. So, here we go!

To start off, my word for the year is Believe. To believe I can make it as a 6-figure, full-time author. Believe I am good enough to write the stories of my heart rather than waiting until I am better. Believe that I am worthy of love. Believe that I can find someone who loves me and wants to build a life with me in the real world, not just in my books. When I was younger, I always thought you grow up, find your person, have a family, and live mostly happily ever after. As I grew older and my person evaded me, I started to doubt that, which I don’t want to do. I was also viewing my writing career through the same lens as when I wanted to be an actress, thinking that success was a shooting star that may never hit me. This year, I want to think of it more as a sustainable career I can excel at as long as I put the time and effort into writing the best stories I can and learning how to market them to the people who want to read them. So many people I trust and admire swear by having the right mindset and visualizing where you want to be, so I am going to work on those hidden steps as well.

Then, in no particular order, we have my 2025 resolutions:

• Read my Physical TBR

I was going to put that I wanted to read one fiction and one non-fiction/craft book per month, but then I saw the more than 50 unread books on my shelf, and decided to show them some love instead. I am also part of a bookclub, so I won’t be exclusively pulling from my TBR, but I would like to make a substantial dent in that pile…which may or may not be an entire bookshelf.

• Optimize Retailers

As an indie author, I am constantly struggling to get my books in front of the people who are likely to enjoy them, then to convince them to buy them. Once they’re in, my readers tend to follow through the rest of the series, but I am not great at hooking people, so I need all the organic help I can get! My plan is to devote a month to each platform (Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble, Google, Kobo, Smashwords, my Direct Store, etc.) figuring out the best practices (I’ve taken many courses and copious notes on the subject) then implementing them.

• Build up an Engaged Audience

I’ve had a blog for over a decade, and a newsletter for nearly as long, but I am not great at being consistent. Or creating any kind of lasting dialogue between me and the people who read what I put out. So, this year, I will try to be more open and vulnerable in sharing what is going on with me, and to consistently send out two newsletters per month, one to my Giftedverse audience, and another to my Regency Romance fans (which launched this month!).

• Put myself out there

I do okay in social settings. Mostly. I like putting on pretty dresses and going places. But I really really like staying home in my pjs. I am comfortable there. I can entertain myself for lifetimes with all the stories I want to write, the books I want to read…and since I moved back in with my parents during COVID, I don’t even have to be lonely. All this to say it is often a struggle to get myself to go out into those social settings. And even harder to put myself out there once I’m…out there. Or even from the comfort of behind my computer screen, when applying for things, reaching out to people, sharing some of the awesome things I might be up to…I probably wouldn’t even care, if it weren’t for the fact that I want to find my person. I want to get married and have babies. I want to be a mother. I want to have a best friend I can call at 4 am and deliberate with other than just my mom (I don’t actually plan on calling at 4 am, but it was a benchmark for friendships in some magazine article I read years ago). So, this year, instead of hoping life will just happen to me, I want to try and make like happen. To put myself out there personally, professionally, and consistently.

• Start a Book of Recipes

I tried this a few years ago, focusing on having go-to recipes for things like cake and cookies, but I was looking for something in my grandmother’s recipe books the other day, and thought it would be nice to have my own. So I won’t have to text my mom to find how she makes her melt-in-your-mouth salmon, or how long to cook a steak. I’m very loosey-goosey with recipes that don’t require precision, but I still want a collection of staple recipes I can make for a date or bring to a potluck. (And yes, part of this will most definitely be raiding my grandmother’s recipe book, but I also want to successfully make each one on my own before it gets added)

• Be confident/comfortable in my body. (Self-Confidence in general)

I went from daily BJJ and boxing workouts (pre-covid) to comfort foods and rarely venturing outside for over a year, which had an obvious effect on my weight, shape, and strength. But what shocks me the most is that when I look at those pictures of me from 2019 — over 20 lbs lighter, stronger, and more in shape than I have ever been, I know I didn’t feel that way. I was seeing the 10-15 lbs I had to lose to reach my goal weight, still thinking of myself as one of the bigger people in every room I walked into. For this resolution, I want to be healthier and fit into my clothes, of course. But, maybe more importantly, I want to feel comfortable in my skin, while I am getting there. Or even if I never do. Looking at the pictures from our recent family vacation, it is very easy to see my rolls, or how much better certain bathing suits and dresses fit me a few months/years ago…but I want to be able to focus on/see nothing more than my overwhelming happiness at making memories with my family.

• Be a present and loving aunt/sister/daughter/granddaughter/niece/cousin/friend

I have the most amazing family. I was really lucky to grow up with the best examples of the kind of person I want to be. Try to be. But I often get caught up in my life and will be on my phone or writing in a notebook or doing something other than just being there with the people I love. I want to be better at that, and to not confuse seeing someone as spending time with them. Because there are many times I spend the day at my grandparents’ and see twenty people but only actually talk (or interact, because my youngest nephew is only three months old) with half of them.

• Develop healthy habits

This one is probably less glamorous, but my wrist kinda stopped working on me a few years ago, for around three months, and it made me painfully aware of how I was taking my body and my health for granted. I don’t want to do that anymore, so I am going to find an ergonomic setting for me to write my books in, go on more walks, work up a sweat/get my heartbeat going on a daily(?) basis, strengthen my core, improve my posture, eat healthier, drink more water…and all those things we know we should do, but don’t.

• More live events

I have been doing Montreal’s Comic Con since 2022, and was over the moon to have a book signing at Indigo last August. Selling my books in person is absolutely terrifying, because I am putting myself fully on display, both as a person trying to convince them to talk to me, and as an author convincing them to read something I wrote. My imposter syndrome is through the roof and I often have to stop myself from asking ‘Are you sure?’ every time someone chooses to buy my books. But it’s also incredible to find my readers in the wild. To have conversations about books in general, but also about my plots and universe. To be somewhere people have likely heard of me/my books before (I give bookmarks to every person who walks down my row in Artist Alley) and be able to run into people who’ve read my books. Who enjoyed them. Who buy the next one. Who reread them to find easter eggs. Who want every single book in my universe because they fell in love with it. Any single one of those interactions makes all the fear and self-doubt more than worth it. Because what better way to kill those negative emotions than by complete strangers showing you it isn’t true? (Also I got a lot of swag for the crowdfunding campaigns and want to be able to share it with people who will appreciate it!)

These are my resolutions for 2025. What are yours? I would love to hear about them!

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” -Lao Tzu