(This is my back yard.)
The New Year is upon us. It's hard to believe we are entering 2023. Time has a way of flying by, especially the older a person gets. I will reach a milestone birthday in March this year. When I was young, I never thought I would be happy to turn sixty-five, but I've been without insurance for a while, and am looking forward to being eligible for Medicare. As my ninety-four-year-old, and still doing well, father would say, "You only have two choices in life--grow old or die. I'll take growing old."
What is coming up in my writing life in 2023? Here's a partial list. As a freelance writer other writing opportunities will arise as the year unfolds but here is what I know now.
Right now I am up to my nose in deadlines that I put off during the holidays. I have a first rounds of edits for my new devotional book that will release in '23 waiting for me to go through. I have a week of devotions due back to "The Quiet Hour" editor on Jan 31st. I finished writing these before taking a couple of weeks off for Christmas, but I need to read over them, self-edit them, and get them submitted. And I am teaching a workshop on writing for magazines in March for which I need to create a power point. All of these need to be done before the end of January so I have my work cut out or me.
Here is my year in a nutshell:
January:
a) Get 1st round of edits to my cowriter to add to hers by 1/10.
b) Get seven devotions submitted to "The Quiet Hour" editor by 1/30
c) prepare another submission to send out by 1/20 (Hopefully I can say more about this later.)
February:
a) Have the Writing for Magazines Power Point finished by month's end.
b) May hear back from a magazine editor who liked an article I submitted in the fall and said she would consider it in January or February.
March:
17-18 Attend and teach a three-hour workshop at Mid-South Christian Writer's Conference in Memphis.
April:
A devotion I wrote will appear in the Spring Issue of "The Secret Place" but I do not know the exact date yet.
May-August:
a) Edit, edit, edit on the new release!! (There are so many rounds of edits that happen in the making of a book, it can take up an awful lot of time. I don't like the edit stage nearly as much as I do the writing stage.)
b) Work with my committee at the Mid-South Christian Writers conference on faculty selection for the '24 conference.
September:
Seven devotions I wrote some time ago will appear in "The Quiet Place" 9/4-9/10.
October-December:
a) My new devo book will release some time in the fall, but we do not have a release date yet.
b) A memoir article I wrote a year ago and submitted to the editor of "Goldenseal" magazine should be coming out in late '23 or early '24 according to an email he sent.
Whew! I'm tired just thinking about it but I love writing. There is nothing I would rather do! As the year unfolds, you will be hearing more about my upcoming release. Hopefully I will be able to share its title and focus soon followed by a cover reveal and release date in the upcoming months.
