Today, my heart is broken. I've been watching, as most of you probably have, the news coverage on the attack on the U.S. Capitol, the insurrection in D.C. for several hours. I've been sad, scared, worried, astounded, angry, mortified, and nauseous as I watched domestic terrorists (no, they are not protestors) storm the Capitol building.​ I'm still watching the coverage as I'm writing this.

On the last day of 2020, I shared a post on Instagram. And because I loved it so much, I thought I’d share it here. Seemed fitting for my first post of 2021!

Enjoy!

UNPOPULAR OPINION: I’m grateful for 2020.

Happy Thursday!

Are you participating in NaNoWriMo this year? (If you’re not familiar with it, November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, where thousands of writers around the world attempt to write a novel in the month of November!) If you are, you may be in the midst of Preptober! (Get it? Prep + October?) Well, to get you in the writing mood before November 1st, I’ve got something really fun (and helpful) for you!

This weekend, starting tomorrow, I’m doing a Writing Webinar Blitz: three live webinars in three days. 😱 It’s gonna be so crazy, but with me moving next week (check out that announcement here), I wanted to get them out to you!

Check them out!

Let me just say it: There are some scary things going on in the world right now. The Coronavirus is threatening our health, our economy is crashing, and our jobs are, at best, uncertain.

The responsible thing is to stay home. The safe thing. Because this keeps everyone safe, not just you.

If you’re home, you’re not out catching the disease. If you don’t catch the disease, you can’t spread it to others. And if you’ve minimized your exposure to COVID-19, you’re less likely to contribute to it spreading when you do have to go out.

Because there are vulnerable people in this world, some more vulnerable than you. Even if you’re relatively young and reasonably healthy, what could present as a cold to you could send a compromised individual to the hospital, or worse, to their death.

So please, STAY HOME.

Okay, I’m glad we covered that. Now let’s talk about what’s next.

Ever struggle with staying consistent on Instagram?

Maybe you don’t know what to post.

Maybe you have some ideas, but you’re not sure how to put it into a plan.

Or maybe you’re stuck in the planning phase and you struggle with actually creating the content and getting it posted.

I was the same way. Until January of this year (yes, just two months ago), I didn’t plan ANYTHING. Everything you saw on my IG was basically last-minute. Which meant that it was sporadic at best.

I knew if I wanted to level up and really start taking my social media author presence seriously, I needed to start planning.

And, at first, it was PAINFUL.

But I’ve learned so much, tried so much more, and I’m starting to find out what works for me.

And what works is having a simple plan to GET THINGS DONE.

Enter the Instagram Planning Calendar.

If you’ve read my first book, The Secret of the Codex, you know that I love romance. Kayla and Grady are #couplegoals, and I just loved writing their story.

But except for some fairly steamy-but-still-clean kissing scenes, I didn’t get too much into the romance part. It didn’t feel true to the characters or the story.

In the second book, The Prophecy of the Codex, I explore this a little further. Don’t worry — I don’t get into a lot of details, but you definitely get the point.

I suspect the subsequent books will stay in that same vein.

You have to write what works for the story.

But on February 9th, I started a new book. And this one’s a romance. Like a full-on steamy romance. For mature audiences.

Why the switch?

Who else makes monthly goals?

Setting goals is such a good idea and so helpful! If you don’t set goals, how will you know if you’re achieving your dreams?

So I thought it might be a good idea to keep you guys posted about what I’m working on this month. You know, just for fun. 😊