While I fell short on more than a few goals, 2018 was full of growth, progress, and more successes than I ever expected.
For this final #WIPWednesday of the year, a 2018 retrospective #YearInReview.
Books
I was not planning to write a children's book this year, but sometimes inspiration strikes and something unexpected is created. Once the vision came together for my words to become a beautifully illustrated children's book, I set to the task of researching publishers and drafting query letters. It has received seven rejections, so far, but it is still out for consideration with three publishers and I have a list of several others I am prepared to query in 2019.
I struggled a bit with the family history memoir I settled on writing back in February, getting just 4,744 words into the rough draft before officially putting it on hiatus to work on my novel idea in October. I still feel strongly that this is a story I want to tell and I intend to finish it, one day.
My fiction novel is my main project at the moment. I began in October and I have written 17,507 words of a very rough draft over the past couple months. I am well outside my comfort zone with the genre, but I am enthralled with the world I've imagined and I am determined to see this project through.
Essays, Articles & Short Stories
When this year started, I had only one published essay: my first piece from 2016 that went viral before I had any idea what was going on. After a year-long break from writing, I decided to get back into it at the start of 2018.
This year, I have been featured on KidTripster, Perfection Pending, TODAY Parents, Medium, That's Inappropriate, Organized Mom, The Good Men Project, Scary Mommy, Love What Matters, InspireMore, and The Mighty.
I've shared poetry, prose, and I even entered a short story in a flash fiction contest.
I've received recognition for being Top Writer in the Parenting category on Medium, for having the most pageviews in a month for my syndicated piece on That's Inappropriate, by winning a writing challenge on Hopes and Dreams for Our Future, by having my piece featured in the InspireMore newsletter, and by winning a writing prompt contest on InspireMore. All of this is more success than I ever imagined back in January.
My stories have been shared far and wide – and by some big pages – across social media.
I don't have access to pageview data for each of the sites that published my work (though that would be the best metric to measure each piece's success), but I can use MuckRack to calculate the social media reactions for each piece, which is the next best thing.
My Top 3 Essays To Date:
(based on social media reactions)
104,055 - 5 Reasons I'm Going To Continue To Be A SAHM Even After My Kids Are In School on Scary Mommy: 98,623 + syndicated on That's Inappropriate: 5,432
5,006 - I Don't Miss My Kids Being Little on That's Inappropriate: 1,699 + syndicated on Scary Mommy: 3,307
3,103 - You Don't Need To Do It All This Holiday Season on Medium: 14 + syndicated on Love What Matters: 93 + syndicated on TODAY: 2,800 + syndicated on InspireMore: 70 + syndicated on The Mighty: 122 + syndicated on The Good Men Project: 4
Online Presence
As you can see, social media is a huge part of what makes my personal essays and articles successful. Online presence is also extremely important as an author. Many (if not most) publishers will look at a writer's online audience and social media reach, factoring it into their decision making. And, should I decide to self-publish a book at some point, social media becomes even more important.
Social media is, by far, my biggest challenge as a writer. Personally, it overwhelms me; I hardly use it. But, professionally, I recognize its importance and have been making an effort to grow my audience.
I started this year with a few online goals, which I was able to keep:
• No cost. I was/am not prepared to pay for web hosting or other online services, at this point.
• Don't try to do them all. Focus on only a couple social media platforms.
• Stay active and schedule ahead to avoid overwhelm. One post a day on Facebook.
Going into 2019, my goals are pretty much the same and I'll add that I'd like to organically grow my Facebook page likes to 500 by my birthday in February.
I started this year with just Facebook and Twitter.
My Facebook page is growing slowing but is doing well. I am, unfortunately, stuck in a glitch with trying to change my Facebook page name and have had no luck with getting any actual page support since March.
I found Twitter to be a wonderful place for me as a writer looking for writing encouragement, commiseration, and tips. I have not, however, found it useful in promoting my work.
I also tried Pinterest and have failed pretty miserably there, as well.
While I am not going to delete any of these public profiles meant to promote myself as a writer, I know I can only happily manage a couple before it all seems like too much and I am overwhelmed. So, Pinterest and Twitter will likely get very little attention in 2019.
But, I just recently added Instagram to the mix. It is an active platform and one on which I can share the images I create with my words and quotes of others'. My goal there will be to post 3-5 times a week. We'll see if it translates into any meaningful following when it comes to promoting my work.
Looking to 2019
Looking back, 2018 was better than I dared to hope when I decided to pursue my writing aspirations. Looking forward to 2019, I can only hope for more of the same – and maybe to finish the first draft of this book.
