It’s finally starting to feel like winter here in the Chicago area; we’re getting those inevitably bitter cold winds and I have a great view outside my window of the prettiest snow falling over the Berwyn bungalows. Cats are curled up and sleeping on the backs of chairs (or, if you’re Genghis, inside someone’s jacket that was left on the floor or face-first in a Meijer shopping bag…), Christmas tree is still up, and we’re getting a start on January with the usual consideration of New Years Resolutions. Although mine are really New Years Goals. Everyone’s got them, except for the small stubborn few, and I guess I’m no exception. 2015 is going to be a good year, though. 2014 was fantastic, and now that I’ve worked out a few kinks, I only see improvement up ahead. And here are the big ones I plan on knocking out this year:
1. Stop Obsessing Over Money. Now this one, my biggest one, is a little weird, since most people make resolutions to manage their money better. But life has finally shifted into place, and I’m in a position where I’m no longer living paycheck to paycheck, I actually have a decent little emergency fund built up, and I even have money to pour into my business as a writer. Not at lot, but a little, and I always have money left over at the end of the month. So it’s time to stop beating myself up when I want to dish a little for a new book. Or when I buy the nicer, better things for food. Or actually buy some new clothes since I haven’t really gotten anything new for a whole year. When you’ve lived so much of your life living hand-to-mouth (and the past four years have been intense in saving and knocking out debt and building up a fund for publishing and what not), it’s hard to shake that guilt you feel when you spend an extra $20 on groceries. That’s what I find so astonishing about it. I’m not going out and blowing my cash on extravagant purchases here. But my brain is so hardwired to obsess about needing that extra $20 later in an emergency that I’ve got to really break the programming. So this year, it’s going to be all about paying attention to the budget, but not obsessing over it and enjoying some of the wiggle room I’ve worked my tail off to achieve.
2. Publish The Slayer Saga: Heartless. I plan to vigorously stick to my schedule of releasing the next Slayer Saga book on August 15, 2015. In a few months, I’ll be ready to contact my cover artist and fish out for beta readers, so be ready for that! I’m plugging away at it, eager to get that feeling of having a second book in a series out…and then working on the concluding chapter! Already looking ahead to 2016.
3. Publish World Unknown Review: Volume II. Every year, I want to publish at least two books. One of those books will always be the World Unknown Review, an anthology of my favorite short stories that get sent to me by October 31st of that year. I’ve just released Volume I to some pretty great success so far, and I hope that even more authors take advantage of the opportunity and I get even more fantastic submissions for Volume II. Of course, that’s not until the end of the year, but I’m already excited about it.
4. Turning World Unknown Press into an actual business entity. Herein is the scariest goal for me this year, but I really want to look into developing World Unknown Press into an actual company, with all the proper business and legal bells and whistles put into place. All that stuff kind of intimidates me, but my dad has offered to help be an investor if needed, as well as assist me in navigating through all the jargon and hoops of this enterprise. He’s had our family farm as an LLC for a while now, as well as served on a lot of different boards for different companies, so he knows his stuff. It’s both thrilling to be thinking that, by the end of 2015, I’ll officially be a small business owner, but intimidating as HELL. So one step at a time, and I’m sure I’ll be in a way different spot in December than I am now.
And that’s mostly it. With these four things ahead of me, I can tell this is going to be a great year, improving on all the progress I made in 2014. Have you set any goals for yourself this year, too? What are you looking forward to most in 2015?
Happy writing!
L.S. Engler 
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