We’ve got a new 52-Blog Week Challenge from MFRW for 2018! Check out all the awesome blogs on the hop!

 

First of all, Happy 2018! Wishing you all a successful and joyous new year, filled with good fortune, love and fulfillment! I’m pleased to be taking on the 2018 Marketing for Romance Writers 52-Week Challenge and want to thank you for joining me on this exciting journey! Let’s get started!

I’ll admit, my inner editor is struggling with this title. It’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong. Obviously. But it gets to the point quite quickly. Because here’s the thing, the best thing I’ve ever written is the last thing I wrote. It’s the thing I’m writing now. If my current work in progress or last manuscript is not my very best work, it’s time for me to take a step back and try to understand exactly why that is. 

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I have favorites – technically the point of this post, if I’m being honest – stories that feel more hardwon or that took so much longer than the others, but when it comes down to the nitty gritty best of the best, it should be the story I’m working on now.

Because authors are supposed to grow with every story they write. We’re supposed to learn from our mistakes, avoid our past pitfalls and be better with each new attempt. I’d like to think I am. I’m currently working on the third book in the Triple Diamond Series, and there’s no doubt in my mind that the characters are more fully-formed, the plot is tighter and the relationship is more genuine. That’s by no means to say the first two are bad – I certainly don’t believe that! I love this series and the goal is to make each new book better, bigger and stronger than the last.

woman-792162_1920No one wants to stay in one place. You’ll see a lot of decisions and new ideas at the start of a new year, but this isn’t an ill-fated resolution for me. Writing against my own work, competing only with my past self, that’s the way I grow as an author and that’s the way I produce better books.

What’s my favorite book? I’d have to say Seduction en Pointe because that one took four solid rewrites to get right and it feels worth the mud, sweat, and tears. But what’s my best book? The one I’m working on now. As writers, and as people, we cannot rest on our laurels. We have to point ourselves to the horizon and focus on being better with every step. Sometimes we won’t be, but we have to try.

I recently wrote about why I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, but I’ll concede one point. This year, I’m going to do my damnedest to make each book I write better than the last one. That’s the only way forward. ♦

 

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