Another New Year Already?

By Jeff Salter 

I don’t know where a year goes. When I still worked full-time, it seemed as though hours would last for days … and days could linger for weeks. Now that I’m retired, it seems like months zoom past in a few days and a full year whips past me like a handful of weeks.
Gosh, it’s a good thing I don’t exaggerate!

So now that a brand new year lies before me, most people expect a bit of reflection on the year just ended … and some notion of what we hope for the one ahead.
Okay: here goes.

Old Year
            The year of 2012 actually seemed longer than most of the other five years since I retired. I believe this is because I had two of my novels published by Astraea Press. The Overnighter’s Secrets took over 4.5 months from the beginning of pre-edits to the release date (May 24^th). But that story was being proofed almost exactly one year after I first saw the silent movie actresses’ mementoes which inspired my writing of that novel. So those few months of editing back-and-forth seemed a lot longer than the full year which elapsed from ‘inception’ of my story to its ‘birth’.

But my second published novel [Rescued By That New Guy in Town] sped along like a high-speed train: submitted the query on Jul. 31^st, received a contract about nine days later, and we zipped through the four edit phases. That book was already uploaded to Amazon by Oct. 3^rd (hardly nine weeks after initial submission).

In the final months of last year, I worked diligently to overhaul a novel which I finished the first draft of in 2008 and significantly revised in mid-2009. No ordinary overhaul, this recent effort required removal of some 45,000 words from the 164,000 word manuscript. Let me tell you folks: that’s no picnic. After five additional drafts, I was finally able to submit it to my publisher on Dec. 30^th and I hope/pray that she likes it.

In the fourth quarter of 2012 I also began a new blog, Write By Salter, on a new site Take Two … on Romance —which I share with author Vivian Roycroft.

Not related to writing but also very important to me: in 2012 I worked my fifth hitch as a helper in VacationBibleSchool and I began my fifth ‘school’ year teaching the 1^st and 2^nd grade boys on Wednesday evenings at church.

New Year
            I don’t actually do formal resolutions, but for this new year, I hope I can achieve more effective promotion of the novels I already have published. I would love to have a growing number of readers who enjoy my stories enough to be eager for the next one to be released … and who enthusiastically tell others about my books.

I hope to have at least two books published during 2013 — Lord willing, ‘the creek don’t rise’, and my publisher is willing to offer contracts. Ideally, one of those would be the ms. I mentioned above, which I worked on so much near the end of last year. Another I hope to submit fairly soon is one of my two screwball comedies, already completed. It would be awesome if I could also publish a third book this year since it – already completed – deals with a real-life incident involving my wife’s ancestral family during the Civil War in 1863, exactly 150 years ago this March.

If I can get things moving to enter these two or three already-written manuscripts into a publishing pipeline, I hope also to do some NEW writing in this new year. I had several ‘starts’ last year, but no time to develop any of them.

I hope I can make time to do more READING this year … because I enjoy it so much.

I hope my physical pain is lessened somewhat this year … and that it might be a bit easier on me to travel. Because I’d like to visit my son and family in Louisiana at least once this year. Three of our grandchildren are down there and we don’t get to see them nearly enough.

I hope I’m able to help again with the kids in VBS and I plan to continue teaching the RA boys on Wednesdays at Church.

Last year’s post:
            At this point on Hound Day last year, I had a few things to say about resolutions. Take a look if you have a few moments.
https://fourfoxesonehound.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/be-it-therefore-resolved/

Question:
            What do you envision for this new year of 2013?
Any special projects? Travel? Changes in your lifestyle?