My Year in Review

 

I don’t think I’ve ever written a “Year in Review” post before, so I thought I’d give it a shot. I laughed as I looked back through my datebook and see all the entries and reminders I wrote. Many, I have no idea what they mean.

I started the year by setting my goal in the 2023 Goodreads Reading Challenge. I choose to try and read six books in 2023. That’s my usual goal and I've met that goal every year prior. I’ll post how I did at the end of this writing.

I also had been itching to write a screenplay, but had no idea how to do it. Fortunately, early in the year, one of my publishers, and a screenwriter himself, Tony Acree held a screenwriting workshop near me and I took the opportunity to learn a new skill. I have to say I loved it. I learned so much in that one-day workshop. I was ready to start and am happy to say I adapted my first mystery book, Homecoming to Murder into my first screenplay in three months. I was ready to enter it into some screenwriting competitions.

After the screenplay was finished, I started writing a new novel, leaving Nathan Perry and his fellow officers behind. The new book had new characters, new location, and a new murder. I was in the groove writing it. I felt a little guilty leaving Nathan stalled at solving his newest murder investigation, but I needed a break from the residents of Mystic, Massachusetts.

July rolled around with the Imaginarium Convention in Louisville, Kentucky occurring. This is always
my favorite convention to attend. I love seeing so many of my online friends in person and meeting new ones at the event. This year was extra special because my screenplay won Runner-up in the Long Format Screenplay category. My first screenwriting award! Unfortunately, I also came home from the convention with a case of Covid. Thankfully, it was mild and after a few weeks of doing a lot of sleeping, I was over it.

During all this time, I was still working on the new novel. In August, I attended the Lagrange (Kentucky) Authors Fair. I shared a table with my Louisville, Kentucky Sisters-in-Crime chapter and sold several books. One particular customer told me how much she loved my Nathan Perry series and was really looking forward to reading the next one. The guilt hit again about not working on the next book in the series, which was actually only about four chapters from being finished when I stopped writing it. The next day, I started working on it again, setting aside the other book for a while. I have to say, I wrote almost every day to get that book finished, sometimes writing for several hours in the day. In October, I competed Murder in Mystic Hollow and sent it off to my publisher. When it’s released, it will be the fourth book in the Nathan Perry Mystery Series. My publisher is shooting for a Spring release.

Also, in October, my screenplay won a second award for Best Screenplay in the ICE CineFest. I also wrote another screenplay. This one is a short script called Summer Darkness. It’s a paranormal thriller. What to do next? I found myself in love with the residents of Mystic again and started working on the next book, which might possibly be the last one in the series, tentatively titled, Kill the Story. We'll see how it goes.

After finishing the first chapter, my mind kept wandering back to the other book. I was coming up with ideas for more of it. That book is about a sheriff in a Colorado town. Oh, don’t worry, it’s not a western, but another contemporary murder mystery. The tentative title for it is Exposure. I’ve almost completed the
fourth chapter.

So that brings me to the end of the year. I exceeded my Goodreads Reading Challenging by reading eleven books this year. I really don’t know how I got so many read with all the writing I did. My reading goal for 2024 will be eight books, hopefully more. If you bought any of my books this past year, thank you very much. I love writing and hope to continue doing that for a long time. 

Happy New Year!

Carol