Over the past several weeks, I’ve been in the process of taking down my old blog. Now that it’s been redirected permanently, it’s time to settle into my website here. This website has, until this month, been focused both on my storytelling focus, as well as on digital marketing and consulting. As my career undergoes changes and shifts, so too must my website.
I’ve updated the theme and the layout, and adjusted the imagery a little. Most of this is because the old version was out of date, and harder to maintain and keep fresh than this new design.
What to Expect Going Forward
My plan is to continue to create content – some will be the general bloggy sort, the cultural shadow work stuff, as well as announcements about books and publications, or other news. So, this homepage will now be more changing and updating (hopefully) as I settle into a groove of creating new content.
I have been off of the groove when it comes to creating YouTube content, and I think that is somewhat in flux. I want to keep playing with the format and figuring out where I land there, in terms of creating videos. I enjoy the process, but it takes more time than I’d prefer to devote to it. I’m still trying to feel my way through that process.
I have a few opportunities to do affiliate marketing. So there will probably be the occasional blog post that drives to an affiliate link – where I get a bit of cash back when other people click on links and make purchases. For right now, because I’m not feeling super excited about marketing, I’m focusing these kinds of opportunities on the stores, goods, and services that I already love and believe in – the kinds of products that I’d tell you I like without the additional incentive.
How this ties to my Goals for 2024
As I said in my previous post about getting shit done, I’ve been tying the things I spend time, attention, and care on to the activities that take me closer to my big goals.
Studies show that we can only really conceptualize 90 days at a time, so I tend to think of my annual goals in quarterly increments. While I have big, overarching goals (e.g. seeing my book in the wild), I also have lots of little steps that help me to approach them, or at least move me in the right direction.
Here are my Q1 2024 goals, with that in mind:
- Grow my social media platform reach to 10K people
- Gain teaching experience on my resume
- Audition for performances of some sort (storytelling? voiceover?)
- Submit book proposals to publishers for 2 non-fiction books
- Complete longer-form fiction to query publishers
- Add 6 more books to my “Proud of Myself” shelf
- Plan 2024 garden, order trees and seeds
- Take 2 small road trips, visiting dear friends
- Open streams of income to support my writing for longer-term
- Know the plan & budget for which conferences I intend to attend for Storytelling, Mythology, and Writing.
- Read at least 13 books (I have a 52 book goal for 2024, and I’m focusing on fun fiction!) I’m tracking these goals on both StoryGraph and Goodreads, if you’re interested.
This website ties particularly to the goal of reaching more people. However, it is also part of the book proposal and query process. And, as I mentioned, the website itself can open income streams with affiliate links.
I quit my full-time job last fall, and I’m still figuring out what the long-term career plan will be. I still look at jobs regularly – both remote and local – and I’m definitely leaning toward part-time and contract positions rather than full-time work. The website serves as a form of electronic business card, in the event that someone wants to work with me on a consulting basis. Further detail of how I can work with organizations is available here.
Meanwhile, I’m also writing a lot of short stories and articles, and submitting them at a far faster pace than I have in the past. It used to be my goal to submit one story to one publication per month. My current goal and pace is submitting two stories per week. That kind of pace also requires a larger inventory of stories! So, I spend a few hours a day drafting new fairy tale retellings, novellas, and stories, as well as revisiting older drafts with fresh eyes.