Erotica by Cori Vidae

I set goals for myself at the beginning of each year and then assess how well I did at reaching them at the end of that year.

2020 was pretty tough in regard to time management. I wondered, more than once, if I should hang up my hat and focus exclusively on the work I do as Other Me because I just didn’t have the time to dedicate to this and Other Me’s stuff.

I mean, you’d think it would be obvious that it’s impossible to do all the things as two different people, but I really did try LOL

Looking back at the goals I didn’t accomplish last year they were all my writing goals. I did what I aimed to do in regard to publishing other people, it was my writing which I failed to prioritize. I don’t regret the choices I’ve made in that regard at all, but what it taught me is that if I want to continue writing romance and erotica (and despite giving some thought to quitting, I don’t want to quit) I need to not just prioritize it, but do fewer other things.

That is one reason I’ve decided not to publish any new works by other people via Pen and Kink this year. By not putting out new titles it will allow us a chance to really focus on promoting the work we’ve already put out there, and also (hopefully) open up some space in my calendar to work on my own stuff more.

2020 Goals

• Finish the first draft of Prairie Magic #3
  • I started this as a NaNoWriMo novel in 2018 and discovered partway through that it was brutally flawed. I think I may know how to fix it, but it will require stripping most of it away and, essentially, starting over. It will be worth it, though. This is a story I really want to tell.
  • Total bonus points to myself if I manage to complete the first revision of this story as well.
• Compile and publish a collection of the ‘She’s on the Bottom’ stories
  • I forgot to do this last year >_<
• Spend 15-20% of my work week on marketing and publicity
  • I’m reasonably good at selling books with my name on the cover. Selling books with other people’s names on the spine is a different skill, though, and one I’d like to dedicate some time to learning. I won’t be spending all of my marketing and publicity time on other people’s books, but on P&K books in general (which include mine).

Three goals. I think it’s a good number.

Note to self: Cori, if that seems like your setting the bar low, remember that you are two people sharing one body and there are only twenty-four hours in the day.

Each year I set goals for myself and then evaluate how well I’ve done to meet them. This right here is the evaluation part… it’s always much more difficult than the bit where I actual set the goals LOL

2019 Goals

• Compile and publish a collection of the ‘She’s on the Bottom’ stories

I totally forgot I was going to do this. Which, honestly, mostly means I need to ‘Check current goals’ into my planner at regular intervals. I’ve done this so hopefully I won’t miss goals this year because I’ve just totally forgotten about them.

• Finish writing and editing the third (currently untitled) Prairie Magic novel

Alas, I made zero progress on this. In fact, the Post-it notes detailing the scenes I have written are starting to lose their ability to stick to things, which cannot possibly be a good sign.

• Write the next part of the Running on Empty series

Also didn’t do this. Honestly, I didn’t write a single new word of fiction in 2019 I don’t think…

• Publish THH (Full title to be announced in time) via P&K

These Hollow Hearts by Em Shotwell hit the shelves in March 2019. Yay!

• Publish LGLFL (Full title to be announced in time)  via P&K

Lesser Gods Looking For Love by Wendy Sparrow hit the shelves in May 2019. Whoot!

• Publish DDL (Full title to be announced in time) via P&K

Destiny’s Dark Light by Sara Dobie Bauer hit the shelves in October 2019. Yay!

• Publish Haunted via P&K

Haunted, edited by Trysh Thompson, was released on September 13, 2019. 🙂

• Set some concrete, measurable 5 and 10 year goals

Concrete, measurable goals I don’t have… but I do have a vague idea of what the next three to five years will hold, and that’s not nothing.

• Open up to submissions for my ‘Power Play’ anthology.

Well… I opened up submissions but then I had to cancel the anthology. Mostly, I think that was my fault — I didn’t promote the submissions as well as I should have, and because of that and the rather niche nature of the subject of the anthology, I didn’t receive enough high-quality submissions to move ahead with this one.

I feel pretty guilty about this, because some people did submit some great stories, but because of my time management failure they weren’t able to find a home with me. I hope they found homes elsewhere though.

Also, in addition to those goals we also published INKomplete: The Total Tattoo Studio by Mara Malins in December 2019.

I also opened up a Patreon that includes all of my currently available short fiction. So far that has mostly just sat and collected dust… but it’s there. So that must count for something LOL

So, though I didn’t hit all of my goals, I was far from idle in 2019. When I set my goals for this year, however, I’m going to have to keep in mind that there are only twenty-four hours in a day, and I need to spend some of them sleeping.