Author Life 2.0: Fail to Plan. Plan to Fail...

Happy New Year to all my readers out there! I’m not sure about you, but I found that 2025 was a kind of ‘expect the unexpected’ year. Unfortunately, I never did get my knee replacement surgery date last year. Sigh. BUT, I’m booked to go get my new and improved knee at the end of this January. Yay, me! I’m a little nervous and excited at the same time, so wish me luck and a fast recovery! That said, January 2025 started with an urgency to research the best publishers to query for The Last Timekeepers time travel adventure series, and Mysterious Tales from Fairy Falls teen psychic mysteries, as the publisher I had been with for ten years was closing at the end of 2025. I had decided to split up my book series with two different publishers (not a lofty goal at all!), where I’d approach a Canadian publisher for my Fairy Falls series (based in Canada), and an International publisher for The Last Timekeepers. Wow, talk about kismet! I managed to find two publishers willing to take on my backlist and future books within two months. Now that’s when hard work meets luck!

While I was busy dismantling my old author life, and trying to build a new one, we were met with devastating news at the loss of our 22-week-old grandchild February 1st, who was to be born in late spring of 2025. Then, my 95-year-old mother was hospitalized a week later through a fall in the long term care facility she’s living in, and still hasn’t managed to regain her walking abilities. Yes, I’m a firm believer that there is strength through adversity, and I’ve found that you can only keep it together by understanding that we’re never in control of the narrative. The truth is we are all experiencing life in our own way, and at times, our mettle is tested to bring us to the next level of our lives, if we so choose.

So, between the grieving what was lost, and making choices that would support my new Author Life, I
made a plan to tear down my old author world, and build a better one that would serve me, my needs, and my goals. This whole process entailed resubmitting my books to the publishers who offered me contracts, doing the necessary edits and changes, approving the new book covers for The Last Timekeepers series, firing my useless web designer, and hiring a supportive, reliable one, and trying new ways to connect with my target audience via school libraries and Instagram. I managed to get my young adult time travel books and teen psychic mysteries re-released in May and June 2025. Not bad, and way ahead of schedule. Woohoo!

Moving forward in Author Life 2.0, I found that there are two things I’ve learned from coming out of this challenging year. First, to stop putting pressure on myself, and just enjoy the ride. Life goes by so fast, and if you don’t slow down to ‘smell those roses’ you’ll miss out on so many things or opportunities that were meant for you. Second, I have nothing to prove. Period. So many times we seek the approval of others: our parents, our peers, our colleagues and bosses, our spouses, even our children. That’s a lot to take on. The only approval you need is the heart-based approval you give to yourself. It’s a form of self-love that we all need in this world right now.

How was 2025 for you? Any milestones? Did you need to take a welcome break from all the craziness we’ve endured the past six years? Have you been in your comfort zone far too long like I was? Would love to read your comments! Cheers, Happy New Year, and wishing you a healthy, happy, and prosperous 2026! Thanks for taking the time to read my blog. I appreciate you!

12 Holiday Motivation Tips to Get You Started on Time for the Upcoming Season by C.D. Hersh...

The holidays are nearly on us, and with them come extra work decorating the house, the lawn, the trees, baking all those Christmas cookies and goodies, shopping, cleaning, holiday parties to attend and give, and scads of other things that can take you away from your WIP. This year give yourself a head start with a little motivation to sit down at the computer and keep writing. Start planning now for a successful holiday writing season.

Here are a few tips on how to motivate yourself to write during the holidays.

1.     Start your holiday motivation by spending part of one day each week doing some holiday activity that fuels your creativity. If you celebrate Halloween get those decorations made and put up. When that’s accomplished start making Thanksgiving decorations for your table, bake those pies and fruitcakes, begin making Christmas cards, build a gingerbread house, plan what Christmas cookies you’re going to bake, build a snowman with the kids (use snow or craft paper or pillows), or begin your shopping. You’re only limited by your own imagination.

2.     Plan a couple of writers’ plotting and cookie exchange parties for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Have each participant bring 2 dozen home baked cookies (which you mixed up while writing with your tape recorder – more later on this) and exchange cookies and plotting ideas. And yes, this can count toward one of the writing goals.

3.     Make a holiday advent writing calendar. Choose a series of 25 clear writing goals for the holiday season and write them down on holiday themed paper. It doesn’t matter if it’s a chapter a day, 100 or 1000 words a day, perfecting that blurb or synopsis, or looking up a new editor or agent to submit to in January. Drop the goals into a bowl and pick one each day. Not knowing what you are going to do will keep the excitement alive, much like opening the doors on the Advent calendar does for children. If your family already has an advent calendar when you set it up add your goals to the calendar. Let the family number your advent goal papers so you will be surprised when you open them. This way the family can see what you need to accomplish and help keep you on track.

4.     Let Santa’s “writing elf” reward you with a little gift under the tree, or holiday snack set next to your easy chair, for each goal or week of goals you complete. Shop for your own rewards in advance, involve the family and let them choose or make the gifts for you, or do both.

5.     Head to Panera’s (or some other location that has a fireplace), grab a seat next to the fire and write until the heat overtakes you. If you work on your steamy love scenes it might not take long for you to get overheated. Then call it a day and have a Chai Latte while you watch the flames flicker.

6.     Leave the decorations off of the Christmas tree and put a few ornaments on every time you write 100, 200, 300, or 400 words—you choose the limit. Store the decorations in a pretty basket by the tree to make them easily accessible. If you plan a Christmas party and need the tree decorated quickly this could spur your word count to grow rapidly.

7.     Do a fun holiday related activity with the family with the understanding that the next day, or hours, are yours for writing.

8.     Write a Christmas story during your holidays. Inspiration is all around you during the season, from music to snow, if you’re lucky enough to get it. Writing holiday themed stories now beats putting the tree up in July, like Dolly Parton does for inspiration when she creates Christmas songs in the summer.

9.     Work hard in the time you’ve allotted and stay focused. This means no email, no web surfing, and shutting the office door.

10.  Use your crockpot … often. Winter’s a great time for simple soup, chili or stew meals topped off with crusty loaf of bread. Make double batches and you’ll have leftovers for another day. Some soups are better reheated.

11.  Write with a tape recorder and transcribe it after the holidays are over. A mini tape recorder fits in your pocket and is easy to use. Some cell phones even have to ability to record voice notes. All those times you have while you wait for the kids’ Christmas concerts to start (because we all know you have to be there hours in advance), waiting in line for thirty minutes at the checkout counter while holiday shopping, or mixing dough for Christmas cookies can count as writing time.

12.  At the end of the holiday season, if you met all your goals give yourself a BIG reward. You deserve it!

Share with us in the comments what ideas you have to motivate you through the holidays to keep writing.

Here's a brief intro to our romantic shapeshifter series. We hope you'll click the link to read the blurbs.

Amazon The Turning Stone Chronicles Series page

The Promised One (The Turning Stone Chronicles Book 1)

Blood Brothers (The Turning Stone Chronicles Book 2)

Son of the Moonless Night (The Turning Stone Chronicles Book 3)


The Mercenary and the Shifters (The Turning Stone Chronicles Book 4)

C.D. Hersh–Two hearts creating everlasting love stories.
Putting words and stories on paper is second nature to co-authors C.D. Hersh. They’ve written separately since they were teenagers and discovered their unique, collaborative abilities in the mid-90s. As high school sweethearts and husband and wife, Catherine and Donald believe in true love and happily ever after.

They have a short Christmas story, Kissing Santa, in a Christmas anthology titled Sizzle in the Snow: Soul Mate Christmas Collection, with seven other authors.

They are looking forward to many years of co-authoring and book sales, and a lifetime of happily-ever-after endings on the page and in real life.

Social Media Info:

Website

Soul Mate Publishing

Facebook

Amazon Author Page

Twitter

Goodreads

Writers Taking Stock…

In the Tarot Cards, the Seven of Pentacles is all about taking stock. Reevaluating what you’ve been working on for some time, and reflecting on what you’ve accomplished so far. The beginning of a new year is a perfect time this. It’s a time for assessment and future planning, as well as a time for a change.

I’m lucky to be with a publishing company who sets business goals for the year and shares these plans with their authors. Some of these plans include to publish a certain amount of books while keeping slots open for authors who are writing an ongoing series, featuring a new book each month with blog posts, videos, and discounts, attending many events and festivals, and producing audiobooks. They want to continue improving and growing, and so do I. Part of that growth includes building their brand. And that’s my goal too.

So how am I going to continue building my author brand? By blogging weekly, sharing interesting and helpful information on the social media, helping other authors achieve their goals, connecting with readers through events and visits, offering sales and giveaways, and of course writing more books. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I’ve not been able to get more of my books into the hands of my readers these last two years. This will change in the upcoming year with the publication of the second installment of The Last Timekeepers series, The Last Timekeepers and the Dark Secret later in 2016. I also plan to work on researching and outlining the third book in the series next year too!

My literary agent also has big plans as Walden House (Books & Stuff) has set up a satellite office in the UK, and will begin re-submitting the first book in my Mysterious Tales from Fairy Falls series throughout North America and Europe. Patience is the name of the game when you’re working with an agent, and since I’m busy producing my time travel series, it’s a win-win for me. This is the beauty of developing an author brand. When potential publishers check you out, you’ve got a platform and a body of work already on the go. And that’s when all your hard work and persistent effort will pay off!

Finally, I can’t stress this enough, but having a positive mental attitude helps tremendously. It will not only carry you through the tough writing times where you’re lucky to get a paragraph written in a day or make enough sales in a month to buy a coffee and donut, but will see to it that you stay true to your dreams. Trust me, you’ll have good days and bad days, but if you take stock on where you’ve been and how far you’ve come as a writer, things will become brighter, better, and lighter. 

How do you take stock? Are you in a happy place now with your writing career? Wishing you all a very Happy New Year, and thank you for taking the time to read my blog! Cheers!

6 Steps to Creating a Master Plan for your Writing Business…

I began writing my master business plan for publishing my novel series on March 9^th, 2011. This was about 1½ years before I had a signed publishing contract under my belt. Since then, there have been many revisions to this plan. I decided to write down a business plan when I took the plunge to learn all I could about starting a blog to help me develop an author platform. After a few months of intense research, my blog launched May 4^th, 2011. Publishing my first post was the beginning of putting my plan into action, and it was truly a lift off for me and my writing career.

My business plan and strategy spans five pages. I’ve broken down the plan into headings, and what I’d like to see happen. I’ve set short term goals (next 1-5 years) and long term goals (10 plus years). I also have an objective, which helps me keep my feet on the ground and fingers on the keyboard. I review my plan quarterly, and revise it once a year. This helps me keep on track and weed out the things I’m doing that aren’t working for me.

So how do you even go about preparing a business plan for your writing career? Every writer is different of course, and I can only give you the benefit of my experience writing MG/YA novel series. But we all have to start somewhere.

First: Begin with your objective. Why are you writing in the first place, and what do you hope to accomplish. I want to give readers an experience they’ll never forget, and organize my life around what makes me happy. Figure out your objective, and get it down!

Second: List your short term goals. What do you hope to accomplish in 1, 3, 5 years? Don’t go overboard you can only handle so much. Once you figure out what these goals are break them down into headings like ‘Online Presence’, ‘Website’, ‘Novels’, ‘Work in Progress’, ‘Time Management and Commitments’, ‘Sales Plan’, ‘Promotion and Marketing Strategy’, and ‘Financial Goals’.

Third: Now for the fun part! Under your headings list the steps you need to take to accomplish your goals. For example, under my ‘Online Presence’ heading I’ve listed in point form all the tasks I need to do to keep my author name out there in cyberspace. Here are some examples:

•  I’ve joined HootSuite to help schedule my shares and tweets.
• Guest Blog on other author blogs within the same genre, and make sure to share this info on my social media groups.
• Continue to do interviews with other authors, especially when there’s a new release.
• Approach book blog reviewers, especially a month before a new release. Offer a free copy for honest review.
• Offer my blog as a platform for other YA authors—either interviews or guest posts.

Fourth: Depending on the amount of headings and steps you have, make sure you don’t pile on too much as to make this plan unmanageable. Get real with what you can handle, delegate what you can’t. I had to hire a web designer. No shame in that.

Fifth: Now onto the long term goals. Remember to dream big too! Would you like your books translated into movies? How many books do you plan on writing? What about a book series? Or graphic novels? How many books are you planning on writing in your series? Create a master plan for each series too. It will be easier on you in the long run. Intellectual property like video games or apps is also important to think about and write down. After all, you never know what the future holds if you don’t help it along.

Sixth: Finally, SIGN the bottom of your master business plan. This makes it real. Commit to it. Revise it when things aren’t working out, or your situation has changed. Be flexible, and ask for help if necessary. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither is your writing career.

Here’s a formula that will keep things in perspective and keep you on track of your writing goals: TIME + BACKLIST (4 or more books) = SUSTAINABLE AUTHOR CAREER.

Thank you for reading my blog. Have you created a master business plan for your writing or anything else you’d love to pursue? If so, please comment and share your experiences. Love to hear from you! Cheers!