Friday Five for January 3, 2014

1. Hello, and in case you didn't hear my cheer, Happy New Year! I hope you had a wonderful holiday season. Now it's back into the groove. I'm setting a schedule for myself for blogging and networking. I need a better balance between writing and everything else I need to do as a writer. I'm sticking to the blogging schedule I created last year which worked very well.

   Mondays - Reviews, guest posts, and other author promotions. (If any of my writer friends would like to do a guest post on my blog, please email me.)

   Tuesdays - Teaser Tuesday

   Wednesdays - IWSG and Wicked Wednesday

   Fridays - Friday Five

2. I managed to get myself on Feedly earlier last week. Yes, that's how long it's taken me to get a new reader since Google Reader went away. I'm slowly adding everyone on to my feeds. It's taking a while since I can't figure out how to import my Blogger list to it. My hope is this will make visiting blogs much easier for me. I do return comment when someone comments on my blog, but I need something to help me keep all my blogs organized.

3. I've also been organizing the people I follow on Twitter into lists. I've started this about four weeks ago, and it's helped greatly with keeping up with people that get lost in the main feed. I like it, too, because I can retweet more efficiently. Tip: retweeting helps those authors and you too. Sometimes they'll retweet you in turn. I've gained more followers in December than I have since the beginning of 2013.

4. I've been making excellent progress revising my current WIP. I'm excited about how it's starting to really shine. I'll be querying the manuscript this year to publishers. I already have a few in mind. I'm reminding myself to take a deep breath and not rush it. Sometimes it's difficult to do so when I really want to share it with the world.

5. I had a lovely and relaxing holiday. My husband stayed home for a week, and we made no plans whatsoever. Family visits were done in November. We went on family hikes, lazed around some days in our pajamas, and ate way too much junk food. My son was spoiled. He got the rocket he wanted from Santa. It was awesome! A great way to end a terrific year.