Not quite New Year’s yet, but I did spend some of my art time this morning happily designing a set of Valentine cards, and it’s going pretty well. Since I’m jumping the gun on holidays anyway, why not go ahead with the resolutions, eh?

In the words of the great computer commercial, where do I want to go this year? I will have my first historical romance, My Outcast Heart, out sometime in 2006, which isn’t really that far away. By the time it’s on the cybershelves, I want to have at least one other ready for it. I want to be writing faster. I know I can. Less fussing around and more getting down to business.

So, what is business? Historicals. Big, thick, lush, emotional historicals. With the focus front and center on hero and heroine’s love story, how they beat everything to get their happily ever after. Two people who must be together, but can’t and the way they make the impossible happen, because after all, it’s not only impossible, but imperative. I want to feel their heartbeats.

These headphones my husband gave me for Christmas are a godsend. Truly. A concrete reminder to shut out what everyone else is saying and concentrate on what drives the heart and soul of my stories. Not what I’m not, but what I am.

In my fanfic days, I bucked the trends with abandon. D*mn the torpedoes and full steam ahead, because darmitall, I had stories that demanded to be told, and they were coming out, no matter what. Series canon? Hah! Canon fodder, more like it. Boom! Different pairings! Boom! Mess with the space-time contiuum any time I feel like it. And it felt good. Boom! Marrying. Boom! Burying. Yes, of major characters. With original additions. Boom, boom, boom!

::waves smoke and gunpowder from air in front of monitor::

All so I could pour all of that into writing historical romances, and that’s where I am. And where I need to be.