Challenge by Paty Jager

All my life I've excelled when I've been challenged. When my older brother was learning to read, I sat beside him and my mom learning right along with him. He took the Hunter's Safety Test, and the next year I took the class and beat his score. ;) He excelled in band, I excelled in band.  My dad said we had to get 3 point or better GPA, I finished High School with a 3.85.

I like to be given challenges. That's one of the things I like about being an Indie author. I set my challenges

and I strive to meet or beat them. This past month, I struggled with the challenges I'd set for myself. Partly because I jumped on several multi-author projects that put a halt to my schedule. Last week, I took my challenges by the horns. With a struggle and lots of brain muscle, I laid those challenges down.

I have the fourth book in the Shandra Higheagle Mystery Series, Murderous Secrets published, with the paperback coming out in a week. I have the last of the Halsey Brother/Halsey Homecoming series available. This is a Christmas novella titled, A Husband for Christmas: Shayla's story. Those were my projects that didn't get published as I'd planned. But they are out and I can now breathe a sigh of relief.

The multi-author challenges were a Christmas anthology of Historical Western Romance Christmas Novellas Silver Belles and Stetsons on pre-order. And a box set with nine other amazing western authors. The box set, Courting the West is available on pre-order also.  Both the anthology and box set aren't new books for me. The anthology has my Christmas novella, Christmas Redemption. But I took the time to tweak it a bit and add a couple new scenes for people who have read it before. Courting the West has the first book on my Halsey Homcoming trilogy- Laying Claim. This book takes place in the Yukon during the gold rush.

With those challenges out of the way, I now have to make time to promote all the above and write the first two books in my new historical western romance series, Letters of Fate. I've started one of the books and am having fun with the concept and the characters. But it is one more challenge because I am using someone else's world to write this story. It takes some interaction with others and keeping the story true to the original.

My biggest challenge now, is to get these two Letters of Fate books written before December 21st. We're visiting our children and grandchildren for Christmas and I have to get my writing done before we leave.

What was your biggest challenge this year?  Did you face that challenge with tenacity and win?

www.patyjager.net

Writing into the Sunset