Anne Morgan Edits

writing tips, editing insights, & Behind the scenes in an editor's life

Hello Reader!

Can you believe its December already? I don't know about you but to me the year feels like it has flown.

Our Thanksgiving was nice and quiet, largely thanks to a surprise eight inches of snow we got during the course of the day! While it made Violet happy, the rest of us were just glad to stay indoors. Even though she's older, Violet does still enjoy getting out and playing in the snow some.

I've had three video calls with my website designer already and I'm definitely getting intrigued by the process. We've talked vibes, fonts, designs, styles, and more! I'm terrible at visual design so I'm not quite sure how she's getting anything out of my words, but she seems confident. I think the process must be a little like being a ghostwriter: one person has some ideas (pretty vague in my case) and it is up to the other person to turn those into something everyone can see.

This newsletter will be a bit shorter than usual, as we all face the societal pressure and stress that is the December holiday season. I celebrate Yule, but most of my family and friends celebrate Hanukah or Christmas, so I'll be doing some nonstop baking pretty soon!

Are you writing this December or giving yourself a well-deserved break? Remember that breaks are just as important to your writing process as putting pen to paper and don't worry! Your subconscious is still working on your story while you do other things. Do you have a book out and you're doing some selling at any holiday markets? Send me some photos! I'd love to share them on my social media to help others get some fun ideas! Whatever you're doing, thank you for joining my newsletter as part of your writing journey. Let's make 2025 a creative year!

2025 Sale

Let's start 2025 off with a creative bang! If you follow me on Instagram you'll soon see me announce a 10% sale on all my services. But of course, you guys get first notice on sales. And how would you feel about an extra discount? Just put NEWSLETTER in your email to me and I'll give you 15% off your total. The sale will run through January 31. Email me with any questions!

A Creative New Year

I vote we work to make 2025 a positive and creative year. What goals do you have in your writing and creative output for 2025? Goals can be a great way of setting markers for ourselves, milestones to help us know where we need to reach along the road to our ultimate goal. Sometimes it helps to break the year down into parts to keep from getting completely overwhelmed- it might make us more likely to set up achievable milestones. Like breaking up a project into smaller "to-do" lists so we can handle things in bite sized pieces. Or maybe you just have several smaller things you want to have done and you're setting goals to do them early in the year. Let's put those goals out there and see if we can make them happen!

What are some of my smaller goals for the first part of 2025?

Launch my new website. The date isn't fully up to me since I'm working with someone else on this. But my goal is to have this up by February or March. This means I'll be doing a lot of revising for the content on my site! If you check out my site and have any suggestions I'd love to hear them.
Launch a freebie. I've been working on a freebie that would potentially get more people to sign up for my newsletter ('sign up and get this free' type thing). The content is done, but I"m still tweaking the visual design. My goal is to have the whole thing perfected by the beginning of January. This will be an Author's Website Checklist- What Should Your New Website Have? Since you're already on my newsletter, if you'd like this checklist, please email me! I'll send it to you as soon as it is finished.
Try Instagram videos. I've been playing with the idea of trying short (1 minute or less) videos on Instagram and Threads occasionally in January. But what would people like to see me talking about? Marketing tips? Books I've read? Writing tips? What would you find interesting and entertaining?
Finish that first draft! I'm determined to finish the first draft of my butler book by June. It would be sooner, but since I've expanded the scope of my exploration, I'm going to have to go back and do more research, which means pushing back how long I'm estimating it will take to finish that first draft.

Reading Update

Mimi Matthews finished her latest series this month with The Muse of Maiden Lane. I always recommend her books if you love historical romance! I am obsessed with Helen Castor's latest nonfiction, The Eagle and the Hart, on the English kings Richard II and Henry IV. If you're at all interested in that period of medieval history, this is a book you'll want to read multiple times! Thanks to getting her copyrights back and going the self-publish route, I finally had the chance to read the Blood Lake series by one of my favorite fantasy authors, Amy Kuivalainen. Check her out if you're a fantasy fan, she has several series and they just got republished with hot new covers!