This year on my birthday my super awesome friend, Carol Lynch Williams (who I adore) wrote this sweet  message on my facebook wall....

Happy happy birthday, Erin, dear.
Gotta get a book out for next year.
If I had a wish then it would be
A book of yours signed from you to me.

Ahhhh, isn't she cute? Well. This got me thinking about where I'd like to be, what I'd like to have accomplished by next year. (Yes. Deep Thoughts.)

Around the same time I saw a post on author Lisa Yee's blog about the SCBWI conference in LA. And I thought to myself, "Hey now.  I want to go to that."

So, I decided to set some Crazy Big goals and.... if I reach them? Then I deserve a Crazy Big reward, right? Like, say, a trip to LA next August? Yes. That's a rockin' plan.

Wait until you hear the goals. They're nuts. (Me and my goals usually have that in common)

Goal #1: Finish my MG novel that I've been working on for....too long. I've been calling it simply Jasper.
But it has nothing do with this kind of Jasper....



And more to do with this kind...



There's a second part to goal #1....Start subbing that book out to agents. I'm planning on starting on this wild and crazy adventure...The Great Agent Search in January.  Wooh. That's going to be a milestone. (heh heh...mileSTONE....get it?)


Goal #2: Write a decent draft of my steampunk MG novel. Yes. Steampunk. I. Am. So. EXCITED. We'll dub it WW. 
Here's some random steampunk pictures to enjoy...