So, I’m knee-deep in February, and somehow… I have about eight thousand words for the month already. I broke down my novel-drafting/short story writing/blogging goals to beautiful, bite-sized chunks, and it made those goals feel much more approachable. I don’t have a full novel sitting in front of me. I have a specific word count, and a very small number of squares to fill in.

Somewhere in the depths of my bullet journal, I have the same general thing for my revisions… but let’s not talk about revisions. Please… let’s not talk about revisions.

I’m trying to turn my life upside-down, right now. I guess maybe we all do that on a regular basis, but this feels much more… without a net... than most of what I’ve done before.

I’m also discovering–by way of having written so many of them down, this year–how many of my goals are really interlinked. Set up a professional website? Yes… but also a mailing list and an author photo.

I haven’t had a professional photo taken since high school graduation, and ladies and gentlemen… I loathed that photo. Actually, I despised the entire experience. Beginning to end. And I wound up with a few dozen versions of the exact same photo. I mean… the photographer clicked the shutter a few dozen times… I’m sure she did.  I’m still horrified every time I come face-to-face with one. Which I do regularly, because graduation photos? Well, they spread almost as fast as a bad author photo would. Nothing like getting crap photos taken, and then having your mother send them out to a bunch of relatives you barely know.

So, I’m… very, very un-enthused about that one.

Who can I afford? Who can I get to without too much trouble? And how… oh, how… do I make it less horrible than the last time?

Can writers hire an actor to portray them on their book covers?

Maybe a shadow puppet of some kind?

Hang on. I’m Googling 101 ways to look like someone completely different in an author photograph.