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As someone who has written about a time machine, I am attempting a little time travel now. As in I’m filming this video with my goals and predictions for 2026, and then in one year I’ll watch it back and see if my goals were achieved or if any of my predictions came true.

Goal 1: Crush the launch of Fake Out Make Out in June. By this, I mean, give it everything I have. Do the podcasts. So the Instagram Lives if I have to. Smile. Do the events at local bookstores, because hopefully they’ll have me.

Goal 2: Either get a deal for book 2 for Fake Out Make Out OR put my new totally non-related romance on submission. So I had envisioned a second and third story in this world. But my deal is for only one book. So it’s a bit of a waiting game to see if book 1 does well enough that they want a book 2. But all I can do is again, try to crush the book 1 launch, write a killer synopsis and outline, and cross my fingers. But I am working on a different book, so if that one doesn’t work out, I have another.

Goal 3: Write the next CliFi novel that is knocking around my brain and get that out and onto paper.

Goal 4: Get another short story accepted. Which I realize is beyond my control completely. But I can write and revise and submit like crazy.

Predictions:
Predication 1: Taylor Swift will release a new album. Okay, that’s just wishful thinking.

Prediction 2: I listen to A LOT of author podcasts, and each week there is new news about A.I. and the horrors are persisting. But one thing I hear a lot from these podcasts is that as A.I. becomes more prevalent in artistic spaces, we as creators need to be more human. So for me, I see that trend continuing, and I need to figure out how I can show up more authentically human.

Prediction 3: Moves and mergers. 2025 saw some shakeups with companies like Baker & Taylor closing. Findaway Voices is gone; it is now part of InAudio, and Spotify for Authors is its own separate thing. The one thing I’ve learned over a decade of publishing is – nothing stays the same for long. So I can’t guess which ones will merge or change. I literally got an email from my contacts at Spotify AS I WAS UPDATING THE AYA BOOKS about the change. Thank goodness I hadn’t started formatting yet. Anywhoo I foresee some new editions in my future.

Prediction 4: More disinformation. So, here is a bit of an online lesson. Misinformation is false but well-intentioned. Someone posted something that appeared to be true, but it wasn’t. A good online citizen will delete and post a correction. But once something is online, it is hard to remove. Disinformation is when something is posted that they know isn’t true. It’s for clicks. It’s for cheap marketing. It’s part of a PR smear campaign. Whatever the reason, it’s not good. I think it is important – now more than ever – to be a little skeptical. Verify. Go to a REPUTABLE source to check information to see if it is true or if it is willfully malicious.

I don’t know how I’ll verify that one in a year, but we’ll see how I react to this next year.
What are your goals and predictions for 2026? What do you want to see happen in your author career or in the world in general? Let’s keep the conversation going.