Elle Kennedy | By the Time I'm Thirty...

Every January 1st, my New Year’s resolution involves some painfully tedious chore around the house that I’ve put off for months. Cleaning out the shed, redoing the deck, painting the upstairs bedroom…fun times. This year, I vowed to myself that I would reorganize my office. So I put on my “work clothes” (translation: sweats) and dove to work, reading to go through years’ worth of boxed-up papers.

I was about ten minutes into it when I got sidetracked by a list I wrote when I was 16.

Yup, I’m a borderline hoarder. I never throw out papers. I still have notebooks from high school, old elementary school book reports (I failed Phys Ed in 6th Grade!), pages and pages of old manuscripts, and a gazillion other random papers stored in a ton of boxes I dread to open. But the list I found ended up being super entertaining—and the goals on it were scarily accurate. I thought it would be fun to share a few of them with you.

According to 16 year old me, by the time I’m 30, I will:

Have published at least 5 books—Done and done. I’ve published over 30, so ha! You should have dreamed bigger, kid.

Have a house—Check!

Have a vacation house—Well, now you’re just getting greedy.

Have 3 kids—Three? Are you nuts? I have one dog, and THAT’S a handful. So nope, no kids yet. But eventually there’ll be one. Maybe two.

Be happy—This one made me tear up a bit, because, well….awww. That’s really sweet. I’m glad I was concerned with my future happiness back then. Don’t worry, kid, we’re happy as a clam!

There were about ten other items on the list, most of them involving other writing goals, like being a best-selling author (check), writing a popular series, etc. It just amazes me how insanely ambitious I was back then. I’m turning 33 in a couple of weeks, but most of the checked-off goals on that list? I really did meet them before I was 30, so I’m starting off this new year feeling a lot of pride in myself.

Except I really, really need to finish cleaning out that office.

About ONE NIGHT OF TROUBLE

The moment AJ Walsh sees the sexy, tattooed pixie walk up to his bar, it's lust at first sight. He's always been labeled the "nice" guy―opening doors, buying flowers, and never, ever having one-night stands. But with this wicked little angel with red lips and unfathomably dark eyes? Oh, yeah. Tonight, "nice" has nothing to do with it...

Brett Conlon is trying to convince her family that she's put away her reckless wild girl side for good. Nothing―and no one―could be better for her reputation than golden boy AJ Walsh. So they make a deal: if he plays The Good Boyfriend for her family, he can be a very, very bad boy with her. Now their one naughty night is about to turn into a whole lot of trouble...

About Elle Kennedy

A RITA-award-nominated, best-selling author, Elle Kennedy grew up in the suburbs of Toronto, Ontario, and holds a BA in English from York University. From an early age, she knew she wanted to be a writer and actively began pursuing that dream when she was a teenager. She loves strong heroines and sexy alpha heroes, and just enough heat and danger to keep things interesting!

Elle loves to hear from her readers. Visit her website or sign up for her newsletter to receive updates about upcoming books and exclusive excerpts. You can also find her on Facebook or follow her on Twitter.