Resolution or Goal? What’s in a word?

Here it is the end of another January, another new beginning slowly changing into the path of the future, and many who made those ubiquitous New Year’s resolutions already carry the guilt of a broken commitment. Individuals have made these types of pledges for centuries, perhaps as far back as ancient Babylonia. Made with optimism and perhaps the help of a glass or two of champagne, resolutions often fail when faced with day-to-day challenges. Once broken resolutions are seldom renewed until the next New Year, perhaps because of the sense of failure attached when commitment fails. They’ve become something of a joke about ambitions doomed to failure, a tradition tied to the New Year about changing, in the resolver’s viewpoint, a   less perfect aspect of their life.

Taking time to reassess life, examine the past, its achievements, and failures, seems a good idea while planning for future desires and aspirations. Self-examination is a part of the mental growth cycle that leads to knowledge of inner self. It’s an important process. That’s why I don’t make resolutions, I form goals. A broken resolution is often met with shrugged shoulders and a laugh when asked about its success, yet maybe a lingering sense of “I couldn’t do it” follows with accompanying excuses.

What’s the difference? Isn’t the definition of a resolution a commitment to a goal? Yes, but it’s about words. They have power. To me, resolution seems carved in stone and means from this moment on I will achieve this goal. If I fail, I’ve broken my pledge, my will power has failed. A goal is a challenge not yet achieved. If I have a goal, it is something I am working toward, a standard that can be set down when necessary and taken up when I’m ready to move forward with renewed energy. Goals can change, be redefined and adapted. For me, this is a more achievable alternative. This I can achieve. It’s all in the wording.

 Rhobin L. Courtright

Learning to Juggle

                The hardest part of being a writer for me has always been juggling.  I never realized that becoming a writer was becoming a juggler.  I had to keep my day job as a psychologist and most of my writing occurred after work during hours I should have been sleeping.   This juggling only got worse when I had children.  It was like I added an extra ball. Suddenly, I found myself juggling book reports and my writing.  Of course, I hadn’t had any successes at that point so I could write or not write as I pleased.

                Over the last few years this has gotten worse.  Success as a writer lead to an unexpected difficulty, suddenly I had deadlines.  When I started writing I hadn’t imagined the joys of deadlines.  My column had to be in every month on a specific date and my editor liked me to turn things in to make the publication schedule.   So things got harder.  My blog needed weekly attention and more books meant more deadlines.   I wasn’t even that successful.  I still am not, but the deadlines are there.

                I guess what I still haven’t entirely learned to juggle is the unexpected life events.   I had another baby recently and despite guest posts on my blog and forgiving editors, I still found myself struggling.   Constant illness, surgery, and a newborn slowed me down to a point where I began to worry my editors would give up on me.   I guess this is more of a question post than an answer post.  I figure other writers have to have figure out some method to deal with this.  There must be some way to juggle life and writing without one being sacrificed.   I haven’t really figured it out yet.  I have somehow muddled through by writing even when I don’t feel like it and staying up even when I only get a few hours of sleep already, but I know there has to be a better way.  I hear other writers talking about juggling and they sound so much less crazed by it all.   All I know is, I keep juggling and hope that someone shows me a better way, even if I drop a few balls now and again.

Jessica Penot

http://www.ghoststoriesandhauntedplaces.blogspot.com/

http://www.jessicapenot.net/

The “ah” affect

Michael W. Davis

Davisstories.com

There is nothing like the exhilaration of typing the last chapter, then page, then last word of a novel you've sculpted for months. I just completed my eight full-length story and I noticed two things this time.

First, it's getting harder to sit down and commit myself to the twenty weeks of isolation needed to create and live in my fiction world. Second, I still get that rush of bringing a new group of friends into the world. Not sure that will ever grow old.

Sometimes I complain to my wife, "OMG, will this thing never end?" yet at the instant I reach that final keystroke, I'm just so darn proud.

In a strange way it's similar to my kids. Sometimes their messes, push back, nights of not calling while we worried at home, and all the other pains of raising kids take a toll. Yet once grown you examine what they became and you beam with pride.

Yeah, something like that.

Michael W. Davis (Davisstories.com)
Author of the year, 2008 & 2009

Shadow of Guilt, “To each crossing of paths, there is a reason.”
Blind Consent, “The answers are buried in the secrets of the past.”
Forgotten Children, “Only Sara knows the truth.”
Tainted Hero, “Sometimes good people do bad things.”
The Treasure, “A lonely heart can impair one’s judgment.”
Veil of Deception, “Sometimes truth cuts deeper than a lie.”

Fuel for a Weary Soul

As writers,we are expected to show up at the page every day, just like any other job. If the plumber or the lawyer or the roofer only showed up “when the muse strikes” -- they’d all be fired. So will we. Even if it’s our second job, and we love the “day job”, too -- we still need the dailiness in order to be both professional and productive.

However, we get tired,too. We have the right and the need to take breaks and vacations, and refuel both body and soul. When we plan it, the way we would plan any vacation from work, or take a day or so for “mental health” to do something fun, it serves us well.

If we don’t write because “we don’t get around to it” or life “gets in the way”, it creates a cycle of sabotage. The longer you stay away from the page WITHOUT planning it, just letting it slide, the harder it is to get back both into the draft’s rhythm and your own.

But when we’re weary -- of everything, not just writing -- how do we replenish the soul?

What interests you?
Look at the events calendar in the paper. What, in your area, is going on that interests you? You don’t have the excuse of “not having time”. Pick something that catches your eye, especially if it’s a new experience, and go! Give yourself the chance to experience something out of your regular routine. See where that leads. Was it completely satisfying unto itself? Or do you want more? And then see how you can fit it into your life. If we want it badly enough -- whether it’s writing or anything else -- we find a way to make it work. If you “don’t have time” -- it means you don’t WANT to have time badly enough.

What soothes you?
What makes you feel special and pampered? Getting your hair or nails done? Lying in a scented bath? A walk on the beach? Yoga? Meditation? Pick a treat for yourself and schedule it. It’s not what someone else thinks you SHOULD do -- it’s what you WANT to do. One person’s hot yoga session is another person’s lying on the couch reading a book. It’s whatever YOU want.

What fuels you?’
When I get tired in my writing life, I read other writers whose work inspires me. Whether it’s a published journal (Joyce Carol Oates, Louisa May Alcott, Virginia Woolf), a book on writing (such as Elizabeth George’s WRITE AWAY or Terry Brooks’s SOMETIMES THE MAGIC WORKS or Carolyn See’s MAKING A LITERARY LIFE), or something like the WRITERS AT WORK series edited by George Plimpton -- it helps remind me why I do this, and makes me eager to get back to the page.

Get Visual Rather than Verbal
One of the best ways to refresh my soul is to go to a museum and look at paintings. I can leaf through an art book, but standing in the room with a wonderful painting is more effective. The proximity to the brush strokes and the color provides energy. The visual makes me look at the world in a new way. Museums aren’t just for fund-raisers and school trips -- they hold treasures to be enjoyed. Make use of them!

Whatever you do, log off, get those earbuds out, and really experience it. Stretch all your senses, be in the moment, and appreciate the vital, energetic world around us. The best writing is filled with life, not separated. Live an integrated life rather than a compartmentalized one, and your writing will take on fresh energy of its own.

--Annabel Aidan is a full-time writer, publishing under a half a dozen names in fiction and non-fiction. Her romantic suspense novel, ASSUMPTION OF RIGHT, is available from Champagne Press. Website: www.devonellingtonwork.com/annabelaidan.html.

Shyness

I just read a blog about shyness vs. introversion and discovered I’m neither Well, I guess I knew I wasn’t shy. But I did think of myself as rather introverted, but it turns out I don’t really fit the criteria for that, either. I was sort of figuring I had to be because I was a writer. Which is silly. Did I think all writers had to be introverted?

I should have know better. About writers and about myself. When I was still able to go to conferences, hadn’t I volunteered volunteered to be on panels--and even be a theme speaker sometimes. Yet, at the same time, I did feel more comfortable in the company of writers I already knew and liked.

I was like an only child in that my brother was nineteen years older than I was--in college when I was born. I think not having brothers or sisters to grow up with does isolate a child, but

in my day every kid played outside, because that’s where the fun was and I was eager to go out and participate in it. I did learn to like to be alone, though. This, even though I do like most people I meet.

It’s true every writer spends a certain amount of time alone by definition, or a book would never get written. That’s if you can describe a writer as being alone when she or he has windows mail constantly pouring in and needing to be at least scanned for anything that requires immediate attention.

So what’s the point of all this? I guess it’s that writers, though they may be physically alone, are really not in many ways. This electronic age makes it hard to isolate yourself. And yet we do really need to be alone to be able to write. Alone in the sense that we’re not paying any attention to what’s going on around us. It has to be a lonely business in order for us to get a book finished.

I’ve heard many writers describe themselves at being amazed at what was happening around them when they “came up for air.” It’s happened to me as well. But literally being in another world when we write doesn’t make us shy or introverted. Kinko, our calico grandcat knows I go someplace else when I’m at the computer, so when she wants something, she reaches up and puts her paws on my upper leg. If I don’t say something to her, she digs a claw in, just to remind me she’s there and in need of attention,

So do some writers consider themselves introverts or shy ? I wonder how many of us do.

Book news: Ellen put Taken In, Book 1 of the Dagon House Trilogy, up on New Year’s Day!

Blurb for Taken In:

With a hit man in pursuit, Gail flees after witnessing a murder. Secret agent Jason finds her first. Eluding the hit man causes a crash. Gail and Jason escape the exploding car just in time, but when they take shelter in Dagon House they face a far worse danger… And now I’d best get back to writing Where There’s Smoke, Book 2 in this ghostly trilogy.

Jane

  DESCRIBE OR NOT DESCRIBE

         I recently read a book that provided an interesting experience. I consider every book an experience, some more memorable than others and for different reasons. The reason this particular book stood out is that it left me with almost no sense of “travel.” Let me explain. The single biggest reason I was captivated by reading the better part of sixty years ago, was that by reading I could escape my ordinary life and travel to amazing places. I could be in Antarctica with Shackleton or on Venus with Ray Bradbury. I could join the gold rush with Jack London or suffer the long days in a dark dungeon with Dumas. My point?

     
In the present culture, we have invested ourselves lock, stock, and barrel in instant gratification. If a movie doesn’t have a chase scene or some type of special effects catastrophe within the first three minutes and every five minutes to follow, the film doesn’t achieve “blockbuster” status.

       

Our publishers and editors tell us the same thing about books: “If it doesn’t advance the story, leave it out.” Or, “We need a murder or sex scene the first few pages.”  I admit with some quick read beach books this might be advisable, but what I worry about is; are we losing our ability to describe in some detail the awe-inspiring beauty of the Himalayans, or the manic pressure of a major drama taking place on a crowded downtown street? More important are we losing the “travel” in modern literature?  I admit there is a fine line between enough and too much detail. I further admit it is a good thing authors are no longer paid by the word. That alone spares readers from tons of useless padding. Few authors possess the talent to walk the fine line between too much and too little, while still being able to transport us to another dimension.  

     

What I miss is becoming so engaged , so captured by a writer’s ability to describe, that I am in his world, in that point in time. I am there with the characters: suffering, enjoying, and feeling cold, or wet, or tired or afraid. I miss that in many of the books I read today. Granted there are some, but it seems as if we are moving farther and farther away from juicy descriptions that make your mouth salivate for more. What is the answer? I don’t know. Perhaps it is more my perception brought on by the staggering amount of books now being published. Perhaps a significant number of new books with this characteristic are lost among the massive flow of books published.   In the even more rushed world of e publishing, I doubt we will find an answer. My hope is that collectively we will grow tired of books without “travel” and maybe someday enough enlightened souls will demand more literature and fewer beach reads.

    

I would love to hear your opinion, please write.

CC Kaufman - Author -
Reconcilable Differences 'R'  @ http://www.carnalpassions.com
Night of The Machetes  @ http:// www.champagnebooks.com
The Invitation (R ) @  http://www.carnalpassions.com

My web-   http://www.cckaufman.com

A Room of Our Own

"Every female writer should have a good wife" - I’ve heard that said a few times about the problems married women sometimes face when trying to devote enough time to their craft. Virginia Wolfe recognised the problem long ago when she advocated that a woman writer should have "a room of one’s own".

I have a good, supportive husband, but I’ve had to train him along the way! Not with helping around the house – he’s better than many women at housework. It’s that problem writers sometimes have when partnered with a non-writer, if they don't fully understand our need for uninterrupted space and time, whether thinking or writing. It was fine when husband went to work from 8am until 6pm, and the growing children were at school. But a few years ago, on the same week our youngest finally moved out to a flat of her own, husband started working from home.

So I hit upon a plan: since he’s a much earlier riser than me and works upstairs, while I work downstairs, I asked him not to talk to me on weekday mornings. Sometimes we speak in passing, but mostly he stays upstairs at his desk and I stay in my study, and never the twain shall meet – until lunch time.  Fortunately, he gets engrossed in his own work and peace reigns, until he has a problem or question that won’t wait. After 36 years of marriage and countless years of child-rearing, I reckon I deserve that room of my own. But I wonder what will happen when we downsize in the next year or two - watch this space!

Rosemary

http://ros-readingandwriting.blogspot.com/

http://romygemmell.blogspot.com/

Dangerous Deceit, Champagne Books and Amazon