New Year’s Resolutions

by

Michille: New Year’s Resolutions for Writers

The collective edition. I don’t have any stellar writing resolutions for the new year. Write some more. Continue researching/writing screenplay. But I noodled around on the net to see what other writers have on their lists. Many of them are the same we all know. Butt in the chair, words on the page, etc.

The Happy Guy Writing Services (not a plug for his services) has 10 New Year’s Resolutions for Writers in 2021. I like #4 – paint a picture. I’ve been watching Bridgerton and that has made me think of how the stories I’ve read have created pictures in my mind of various settings.

I like this one from The Writer’s Cookbook from 2019: 52 New Year’s Resolutions for Writers. You don’t often see “let an old project go” for resolutions, but I think it’s a good one.

Jeff Goins had these from 2017: 17 New Year’s Resolutions for Writers. ). #6 is ‘write when you don’t feel like it’. I like that one. But I don’t see #14, ‘make money’, happening for me this year. I wish it for all my 8LW friends, though.

Proedit has 10 New Year’s Resolutions from 2015. My favorite: Improve my fiction by having one conversation with an imaginary person each day.

Do you have any resolutions for this year?

by

Elizabeth: Action!

With little fanfare and none of the traditional New York Times Square hugging and kissing, the year 2020 finally made its last appearance a few days ago.  And not a moment too soon.  The calendar insists the year contained no more than the standard number of days, but it seemed to have lasted several lifetimes at least.  Although most of us were (safely) stuck at home–washing our hands, sanitizing surfaces, making sure we didn’t run out of the essentials, and mastering the art of Zoom–the year did have its bright spots, including a lot of writing progress and new books by several of the Eight Ladies.

Yay!

The Romance Writers of America organization crashed and burned in spectacular fashion at the beginning of last year, but like the Phoenix, it seems to have risen from the ashes, changed and is, hopefully, better than before.  It’s too soon to tell if the issues that led to the demise have been successfully addressed, but the new leadership does seem to be making an effort, which is an additional 2020 bright spot.

On a lighter side, though I spent most of the year writing-challenged and day-job busy, I did find time to master pandemic sourdough and to attend about a zillion-Zoom calls.  My son and I also added “oil painting” to our accomplishments as we, with help from a Bob Ross video, painted landscapes with happy, happy trees over the holiday.  Neither of us had painted before, but the results were recognizable, and we had a great deal of fun during the process.  It was a good reminder that the journey is as important as the destination and that perfection is not really the goal.

Now that we’re firmly in 2021, a brand-new year with no (or few) mistakes in it yet, it’s time to look ahead at what is possible in the next 360+ days.  Sure, the pandemic is still raging and looking to get worse with the post-holiday-spike before it gets better, but there are several vaccines in play now, which offers real hope leaves me feeling more optimistic about the future.

One of the things in my 2021, thanks to the motivation of Eight Lady Michille, is a focus on getting rid of “stuff.”  For several years now Michelle has been getting rid of one thing a day.  I joined her last year and was fairly successful, though my garage currently has a backlog of things just waiting for one of the local charities to be open for drop offs.  Earlier this week, while waiting for my daily parade of repairmen to finish their tasks, I gave my bookshelves a bit of a going over.  Since I have thousands of books, the results may not be visible to the naked eye, but I did manage to cull out several dozen books, which are now waiting for the library to be open for donations.  Better yet, the remaining books are organized so I can find what I have.  Here’s hoping that will help avoid the “buying something I already have” scenario from cropping up again.

Buoyed by the pleasant feelings following this successful cleanup effort, I’ve chosen Action as my focus word for this year.  I have a tendency to get stuck in the “thinking” stage of projects–writing or otherwise–and never make it to the “doing” stage.  I’m hoping the momentum that I’m starting with now, along with the positive feelings of accomplishment, will keep me moving forward.  I’m not above a little self-bribery if I start to stall.

The second component of my focus for the year is Humor.   If the past year has shown anything it is that humor can make even the bleakest times seem a little better.  So, I plan to make sure that I spend at least some of my 2021 searching out the amusing side of things.  Below is today’s bit of humor.  I don’t know why, but that “Prime” bit at the end just cracked me up.

I hope you are all staying healthy and safe and that your 2021 is off to a good start and trending upward.

by

Michaeline: The Fabulous Five Weeks of New Year Plan

a check. Upper banner: May Courage and Good Health and Fortune Favour You. Your Course keep Cleap (clear) Through all the Year. The Consolidated BANK OF SUCCESS Pay to (blank line) the Bearer, Three hundred and sixty-five days of Prosperity, Good Luck and Happiness. L (pound mark?) New Year Greeting. Being the sincere wish of (blank line). Mountains, crest, New Zealand (?) flag bearer woman, native person (Maori?) with a spear and two feathers. Mountains and a road with a small bridge. The border repeats: Good luck, happiness, prosperity.
OK, Capitalism. But from New Zealand! So it’s got to be better for us! Wishing you all a nice draft from the bank of success in the coming year. (Image via Wikimedia)

Look, it’s been a rough 2020 for the world as a whole, and for many of us personally. I’m not here to tell you what you should or should not do. Except for this: you need to make room in your life for things you enjoy. Some of you are probably doing an excellent job of this already, while others may feel guilty about failing yourself on this as well as other things.

Well, first of all, stop feeling guilty about fun. It IS a luxury, no matter what people these days say. If you don’t find room for fun, well, that was life for millions of people all through the ages.

But . . . it is a delicious feeling to have a little fun when you’ve already got a lot going on. There’s no failing this quest – but there is winning this quest.

So, go ahead and read through my advice – and I’m going to tell you, making plans is really, really fun for me! I love giving advice, particularly if I think it’s good advice. But if it’s not for you, no hard feelings. You can comment about what does work for you, or go research a little deeper into methods that look more interesting. But I hope this will work for some of you (and I hope it will work for me, too).

Four kittens marching through the snow on hind legs, with ribbons around their necks, holly in their front paws. Flag by biggest cat reads: Bright and happy thy New Year. Caption is Happy and Free Jolly Cats are we.
May your new year be full of metaphorical jolly cats (and literal ones, if that’s the way you like it). (Image via Toronto Public Library)

The whole Fabulous Five Weeks of New Year Plan hinges on second chances and redemption. Maybe you don’t keep resolutions well for a whole year. This is a shorter-range plan than that. You only have to try for five weeks at a time. Then, the beauty of 2021 is that February 12 is almost

Continue reading →
by

Michaeline: Random Quarantine Thoughts

I just want to get a little writing done. Well, and about a hundred other things. (Image via Wikimedia Commons) Inu no Koku by Utamaro Kitagawa (1753-1806), translated The Hour of a Dog, a print of a traditional Japanese woman writing on a long scroll and talking to a servant or an apprentice behind her. Digitally enhanced from our own original edition.

Brian Eno News Twitter (not the real Brian Eno, apparently) posts a random artistic strategy* nearly every day, and the one I saw today was: Disciplined self-indulgence. Well, I don’t do “disciplined” very well, but when I make an effort, my self-indulgence is off the charts, so here it goes.

So, first: a bit of news. Hokkaido’s state of emergency ran from February 28 until March 19, which means that as of Friday (a public holiday celebrating the equinox), we are free from government requests to stay inside.

 To tell the truth, though, I didn’t feel very much of a difference, because despite my best efforts, I’ve managed to get a sore throat. So, aside from work and a trip to the grocery store to stock up for the three-day weekend, I wasn’t out and about to feel the celebratory mood.

I’d say the crowd at the grocery store was slightly busier than usual, and I saw more Continue reading →

by

Elizabeth: Follow-Through

Bowdoin College Athletics, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, Brian Beard – CIP

Early on in my career I spent a year or so as a management consultant.  While the work was varied and interesting and I had some great clients, the constant schmoozing networking and relentless scrambling to nail-down the next big deal was exhausting.

More often than not, keeping existing clients happy and courting prospective clients was done, not in the office, but on the golf-course or over sushi at over-priced restaurants.  I did my part, making it through countless sushi lunches (though I’m definitely not a fan) and through several rounds of golf that are better left forgotten.

Though everyone else in my family – mom included – played golf, I never had until I became a consultant.  But, wanting to be a good team player, I and a few friends dutifully signed up for golf lessons at the local course and gamely did our best to master the basics.

My lack of interest, compounded by a lack of depth-perception and no apparent innate ability meant that “master” was not quite the term to describe the results.  Having an instructor who was about 150 years old, rather than the  romance-novel worthy hottie we’d secretly hoped for, was just one more disappointment. Continue reading →

by

Jilly: Sunday Short Story–Early Resolution

It’s been an…interesting…start to 2020. I spent most of my time this week on a couple of real life challenges, with periodic breaks to catch up with RWA’s implosion. All of which left me feeling grumpy and sad, with zero new words on the page.

So in an attempt to cheer up my Girls and gain a bit of creative momentum, here’s a 500-word story inspired by Elizabeth’s Friday Writing Sprints, in which a character makes an unusual resolution, and featuring the prompt words courage, anchovies, beard, canvas, heaven, honest, hideaway, diva, guru, harlot, fool, garden, pearl, crimson, blossom and smile.

Here goes!

Early Resolution

It must have been the anchovies.

The last Katie could remember, she’d been in a blossom-festooned canvas marquee in a walled garden in a smart part of London. Crimson-robed staff had served exquisite bite-sized nibbles as the Guru spoke passionately of courage, and love, and the path to heaven.

She’d felt a little light-headed. One of the assistants had helped her outside into the fresh air. And now here she was in some mystery hideaway, sprawled on a gold upholstered sofa wearing nothing but a crimson thong and her faux pearl earrings.

At least now she knew what had happened to her sister. Lucy was a gullible idealist, but she was an honest fool, unlike these charlatans.

Were there hidden cameras in this place? Scanners? It seemed all too likely. Katie raked her hands through her hair and dragged them over her face, running her fingers carefully over her earrings. So far, so good.

Voices outside, low but getting louder. Male. At least two.

Decision time.

Continue reading →

by

Jilly: 2020 In A Word

It’s a new year, the beginning of a new decade, the perfect moment to take stock. In recent years I’ve chosen a watchword to epitomize my approach to the coming twelve months. I’ve decided to continue the practice for 2020.

I like the idea of a watchword. It’s less prescriptive than a set of resolutions. More like a theme. An idea that recurs and pervades.

My word for 2019 was CONCENTRATE, defined as:

  1. To focus all one’s efforts on a particular project or activity; and
  2. To distil something to its essence by removing or reducing any diluting agents.

For 1., my priority project was to indie publish The Seeds of Power. I made it (just). Yay!

For 2., my intent was to remind myself of the choices I’d have to make in preparing the book for publication—content edits, title, genre positioning, covers, blurbs, and so on. I wanted the book to be professional and marketable, but most of all I wanted it to be the clearest, strongest, most intense version of my voice and story vision that I could achieve. I think I got that too. Double yay for 2019!

After three whole weeks as a published author I have a pretty good idea of how I want to approach 2020. First and foremost, my priority is to keep writing. I want to write a second Elan Intrigues story, provisionally titled The Pulse of Princes, and then update Alexis’s book. Second, I need to prepare The Pulse of Princes for publication. At least I have a better idea what to expect this time, and I found some great professionals to work with. Third, I need to get to grips with marketing. That’s the last part of the indie author trifecta. It’s not my strong suit, and it’s the bit I didn’t really get to grips with in 2019.

So: my challenge for 2020 is Continue reading →

by

Jilly: 2019 In A Word

Can you believe it’s Twelfth Night already?

I feel rather late to the New Year’s Resolution/Goal Setting/Watchword party, but it’s been interesting to read about everyone else’s approach, from Jeanne’s specific, measurable, time-limited SMART goals to Elizabeth’s ultra-flexible pursuit of happiness.

There are still 51 weeks of 2019 ahead of us, so I’m going to join in the fun 😉

For the last few years I’ve picked a watchword to epitomize my approach to the coming year. It’s less prescriptive than a set of resolutions. More of a theme, in the sense of “an idea that recurs and pervades.”

My word for 2018 was TRIMMINGS, courtesy of Michaeline. On 30th December, 2017 she said:

We live in a time where we can get online support and critiques, buy the best organizing tools ever, and even publish ourselves with only our own Inner Censors as the sole gatekeepers of our work. Or we could get a pencil and paper, and then publish pictures of our handwritten pages on Instagram. It’s all trimmings. What really matters is the happiness you get from writing.

TRIMMINGS turned out to be a useful word, but not for the reasons I’d expected. A couple of weeks after I wrote the post, my mum died, my best-laid plans went up in smoke, and I had a sharp lesson in focusing on the things that really matter.

I didn’t do any more writing until April, and then I sat down with a blank sheet of paper to think about how I wanted to spend the rest of the year. I decided the best way to get my mojo back would be to take on a new self-contained project or two that would get me into my happy writing place again and carry me in the right direction but without too much pressure.

Continue reading →

by

Nancy: New Year, New Writer, Zen Edition

Welcome to the last post of 2018! Hard to believe, isn’t it? And you know what the end of the year means. Recaps and reviews of 2018. Resolutions and predictions for 2019. Here at 8LW, it also means discussing our writing plans for the new year. Today, I’m keeping up that tradition, and expanding it to other important areas of life.

You might have noticed over the past year that I’ve set lots of writing goals, accomplished several of them, and missed the mark on others. Overall, I made good progress, but in the coming year I hope to do better. But I also burned out when we reached December, and next year, I’d like to avoid that end-of-year collapse. You’ll be shocked (shocked, I tell you!) to learn I have a plan to do better in 2019. And it all begins with balance in a few key areas of my life. Continue reading →

by

Nancy: In Praise of Rest

Last week at this time, I was on day five of a virus from hell. A little less than three weeks ago, I was in a doctor’s office learning that, according to some X-rays of my hip, I have an issue that requires a change to my workout regimen for the foreseeable future. And a few weeks before that, I’d had a stiff neck/pinch nerved – possibly related to having my alignment thrown off by the bum hip – that made it difficult to climb out of bed. What all of these ailments have in common, other than making me feel like I’m approximately one hundred years old, is they were, to some extent, preventable.

Given these circumstances, a normal person might think, “What am I doing that’s making me so physically vulnerable?” I, on the other hand, thought, “When will all this be over so I can get back to my normal, totally unrealistic, and probably unsustainable schedule?” At some point, maybe it was around day three of the virus, I knew it was time to abandon my mind-over-matter mindset and listen to what my body, my orthopedist, and the universe were trying to tell me. Assuming you’re less obtuse than I, you can probably see where this is going.

It’s time to slow down a bit. Not forever. But for a while. And probably time to come up with a more sustainable long-term approach that builds downtime into my plans.

So today I present myself as a cautionary tale. Behold what happens when you set up unmanageable expectations. I’ve spent the past nine months riding hellbound for leather to reach a multitude of goals in 2018. And I’ve met most of them, so yay! But follow my lead at your own peril, because you could break something. Quite literally. Continue reading →