The First Blog of a New Year

Every year, on New Year’s Day, I make it a point to do the things I want to carry through the next year. One of the things I’m doing today is writing my blog, because I have let it go for too long.

I had burned myself out writing daily for a year, so I let it go for a couple of weeks, which turned out to be two or three weeks, then several weeks more. Then I lost the habit of writing and the initiative.

Now I’m thinking of writing today. Not a resolution, but a goal. Which means I need to set it up as a SMART goal — specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-bound. Here goes: I will write my blog at least twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays, in the morning before I work.

Now that I got that out of the way, here’s my first blog of the year:

How was 2025? It was a year of shock and horror looking at what came out of our government. We became a harsher, more bitter nation, obsessed with ‘sticking it’ to someone else. Personally, it was a year of little excitement, of doing my day to day routine and getting by. I don’t mind that; I’m older, and I’ve wearied of big surprises. My bipolar is under control, and my weight is down by almost 70 pounds. I pulled triumph out of failure for my research this year and made two presentations, which will keep my boss happy. I am one year closer to retirement — I’m looking at 5 years now.

What are my big plans for the New Year? I have two books I want to publish at the end of the year: a Kringle book and a Hidden in Plain Sight book. I have completed both (except for a cover for Avatar of the Maker). Finishing the editing and the formatting was a 2025 goal that I discovered at the last minute. Other than that, it will be another year without big surprises. I hope. Especially from the government.

New Years Celebrations

Today is New Year’s Eve in Western countries. I know other cultures have other days for new year’s celebrations, but this is mine.

Do I have New Year’s resolutions? Not really, but over the next two days, I try to include all things that I would like to continue over the year. Some will be the habits I want to start; others the habits I’d like to keep. So I will write at least a little, walk a bit, drink coffee, and the like. It’s a superstition of sorts, a reminder of what is important.

We will eat good luck foods. The ones we have slated are pork (German), noodles (Chinese), and pickled herring (Scandinavian). Not simultaneously. We have Chinese peanut butter noodles on the menu, and that’s one of my favorite comfort foods, so I’m all in.

Every year, we have a Lord of the Rings marathon starting on New Year’s Eve. I’m not tired of it yet. We don’t stay up till midnight, because I need my sleep and my body is picky about when I get it. We don’t party because we’ve always thought New Year’s parties are depressing.

So if you wanted to know how two old nerds spend their New Year, here you go.

By the way, Reclaiming the Balance goes live tomorrow!

Time to Think About Big Audacious Goals

I think I’ve mentioned that there are two types of goals — there’s goals, and there’s Big Audacious Goals. We probably agree on goals — they’re expressions of desired outcomes, and we make plans to bring them into place.

Big Audacious Goals (BAGs) share that definition with ordinary goals, but BAGs have an added dimension. Big Audacious Goals are goals that lie beyond our comfort zones, demand that we believe in ourselves, require more from us. Big Audacious Goals start with wishes we believe are not possible for us. Fulfilling them changes our definition of ourselves.

My BAG this last year was to publish Apocalypse. I’ve published several Kringle romances and the prequel in the Hidden in Plain Sight (or Archetype) series, but Apocalypse was different. I had trouble letting the story go, because it was bigger and more important to me. It will be published January 1, 2024. Publishing it felt like a risk, and it still does. I don’t pretend it’s going to vault my career to stardom. But I’ve announced to the world that I am the person who wrote an alternative path to the end of the world, and an alternative path out of it.

I have to come up with a Big Audacious Goal for the New Year. Goals are easy; big audacious goals are not. Where is the place I need the most challenge? What will help me become a different person once I’m done? (Positive goals only; it occurs to me there are many serial killer routes that could be audacious in the wrong way.)

So, over the next week or so I need to find my Big Audacious Goal for the year. Any suggestions?

Big Audacious Goal 2023

In 2022, I did not have any Big Audacious Goals. Big Audacious Goals (BAG) are exactly what they sound like — big goals that are above and beyond the goals that one traditionally sets for oneself. My goals for 2022 were all prosaic and not tied to big dreams. (I published Gaia’s Hands on January 1 2022, but all the work for that happened in 2021, so I count that as a 2021 Big Audacious Goal.)

Having no Big Audacious Goals last year set a tone for my year that does not fit with who I am. I am the sort of person who likes to accomplish things that push me beyond where I was before. I’m the sort of person who likes to celebrate accomplishments. It feels like I spent last year hiding in the living room watching TV or something (I did not; it’s a metaphor). I had goals; just not Big Audacious ones.

This morning, I set a BAG. The goal is to re-edit Apocalypse, create a query bundle, and send it out to agents by the end of March. I will make it a SMART goal soon (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time Bound), and the plan will fall into place after that. Then it’s just time to make the plan happen.

I like the feeling of having a Big Audacious Goal. It energizes me; it makes me feel a little extraordinary even though my BAG doesn’t make me famous or impressive. I feel good about my BAG and the opportunity to accomplish and celebrate.

Wish me luck.

Dreams to Goals

I’ve said in an earlier post that I make goals, not resolutions. The reason I gave was that resolutions are not actionable (I didn’t put it exactly this way, but that’s it in a nutshell.) A resolution is “I’m going to do this one vague thing”, and without a plan and the ability to revise it, it’s just a wish. A goal is the path to success.

On the other hand, my idea of making plans instead of resolutions isn’t very aspirational. It focuses on the prosaic mind, the part of existence that Gets It Done. How does that prosaic mind know what to get done? Through manipulating dreams into goals. “I would love it if…” becomes “I will do this” and a goal is born. From “How do I make this happen?” the goal becomes the basis for a plan.

I might as well admit I have dreams. I’m superstitious about admitting them, because I’ve been ridiculed over them as a child. But without the dreams, my goals become repetitive, maintenance-based, and dull. So here are my dreams for the year:

I dream of being traditionally published.
I dream of having enough readership of my works that my name is recognized.
I dream of having enough readership to make it worthwhile to have a booth at Gatewaycon.
I dream of getting royalty payments from Amazon.

Lightning hasn’t struck me; I guess it’s okay to admit my dreams.

Taking the first dream as an example, let’s turn it into a goal:

I dream of getting traditionally published > I will submit a query to agents.

(Agents are gatekeepers to the traditional publishing process. Queries are the bundles of materials writers submit for their consideration. That bundle includes a cover letter, excerpts of the work in question, and a synopsis).

I will submit a query to agents > I develop a plan to do so; carry out the plan.

This is how the dream becomes a plan.

The one thing is that the execution of the plan doesn’t always mean success. This could be because of internal factors inside myself that need correction, problems with the plan that need fixing, or external factors that can be controlled for. And, sometimes, external factors beyond my control. The more outside factors beyond one’s control, the more likely the dream will stay at the dream stage. For example, if I dream of winning the lottery, there’s not much I can do to actually win it beyond buying one or more tickets.

New Year’s Day, I will set up goals based on these dreams and develop them into plans as I go through the year. It’s more fun dreaming them, but not as fruitful. Wish me luck.

Thinking about the New Year

Christmas is over, and I am back from my holiday trip. New Year’s Eve is coming, and thoughts of the New Year flit through my vaguely ADHD mind.

As I’ve shared on this blog before, I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions, finding them a setup for failure. In short, a resolution looks like a goal, but it’s lacking the plan. And without the plan, the resolution fails. Plans fail as well, but built into the best of plans is a feedback loop where the planner diagnoses where and how they’ve failed and reworks the plan to take that into account.

I like the ritual part of resolutions and the clean slate of the new year, however. So I have my ritual. I think of all the things I want to accomplish for the year, and I do a little of each on New Year’s Day as a commitment to those things in my life.

These are the things I will be doing a little bit of on New Year’s Day:

Writing
Work
Leisure
Housework
Quality time with my husband
Petting cats
Promoting my writing
Indulging my warped sense of humor
Showing compassion
Socializing (at least on Facebook)

Although I won’t make any resolutions, I have goals I will pursue in 2023. The goals I have for my writing career are:

Revisit Apocalypse and send out queries
Finish Kringle on Fire and Avatar of the Maker
Develop an advertising plan for my existent books
Develop promo for Gaia’s Hands
Find a Big Audacious Goal

2022 was a low-key year for me. I’m willing to ramp up a bit for 2023.

“Is your life what you pictured a year ago?”

For the first time, I am going to use the prompt of the day that WordPress has recently been supplying: “Is your life what you pictured a year ago?”

My life is exactly what I pictured a year ago, mostly because I did not have wishes or aspirations of where my life would be. This is sad because I had nothing to push myself toward; I just had to make it day-to-day. This is also happy because I was pretty satisfied with life last year and pretty satisfied now.

Would I have liked it if my writing career blew up? I think so, but I don’t know if I’m up to two full-time jobs at this point in my life. I’m almost 60, after all. (NOTE: If the bluebird of happiness drops me a successful writing career, I will gladly suffer.)

Would I have liked a lottery win? I’ll be honest — probably not. My husband wants to win the big Powerball; I just feel like the changes inherent in winning lots of money would be destabilizing. Yes, I would like to retire early, but I don’t want to be obsessed with money, which is an idiosyncratic result of having a lot of money.

But those are extraordinary happenings, and so I didn’t dwell on them. My life is almost exactly as I figured it would be (except for my father dying, and even then it wasn’t unexpected at his age).

What do I see my life like next year?

I suppose this is a legitimate question at this time of year. I see my life being a lot like this year. Hopefully, another novel or two; a few more readers, but not much changed. No sweeping changes. I have my fingers crossed for no big changes, because at my age, many of those can be catastrophic.

Here’s hoping for another cozy, uneventful year.

Happy New Year!

Happy 2022!

I have determined not to dread the coming of the new year or assume it will be better than 2020 or 2021 (but how could it be worse?) So I will look at it with cautious optimism and look at what I can control — what I do to make the best of the year.

My annual tradition

I have an annual tradition to make commitments for my year. I don’t do resolutions because they’re black-and-white: You keep them or you don’t. I prefer my method, which is to include the things I want to carry out in my life on the first day of the year. I have published my next novel, Gaia’s Hands. I have edited one of my works, eaten responsibly, organized some work for the beginning of the semester, organized my clothes a little, done a bit of cleaning … What do I have left? A few minutes on the exercise bike and a newsletter. Maybe I’ll do the newsletter first, which is how I generally feel about the exercise.

Here’s my hopes

I hope that beginning my year this way will keep me writing this newsletter. I have been struggling with it for a while. I would like it to be a part of my life, and I would like to reach you with it.

For the New Year

Happy New Year! I wish the best for all of you in this new year.

2021 doesn’t feel any different so far, but that doesn’t surprise me. It never does. It’s how the year develops that gives us this feeling of a good year or a bad year.

For Americans, 2020 has been a bad year. We’ve dealt with an increasingly erratic and vindictive president, a total failure at controlling the coronavirus, white supremacy, people falling through the holes in the safety net as they lost their jobs temporarily or permanently, and a horrifying loss of morale as our relatives and friends died of corona. (Other countries have struggled with the virus, the shutdowns, the deaths. I don’t mean to say otherwise, but the US’s bungled response is worse than many, many countries. and they didn’t have a president that made things ever worse).

We want to see our families again, get back to work, pull the poor and struggling up. I am hoping 2021 is the year of healing for us.

Let me think of happier things — the blank slate ahead of us and the potential for blessings.

Prayer for the New Year

I should preface this with the statement that I don’t know that I’m a Christian. I pray to God, but I do not feel comfortable with what Christianity stands for today — a right-wing identity politics that encompasses white supremacists, prosperity gospel, and a xenophobic populace. I am, at heart, a Quaker and a progressive one at that. A large number of Christians would say I’m not really Christian, and I’ll take their word for it.

But I pray:

I pray that we implement the vaccines for COVID quickly and fairly, so that we get a herd immunity of vaccinated people (the only way to get herd immunity without a higher body count).
I pray that we find a safety net for those unemployed by catching COVID or by being let go due to COVID shutdowns.
I pray that we find compassion in our world, especially for those who are discriminated against.
I pray that this country finds a unity in behavior that honors our neighbor, lifts up the downtrodden, and aids the poor no matter their religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, and disability status.
I pray that I find a way to make a difference in my own little corner of the world.

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As I get older, I think differently about prayer. I believe we pray for a reason, but I believe less in that concept of deity that, in effect, grants wishes. Because not everyone’s wishes get granted — and not everyone’s wishes should be granted.

I do believe in what my good friend Mariellen said about prayer, that we give God our troubles and She hands them back in the morning with more strength to deal with them.

I also believe in prayer speaking to that of God in everyone, a good Quaker concept. What if prayer mobilizes those who hear it into action? That being said, I must be at heart a panentheist, believing that God is the gestalt of that of God in everyone, and that God speaks to the whole of humanity to see who will take the message up and create the miracle.

Therefore, when I pray like this, I speak to myself. I speak to the Gestalt. I hope someone listens.