Om (Or, Is Gigi too calm for her own good?)

I've been told I can possess a maddening degree of calmness.

It sometimes--okay, frequently--seems as if my friends and family are more invested in the success of my first mystery than I am myself.

It's not that I don't care. Really, it's not. But I just can't see the point of wasting my life sitting around worrying about what's happening once it's out of my hands. I'd rather be doing something.

In the slow business of publishing, this part of my personality has served me well. (It also serves my blood pressure well.)

I'm not sitting around waiting for my agent to hear back from publishers. I'm working on a new project. Two of them, actually.

So what's my plan for the year? Well... I've never been big on making resolutions. I seem to get a lot done without them. It's not because I have especially grand aspirations (aside from taking over the world, of course). It's because I don't spend time worrying about what I'm doing.

I know whatever is meant to happen will happen; I do my part, so why waste time worrying about the parts that are beyond my control?

One of my favorite lines from a novel is: "life hinges on those few seconds you never see coming." From Special Topics in Calamity Physics (one of those books people either love or hate--and I love it), that line could potentially be read as a depressing thought--but I find it inspiring and comforting.

Chance events occur all the time. You never know who you'll meet, or what unexpected thing you'll happen upon. So I can do my best--and I do love to throw myself into things--but I don't want to plan too much. I want to seize the opportunities I stumble across.

Take my experience writing short stories. Or rather, not writing short stories. Until last year, I never thought I could write one. I was convinced my brain wouldn't conform to the structure.

Then, Mystery Writers of America advertised an anthology competition for paranormal mystery short stories. I decided to use it as a prompt to try my hand at a short story one more time. I forced myself to sit down and write something. Anything. And then it happened: a brilliant character popped into my head. Four hours--and a serious hand cramp--later, I had a short story that turned out to be one of the best things I've ever written.

My story didn't make it into that particular anthology (anyone know someone who wants a 3,500-word paranormal locked-room mystery story about a female alchemist??), but the experience taught me that I could write a short story after all. So I wrote another one, and that one was accepted for a mystery anthology.

Thus, no particular resolutions for me this year. I'll wait and see what comes up. I still need to work out how to squeeze in all the writing I want to do in my already-full life, but that's okay. I'll figure it out. Or if something else comes up, maybe I won't. That's okay, too.

--Gigi

Martha Resolves To Stop Defending Herself

If you know me, you know this: I'm unapologetically ME.

No, I don't want to have kids. So what?
No, I don't like watching sunsets or taking hikes. Nature sucks.
No, I'm not interested in my husband's last name. It's lame.

But for some reason, I constantly defend my decision to be a writer and the time I put into writing, critiquing, and networking.

I had previously blogged about how Friend Z asked me, a few months into my decision to write young adult novels, "How long until you quit? Six months? A year?"

The question is reasonable for a person who doesn't understand the publishing industry. But to those of us in the know, it's absurd, and I bristled from it and said, "I would quit you before I quit writing."

In the year since, I wrote a manuscript, got an agent, got rejected by editors, began another manuscript, joined this blog and two critique groups, attended two writing conferences and countless author events, interned for a local agent as her reader, honed my craft and forged relationships.

Through it all, I dealt with questions from many fronts. "Why do you need critique groups?" "Isn't blogging a waste of time - who will read it?" "Are you doing another writing thing?" "Can't you just write the book right the first time?"

I answered those questions, defensively. I want to be clear: the people who asked me these questions are wonderful, caring people in my life. As writers, we find questions like these insulting, but from their perspective, they're trying to understand me.

This past weekend, to kick off 2010, I had a pie party for my writing friends who brought other Bay Area writers.


In addition to eating ridiculous amounts of yummy pie, I met several new faces, connected with authors I'd only known online, and scored tons of ARCs (woohoo!).

The next day, Friend Z said to me, "I thought you should know. Friend A just sold her book, and she did it without having a pie party."

The implication being that I was wasting my time with all this social networking.

I got defensive. I explained why I did the networking. Not because it leads to sales. I network because people like Friend Z don't get it - and by it, I mean writing life. Therefore, I had to go out and find people who did get it, and therefore, got me.

Explaining this exhausted me. Maybe I was having a bad day. Maybe I was tired from the holidays. I just felt like I'd been answering the same questions from the same people without any tangible benefit. Again, this is not about Friend Z. This is about me. My reaction.

So I resolved something. Which came in handy since this blog post on resolutions was due and I didn't know what I was going to write about.

I resolved to not defend my writing lifestyle anymore.

So you can ask me if you want.

Why am I going to another conference? Why do I have to meet my critique group so often? Why am I going to an author signing? Why do I waste my time on a blog?

Here's my new answer for you:

It doesn't matter why. It's my life. I get to choose what I do with it.

Sidenote: Big congrats to Friend A! She signed with an amazing editor, and I look forward to her book. For those of you out there who are decrying, "Whaaa? She sold a book in complete solitude?" No, of course not. She completed an MFA program during which she wrote her manuscript. She joined a critique group. She found her agent via a personal connection instead of blind query. She hosts a literary performance salon where she gets to rub shoulders with New York Times bestselling authors and get featured in the San Francisco Examiner. I think we all know that's just as much work as a pie party.

Lisa's Work In Progress

I don’t do resolutions. No more half-assed promises to cut back on drinking while swilling champagne on New Year’s Eve (then reiterating New Year’s day while chugging a Bloody Mary to chase off the hangover and champagne still sloshing in my stomach).


No more resolutions to lose weight, which usually only held until I’d lost the five pounds I’d gained between Thanksgiving and New Years.

I left resolutions behind going for a more kinder, gentler type of resolve. And for a few years, I tried...intentions. They’re a little more friendly, a little less intense somehow than resolutions. Except, they didn’t really work. Unfortunately, for me anyway, intend comes off as a little wishy-washy.

What I finally discovered about myself is that I need cold, hard--black and white, bold-faced-–GOALS.

Awhile back I had a life coach which was a heck of a good decision www.kristincoach.com One of the first things of the new year was to come up with a Master Goal list in eight key areas of your life. (She recommends 5-15 goals per category). So for about two weeks, I would read thru her examples, ideas for the list sparking my own personal goals and create a Master Goal list for the year.

I like lists. I like being able to tick off milestones and small tasks equally. There is just as much satisfaction in a bunch of little tasks being completed as finishing off a big one. One of the other things Kristin recommends is breaking the large goals down into steps needed to achieve the goal. This makes a big goal seem not as daunting. Finally, post the goal list or keep it somewhere handy where you can refer back to it.

Looking through last year’s list, I did pretty good on some and not so great on others. However, there was improvement and I can feel good about those things I ticked off the list. Meanwhile, the goals that I didn’t meet will most likely migrate over to this year’s list. Nothing to feel bad about, after all, we are all just work in progress.

Lisa

Grumpity Crumpity

L.G.C. Smith

I'm the Grinch of New Year's Resolutions. If I could steal them all and dump them off the top of Mt. Crumpit, I would. Bad enough, I had to break out the last of the Christmas M&Ms (the ones I told the Leezlet had been poisoned by a wicked witch so she wouldn't eat them all in one sitting -- my sister told me not to give her candy; that was my solution; it worked) before I could contemplate writing my grumpy thoughts on resolutions.


For many years, I boycotted resolutions out of the puritanical conviction that anything that was good for us, we should be doing every day. It was weak to need a holiday to spur us on to virtue. Yes, I was a real funster back then. Not that I held others to my strictures yet, but still. Very grinchy-grumpy of me.

My disdain of the New Year's Resolution (NYR) is partly motivated by my own feelings of abject powerlessness in the face of the standard issue NYRs -- exercise more, lose weight, be a better advocate for myself career-wise, blah, blah, blah. I don't hate the idea of resolution as a practice. I make resolutions all the time about all kinds of things from writing every day (three years running now), and learning to bake gluten-free, casein-free treats for my niece with food intolerances. These are not, as a rule, NYRs.

I do hate the idea of NYRs as a social undertaking. There's something unlovely about the earnest zeal on people's faces as they trot off to the the gym in early January. Especially all the thin people who gained six and a half ounces over the holidays and profess deep shame over such indulgence. Are you kidding me?

Or the shopaholics who mournfully vow to reform after discovering three cashmere sweaters from Ross and a non-stick ebelskiver pan hidden in the garage in a plain brown Trader Joe's bag to throw their weary spouses off the trail...what, two, maybe three Christmases ago? Come on, people. An NYR isn't going to help you.

(That's an ebelskiver pan, in case you were wondering, as sold by Williams-Sonoma.)

Real change requires real commitment. Some people put that into their NYRs. Not all that many, as far as I can see. Most folks feel momentarily virtuous, catch themselves electing to read another chapter instead of taking the dog for a walk, think "Remember that resolution. Drat. Ah, next time, good enough." On they go with their sloppy lives, business as usual, content that having made a list of NYRs, they're on the path to a better world. Bah.

Now if people would keep their NYRs private and make them matter, cheers all around. I wish you well as long as I don't have to hear about it. And, for God's sake, don't ask me about mine. I'll steal your last can of Who Hash if you do.

Let it be resolved...

I'm not a big one for New Year's resolutions. Rather, I make resolutions every day.

It's quite common for me to proclaim (quite loudly) that I have decided to move to Paris. Or that from now on I will walk around the lake every day while learning Italian. Or that I will dance naked around the house naked to Billy Idol whenever I can't think what to write next.

Happily for me, my friends and family are accustomed to my heartfelt declarations...and even more used to witnessing those resolutions fall by the wayside in favor of new ones. Since they are my friends, they don't judge me too harshly when, quite predictably, those resolutions don't quite come to pass.

So this year I'm taking a new tactic. I will only resolve things I do already. Since I don't do a lot of things that are good for me, these are fairly easy to innumerate.

Let it be resolved...

...I will not take up smoking cigarettes (unless I'm diagnosed with six months to live, in which case Sophie and I have vowed to start smoking like chimneys)
...I will enjoy sleeping (new fleece sheets for Christmas, yay!)
...I will write two more books (fingers crossed, and Billy Idol at the ready)
...I will --from time to time-- drink too much, say and do inappropriate things, and have a fabulous time
...I will never, ever, wear yellow pants (I was visiting family over the holiday and saw several pictures of me as a young girl wearing bright yellow pants. Disturbing at best. Yes, it was the seventies, but still...there's simply no excuse for that kind of behavior.)

And finally, with a nod to my dear blogmate Rachael, who stole my idea for this week's blog: I resolve not to stab anyone this year.

Unless, of course, I'm provoked.

--Juliet

Rachael's New Year's Resolutions

I always make the same New Year's resolution.

I resolve not to stab anyone this year.

There. I made it again.

Having never stabbed anyone before and not having a huge problem with my temper makes this a pretty easy resolution to carry out. It gives me a feeling of satisfaction to realize that once again I've made it successfully through another year.

You could do the same thing! Resolve not to shoot anyone! Or not to ride a go-cart at DisneyWorld! It's not exactly setting the bar low, it's just setting the bar where it can be reasonably reached.

And honestly, I don't need resolutions. I have goals. In 2010, I'll finish two (maybe three?) books. At least one will hit the shelves (in five countries). I'll learn how to sign them and give readings. I will write every day. I'll always be the professional with whom other professionals want to work. I'll promote the hell out of myself. That's really all I need to do, isn't it? Screw resolutions, I have gumption.

And I'm not stabbing a soul. I swear it.