Suburban (in)Sanity

Dear my teenage self, it's me.

I was incredibly moved by this video, posted by a friend (who I think is friends with the video author:)

 

 

 

And I literally couldn't stop thinking about it, so I did what I often do when I can't stop thinking about something, I wrote. I thought at first I might create a similar video expressing similar sentiments, but Mark does a quite phenomenal job with his, and as it turns out, I hate looking at myself on video. My talents lean more toward the written word, so write I did. This is one of those blog posts that wrote itself, I served as transcriber. I hope it means something to you. What would YOU tell your 16 or 18 year old self?

 

Dear Karen at age 17

 

Hi there. It's me. I'm almost forty now. Stop it with that ridiculous gawk. 40 is the new 30, or so the media keeps telling me. Whatever, here I am, and there you are. I've got some shit to say, girl, so listen up.

 

First, you're doing a good job. Keep your chin up. Ignore the idiots at school. Whether it's the second or third school in four years, it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them whether the kids accept you or not. Your family had to move around, so what? Should I tell you now that the Georgetown thing didn't work out? But don't despair. Northwestern was full of an incredibly great group of people, including some really cute guys. Well, one in particular. You'll love him. Really, you will. And Amy. Listen to her when she says stuff, she's got that wisdom thing you're always looking for.

 

Second, the fact that bouncing around in high school meant you took a bunch of ridiculous classes to fulfill ridiculous guidelines you didn't know existed, this is a bunch of crazy. And it matters not even a little bit when you move beyond, so just deal with it, embrace the experiences, you'll be fine.

 

You know what else? Be nice to that girl in French class. You're going to run into her again in about 18 years and you're going to help her with questions she has about breastfeeding her babies and she's going to be so glad and you're going to be the rock star. Yep, breastfeeding, taking care of the neighbor's kids when they were itty bitty will be a great foundation. Don't forget to thank mom, either. She gets touchy when you forget that she breastfed all five of us.

 

Third, don't get cocky about the idea that the kids at school think you're smart. Calc II will kick your butt and show you who's boss. And a C+ will feel like a mercy fuck and you will be grateful. I believe that marks the first time I've used the F word in this blog (it's a family blog!) - but you see, I care about you so much I had to say it so you'd get the point. Your life is bigger than Calculus II. Your life is bigger than the guy who wants to get into your pants when you're CERTAIN you're not ready for that. Your life is bigger than the people in the lunchroom who didn't notice you (be kind, they've been at the same school together a long time. You'd be the same if it were you. It's not your fault that it's not.)

 

But the most important thing I have to say is: He's. Not. Worth. It. But on the other hand, surviving it will make you stronger. You are awesome, and when you find him (the capital H him...), when you figure it out (be kind with yourself, it might take you a little time to figure it out. See aforementioned point about listening to Amy) you will feel that little click in your head, in your heart, and it's real. And it's all real. And they are real. They are PEOPLE, these two you create with your soul mate. They are beautiful and they love you more than the sun and the moon and all the stars in the sky. And you have GOT to be here to meet them, create them, be their mom. This is the most important thing you will ever do.

 

So, girl, don't you DARE think about cutting yourself. Your skin is just fine, even if a little blemished. Don't you DREAM about the other ways you can hurt yourself. You get down, you go TALK to someone. Mom and dad will help you find someone if you need. And the booze? Lay off a bit. Some of those guys who are not worth it think drunk girls are an invitation to be a sleaze. And if you can't lay off the sauce, get yourself a couple good girlfriends (see aforementioned point about Amy, yo. You need about three of her to get yourself through to age 40.)

 

Hey, sweetie, you need to be here. It is an awesome place to be. Can't wait to see you.

 

Love you,

 

xoxoxoxo

 

Me

Psst....did you know I wrote a novel?

Well, actually I've written several. Four at last count, though the 30+k words sitting on my computer at the moment are giving me the stink-eye. They're not a FINISHED novel yet. (Adrift, the hairy-eyed work-in-progress, is probably going to land right around 50k when complete and is a middle-grade science fiction story set on a family space ship that gets taken over by pirates.)

But THIS one, Convergence by Karen T. Smith, this is my pride and joy, my first ever novel. I wrote it in 2007 for National Novel Writing Month (which takes place in November of every year and I can't recommend highly enough.)

I finished November of 2007 with Convergence in first draft form at about 55k words and I honestly was sure I could do *anything.* The thrill of finishing a book is unmatched, in my opinion. It took me an awful long time to finish finish it, as the first draft was on the rough side to say the least (first novel! most people hide their first novels from the entire world. I beat mine into submission instead.) And then I did try the standard NY submission process for quite some time. And then...you know what? It's a changing world in publishing today. I decided to independently publish this book and other forthcoming titles (including Adrift, perhaps sooner than later, depends on how enthused I get about edits to A Star to Lead Me, which is my planned next release...)

This is a very exciting time to be a writer, and a very exciting time to be me simply because I'm really fascinated with the whole process - dreaming up book ideas, writing books, submitting to NY, submitting to agents (something a lot of people do but I long ago decided I didn't want to go that route), formatting for ebook peculiarities, doing covers, writing blurbs, figuring out marketing and promotion (er, scheduling time to write the blog posts...) and on it goes. It's a fascinating time!

At any rate, check out my announcement over on my author blog, and if you've read the book, let me know what you thought! (and if you have a moment, could you please write a review? Reviews help sell books, it's just the way of it.)

Thanks so much for letting me share my excitement with you.

Writing with my kids

So I've been doing a lot of non-writing lately. Or, more accurately, writing for purposes other than other's enjoyment, as that's the only way I can think of accurately describing a Needs Assessment document or a Benefit Communication Piece. I mean, I'm sure the people reading the needs assessments and benefit communications feel very...entertained in some way or another, but those venues are not typically accessing the creative part of my brain, thus I don't think of them as "writing" exactly.

Think this will be them at their own book signing in a few years?

So I've been missing writing, and thus I've been thinking to myself that I need to come up with a good idea for another book and just WRITE. 

This is the part where other writers will laugh, because making the decision to just WRITE and actually, you know, doing some writing, are quite separate things.

Nonetheless, tonight I was lamenting this need to the family and the children offered to help me think of things to write. Normally this makes me twitchy, as their ideas aren't always in line with the direction I'm heading with a piece, but since I had literally no idea what to write when we began this exercise, I didn't figure it would hurt to just play around. And bonus - I have an iPad now, I whipped it out and turned on the note-taking app I like (Penultimate, for the record. I use a boxwave brand capacitive pen, too. Makes it easier than just writing with a finger.)

And I had low expectations, because after all, the kids are only 9 and 7, it was getting long on Sunday evening, and all that. 

Silly me.

Kids fed me the greatest story idea in ages. It started with the 9 year old's offhand comment, "How about kids caught in a war zone?"

And, since I write mostly space-based science-fiction, I replied "oooh, good idea! In space."

He was all for that, being the big Star Wars fan that he is. And then the 7 year old piped up with her ideas. And we were off. 

Since this is a story I fully expect to epublish myself at some point in the future, I've decided that I'm going to blog about the process, about what ideas the kids contribute, what I've learned through the process, and what they'll be learning about writing, too. For starters, my daughter learned that being bossy about brainstorming isn't the right attitude to have. I'm still not sure I quite made an impression on her with that lesson, but it's an important one. She was taking the "you gave the last three ideas, now this section gets to be mine with only MY ideas" stance with her brother, which makes a bit of sense if fairness is your only guide. But in brainstorming, all ideas need to get some air-time, and some will bubble up and be worked into the storyline, some will be combined with others and worked into something new, and some will just fall by the wayside. It's the nature of brainstorming, but there's not a lot of fairness in brainstorming, other than every idea is considered for its own merit. 

We'll see if that lesson sticks in future brainstorming sessions. 

I'll post next about what our preliminary ideas on storyline are, the names of the characters, and some of the key conflicts. I haven't been this excited about a story in a *long* time, so at this point the biggest challenge will be keeping me from starting to write until we've done just a bit more planning so that this story doesn't suffer from the "boggy middle" and "lackluster climax" problems of some of my more recent stories.

What does it mean to be serious about a pursuit?

If you've read my blog (and yes, there's an ironic point to be made in there that the very fact that I even keep a blog illustrates this) you'll know that I'm a writer. Currently I fit into the "aspiring" category, in that nobody has seen fit to pay me (much) for my craft, but I expect to change that eventually. Currently writing is something *else* I do, along with all the other things that come with the SuperMom cape. I know that over time, my time and career path and life goals and children will change, and I will have time for things I don't have time for now (and will stop doing things that currently consume a lot of my time) and thus I write, and dream, and hope. And I plan and get things done, too.

But on one of my writing boards, folks got talking about what it means to be a "serious writer." And it turns out I have serious opinions about this, and they don't fit well with what some might define as a "serious writer." There are blog posts, books, and workshops galore on this subject, but most seem to include some set of rules or another (even if in a veiled way.) They almost all include some sort of "write every day." While I agree some general guidelines are probably good, the one interesting thing about writing is - there are no rules (there is no spoon.)

My thoughts on writing can generally be summed up like this:

I am serious, but like many serious folk, I balk at the generalizations around what it means to be serious about writing.

I'm serious in that I believe my work should earn money. I believe in the quality of the work I do.

But I don't fit into a nice square box where I wake up early and write 60 minutes a day and finish 4 pages a day and...

Instead, I write intensely, occasionally. I write in bursts of a thousand, two, three words at a time. I write like a maniac some of the time. I think about writing almost all of the time. But I have a complex life with people counting on me for other things, so I have to juggle it all. And it turns out I'm just not one of those drip dribble every day writers. Which is *fine*. But I'm still dang serious. Really.

I have a feeling you're serious about some of your life goals and ambitions, too, and that they may fail to fit neatly into tidy packages of what others expect being serious about that goal means. What are your goals and how are you different from what others might expect of someone pursuing that goal?

 

A long long list of links I like (and you will, too.)

I've been neglecting my blog. Poor, sad blog. No excuse other than sometimes Everything Else just gets in the way.

We've been having a very entertaining Snowpocalypse 2011 (or Snomageddon, or SNOMG! or Snoway we're getting out of here.) I hope if you've been hit by the Storm of the Century, or its icy hangerson, that you've got entreperneurial neighborhood youth to dig you out.

Meanwhile, I've been collecting tabs in browsers for an entire week and at this point they are becoming overwhelming. They are each likely deserving of their own dedicated blog post, but alas, at this time they're just going to go in a jumble here with some editorial commentary by me. Perhaps I'll revisit the biggest of them in future posts. That might break me of the "must have something IMPORTANT to say" problem that impedes my blogging in general.

• Figment is a possible solution to an imaginary problem I do not have yet. You see, I write books (hopefully you know this by now.) I haven't yet published any of my books but I am trying. I am starting to lean towards indie publishing my own books as ebooks, something I can do on kindle, nook, etc. on my own (and which I already have done with my short story Apples on the Moon.) But I write young adult science fiction. It's not clear to me yet that YA readers are using kindles and nooks, although most by now have a smartphone. At any rate, figment is an online community where young adult readers and writers can collect and share. Is this a place where I can hook into the YA reading community a bit better? (And, bonus, perhaps find some fun stuff written by actual young adults? Awesome.) A big part of why I write is because of these people, these young adults. So I'm excited about the possibilities of Figment. I'm there under my author name, Karen T. Smith.
• I'm completely addicted to Pandora Radio. Right now Five for Fighting is playing on my Coldplay mix. And I've created an awesome Goo Goo Dolls/Mumford and Sons/30 Seconds to Mars crazy mashup channel. Love it. The programmers who write the algorithms are genius. I hope iTunes is paying them well, because I end up buying about 1 out of ever 10 songs I hear... What's on your Pandora radio stations?
• I'm writing a story that features a piano-playing main character, so this page has helped me figure out some common songs she might know. Heaven knows I have played most of these in my piano-playing days, but I'd lost track of most of the classics. Moonlight Sonata was my first recital piece. Fur Elise, my second. 
• My friend Levi Montgomery has written a number of novels and novellas. What he writes is not in the genres I read (he writes some pretty cool gritty and real-feeling coming of age stories as well as mystery/thriller types. I'm solidly over in the sci-fi/fantasy/made-up world columns.) You should check out his stuff, though. Zoe Freaking Winters loves his work (she's one of the indie publishing success stories.) 
• JA Konrath's blog is totally changing my mind about everything related to publishing. The idea that my writing might actually earn some cash green money within the next 90 days versus "some point in the distant future" is extremely appealing. Still mulling over options, and editing one novel with an eye toward epublishing it myself soonish.
• I was able to coerce entice some friends into splitting a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farmshare with me this summer. We're going with Sweet Home Organics, a small community farm very near where we live. I'm excited about trying out the CSA model to see how it works for our family. And thinking about summer produce does do the heart good here in the bottoms of Midwest Winter.
• On the epublishing front, a friend pointed me toward Dreamstime as a source for images. Some lovely things, particularly for us space-minded folk. 
• Everyone in my education circles of interest on facebook has been posting this TED talk by Ken Robinson about changing educational paradigms. I'm ashamed to admit I haven't watched it yet. Like voicemail, I find videos to be a black hole of time sink (even when, like this video, it helpfully tells me it's an 11 minute 40 second clip.) Once I fall into the video event horizon, I'm sucked into the vortex. But in my defense, I think I've watched this one before and it really is worth the watch. Even I'll get to it again. Soon.
• Another thing that keeps bubbling up to me via FB friends is this site Quora.com. It bills itself as: "A continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it." Seeing as how one of the things I do primarily in one aspect of my life (breastfeeding support) is to answer questions, I am intrigued. In one of my other areas of life/interest (eLearning and educational software design) I think it's also an interesting direction to go. I'm trying to convince one of my clients that the highest-value thing they could do today is to put up an expert video library (ala the TED talks like the previous bullet) of their experts answering questions. I think it'd be a game-changer in their industry.
• No, I'm not done yet. Have you seen Google's Art Project? I happen to have it open to a page of the Palace of Versailles. Yes, living in my science-fiction life is awesome, where we can do virtual walkthroughs of major museums all over the world from our computer screens (while listening to awesome Mumford and Sons songs on Pandora Radio, no less...)
• Whatever you're doing now, you should take a moment (yes, step away from the blog) and go change this facebook setting. I read through to the original blogger who co-opted 20-40 fb identities while sitting in a Starbucks in NYC. One word: Eek!
• Very interesting BlogHer post about depression, viewing it as a disease, and other insights. 
• I was struck, hard, by this blog post by Motherscribe about her son. I've written some similar things before about my beautiful awesome and difficult-to-parent-sometimes daughter. But truthfully, her words resonated with me about ALL of parenting. It's so hard sometimes, and we forget we can use our fingers.
• I really liked this post about The Unhealthy Truth About Our Food. As someone who tries to be thoughtful about our food choices, and feed my family well (real foods, in as close to their natural states as possible) there were a lot of good hooks here.
• Being a geography geek, I found this BBC site that compares sizes of things to be fascinating. 
• While some might take issue with the idea of "coming out" with the gifted label as a bit...off-kilter when compared to the issues surrounding gays in coming out to their families and communities, I did like that the article raised the issue of embracing the use of the term gifted, and accepting yourself or your child for themselves. I have found this process to be life-altering and I will likely write about it more in the future. 
• This article about how different parenting styles can lead to splitsville for friends was ... very interesting. I don't entirely agree with the author, but I can totally see her point about the Interrupting Child and how aggravating it is to be the OTHER adult in that dynamic. BTDT, they should sell t-shirts.

Oh my gosh, is that IT? Nothing else? Well...nothing else at the moment. Hope you find some gems in there. This internet sure is big!

Core Story

Last post of Reverb10, and I find myself a little melancholy. I have viewed it as a challenge to write something new every day for this, and I've succeded, yay me! But what ever will I do tomorrow? Just...come up with my own ideas for what to write? That sounds just a little insane.

But today's prompt asks us to look back on the month and reflect on our Core Story.

So like usual I'm going to turn left and talk about something this got me thinking about, something I've seen other bloggers talk about lately.

Why do I write a blog?

It's a strange thing, you know, writing and putting your thoughts out on the intarnets. Every so often I look at what search strings brought people here and it's quite funny. But I don't really write for anyone else, exactly.

I write for my kids, in an abstract way. I write so they have some knowledge of what it's like to be with them. I am very happy being a parent, even while I'm also conflicted and miss some parts of my before-parent life. I hope that when they do read this (they might read over my shoulder here and there but they don't currently read my blog on a regular basis, being 7 and 9 their interests in reading material lean more in the Rangers Apprentice and Edward Tulane directions.) I hope that when they do read this, they appreciate the journey that being a parent is. And the deep respect I have for this journey, in spite of all its challenges and the perils that lie within.

But I do write for them in the way that much of what I do as a parent is for them, because the more aware I am as a parent, I think the better off we all are. So that leads me to my second unintended audience, which is other parents, mothers in particular. I hope that the things I talk about here are things they've thought about but haven't put words to, or ideas they've had but have been scared to try, or that the things I say here help some parents figure out a solution to a challenge.

I also write because I've chosen writing as a hobby with ambitions of making it a career. To be a good writer one must write, so write I must.

But really, the reason I write is because much of the time, I just can't think something through without writing about it. I write for me. My brain works in pictures, which means it's horrendously hard for me to write sometimes. Try writing the description of a movie trailer just once and see what I mean about how hard it is to translate pictures to words (digression: the literal trailers are some of the funniest things I've seen ever. Harry Potter Deathly Hallows part 1 and Assasin's Creed are my favorites. "Take a second to look awesome.")

I write to figure it out, to puzzle together or tear apart my ideas. To make sense of senseless things and to give witness to important ones (like my children, my aspirations, and my pets, natch.)

Do you write? (Be honest. Many people write but don't think of it as writing because they don't SHARE what they write, which is fine. But do you?) Do you find that it helps you think more clearly? Even if you don't, what's your core story? Do you know what makes you you?

*remind me tomorrow, this feeds perfectly into my "perils of being a generalist" post. See there how I did that? Now I've got a prompt for tomorrow and everything!

Happy New Year!!

 

Money, here's your mouth - on getting published in 2011

Today's prompt is Achieve. The scoopage:

December 28 – Achieve What’s the thing you most want to achieve next year? How do you imagine you’ll feel when you get it? Free? Happy? Complete? Blissful? Write that feeling down. Then, brainstorm 10 things you can do, or 10 new thoughts you can think, in order to experience that feeling today.

So, either publishing my active novel (by that I mean the one that is currently finished and I'm actively seeking publication for) through traditional publishing or putting it out myself as a self-published ebook and print-on-deman (POD) book is my goal.

I think I will feel elated when I reach one of these two goals (traditional publishing is my primary goal. Doing it myself will be less elational but still exciting.) I've been writing since 2007, started as a New Year's Resolution. I love to write. I wish I were better at it, but I know the cure for that - more writing (and/or cowbell, in appropriate doses.)

I feel two things very strongly about writing. The first is that writing is a career that is actually compatible with my desire to raise my children. This is big, since my other career (technology and eLearning consulting) is often in direct opposition to my desire to be here for my kids, either due to geography, time commitment, client needs/demands, or my own personal style and work ethic.

The second thing I feel very strongly about re. writing is that I *need* to write these books, these sci-fi books where girls are the main characters and do amazing things with technology, have crazy adventures, and come out okay. I need to write books that girls can read when they are ten and twelve and fourteen and see that being a girl geek can be normal, can be good, and is perfectly reasonable. This is really really important. I need to write these books for my own girl, but for all the other girls out there, too, the ones like me who had an aptitude but didn't know another soul who liked to figure out how to solve problems using technology, who wanted to know what was inside a computer, who could make things happen without even realizing they knew how.

This is the part of the post where I list what I will do to achieve this goal.

Deep breath.

1. Keep novel marketing packages in the mail, at least five of them, at all times. Sidenote: A novel marketing package includes a query letter, a sample of the book (first two chapters in my case, 15 pages) and a synopsis of all the major events of the story, including the ending. I blogged about writing a query letter back in October.

2. Research more markets, so the process of addressing a new query letter is simpler, as this is one of those things that tends to hold me up.

3. Hmm...I think I need to read more YA book blogs, and find more YA sci-fi to read. I have not found a whole lot out there. Gone, Maze Runner, and I am Number Four are the only recent ones I've read. (Would love more ideas if you have them...high-end Middle-grade would work, too. Protagonists in the 12-14 range.)

4. Put up another short story (or two, or fifteen) on Kindle/Barnes and Noble/Smashwords, to practice the formatting needed for ebook publishing. (Did you see my post from yesterday about my stories available for purchase?)

5. Pre-address five more novel packages. Wow, that's a simple and smart idea.

6. Implement a simpler tracking system for novel submissions. I am not happy with the spreadsheet I've dreamed up, it seems overly complex for what I need it to do. I think I might do best with a simple chronological listing. Out to X market on Y date, back on Z...

7. Read this writing book that's sitting on my desk (20 Master Plots by Ronald B. Tobias.)

8. Consider attending a writer's conference, though this requires such careful planning due to DH's job and life commitments, it might not be possible. At least research some.

9. Start editing book #2, prepping it for market. Hope to have it in the mail by March.

10. Write the next book.

I think a lot of writers forget #10, but that's got to be high on the list if I want to make any sort of living at this. If I am to be a self-published writer, one of the primary things that will help me be successful is having a number of publications available for purchase, not just one or two novels, but whole collections, batchs of short stories, and other things to help people who read one book of mine find my other work (and hopefully spend their hard-earned pennies on it!) I write fast, if I could just crack this confidence/skill issue (I am a good writer, I just don't always know WHAT to write. When I know what to write I can write extremely quickly.)

What about you? What goal do you hope to achieve in 2011? How do you plan to go about getting there? Care to join me on a crazy train?

Hey - check out my new page: Available Stories

At the moment my list of Available Stories is a number even a guy who lost nine fingers in a freak sandpaper accident could show you, but this list shall grow in 2011, by gummity.

But in the meantime, check out my page where I will hawk my wares, guilt you into buying my stories, encourage you to read my stuff through bargain-priced ebooks. First up - the ever-popular teens huffing in space story, Apples on the Moon, a Young Adult Science Fiction Short Story, which, at 5,000 words is just the right length for reading on a smartphone. Enjoy! Buy! Enjoy!

Joy so close I can almost taste it

This ties in so well with an old post of mine from when the now 9 year old was what, maybe 5 years old? Entertaining walk down memory lane with that one.

But to get to the point, reverb10 today is talking about joy. I reflected on this for quite a while today (compared to my normal "crud it's 10 PM and I should do my post for the day and haven't even looked to see what the prompt was!" kind of thing. Because I care about you guys *that* much.)

2010 was the year we got a dog. That was pretty exciting and a joy-full event. Which reminds me, my friends Susan and Bill are getting a new dog today, I wonder how that's going... We also said goodbye to Selene, our old lady cat that my husband and I got a year after we started dating. She'd seen a lot of years, homes, and hiding places. Good times.

Hestia, the Replacement Cat is an adorable little gray bundle of purrs, and I am enjoying every minute of her silly pouncing and playing, curling up and purring, and otherwise chumming around. Today she played with a drinking straw for an hour straight, not kidding. One end of the hall to the next, behind the bathroom door then under it, around and over, roll, bat, roll splat. She was a riot.

You hardly need me to tell you again how my children bring me joy on a daily basis. I mean, what, don't you read my blog or anything?

But, no, I think the thing that when I look back on 2010 and think about that brought me the most joy was an accomplishment of my own. Something I worked hard on and completed. That is finish editing a novel (that I wrote during National Novel Writing Month in 2007) and put it in the mail to editors. That's right, I'm working to become a published novelist, and I had a smile from ear to ear for a solid day or two after the writer's workshop I attended in Oregon (which focused on preparing a marketing package for a novel and mailing it.) The final task of the workshop was to leave the hotel where it was held and stop at the post office on the way out of town to mail your submissions packages. I did it!

I have three other novels now, waiting in the wings. One of which I'm convinced is actually quite good (I'm working on that one next!) and I have ideas for plenty of other stories and fiction to write. I'm still working on getting better at the story - the plot is what keeps holding me back (if I write without knowing pretty well what happens in the end, I meander far too much and can't stay focused, but knowing what happens in the end often takes a bit of meandering and writing to figure it out...thus it's a bit of a cycle...working on this in 2011...)

But in the meantime, I have five novel packages in the mail at the moment, five rejections (in varying shades of personalization - some just a form postcard, others an actual note to me) and a solid grasp of what is needed to market a novel. Hoping that 2011 is my year for the actual sale (and if not, I'm going to put the book out on my own mid-year as an ebook and POD book, I think.)

Make no small plans

for they have no magic to stir men's blood. (In case you were curious, it's a Daniel Burnham quote, -- at least according to this editorial in the NYT from 1999 which I am surprised to find online. I adapted it slightly. I think the real quote is "little plans" and I just didn't think the word little had the emotional resonance of "small" in the title.)

It's Action day for Reverb10. I'm not entirely sure what is meant by the prompt, but I'm going to go ahead and make this a New Year's Resolution post.

In no particular order, and with no fanfare lest I find myself on January 2 having broken every one of these, here's what I'm going to work on in 2011.

1. More home organization per my post of the other day enumerating 11 things to get rid of in 2011. There's a pack-n-play in the upstairs closet...and a cool particle-board castle that's big enough for a 3 year old to play in...and a basket of junk on my dresser from last year when we got the bedroom painted...and the summer crap is still in the laundry room and needs to be swapped out for the winter crap, etc.

2. Continue working out 20 mins every day, rain or shine, yadda yadda. I'm close to 3 months already and it's not hard, though would be harder if I were working more hours. DH is just about to round on a year of 30 minutes each and every day including the day after the marathon and days when he travels overseas and has to be creative about the definition of a "day." (If he can do it...)

3. Make money from writing. Somehow, have someone pay me for my writing. This is a many-pronged item. I will continue to submit the short stories I have to markets. I will continue to keep my main novel package in the mail. If by June it hasn't sold, I'll self-publish it both ebook and POD format. I will also put up a few more short stories in ebook form, using a psuedonym for "grown-up" work to differentiate it from my YA author name. I'd love to get some magazine articles or other non-fiction under my belt but have not had much success when I've tested the waters before. Might be going at it a bit wrong, reevaluate and figure out what to do there. Also prep novel #2 (A Star to Lead Me) for marketing, get it in the mail, too.

4. I should probably be virtuous here and say I should eat less salt, drink less, or cut out the blow (kidding, kidding!) but I want to stick with resolutions I feel fairly confident I can make progress against. Goals, versus deadlines. Things that I can be working towards.

Last year I had an ill-fated resolution to "go to bed by 10:30" (which I progressively adjusted up to 11, then midnight, then dawn.) Those of you who know me well know this is really really really funny, but I was going to try! Sad thing is, my brain just doesn't want to settle until close to midnight, and putting that resolution down and then failing a few weeks in was pretty demotivating, so I want to avoid that this year.

Thus there will be no extremely-difficult-to-execute-on resolutions like salt reduction, caffeine reduction, or even weight loss. If I keep up my 20 mins of exercise a day and don't lose weight, at least I'll know I'm MUCH healthier (I already do feel healthier with my 3 months of it. I feel like a million bucks. Even when I got a cold in October, it was mild, I was able to walk each day anyway, and I felt like I got better *much* more quickly than I have in the past. Usually a cold will knock me down a few times a year but this was no big deal, so I'm going to maintain my presumption that 20 minutes (at the very least, many days it's 60, and my typical workout is at least 30) of exercise a day will contribute to a healthy me and that's the best thing I can do for myself right now. If you say "at your age" so help me god I will... :D

Okay, three resolutions, all keepable (though the household organization is going to take some discipline and quite a lot of work.) How about you? What's on your resolution list for 2011?

image again from morguefile and cracked me up, thanks!