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Tag Archives: new year

Oops. It’s Wednesday

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Oh, dear. I had Monday off and just realized that yesterday was Tuesday which makes today Wednesday, not Tuesday.

Ahem.

I am preparing a post on crystalizing stuff per instructions from 1807, which I guess I will debut NEXT Wednesday. As a teaser, the process clearly works, but requires refinement. I have some pictures and, I just realized, a jar of alum sludge in the pantry that by now must be a god awful mess, since I was only supposed to leave the item in there for 24 hours and now it’s been days. Uh-oh.

I think my pictures should be sufficiently disgusting that you guys should calendar the Wednesday post next week. You won’t want to miss it.

My historical, Not Proper Enough, is done and turned into my publisher. But not before discovering that I had written TWO marriage scenes. Yes. My hero and heroine got married twice. I thought I’d deleted one of them but didn’t!

So, how’s the New Year been for you so far?

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Dear Readers I am Resolved!

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My book, Not Proper Enough, is due Jan 1, 2012. I am, therefore, not fit company for much of anyone. Two and a half hours of sleep one night (night before last for those of you panicking that I drove to work in such a sleep deprived condition) actually makes you mostly brain-dead the next day.

I will see you in 2012 with a list of my New Year’s Resolutions which will be something like this:

1.

2.

3.

Actually, could you-all fill in the blanks for me?

Thank you.

Carolyn

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New Year’s Resolutions–To Bid Farewell to Scandal?

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farewelltoscandalI was googling around to see if people during the Regency might have made New Year’s resolutions and found confirmation in a delightful post from The Snug Blog. The author found a 1792 etching “A Long String of Resolutions for a New Year – Design’d by G.M. Woodward” including satirical sketches of people making various resolutions including the one shown here.

I imagine they probably had a similar success rate to what people have now. Googling further, I found statistics saying that about 8-12% of those making New Year’s resolutions end up succeeding. Maybe it’s not so bad–at least those 8-12% made it, and for the rest, there’s always next year.

The problem is that starting a new calendar doesn’t mean I’ve left the baggage of the previous year behind. All the things that hindered me in the past may still be there. Any resolution that doesn’t take those things into account isn’t going to go far.

Also, if I feel the need for a change, I don’t want to wait until the New Year to start it. And if I backslide, I’m also not going to wait until the next year to start over. It’s only through setbacks and recoveries, by stringing together small successes day by day, that my larger goals have ever been met.

So I don’t really believe in New Year’s resolutions as such, although I do think it’s good to take time to reflect on how life is going and whether I’m living as authentic a life as I can.

The small steps I’ve been taking recently toward creative recovery include going to a coffee shop a few times a week to work on a new novella. I’m nearly done with the first draft and more importantly, I’m enjoying it.

Baby steps.

How do you feel about New Year’s resolutions? Have you made any? What helps you succeed?

Elena

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Happy New Year

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Happy new year, everyone and big congrats to Carolyn on her release this week!

This was quite a week for me as I finished both my second Jane as a vamp book (no title yet) and revisions for my Harlequin Spice contemporary, Tell Me More (August 2011). I found Jane 2 an incredibly difficult book to write and it weighed me down like a millstone around my neck that I couldn’t move forward on it–I had one major false start so I got off to a late start. I have been absolutely euphoric ever since Sunday night, when I sent it in, and pretty happy about the revisions that I sent in Tuesday.

So having spent the last few months in a state of whiny self pity squeezing out Jane 2 and Mr. Bishop and the Actress (Little Black Dress, next month!) and not allowing myself to do things because I had to write (I wasn’t very productive but I spent a lot of energy agonizing), I really feel this new year is a fresh start.

I don’t make resolutions, but this is what I hope to do in 2011:

  • Go to things–the Smithsonian is on my doorstep (more or less)
  • Hang out with friends
  • Write at a reasonable pace
  • Go to the library
  • Update my website and try and develop a more cheerful, giggly and milk-chocolatey online persona
  • Give back–judge a few contests. Also if you’re considering entering WRW’s Marlene contest and win the historical, you’ll get a critique from me!
  • Come up with brilliant ideas for next books and make huge amounts of $
  • Exercise, watch what I eat, clean the house, get the ivy up in the front yard and do something about the back blah blah blah
  • Paint stairwell I put undercoat on at least ten years ago and make my house a lurrrve nest

Sounds all fairly doable, right? But right now I’m going to take a nap. Happy new year, dear Risky friends. What are you up to today?

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Tackling the new year

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I’m not a great fan of new year’s resolutions because I think they’re asking for trouble and disappointment, but there are some things I’d like to accomplish this year (in addition to the big fat sales).

One is to go and see this exhibit, Marketing Shakespeare, at the Folger Shakespeare Library. The exhibit opened in September. It ends on Saturday so unless I can scoot off from work early tomorrow, I must go Saturday morning. The exhibit is of Shakespeare-inspired artwork from the fashionable Boydell Gallery (1789-1805), plus tchotchkes and Shakespeare souvenirs. The illustration below, courtesy of the Folger, is a colored engraving of As You Like It from 1800. One of my resolutions, were I to use the term which I’m not, is to go to more stuff–I live near Washington DC where we have all sorts of amazing free museums and exhibits, yet the amazing thing is I hardly ever go to any of them. I’m not alone–living here, you take it for granted that the museums will always be there, and if you miss an exhibit, you’ll be able to catch something equally good the next week, or month.

But this is also tied into my other resolution, which is to put the joy back in writing. I tried Julia Cameron’s The Artists Way technique–I even have the books somewhere–but anything which requires me having to get up early is doomed. One task she suggested, of which I approve highly, is to take yourself out on cultural expeditions, and that’s something I plan to do much more. And if it has some weird side benefit of cranking up my writing and enjoyment level thereof, well, I’m not complaining.

And what else for 2008? Well, obviously, much less of this sort of thing (yum). But I’d rather concentrate on the positive–on giving and enjoying rather than denying. And hopefully writing will be one of the activities I’ll enjoy. I must say I like it well enough once I’ve got going, but getting going is the problem. One technique I use is to absolutely ignore word/page count and just write; you can always format later. There’s something very seductive about the getting ready to fix starting to prepare to …[insert your favorite procrastinatory phrase]… write; no wonder so many people claim they’ve always wanted to write a book, happy in the knowledge that they probably never will.

What are your new year’s resolutions (if any?)–or whatever you want to call them?

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