New Year 2016

What will we do with our time this year? The average life span of a woman who is 65 today, according to Social Security stats, is 86.6, a man 84.3. Of course, this changes based on a person's age today, their health factors, etc. In all the sites I checked, the average expectancy of life in the U.S. is roughly 80 for females and males. Let's do a little math.

365 x 1 = 365. Surprised? You expected me to do something fancy, give you some brilliant number, didn't you? The truth is; your age doesn't matter. You have the same number of days in a year whether you were born today or 60 years ago. Now for some really sophisticated mathematical determinations.

If Jane drinks 10 cups of tea a day for one year, writes one hour a day for a year, walks 2.5 mph on her treadmill, how many hours will she spend writing by the end of the year?

You sly dog! You are right. She will spend 365 hours writing. Now for the algebraic look-see.

If Jane writes 300 words in an hour every day for one year, walks her dog, Spot for 10 minutes, 3 times a day, and loses .01 pounds each hour, how many words will she write by the end of the year?

You're right again! Jane will write 109,500 words in one year - a novel.

But where will Jane find that one hour? She's busy walking Spot 10 minutes three times a day, and going to 1 movie and 1 dinner with Dick once a week, laundering her clothes 3 hours a week, walking 2.5 miles an hour daily on her treadmill, working 40 hours a week to feed Spot, and hitting Publix for an hour a week to buy groceries. Did you find the hour?

Silly, she writes while her clothes are swirling and twirling in the washer and dryer. Catches up on Blindspot through Netflix or On demand after she's written. Stops at the coffee shop or library on the way home and writes for one hour. Goes to bed an hour earlier and gets up an hour earlier to write while her little gray cells are at their freshest.

Unless you are the Old Woman in the Shoe - the one with so many children she didn't know what to do - you can find an hour a day. If the old woman had any sense, she would lace that shoe tightly and hide in the bathroom with her laptop on her knees.

As I went back over my 2015 goals for my writing life, I began to feel a deep sense of accomplishment, as I evaluated the manuscripts I had edited that were published, saw the new software I mastered to meet my business clients' needs, gloated over my new blog and website, grinned at my new online classes, and then, BAM! I got to my publishing goals. That spreadsheet was pathetically spare.

As a full time freelancer, I had done a brilliant (don't you just love the way Brits use this word!) job, however, but my personal writing goal achievements were at an all time low this year. This led me full circle to examine my goals for 2016.

Just as you go to work everyday, my freelance goals are a necessity. I am bringing up a new line of services in Written Word in 2016 to help writers Celebrate Your Book! with reasonably priced marketing tools and information, something I am very excited about. But the fact is, I want to celebrate my own books, and if I do a little math, using my expected life expectancy, I need to never waiver from my 365 Writing Plan of one hour a day.

I challenge you to try the 365 writing plan in 2016, and let me know from time to time how you are doing. We will talk about it in these weekly blogs. I'll share my successes and failures. A good way to get started is to sign up for Kelly Stones' 90 Day Writing Challenge. Check out this user friendly way of meeting other writers. https://www.facebook.com/Author-Kelly-L-Stones-90-Day-Writing-Challenge-144123995634412/

 Wishing us all a productive and Happy New Year!  Mahala

Do Not Make New Year Resolutions

Ignoring New Year resolutions on January 1 is a growing trend. A sign of our times. A sign that we may be losing that good old American drive. A sign that texting is in; challenging is out. After all, if we’re going to break the resolutions anyway, why make them to begin with. Right?

But if we don’t strive to create new habits - healthy habits, goals for our writing, mountains to climb, how will we achieve anything? We are creatures of habit, enamored with the idea that if we wish for it hard enough, it will come true. And there are a plethora of television shows, movies, and books that endorse the concept loudly and clearly.

So, with that in mind, if I wish to complete my short story book this year, I should hang out in the backyard and wish on shooting stars, while I send into infinity thoughts of peace and light. I guess it couldn’t hurt to try that, but unless shooting stars have a gift for plotting and character development, my book will still be a jumble of ideas at the end of 2015.

On the other hand, if I make a list of goals with assigned tasks and deadlines, then don’t check on the list every day to keep me on track, my book will still be a jumble of ideas at the end of 2015.

Let’s see how this idea works with traditional resolutions. If I promise my family, the stars, my dog that I will walk on the treadmill every day so I can catch my breath while walking through the mall, but I get caught up in “Scorpion” or “Madam Secretary” and forget, I should be a svelte size 20 in no time. If I grab one of Hardee’s deluxe burgers every night and send love and light into the universe on the way home, my muffin top will transform to pleasingly plump by the end of 2015.

Habits of every ilk are infuriatingly difficult to break. If they weren’t, we would all eat baked salmon and asparagus every night followed by 30 minutes on the treadmill. Hitting a fast food place, watching television, planning to write are easy, and Western society says our lives should be easy - filled with plenty. And we’ve mastered that concept. Most of us have plenty: plenty of time, plenty of food, plenty of things to do, plenty of places to go, plenty of plenty.

It’s the follow-through that wears on us. Why is change so hard? Because those "little things" we do are habits

Try changing the way you brush your teeth, the route you drive home, which foot you put forward first when you walk. As anyone who has had an accident and needed to make changes to accommodate a broken bone, surgery, etc. will tell you, those little changes have to be thought through to accomplish them. Why would the big changes be any easier?

Does that mean being a plotter is better than being a panster to write? No, it means that whether you diagram every line of your work-in-process or fly by the seat of your pants, you have to have derriere in chair, pen or keyboard in hand, and brain in motion. If you don’t write it, they won’t come. If you don’t think about it in advance, you will have pages of confusion to sort through. Sometimes, our muse puts in an appearance and our writing magically pours onto the page. What happens 95% of the time when our muse is busy watching TV? See cj's excellent ideas on last week's post: 2015 Writers Resolutions.

We all learned the concept of Delayed Gratification in Psych 101. It’s the ability to put off something mildly fun or pleasurable while anticipating something that is greatly fun, pleasurable, or rewarding later, like being able to outrun your kids at the mall, shocking your doctor with healthy cholesterol levels, or seeing your WIP published and selling like crazy. So, we can watch “Scorpion” (a new show I LOVE by the way) or we can put in one hour writing. Guess what 1 x 365 equals? A lot of words on the page, a lot of editing time, a lot of plotting time, a lot of character development, a lot of words for your critique group to read. A whole lot of feeling good. Are you up to the challenge?

To help get me back on track, I joined the 90-Day Writing Challenge that Kelly Stone runs through a group on Yahoo. It helped me immensely last year, and then nine months later, I got lost in writing for clients and disgusted with my book, and yada, yada, yada. So, I’m back for a shot of reality and enthusiasm from other writers.

The Writing Challenge is free, and you can see what other writers are doing to move their dreams forward, shooting star or not. Check it out in Groups on Yahoo. We started on January 2, so you can join in the first week. Then put big red Xs on your calendar for every day you write (a Jerry Seinfeld habit). Being task oriented, I can’t wait to get my red X on the calendar every day.

Succeeding in writing the story you dream about isn’t good luck, it’s GOOD WORK.

Mahala