Happy 2019!

I hope it will be a good year for you and yours.

Last year ended with joy and this year began with a sneeze.

We enjoyed a joyous, feast-filled Christmas with our daughter and her husband in southern Oregon. We drove, so we could take our dog, Mattie, with us. She’s the first dog we’ve had that dislikes riding in a car.

But she loves being with her pack, so was pleased to go. Happier to stop each night and to arrive in Oregon and ecstatic to get home. That dog can dance! A week before we left, Mattie had surgery to remove four growths, so she traveled with a cone, a calming shirt and men’s boxers to keep her from chewing out her staples and stitches. As we left town we got the great news that her growths were all benign.

We arrived home with 2800 more miles added to our SUV. And the gift of a cold for each of us, except the dog.

Thus 2019 began with a sniffle rather than the headlong dive into my writing I’d hoped for. After a slight delay, I’m launching my intentions: to write more while enjoying the process. For why write, if I don’t enjoy it? Writers as a whole aren’t in it for the big bucks. So why do something you dislike? Sometimes I need to remind myself that I love words and love spinning them and I plan to spin a few more this year.

Thus I’m seeking ways to increase my productivity. In a good article in the January 2019 issue of Writer’s Digest, Jeff Somers suggests that we can finish a novel in 50 weeks simply by writing for nine minutes a day. His very funny footnotes in “The 9-Minute Novelist” were my favorite parts, but his suggestions puncture the argument that “I’d write a novel if only I had the time.”

True, Somers doesn’t allocate time for marketing or social media. However, his point is, words written add up, words dreamed of but not recorded, don’t. So I’m going to plant my butt in my chair this year and get words out. Generally speaking, once I start writing, the words come. It’s my butt in chair technique I’m working on.

My best success has come from getting out of the house, despite having a fine office space in my home. Each Monday I meet with other writers at Rincon Market where we write in silence for two hours. Email me for details if you want to join us. My local library has just been remodeled and I’m looking forward to time there with butt in chair, as well.

Where do you get your best writing done?

What are your intentions for 2019?